Cheaper Underground Infrastracture

[Haji (OP)]

I love the idea of underground infrastructure. Unfortunately, after playing around with it a little I will probably not use it for the same reason I'm not using orbital habitats - it's too expensive. 

First, let's compere it to orbital habitats. A single habitat for one million people costs 6800 BP. However, it is mobile and can be built on heavily developed planet, allowing relatively rapid construction and deployment. UI on the other hand costs 10BP per unit and you need 300 units for one million people, for a total of 3000BPs, or almost half as much as a space habitat. And of course, all of this has to be constructed on site, which means that the development is slow. And to top it all off, the UI behaves like colonization cost 3 infrastructure, which means full 20% of the population is needed for life support. IIRC you don't need any people for life support in the case of space habitats. And while this isn't such a big difference at the beginning, for very developed objects (100+ million people) this means you have much, much fewer available workers in the case of UI. I haven't done the math, but I wouldn't be surprised if, as far as manning installations go, orbital habitats were actually more cost effective.

And now let's compere it to normal infrastructure. First, it's five times cheaper. Second, it can be transported. Third it can be created automatically, without the need for resources or industrial capacity (that can be spent for more important items). Fourth, the infrastructure requirements can be lowered by partial or full terraforming. Fifth the infrastructure requirements can be lowered by researching "colonization cost reduction technology", which does not affect underground infrastructure.

Overall, the new UI is great when setting up new campaign, but as an actual mechanic within the game it's not really all that practical. What I'd like to see is some of the following (not necessary all of them, but some):
Lower cost (preferably 3-5 BP)
Self replication when there isn't enough UI (same as with normal infrastructure) or lack of population growth when current habitat is filled to capacity (same as with orbital habitats)
Possibility of lowering colonization cost by researching tech, either currently existing one or by adding new tech tree.
Prefabricating UI on developed planets and moving it to target body (like PDCs)
Making the UI equivalent to colonization cost 2, or preferably 1.5 instead of col. cost 3 (so more workers are available)

[NihilRex]

I dislike being able to move it easily - perhaps maintaining the current cost for prefabbing it, and have it assembled similar to how a PDC is.  This would represent installing modules\systems built on a developed world as well as hollowing out the space for them.

Id also like to see UI available for any colony over 3.00 colony cost.

[alex_brunius]

Can't say I agree with much in this suggestion.
It's not supposed to be easy to settle rocks in the middle of space without gravity, and it's unfair to compare it to standard infrastructure that lacks this capability.

The idea is that you hollow out asteroids or small moons on site, that's not something that is possible to pre-fab, and it makes sense it's cheaper then orbital habs but not by a large margin.

I don't think UI is intended for any bigger settlements at all, but more for smaller military bases that may want things like maintenance facility ( 0.25mil per 1000 ton ), fuel refining ( 0.25 mil per 5 ) or ordnance factories ( 0.25 mil per 5 ).


UI shouldn't be used for 100+ mil population colonies, that is where your problem is.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

UI shouldn't be used for 100+ mil population colonies, that is where your problem is.

I see nothing wrong with great big hollowed-out asteroid cities.

It doesn't make a lot of sense that UI is so much harder to live in than OH, it is really economically questionable atm on many levels even leaving aside the difficulty of constructing it. 

for example, let's say I want to establish a FAC maintenance post on an asteroid. A FAC tender or maintenance base will run me about 1200 BP. 1 OH+5 maint modules is 1700 BP.  But 5 maintenance facilities plus 120 underground infrastructure will set me back 1950 bp. The only less efficient strategy is to man maintenance facilities with OH workers which according to my estimates is about 4500-5000 BP.

this isn't too bad, but this is the most favorable possible scenario for UI.  Once you start scaling up populations UI efficiency goes down drastically.  The primary warship of my current faction runs 13000 tons.  I have an expensive maintenance starbase design, mobile and well defended with armor and CIWS that costs 20000 BP.  2000 UI to support the population to run 65 maintenance facilities costs 20000 BP by itself, plus another 10000 for the maintenance facilities.  Then consider the massive construction project that is building up 20000 BP of UI, that would take 100 construction brigades a decade to construct - compared to a starbase that can move around or PDCs that can be prefabbed.

[xeryon]

My thoughts on UI

Scalability.  For a maintenance ship or tender once you build it that is it.  You design a larger ship you have to design a larger maintenance ship.  With UI you just build enough more to staff a couple more maintenance facilities without needing to scrap the whole thing.

Income.  Not the most important aspect in the game but a UI colony produces revenue like any other colony.  All of the other options either are net 0 or cost you money in maintenance and supplies.

Role Play.  UI is not the first feature of the program to have no real cost benefit and exists because it is fun.

Construction speed.  Construction brigades are SLOW, agreed.  At what point can a construction ship be used to assist in building UI?  Expand on the role of jump gate constructors and allow ship based construction assistance.  I see no reason why they couldn't be used to help assemble PDC as well.  If the leap in realism can be stretched for orbiting ships to perform terraforming and asteroid mining why couldn't they build surface structures?

[MarcAFK]

Looking at Deadly shoes calculations I would be in agreement that UI needs an adjustment, but as it's a new feature we could probably wait a while to see how much of a balance it actually needs.

[alex_brunius]

for example, let's say I want to establish a FAC maintenance post on an asteroid. A FAC tender or maintenance base will run me about 1200 BP. 1 OH+5 maint modules is 1700 BP.  But 5 maintenance facilities plus 120 underground infrastructure will set me back 1950 bp. The only less efficient strategy is to man maintenance facilities with OH workers which according to my estimates is about 4500-5000 BP.

this isn't too bad, but this is the most favorable possible scenario for UI.  Once you start scaling up populations UI efficiency goes down drastically.  The primary warship of my current faction runs 13000 tons.  I have an expensive maintenance starbase design, mobile and well defended with armor and CIWS that costs 20000 BP.  2000 UI to support the population to run 65 maintenance facilities costs 20000 BP by itself, plus another 10000 for the maintenance facilities.  Then consider the massive construction project that is building up 20000 BP of UI, that would take 100 construction brigades a decade to construct - compared to a starbase that can move around or PDCs that can be prefabbed.

Not really.

If you want to use a FAC tender you will have take into account that it must be a military design suffering maintenance problems, this means you will probably need 2 of them to provide the same 100% uptime service + a little running cost of maintenance supplies and shipyard space for overhauls.

Also remember that an UI base will provide shoreleave, so you WILL need a recreational module ( 2000 BP ) as well.

So using these numbers we get:

2 FAC tenders + Recreational module: 4400 BP
1 OH + 5 maint modules + Recreational module: 3700 BP
OH + workers: 4500-5000 BP

In that light don't you think that using UI is pretty attractive at 2000 BP?


xeryon also brings up good points regarding the scalability. Once ships are built and shipyards are retooled to other things it can cost half a fortune to retool them back to build more base support ships.

[Haji (OP)]

If you want to use a FAC tender you will have take into account that it must be a military design suffering maintenance problems, this means you will probably need 2 of them to provide the same 100% uptime service + a little running cost of maintenance supplies and shipyard space for overhauls.

?? It is entirely possible to create a commercial design with five maintenance modules. Also, you don't have problem with deployment time if a warship is above a colony with any population, no matter how small. So it's very possible to create a FAC base which looks like this:

Code: [Select]

Mobile FAC Tender class FAC Tender    28 500 tons     270 Crew     1203 BP      TCS 570  TH 120  EM 0
210 km/s     Armour 1-83     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 26    Max Repair 200 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 0    
Maintenance Modules: 5 module(s) capable of supporting ships of 1000 tons

120 EP Commercial Ion Drive (1)    Power 120    Fuel Use 0.54%    Signature 120    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 50 000 Litres    Range 58.3 billion km   (3215 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

Code: [Select]

Small Habitat class Orbital Habitat    282 550 tons     160 Crew     825 BP      TCS 5651  TH 1440  EM 0
254 km/s     Armour 1-383     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 2    Max Repair 12 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 2    
Habitation Capacity 50 000    

120 EP Commercial Ion Drive (12)    Power 120    Fuel Use 0.54%    Signature 120    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres    Range 29.4 billion km   (1339 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as an Orbital Habitat for construction purposes
Both are mobile, commercial, and working in concert can support and overhaul ships of up to 1000T (which can be easily expanded) and the total cost is around 2000BP. Not only that, but you don't have to use construction brigades to build the initial infrastructure, which is slow and cannot be redeployed. You can build those in shipyards and construction factories. For that matter, I used two separate designs to allow the base to grow to any size needed, but you can also build something like that:

Code: [Select]

FAC Base class Cruiser    277 450 tons     290 Crew     1683 BP      TCS 5549  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-378     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 4    Max Repair 200 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 1    
Habitation Capacity 50 000    
Maintenance Modules: 5 module(s) capable of supporting ships of 1000 tons


This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as an Orbital Habitat for construction purposes
It's immobile so you need a tug, and expanding it would be expensive (if you wanted to just build repeat them) but it costs less than 1700 BP (this is probably the design TheDeadlyShoe was talking about in his post).

[Cheet4h]

?? It is entirely possible to create a commercial design with five maintenance modules. Also, you don't have problem with deployment time if a warship is above a colony with any population, no matter how small. So it's very possible to create a FAC base which looks like this:
-snip-

He was arguing about a FAC outpost based on an asteroid. Which needs either recreational modules in an OH or tender, or a large enough population with UI, otherwise problems with deployment time will arise.

[alex_brunius]

?? It is entirely possible to create a commercial design with five maintenance modules.

A FAC Tender means a slower or stationary Carrier with hangars the FACs are based in, ergo a military ship.

Compare: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaplane_tender



Are you sure that the population will count as a "colony" that enables shore leave even if it is in orbital habitats? Because that makes no sense in that case seeing how an orbital habitat would be vastly cheaper then a recreational module.

What is the purpose of the recreational module if a cheaper OH provides the same benefits???

[Prince of Space]

Orbital habitats don't move the population with them. You need cryogenic transports to stock them. Even without that consideration, orbital habitats are 5000 HS while recreation modules are 2000 HS, so moving habs around is more difficult. You're right that habs are vastly cheaper, though.

[Haji (OP)]

Are you sure that the population will count as a "colony" that enables shore leave even if it is in orbital habitats? Because that makes no sense in that case seeing how an orbital habitat would be vastly cheaper then a recreational module.

What is the purpose of the recreational module if a cheaper OH provides the same benefits???

I've created a small colony using one FAC tender and one orbital habitat of the designs I showed, I've put three FACs there and run the game for three months. The crew (months) on the task force tab was zero.

So yes, it kinda doesn't make sense to use recreational module instead of OH (and the one time I tried, for some reason it didn't work). But that's kinda the general problem with Aurora when it comes to actual gaming - it's not that well balanced. From an RP perspective the game is amazing. I mean, compere it to, say, Master of Orion where you can have five planets per system and that's it. Here you have planets, asteroids (as independent objects, not whole belts) and moons and there is a way to use any of them. From an RP perspective that is. From a gaming perspective? There are problems - a lot of them. Which is kinda the topic of this discussion - the UI is great, but is too expensive to be truly useful. And I like the idea so much, that I'd love it to have an actual gameplay value. Which is why I'm arguing it should be cheaper etc.

Edit: Now I remember. For OH to work you need population, which means it must be deployed on an object, like an asteroid. I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I think you can put recreational module on a ship and it should work in deep space - like, say, jump point fortifications. However, considering the problems with maintenance it's unlikely anyone tries to build "proper" Starfire - like JP fortresses, which means that recreational module is effectively useless. Except for RP purposes of course.

[Brian Neumann]

All of the modules that can be put on a ship as opposed to having a planetary population provide the same support require the ship be in orbit of some colony.  This can be any old chunk of asteroid, moon, or planet that the player designates, but the colony does need to be there.  While the ships are moving the modules are just cargo.  This applies to all ship based support modules (maintenance, recreational, terraforming, etc. )

Brian

[alex_brunius]

I've created a small colony using one FAC tender and one orbital habitat of the designs I showed, I've put three FACs there and run the game for three months. The crew (months) on the task force tab was zero.

So yes, it kinda doesn't make sense to use recreational module instead of OH (and the one time I tried, for some reason it didn't work). But that's kinda the general problem with Aurora when it comes to actual gaming - it's not that well balanced.

I see, thanks for testing it out.

I will concede that UI is a bit expensive and take a bit long time to build then even for smaller colonies when you don't need a recreational module with the OHs.