Orbital Habitats

[UnLimiTeD]

So when we we be able to build Mass Driver ships to ferry goods through Asteroids?^^  

[welchbloke]

Steve -

This is fantastic, thanks!  Now the only thing I'd like to see added is the ability to trans-ship cargo from one cargo hold to another.  Currently there is no way to do that, either within Aurora or manually.  

Kurt

In v5.20 you can now set another fleet as the destination of an Unload <Cargo> order. So if you select a destination fleet for Unload Mine, the fleet with the order will transfer as many mines as possible into the cargo holds of the destination fleet. The only restriction is that the destination fleet must not have any orders (otherwise things could get complex due to unload times). The time required for the transfer will be based on the loading time of the destination fleet.

Steve

If I understand correctly that means that only the cargo handling facilities on the receiving fleet will contribute to reducing the loading times?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Steve -

This is fantastic, thanks!  Now the only thing I'd like to see added is the ability to trans-ship cargo from one cargo hold to another.  Currently there is no way to do that, either within Aurora or manually.  

Kurt

In v5.20 you can now set another fleet as the destination of an Unload <Cargo> order. So if you select a destination fleet for Unload Mine, the fleet with the order will transfer as many mines as possible into the cargo holds of the destination fleet. The only restriction is that the destination fleet must not have any orders (otherwise things could get complex due to unload times). The time required for the transfer will be based on the loading time of the destination fleet.

Steve

If I understand correctly that means that only the cargo handling facilities on the receiving fleet will contribute to reducing the loading times?

Yes, until I get around to adding code to average it out

Steve

[Kurt]

Steve-

I was having a bit of insomnia last night, and found myself thinking about my campaign in the deep of the night.  Whilst considering the current situation, and a story I was plotting out in my head, I got to thinking about your new orbital habitats and shipyards.  Currently shipyards are stand-alone, self-contained modules orbiting the planet.  They cannot be armored or defended, except by other units.  

What I was thinking about was that the orbital habitat rules provide a framework for large orbital constructs, and the shipyard modules are merely another large orbital construct.  Can they be combined?  This would allow the player to create armored and defended shipyard modules, if they want, and you could also require that the shipyard module requires a certain amount of "Crew" or population to be functional, which would require an orbital habitat to be built to house the module.  Perhaps it wouldn't be necessary to require the entire population requirement of the module, but a fraction might be necessary to make it work.  

What this would mean is that the player would end up with very large constructs in orbit around their planets, particularly their home planet.  I feel that this is realistic, and an exciting part of empire-building.  

Of course, this has several potential drawbacks.  If a shipyard is expanded by including another slipway, this would change the size of the orbital habitat housing the shipyard, and its manning requirements.  

Is this feasible?

Kurt

[UnLimiTeD]

So, in the end, you might be able to build self sufficient shipyards to be towed with your fleet and dropped of a planet to conduct maintenance?
Yay, Nomad Empire!

[Aldaris]

Steve-

I was having a bit of insomnia last night, and found myself thinking about my campaign in the deep of the night.  Whilst considering the current situation, and a story I was plotting out in my head, I got to thinking about your new orbital habitats and shipyards.  Currently shipyards are stand-alone, self-contained modules orbiting the planet.  They cannot be armored or defended, except by other units.  

What I was thinking about was that the orbital habitat rules provide a framework for large orbital constructs, and the shipyard modules are merely another large orbital construct.  Can they be combined?  This would allow the player to create armored and defended shipyard modules, if they want, and you could also require that the shipyard module requires a certain amount of "Crew" or population to be functional, which would require an orbital habitat to be built to house the module.  Perhaps it wouldn't be necessary to require the entire population requirement of the module, but a fraction might be necessary to make it work.  

What this would mean is that the player would end up with very large constructs in orbit around their planets, particularly their home planet.  I feel that this is realistic, and an exciting part of empire-building.  

Of course, this has several potential drawbacks.  If a shipyard is expanded by including another slipway, this would change the size of the orbital habitat housing the shipyard, and its manning requirements.  

Is this feasible?

Kurt

You could simply make a shipyard a cluster of slipways, each with their own population, armour, etc. And yes, this would help noman empires greatly.

[iamlenb]

So, civilian orbital habitat shipyards are civilian constructs, and naval shipyards are military possibly.  With the requisite upkeep and maintenance costs for a military installation...  ugh, I'm playing around with a 5 megaton mothership for a PC nomadic Race and the reliability isn't pretty, especially when adding 100 engineering stations at a time brings you from 1300 percent to 1298 percent.

Please make them without an upkeep cost, even if military, like a PDC.  Or some other solution that keeps upkeep reasonable - maybe jigger the size calc downward for Orbital Constructs.

Len

[Brian Neumann]

So, civilian orbital habitat shipyards are civilian constructs, and naval shipyards are military possibly.  With the requisite upkeep and maintenance costs for a military installation...  ugh, I'm playing around with a 5 megaton mothership for a PC nomadic Race and the reliability isn't pretty, especially when adding 100 engineering stations at a time brings you from 1300 percent to 1298 percent.

Please make them without an upkeep cost, even if military, like a PDC.  Or some other solution that keeps upkeep reasonable - maybe jigger the size calc downward for Orbital Constructs.

Len

The maintenance percent change for failure isn't what you really want to look at when comparing big ships, the time untill they run out of parts is actually going to give you a better idea as to how long they can go before refitting.

Brian

[iamlenb]

Thanks Brian.

I just discovered that.  Seems like every 30 days, something fails on my OWPs.  However, they still have several hundred thousand maintenance supplies left with almost 16 years average til depletion.  

Overbuilt...  

On the other hand, that's average mtf, so a string of unlucky uh, breaks, with the most expensive parts could rapidly deplete supplies.

I'll post up in the suggestions thread about requesting customized interrupts, I'm a bit tired of my months lasting 3 days when an OWP breaks down.

[UnLimiTeD]

Can OHs be implemented into PDCs?

[iamlenb]

Not sure what you're aiming for, Unlimited.

PDC is an acronym for Planetary Defense Center while OH is Orbital Habitat...

Unless I'm misunderstanding, the mechanic for increasing the living capacity on a planet is via infrastructure, representing anything from breathing mask handout booths to all up atmospheric domes.

Are you suggesting an Orbital Defense Center with mechanics and rules like the current PDC that would follow any if-implemented Orbital Habitat mechanics?  Or a different way of extending population via components attached to the PDCs built currently?

[UnLimiTeD]

The Orbital habitat is, as far as I understood, a module you can pack on ships to turn them into a living space.
I want to put them on PDCs, to allow for a vision of a heavily bunkered down civilization.
They would get 4 free levels of armor, but be unmoveable.
So far, theres no possibility to armor infrastructure, and that'd be a cheap solution.

[iamlenb]

I get it.  Bunkers for populations.  Good idea, save some of your civs.  Although, I'm betting they NPRs will continue throwing Radiation and Dust producing weapons at the planet until it glows like the sun.

Maybe a new population sheltering PDC only module for civilian pops.

[Yonder]

Ooh, I really like the idea of armored underground bunkers that work like Orbital Habitats do, ignoring infrastructure cost and radiation. That would allow you to play out an Asteroid impact scenario, where a couple hundred million people and a few facilities are scattered around PDCs on the planet.

So, civilian orbital habitat shipyards are civilian constructs, and naval shipyards are military possibly.  With the requisite upkeep and maintenance costs for a military installation...  ugh, I'm playing around with a 5 megaton mothership for a PC nomadic Race and the reliability isn't pretty, especially when adding 100 engineering stations at a time brings you from 1300 percent to 1298 percent.

Please make them without an upkeep cost, even if military, like a PDC.  Or some other solution that keeps upkeep reasonable - maybe jigger the size calc downward for Orbital Constructs.

Len

You could make hangar bays civilian. That way a (for example) 1 million ton Orbital hangar could have 100 ktons of hangar space to keep a couple of military shipyards in, while still being a civilian ship itself. An alternative would be to give your Orbital Habitat a towing module, but that way it would only be able to tow one shipyard, instead of the flexibility of taking separate smaller ones with him.

Steve, would you be able to put orbital habitats and cryo transport modules on the same ship? Pack up 500,000 colonists in cryo, go to an asteroid, wake them up and have them live in the habitat?

It would be very wasteful but it would let you build huge, awesome, mothership style craft.

[UnLimiTeD]

Why wouldn't you, the Orbital Habitats are just a ship module aswell.
My question is whether one can put them into PDCs aswell.
Btw, I would really ask for a 30k ton module being a construction factory for PDCs