Infrastructure as trade good?

[ShadowLop (OP)]

Hi everyone,

I noticed that some planets tend to produce infrastructure in the trade good panel, along with chemicals, artefacts, electronics, etc.

Can civ lines use this as a source of infrastructure? Or is this infrastructure like cabling, water pipes, etc. as opposed to build infrastructure which is domes, air purifiers, rad shielding, etc.

Could this be the source of the 'infinite infrastructure' that civ lines seem to ship to developing colonies out of nowhere?

[Theokrat]

Yes, this is "infrastructure" that civilians will ship to colonies, where it is used to provide living spaces and life support for new colonists. So in a way this is free infrastructure that you do not have to produce yourself. Yet its only produced quite slowly, so you might still occasionally have to produce some infra through the normal course of industrial construction. Also the normal civilian rules apply, so they wont ship it out further than 4 systems.

[ShadowLop (OP)]

Awesome

[jseah]

It's not slow though.  If you have large terraformed colonies, you can ship infrastructure faster than your population grows. 

Additionally, Expand Civ. Economy gives you more effective BP in infrastructure per RP spent, compared to researching the construction tech and building the infrastructure with the excess.  Of course, it also helps your finances and the Civ. infrastructure doesn't cost duranium, while construction tech is pretty much the 2nd most important tech after the engine/reactor line. 

[nafaho7]

For bonus points, if Infrastructure is delivered to a planet by civilian shipping, it will generally be added to the pool of deployed infrastructure.  Which means that you may then ship it yourself, at a later date.  Or contract civilian ships to do the hauling for you.  I found this to be very helpful after I had finished terraforming Mars, and wanted to expand the potential population of Mercury.