How Do I Make PDCs?

[jimi12 (OP)]

Do I have to design them like I do a ship and then build them in a shipyard? I have read about transporting them to uninhabited colonies require engineer brigades.  Is there an all encompassing guide to PDCs somewhere?

[Yonder]

Do I have to design them like I do a ship and then build them in a shipyard? I have read about transporting them to uninhabited colonies require engineer brigades.  Is there an all encompassing guide to PDCs somewhere?

You design them like ships (in the same screen actually, a drop down menu chooses Ship/PDC).
You then build them from a planet's Industry. You can either build PDCs, which are completely constructed and installed, or you can build "Prefabbed PDCs" which can be shipped elsewhere. These PDCs still need to be assembled, but that doesn't cost any resources, and it's much faster to assemble them than create them. They can be assembled either by a population with factories and workers, or by engineering brigades.

[jimi12 (OP)]

Thanks! So how does having a PDC differ than just having a space station in orbit? Is one better than the other?

[Girlinhat]

PDC's can house troops, have zero upkeep, and can benefit from atmosphere.  If the atmospheric density is 1 or greater, then only mesons and missiles can hit, so all the lasers and plasma cannonades in the world won't touch a PDC on Earth!  Did I mention zero upkeep?  And because of their size and being built by industry, you can achieve massive PDC's because you're not limited by shipyard size.  100 layers of armor can make your PDC all but untouchable, and the extra bulk it adds doesn't matter because your industry can produce any size of PDC.

There's also PDC-specific missile tubes that get a quicker reload, and troop barracks that can protect your ground troops from orbital bombardment.  Fit a dozen garrison battalions under a heavily armored PDC and you've got some strong defense there.  Although I'm not sure if the NPRs will deploy dropships...

[Yonder]

Note though that your own Lasers, Particle Beams, etc, will be useless in atmosphere.

There are two other things Girlinhat left out, first PDCs get 10 armor levels for "free" (they are deep underground) although that doesn't matter as much in the later game when you have the industry to spend more time armoring them.

The other big draw they have is that they are hard to see. A large orbital station will easily be seen by the enemy, even with no EM or thermal emissions, the Active sensors will pick them up.

PDCs are much, much harder to spot, in fact I'm not entirely sure how you can spot them. Obviously if one has an Active sensor and turns it on your enemy can see it. And I think that launching missiles or shooting mesons also gives away your permission. However I think that other than that ground troops are the only things that can spot PDCs.

[Girlinhat]

I've spotted NPR PDCs from far orbit before.  In fact I shot them with missiles from my maximum 40m km range.  At least I think it was a PDC.  I can't recall exactly but I seem to have the idea that it was, plus I managed to harvest the debris later, and it shot down a dropship of mine, so all indications are towards PDC.  I can't say anything in specific, but it sounds like PDCs underground get a similar benefit to cloaking device, lowering their effective footprint.

I wasn't away of the free 10 armor, I better pay more attention to my designs

[jimi12 (OP)]

So why would you build an orbital defense station? Do most people just stick with PDCs? Do PDC fighter bases work effectively?

[Girlinhat]

They each have their uses.  Orbital structures are much easier to move, you just need a tow ship, making it easier to push a starbase onto an asteroid and make a forward base.  But if you can drop the troops and get the PDC components there (which may take significant cargo) then a PDC would probably be preferred.  But the movement and installation can take some time.  There's also many components that a PDC can't arm, that may matter.

In general though, "If you can manage to get a PDC down, it's preferred, but sometimes it's not convenient."

[Yonder]

To add to what Girlinhat says, another main reason that you would go with Orbital Stations rather than PDCs are if you were heavily teched into a non-Meson beam weapon and wanted your orbital defense station to have that. This is especially true from a missile defense view, you may prefer to have a large orbital station with many Gauss Cannon turrets rather than a PDC with either Meson cannons or Anti-Missile Missiles.

[Girlinhat]

That's right.  Finding a zero atmosphere asteroid to hide on so that your lasers work, may not always be convenient.  PDCs with lasers and such are worthless on any body with atmosphere.  So you're either terraforming for stripping atmosphere or out of luck!

[Charlie Beeler]

Another consideration for orbital bases vs PDC's is colateral damage to the planet.  Anyfire that PDC's take is will also generate planetary bombardment effects.  

[Brian Neumann]

One of the reasons however to use a beam armed pdc is that the fire control on beam weapons get a 50% range bonus.  This does make them outrange any equal tech beam fire control.  With that sort of range you may even be able to get two effective anti-missile shots with your beam weapons if they have the range to use it, and a 5 second cycle time.

Brian

[Girlinhat]

Beam PD still relies on little to no atmosphere, or mesons, even if PDCs get good beams they're worthless in atmosphere.

[Brian Neumann]

Beam PD still relies on little to no atmosphere, or mesons, even if PDCs get good beams they're worthless in atmosphere.

Mesons on pdc mounts can be very effective.  I personally like mesons and have discovered that you rarely need to research anything more than a 35cm meson to reach maximum range for your fire control.  After that I put the saved research into the range multiplier and better capaciter tech.  The results can be devestating.  A 30cm meson will max out a shipboard fire control and can fire every 10 seconds.  Lower tech mesons will have a matching sort of performance if equal in tech to their fire control.  This means that at max beam weapons range every hit you get is doing internal damage.  It can quickly rip even capital ships apart and in the meantime they need to get through your shields/armor. 

Brian

[orfeusz]

... or you can build "Prefabbed PDCs" which can be shipped elsewhere. These PDCs still need to be assembled, but that doesn't cost any resources...

IIRC it cost some resources. Like 10% of actual construction cost?