PDC Terraforming?

[Victuz (OP)]

So I might have messed up. I designed a PDC with 10 terraforming modules on it, produced it, than sent it to mercury and used a construction brigade to actually put it up in something like 5 years (in retrospect simply making ships would have been much faster but I wanted to try something new).

Issue is, it's up there, in orbit. And it does NOTHING. It has fuel on it (even though I don't even remember if that's needed), is properly built up, has the modules. But doesn't actually provide any "terraforming" on mercury :/. Any ideas?


EDIT: Semi-ish fixed. Apparently the terraforming doesn't work if the PDC is in the original TF it spawns in (after you build it), in other words after making it you have to move it from [planetname]:PDC to say "Terraformer" TF. The game was giving me sass about it so I had to use SM and essentially "teleport" the PDC into a different task force (even though it stayed in orbit of the same object) after that it started working.

It's still faster to just send in terraformer ships rather than build a PDC since construction brigades are absurdly slow but I think an orbital terraforming platform that can be refitted into a defence platform after the planet is settled has some serious cool factor to it.

[alex_brunius]

PDCs are regarded as being land based ( they get free armour from being dug into the ground, and can't fire most beam weapons at spaceships through an atmosphere ).

A satellite/orbital platform is just a ship without engine ( and need to be towed in place using a tug with tractor beam ).


It's also worth pointing out that all Taskgroups with modules effecting bodies like terraforming, mining and so on needs a specific move order to start working properly. Just joining them into a TG already present will not be enough.

[Sharp]

This also happens if you are sending new terraformers to an existing operation if you get them to join the new task group, they join up but the Task Group needs to move to body again otherwise the new terraformers just sit around doing nothing.

[Cheet4h]

This also happens if you are sending new terraformers to an existing operation if you get them to join the new task group, they join up but the Task Group needs to move to body again otherwise the new terraformers just sit around doing nothing.

But

Code: [Select]

Move to Body
Join Task Group
would work?

[Hawkeye]

But

Code: [Select]

Move to Body
Join Task Group
would work?

Yes

[Sharp]

Ahh, yeah that would probably work, I just did Join Task Group, the Move to Body should fix it.

[Steve Walmsley]

The issue is because you can have multiple populations on the same system body terraformers have to be assigned to a specific population (whereas harvesters don't). When you create a move to a population order, that population is set automatically. You can also set the assigned population for a ship on the F6 Ship window.

[Jorgen_CAB]

So I might have messed up. I designed a PDC with 10 terraforming modules on it, produced it, than sent it to mercury and used a construction brigade to actually put it up in something like 5 years (in retrospect simply making ships would have been much faster but I wanted to try something new).

Issue is, it's up there, in orbit. And it does NOTHING. It has fuel on it (even though I don't even remember if that's needed), is properly built up, has the modules. But doesn't actually provide any "terraforming" on mercury :/. Any ideas?


EDIT: Semi-ish fixed. Apparently the terraforming doesn't work if the PDC is in the original TF it spawns in (after you build it), in other words after making it you have to move it from [planetname]:PDC to say "Terraformer" TF. The game was giving me sass about it so I had to use SM and essentially "teleport" the PDC into a different task force (even though it stayed in orbit of the same object) after that it started working.

It's still faster to just send in terraformer ships rather than build a PDC since construction brigades are absurdly slow but I think an orbital terraforming platform that can be refitted into a defence platform after the planet is settled has some serious cool factor to it.

One of the biggest problem with sticking terraforming modules on a PDC is that you can't move them somewhere else when you are done. PDC are permanent installations once constructed so using terraforming modules this way is sort of pointless, at least when you compare of just slapping them onto a station and drag them there with a Tug, or just stick a commercial engine on them so they can go to wherever they need to be by themselves.

[Sharp]

Yeah but you need to dedicate a shipyard to terraformers and a population for installations.

However it is probably more effective just to build terraforming installations and infrastructure and then get colonists to work them rather then build PDCs which will take ages to build anyway and once your done you can always ship the installations and infrastructure to next colony, might be better then dedicating a shipyard for terraformers unless you can balance the build costs to make a multi-purpose shipyard, but on the other hand you might not want to dedicate you factories to pumping out terraformers and infrastructure.

[ddblackhawk]

You could, if you're going for orbital stuff rather than PDC's stick a single Orbital Habitat Module on, that's only an extra 250 Ktons and it allows you to use your construction factories to make it.  Generally when I'm using orbitals to terraform rather than population run ground based stuff I make each one the equivalent to 10 ground based terraformers, you're then looking at around 250 Ktons just for the terraforming modules anyway and at that weight doubling it doesn't really increase the cost that much.

For example:

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X-T01 class Terraforming Base    565,400 tons     1540 Crew     8174 BP      TCS 11308  TH 6000  EM 0
530 km/s     Armour 1-609     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 9    Max Repair 500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 2   
Habitation Capacity 50,000   
Terraformer: 10 module(s) producing 0.02 atm per annum

Prototype Admiralty 2500t M50 Ion Drive (20)    Power 300    Fuel Use 4.42%    Signature 300    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 10,000,000 Litres    Range 71.9 billion km   (1571 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
Is a self propelled Orbital that can be built using industry and is only 2000BP more than the same amount of Terraforming Installations, adding a tractor beam would, I think, allow you to daisy chain several different Orbitals together (weapons platforms, terraformers, habitation modules, etc.)

Code: [Select]

X-T02 class Terraformer    314,350 tons     1510 Crew     8068 BP      TCS 6287  TH 6000  EM 0
954 km/s     Armour 1-411     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 16    Max Repair 500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 1   
Terraformer: 10 module(s) producing 0.02 atm per annum

Prototype Admiralty 2500t M50 Ion Drive (20)    Power 300    Fuel Use 4.42%    Signature 300    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 10,000,000 Litres    Range 129.5 billion km   (1571 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
While this design has to have a dedicated shipyard and is and is only 100BP cheaper than the Orbital Habitat version.

To be honest a lot of it will be down to your own personal choice, but I think we can all agree that prefabbed PDC's suck unless you've already got the IC in place to assemble them, and in that case you can build stuff directly on that body anyway.  Perhaps Steve could increase the effectiveness of Construction Brigades, but increase the cost in order to keep them relatively balanced?

[Victuz (OP)]

I entirely agree with the general consensus that orbital terraforming with PDC's is simply not efficient/easy or sensible enough to warrant using it over infrstructure+terraformers or just ships. I did do it more as a test of concept rather than to achieve something. Plus I forgot you need serious industrial capabilities to assemble the PCD at it's destination anyway (and that imo is the biggest bottleneck), but by the time I realised that I was committed.

Oh well didn't expect this thread to explode quite so much but thank you for all the good ideas.

[andrea69]

I never thought about using PDC for terraforming and ... I really like the idea.
I think terraforming with ships makes things too easy, especially now that tolerances have been increased. While terraforming installations need a lot of people to manage them and also that I don't like because in my idea terraforming should be possible (and usually should be done) before establishing a colony (with inhabitants). Using PDC could be my solution, because it's logistically more demanding than ships, but can be put on a planet  without an inhabited colony and left there working for a long time.
I'll try it.

[Sharp]

It's true but your probably much better of just building enough infrastructure to support enough people to man a terraforming unit instead of having to build PDC parts, then have a bunch of construction brigades assemble the PDC. Heck your probably better off even building a new commercial shipyard specifically for building a terraformer.

Tbh I don't think terraforming is really that necessary anyway, it's a huge cost to do it and it takes a very long time to terraform a planet, might as well just put infrastructure on it and have civilian economy build it up for you.

[MarcAFK]

I think for roleplay reasons I might start using PDC terraformers, you said a construction brigade required 5 years to make one with 10 terraformers on it? That sounds entirely reasonable, considering how expensive terraformers are anyway, and how useful it is on certain bodies to have unmanned terraformers. I'm thinking of venus for instance.

[xeryon]

I'm warming to orbital terraforming bases myself.  They do not require populace to operate, are reusable and in my case self-propelled (PDC terraformer is permanent) and take about 1.25-1.5 years to build (10 unit) with 500 factories as opposed to building the PDC parts and 5 years of assembly with a brigade.