Orbital habitats?...

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

So I have a hellish world with 37 atm, 2900 degrees and here's where the problem starts. Automated mines won't cut it because there is an ancient construct.

Orbital habitats are cheap and very fast to produce, however each of them hosts only 200 000 people (so I guess I wouldn't need that much of them for all those 25 000 workers facilities), which means I need 150 of them to only get 30 labs, which isn't much once you approach late game insane research costs.

Tugging 150 habitats through a distance of a dozen billions kilometers is no joke.

I know there's no other way, just wanted to ask how do you deal with such situations? Do you build a lot of them? How do you transport them? Multiple cruises or one big flight of 150 tugs? Or maybe you set up a colony in the neigbourhood dedicated to building them so it requires only a short trip to transport them?

I'm just thinking what I could potentially improve, because it'll take years for my tugs to transfer it all and it's just 30 labs we're talking here.

[serger]

My preference is to stack 5 habitat modules in 1-mln pop design and use heavy tugs.

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

Stacking them is out of the question for me because then I'd either need to stablise jps I don't want to stabilise or build tenders soooooo big that it hurts me to even try to imagine this. I'm perfectly happy with my 620 000 tons jump tenders and as a result don't build heavier stations than that.

over 2 500 000 tons seems... A lot for one tug...

[Jorgen_CAB]

I don't see the problem... just build them with one habitat and tug them in place... you should easily be able to automate the process if you time the amount of tugs you have and the speed at which you produce them?!?

[Garfunkel]

Yes, you can automate the tugging process with order loops. You can even have multiple tugs going on at the same time but in different fleets as long as you can build the OH's fast enough.

Other than that, this sounds like a cool mega project.

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

I don't see the problem... just build them with one habitat and tug them in place... you should easily be able to automate the process if you time the amount of tugs you have and the speed at which you produce them?!?

The problem isn't about IRL time and effort of doing it, it's about in-game time and effort of doing it. It's a MASSIVE investment spanning across well over decade only to get mere 30 labs. And timing production and tugging... Why bother when production happens so fast time spent on doing it is so low compared to tugging that it feels like as if it was done with autobuild on?

[Jorgen_CAB]

The problem isn't about IRL time and effort of doing it, it's about in-game time and effort of doing it. It's a MASSIVE investment spanning across well over decade only to get mere 30 labs. And timing production and tugging... Why bother when production happens so fast time spent on doing it is so low compared to tugging that it feels like as if it was done with autobuild on?

The alternative is that you don't do it... seems simple enough to me. 

Either you find that it is worth doing or you don't, that is entirely up to you.

[Kylemmie]

I've steered away from using Hab's on worlds I  don't plan on Terraforming if at all possible, due to the pop auto building infra and moving to the surface and causing worker shortages because my Hab peeps now have to work extra hard to support the idiots on the planet.

As Jorgen mentioned and you implied by your quest to find a better way - Unless it's for Role Play it's a pretty straight forward formula.  Is the bonus worth the cost. Since it's not given, I'll assume 100% bonus for now. Your choices seem to be try to just get the 10M (iirc) in orbit for the empire wide bonus, or staff 30 labs to get a bonus 30 labs of RP. Seems a lot of effort unless your current pop is a bottleneck for 30 labs worth of RP.

[serger]

Powerful tugs are useful not for habitats only, but also for terraforming, sorium harvesting, maint. and other types of bases, and in addition for those ships, that have overpowered engines with awful fuel efficiency (I use such monitors to defend critical JPs against doomsday enemies), and to pull back badly damaged ships. Not that it's one-time instrument.

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

I've steered away from using Hab's on worlds I  don't plan on Terraforming if at all possible, due to the pop auto building infra and moving to the surface and causing worker shortages because my Hab peeps now have to work extra hard to support the idiots on the planet.

As Jorgen mentioned and you implied by your quest to find a better way - Unless it's for Role Play it's a pretty straight forward formula.  Is the bonus worth the cost. Since it's not given, I'll assume 100% bonus for now. Your choices seem to be try to just get the 10M (iirc) in orbit for the empire wide bonus, or staff 30 labs to get a bonus 30 labs of RP. Seems a lot of effort unless your current pop is a bottleneck for 30 labs worth of RP.

But can't you mark the colony as military to prevent this happening or something? Because that sounds scary and I need the population on the planet...
Also completely don't get why you'd want orbital habitats for worlds you will terraform - I'd rather tug more terraforming stations to get to 0 cost quicker rather than bother so much with orbital habitats only for them to don't matter in the end once terraforming is complete...

[Zap0]

If the planet doesn't have a CC listed (like Venus does) and just outright says N/A for a CC you're safe from the orbital pop building infrastructure and spilling over onto the surface.

At least in my 1.11 game, I get the empire-wide research bonus with less than 10m on the site.

30 labs is a lot of labs, I hope you're not trying to move your empires whole research there? I feel if you have the industry that 30 labs is just a small proportion of your capacity you should be rich enough to make it happen.

Otherwise, you can tug some initial population there and then use that to build habitats on site. Also requires a spaceport. Bonus points for using ground force construction capacity.

[Stormtrooper (OP)]

30 labs is a lot? You know how long it takes to research 125k+ projects? So at least I'd like to run a few in parallel... I'm defnitely rich enough, it's just it takes timeeeeeee and I'm impatient 

says N/A for a CC you're safe from the orbital pop building infrastructure and spilling over onto the surface.

Nope the gravity's allright so it has a colony cost... But shouldn't marking it as military prevent this from happening? That'd be the worst possible outcome, to have the population spill onto the ground and work on lfie support instead of research...

Bonus points for using ground force construction capacity.

Holy smeg you're a genius! How could I not think about it before and have no one suggest it before? Why bother with tugging so damn many habitats if I can make them directly at destination?
I only need to things to make it happen: minerals and construction capacity.
Minerals I can transport.
Construction capacity I can get from "Automated Construction Factories" aka ground construction units indeed.
No population required.
Fast to build.
No tugging micromanagement and endless waiting for it to complete.
This is brilliant.

[QuakeIV]

I've steered away from using Hab's on worlds I  don't plan on Terraforming if at all possible, due to the pop auto building infra and moving to the surface and causing worker shortages because my Hab peeps now have to work extra hard to support the idiots on the planet.

As Jorgen mentioned and you implied by your quest to find a better way - Unless it's for Role Play it's a pretty straight forward formula.  Is the bonus worth the cost. Since it's not given, I'll assume 100% bonus for now. Your choices seem to be try to just get the 10M (iirc) in orbit for the empire wide bonus, or staff 30 labs to get a bonus 30 labs of RP. Seems a lot of effort unless your current pop is a bottleneck for 30 labs worth of RP.

I think the 'idiots on the planet' (whom I also hate) pay their own bills, labor wise.  It seems to be tracked separately from when I was dealing with that (though I could be wrong).

[nuclearslurpee]

I've steered away from using Hab's on worlds I  don't plan on Terraforming if at all possible, due to the pop auto building infra and moving to the surface and causing worker shortages because my Hab peeps now have to work extra hard to support the idiots on the planet.

As Jorgen mentioned and you implied by your quest to find a better way - Unless it's for Role Play it's a pretty straight forward formula.  Is the bonus worth the cost. Since it's not given, I'll assume 100% bonus for now. Your choices seem to be try to just get the 10M (iirc) in orbit for the empire wide bonus, or staff 30 labs to get a bonus 30 labs of RP. Seems a lot of effort unless your current pop is a bottleneck for 30 labs worth of RP.

I think the 'idiots on the planet' (whom I also hate) pay their own bills, labor wise.  It seems to be tracked separately from when I was dealing with that (though I could be wrong).

This was my understanding. OrbHab population is supposed to be exclusively manufacturing, and the pop growth + infra that propagates down to the planet surface is purely extra on top of that which is subject to the usual rules - in which case it's free infra, so...

[QuakeIV]

Let it be known however that I still hate that the idiots are colonizing the surface at all.  Its weird and freaky, I don't always mind it but sometimes the planet is utterly inhospitable and they need thousands of infrastructure even for a tiny population.