Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: December 24, 2023, 10:23:45 AM »Yeah probably to some extent. But it seems it'd be far more efficient to manufacture things in orbit vs flying them up from the planet. Especially larger items.
You might think so but people live on the planet and you don't want to ferry them up and down every day either. There are many benefits of manufacturing on the planets themself, from integration into power grids to many other logistical advantages from the infrastructure on the planet itself.
I'm sure the vast majority of the industry will be on the planet while the assembly happens in space, most of the engineering and manufacturing happen on the planet surface. The game do have anti-gravity technology to reduce the energy needed to ferry stuff up and down from the planet surface so this probably is not impractical.
In any way, you may immagine this in any way you want.
We seem to have all forgotten that shipyards can be towed by tugs and immediately begin work once released at the destination, which doesn't make sense in the scenario where a lot of the manufacturing is happening planet side.
The game also draws a distinction between using industry to make components then assembling vs manufacturing them directly inside the shipyard, which itself also strongly implies that the shipyards can operate completely self contained, only relying on the planet for the workers themselves.
It also makes sense when you consider how easy it is to move 100,000s of tonnes of ground troops from the surface to ships in orbit via cargo shuttle so you wouldn't need something static like a space elevator to move even 100s of millions of workers.
It would easily be eplained with civilian industry and as everything in a game things are abstracted. It is equally unrealistic you can imediately start working with millions of new people in a new structure towed in top of the planet.