Do I want a station in earth orbit?

[Frodo]

There is nothing to mine. But I guess there must be some benefit from it.
I have made a base on the moon and just got my mining operation built as well as one solar plant.
I have just send a rocket to build my first Mars base. But I have nothing in orbit around earth. Should I?

I've been pushing the global research in social projects. Trying to unify North america. should be able to pick greater nations next. So other research have suffered due to me pushing social research.

Can I just take over the ISS maybe, its controlled by another faction. What orbit is best to build a earth orbit station?

[corisai]

Originally posted by Batailleuse:

Life good early, gives the +1 bonus when you try to persuade. up to +9, makes missions both much easier, and achieve better population switch to your cause. so makes early game super easy to switch countries to your side.

Except that's Social Science Lab job and not Life Science :)

Life Science help to defuse safely Smugglers event and that's all.

Originally posted by Batailleuse:

Military lab .. is 'meh" i would say, the passive bonus for armies on the globe doesn't feel worth it, when material labs let you scale that number faster than military labs.

It's very worth it once you're dealing with proper alien armies. It's a bad idea to throw nukes around again and again :)

Originally posted by Batailleuse:

Energy labs also not worth it i feel, you don't really need economy in this game lol, takes way too long for a country to progress it's GDP to get points. you're usually better off making all your place into low inequality, and stable area, and just make them pump Funds/space progress.

You're wrong here. 100% Economy in countries with huge population could end with crazy science income.

[Ixal]

Originally posted by Batailleuse:

Originally posted by Ixal:

Remember though every T2 station in earth orbit can easily be hijacked unless defended.
T1s are mostly safe

actually difficulty scale with Marines presents as well. and as long as you have high MC points, agents rarely ever switch your stations.

in my game i have over 10 stations in orbit, and only lost 1 when i went over MC for a few months. and i'm in 2036 now.

so to be on the safe side when you build them, add at least 1 Layer defense, and 1 marines barrack, i like marines barrack anyways because you get passive special action resources (+5 at t1) so you can always do spec ops missions maxed out to make sure you achieve your goals.

at T2 add a Farm.

then you can field it to the brim with labs, just don't put skunk works in there. or everyone will steal your techs.

but i would say

Life good early, gives the +1 bonus when you try to persuade. up to +9, makes missions both much easier, and achieve better population switch to your cause. so makes early game super easy to switch countries to your side.

Material science, good for the military development bonus points, keeps your armies ahead everyone with this.

Social/Xeno/Info also decent, you get a TONS of social projects, and its also the cheapest to run, 1 power + 3 labs. so easy to stack. Xeno for obvious alien detection reasons, but Xeno techs aren't too many except Faction special projects, Information good, as the Information techs are all pretty powerful, and required to unlock some of the better stuff.

Military lab .. is 'meh" i would say, the passive bonus for armies on the globe doesn't feel worth it, when material labs let you scale that number faster than military labs.
Energy labs also not worth it i feel, you don't really need economy in this game lol, takes way too long for a country to progress it's GDP to get points. you're usually better off making all your place into low inequality, and stable area, and just make them pump Funds/space progress.

and your bigger countries (EU/Russia/China/USA) are better left with at least 50%+ in military anyways.

for EU/USA its something like 50% armies, 10% funding, 20% welfare/knowledge, and you make smaller countries pop you an army before absorbing them.

you keep 1-2 countries (regardless of which bigger nation you pick) just pumping you Boost early up to +20-30 before absorbing then switching them to Space coms. and you only absorb when they are filled with coms. and switch production to another country.

Its not about difficulty. To even get on a T1 station you need the undercover trait and its pretty RNG if the AI gets a undercover guy who can also hijack space assets and is good at it.
Everyone can get on T2 stations though.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Ixal:

Everyone can get on T2 stations though.

AI doesn't play "let's f@#$% human player - I will spend years rolling 5% chance until succeed!".

If your stations are well-defended from stealing (marines, crew size, high loyality of councilors) - AI never go to try it until you will invite him by going over your MC value.

[Crucades]

Only build on earth interface orbits for your RnD stations.

Good location for your primary shipyard will be synchronised orbit then extreme earth orbit.

[Frodo]

Damn it. Build the damn station and space debris f'ed it up. said I had to clear debris to rebuild. It took out my platform core and my lab, all thats left is the solar power generator.
How do I clear the debris?
Do I have to decomission the hab?

[corisai]

Originally posted by Frodo:

How do I clear the debris?

a) Fleet (with guns).
b) Random events (need shipyard, nanofactory or defenses). Defenses are best approach as they will stop random damage from debris.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by Frodo:

Damn it. Build the damn station and space debris f'ed it up. said I had to clear debris to rebuild. It took out my platform core and my lab, all thats left is the solar power generator.
How do I clear the debris?
Do I have to decomission the hab?

Just rebuild the components. AFAICT clearing the debris doesn't actually have any cost.

[Ixal]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Ixal:

Everyone can get on T2 stations though.

AI doesn't play "let's f@#$% human player - I will spend years rolling 5% chance until succeed!".

If your stations are well-defended from stealing (marines, crew size, high loyality of councilors) - AI never go to try it until you will invite him by going over your MC value.

You still have to defend your T2 stations in case the AI has a 25 steal space station guy.
For T1 stations that is mostly not an issue as the AI can't even attempt to steal them.

[Frodo]

Originally posted by Frodo:

Damn it. Build the damn station and space debris f'ed it up. said I had to clear debris to rebuild. It took out my platform core and my lab, all thats left is the solar power generator.
How do I clear the debris?
Do I have to decomission the hab?

Edit: Hmm, the core seems fine next turn, and I could just build a new lab on top of the other

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by Ixal:

Originally posted by corisai:

AI doesn't play "let's f@#$% human player - I will spend years rolling 5% chance until succeed!".

If your stations are well-defended from stealing (marines, crew size, high loyality of councilors) - AI never go to try it until you will invite him by going over your MC value.

You still have to defend your T2 stations in case the AI has a 25 steal space station guy.
For T1 stations that is mostly not an issue as the AI can't even attempt to steal them.

I've seen several undercover AI councilors, and I'm pretty sure that you can get Control Space Asset from orgs.

So no, there isn't real safety there. Plus you can't do much with T1 stations anyway.

[Frodo]

Originally posted by Ixal:

Originally posted by corisai:

AI doesn't play "let's f@#$% human player - I will spend years rolling 5% chance until succeed!".

If your stations are well-defended from stealing (marines, crew size, high loyality of councilors) - AI never go to try it until you will invite him by going over your MC value.

You still have to defend your T2 stations in case the AI has a 25 steal space station guy.
For T1 stations that is mostly not an issue as the AI can't even attempt to steal them.

So how do I defend them? I can't have an agent at all bases all the time.
And can they still come if I have no space dock?

[Toblm]

Originally posted by Frodo:

Originally posted by Ixal:

You still have to defend your T2 stations in case the AI has a 25 steal space station guy.
For T1 stations that is mostly not an issue as the AI can't even attempt to steal them.

So how do I defend them? I can't have an agent at all bases all the time.
And can they still come if I have no space dock?

Docks are for warships.
"Supply ships" normal traffic doesnt require a special building

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by Frodo:

Originally posted by Ixal:

You still have to defend your T2 stations in case the AI has a 25 steal space station guy.
For T1 stations that is mostly not an issue as the AI can't even attempt to steal them.

So how do I defend them? I can't have an agent at all bases all the time.
And can they still come if I have no space dock?

Adding marines helps. Never ever go over your MC limit, ever. Have high loyalty on all your councilors.

[76561198859928956]

Another modifier which can be absolutely massive is overall council loyalty. If your council is in the 20+ loyalty range it's going to be basically impossible to flip T2 stations even for 25 persuasion gods.

Unless you're over mission control cap or bankrupt, because those modifiers are even bigger and the AI will absolutely exploit the opportunity.

My two big learning moments recently have been "max out council loyalty" and "don't dump science".

[VDmitry]

Originally posted by Ixal:

Originally posted by VDmitry:

I have like 12 stations on Earth orbits and none was hijacked

up to year 2037 the only hijacked station was on Luna orbit

Which tier? T1 station are pretty immune to hijack (not totally though). T2 and up though can be stolen easily.

Initially T1, then T2. All my stations have 1 marine module, still T1.