Social Science Labs

[Elegant Caveman]

What do these do, exactly? What's "strength"?

I was expecting a flat 1:1% increase, but I have 6 T1 Science Labs (so +6 strength), and I just did a Public Campaign mission that gave me +6% support total.

I doubt it would have given me 0% without my science labs, so... what's "strength"?

[tzeneth]

Strength is what's used to determine if you succeed or fail. If you look at the left side when you select the mission, you'll notice one of the bonuses is the social science labs.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by tzeneth:

Strength is what's used to determine if you succeed or fail. If you look at the left side when you select the mission, you'll notice one of the bonuses is the social science labs.

Oooooh, damn, I was sure it affected results, not success. Now I wish I hadn't built two habs full of them before going to the moon...

[AylaSelene]

Strength does not actually influence success chance. (If it did, you would see it in the mission breakdown).
Public campaign strength does actually increase the amount of public opinion you gain, it's just not quite obvious by how much from the tooltip.

Base public campaign has strangth somewhere around 10-20 (exact number unknown).
Adding 9 to that strength increases the amount of support you gain by 45%-90%

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

Originally posted by tzeneth:

Strength is what's used to determine if you succeed or fail. If you look at the left side when you select the mission, you'll notice one of the bonuses is the social science labs.

Oooooh, damn, I was sure it affected results, not success. Now I wish I hadn't built two habs full of them before going to the moon...

You shouldn't have built those before going to the moon because they're too expensive prior to the space economy. You definitely should build them once you have mines on Mars though, because you were correct that they affect results, not chance of success.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by AylaSelene:

Strength does not actually influence success chance. (If it did, you would see it in the mission breakdown).
Public campaign strength does actually increase the amount of public opinion you gain, it's just not quite obvious by how much from the tooltip.

Base public campaign has strangth somewhere around 10-20 (exact number unknown).
Adding 9 to that strength increases the amount of support you gain by 45%-90%

Ahh, yeah... I just took tzeneth's word for it (they said you DID see it in the mission breakdown, but checking now, it's nowhere to be seen).

Well, good to hear, then. 45-90% extra's a nice boost. Just wish it was clearer what it did exactly.

Giving us one number means nothing unless we know what other number it's affecting.

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

You shouldn't have built those before going to the moon because they're too expensive prior to the space economy. You definitely should build them once you have mines on Mars though, because you were correct that they affect results, not chance of success.

As long as it's working the way I thought it did (or at least close to it), I'm fine with my expenses for now.

I'm so far ahead of everyone else in boost right now, I'm not really worried, and the upkeep's negligible.

I've been holding off from expanding too much into Earth orbit too early, but a bonus to the efficacy of Public Campaign seemed like a worthy investment, considering my situation.

[tzeneth]

I stand corrected, I'm thinking of a difference science thing. My bad.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

I'm so far ahead of everyone else in boost right now, I'm not really worried, and the upkeep's negligible.

Don't be so sure of it - "everyone", in your thinking, should also include the Aliens and you might be surprised how much Boost you will need for establishing mines fast.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by Pawleus:

Don't be so sure of it - "everyone", in your thinking, should also include the Aliens and you might be surprised how much Boost you will need for establishing mines fast.

Good point about not forgetting the aliens.

But for context, I haven't even unlocked Mission to the Moon yet (almost; it's next on the list), and I have 40 boost with a monthly income of 12. Mid-December 2023.

I'm making 0.39/day, and the next-richest AI, in terms of boost, is at 22 and 0.06/day.

A full Social Science hab costs 7.5 boost, so two are barely more than a month's income.

Should I be worried about one month's boost income in my situation?

I understand that in general, boost is especially precious pre-space economy. But given the specific position I'm in, I figured I could afford a couple of habs.

I guess I'll see...

[silburnl]

There's also the upkeep costs - without space-based sources of water and volatiles you have to keep sending life-support consumables to your habs, which is 0.75 boost per fully kitted out soc-science station per month.

Those two stations are eating an eighth of your current boost income.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by silburnl:

There's also the upkeep costs - without space-based sources of water and volatiles you have to keep sending life-support consumables to your habs, which is 0.75 boost per fully kitted out soc-science station per month.

Those two stations are eating an eighth of your current boost income.

More than I expected, thanks for pointing it out.

Still... not overly concerned, I think?

I mean, I probably won't do it again next time, but it doesn't seem like a big enough problem to decommission or sell them, is it?

Though I guess I could use the money... might be worth seeing what I could sell one for...

EDIT: Tried contacting a faction that was Tolerant of me, and my habs don't even show up in the potential trades list, so I guess that's that.

[Ericus1]

You can negate that with a hydroponics bay. A tier one platforms with 2 solar collectors, a social science lab, and a hydroponics bay would only cost you 6 money and 1 MC a month in upkeep. But you'd need nine of them to get that full benefit. So don't really worry about the boost, just decide how much of that PR mission increase is worth the money.

Tier 1 platforms and buildings are just really inefficient because there is so little space. Plus solar isn't really great except around Mercury. Still, I'll build a handful early just to make sure I claim enough interface orbit spots to run my eventual Tier 2 research stations, which usually translates to 4 stations. And there's space hospital stations, getting foundries, whatnot. If you have a solid money income, don't feel too bad about claiming the interface orbits.

The thing to watch out for is your plan for the early Luna/Mars rush. You can usually get the entire spread of space resources off Luna with 3 sites, with volatiles being the tough/most limited one, which then lets you fully build from space and no longer have to worry about boost. But, if you were using boost instead of hydroponics to supply your Earth platforms' water/volatiles needs, you might end up consuming all of Luna's production and reducing boost usage instead of actually having a positive income. Once you get the good sites on Mars up and running it's a moot issue.

In general, I've found that over the course of the game the resource bottlenecks are volatiles early, water mid, and metals late. So I try to plan my expansion around that accordingly.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

You can negate that with a hydroponics bay. A tier one platforms with 2 solar collectors, a social science lab, and a hydroponics bay would only cost you 6 money and 1 MC a month in upkeep. But you'd need nine of them to get that full benefit. So don't really worry about the boost, just decide how much of that PR mission increase is worth the money.

Well, being concerned about the boost is more about the early game/my present situation. And to a degree, the MC. Money's not a factor, presently.

2 MC for 6 labs, fine. But 6 MC for 6 labs? That would hurt a lot more. In terms of money, I'm making just a bit under 600/month, so 6/hab isn't a concern.

Originally posted by Ericus1:

Tier 1 platforms and buildings are just really inefficient because there is so little space. Plus solar isn't really great except around Mercury. Still, I'll build a handful early just to make sure I claim enough interface orbit spots to run my eventual Tier 2 research stations, which usually translates to 4 stations. And there's space hospital stations, getting foundries, whatnot. If you have a solid money income, don't feel too bad about claiming the interface orbits.

Yeah... noticed that about the space... lol

I have 3 platforms in LEO (two in LEO 1 and one in LEO 2), which I originally grabbed just to make sure I reserved myself at least a couple of slots.

From there, it went to "oh, hey, stronger Public Campaigns would be useful", so I built up two of them with 3 labs each.

Once I've got myself settled on the moon (or at least my first outpost & mine paid for and on their way), I'll probably grab some more LEO 1/2 slots, depending on the situation.

Originally posted by Ericus1:

The thing to watch out for is your plan for the early Luna/Mars rush. You can usually get the entire spread of space resources off Luna with 3 sites, with volatiles being the tough/most limited one, which then lets you fully build from space and no longer have to worry about boost. But, if you were using boost instead of hydroponics to supply your Earth platforms' water/volatiles needs, you might end up consuming all of Luna's production and reducing boost usage instead of actually having a positive income. Once you get the good sites on Mars up and running it's a moot issue.

Can't wait to see what the moon's got for me, in terms of resources... fingers crossed for a good RNG.

I'm very close to researching Mission to the Moon. I've got the fast probes and the tugs already researched, outpost core researched... just waiting on space mining to finish, and moon is next.

I've managed to monopolize the research choices, so I've been keeping away from Mission to Places, wanting the other stuff ready to go, but once that's done, I'm ready to start exploiting.

Originally posted by Ericus1:

In general, I've found that over the course of the game the resource bottlenecks are volatiles early, water mid, and metals late. So I try to plan my expansion around that accordingly.

Good to know, thanks.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

I've managed to monopolize the research choices, so I've been keeping away from Mission to Places, wanting the other stuff ready to go, but once that's done, I'm ready to start exploiting.

That's the way to go - that early, you are doing an excellent job, especially taking under consideration it's your first campaign. Just don't delay space stuff too long because it will bite you in many ways.

Originally posted by Ericus1:

Still, I'll build a handful early just to make sure I claim enough interface orbit spots to run my eventual Tier 2 research stations, which usually translates to 4 stations. And there's space hospital stations, getting foundries, whatnot.

That's NOT the way to go - competing councilors would steal your engineering research from those Foundries, a lot. They are just 1 turn away from all your habs around Earth and Luna (on any orbit) so it's easy for them.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by Pawleus:

That's the way to go - that early, you are doing an excellent job, especially taking under consideration it's your first campaign. Just don't delay space stuff too long because it will bite you in many ways.

I'd love to take sole credit for my sheer tactical brilliance, but it's mostly thanks to the research I did. lol

I watched some of Perun's Humanity First playthrough (it's what pushed me to buy the game, actually), so I had a decent blueprint to get me started, and I read up on quite a lot of stuff before starting.

[g0815krieger]

Originally posted by Pawleus:

But for context, I haven't even unlocked Mission to the Moon yet (almost; it's next on the list), and I have 40 boost with a monthly income of 12. Mid-December 2023.

40 boost is nothing, you won´t be able to set up a mine at moon, not to speak of mars.

Income 12 is cool but every station module you build has an upkeep in space materials. As long you don´t have income from space mining this upkeep will come from earth using boost, speak lowers your net income of boost, because a part of your boost production will automatically be used for the upkeep.