Construction Modules inside Platform Kits

[Sunshine06]

I am extremely frustrated, so please forgive how blunt and pissed off I will inevitably sound.

What is the freaking point of using a solar/fission kit on your ships? I thought I understood it, but then when I put down a fission kit around Callisto, I noticed the construction module was going to take 6 months to build. What. Is. The. Point. I could have started building the station while my fleet was being constructed. It would have been done by the time they got there.

I would be less frustrated if things didn't take hours of real life waiting to happen. I get it, the devs want a long form strategy game. I'm cool with that. But design decisions like this seem purpose built to waste my time just for the sake of wasting time. If you're going to give the player the option to build a station with a kit via a ship they had to, A. Spend a utility slot on - B. Spend 3-5 months building, - C. Perform a transfer that takes another 6 or more months, how the actual frack does it make sense to then punish the player by requiring another 6 months for the construction module to build? What the hell was in the kit?

[gimmethegepgun]

The Construction Module may take 6 months to build, but the hab center itself doesn't, which you can use to build a Dockyard for repairs.
Also, sending the hab ahead of time before your fleets arrive isn't feasible when you're at war, because they'll destroy it before your fleets get there to protect it. If you want to make a beachhead, figuratively, to fight in a new theater, you need to deliver it via colonization-in-force.

[debott]

I use kits mostly for colonizing the outer plantes. For the inner planets and maybe asteroids it is not as severe, but habs at Jupiter and beyond take years to deliver with boost. Much faster with colony ships.

[Sunshine06]

Neither of you are hearing what I'm saying. My point is that the kit should do what it sounds like it should do. If there is zero difference in build time between building the construction module at a station and using a kit then the kit isn't doing what it says it does.

The tooltip is *literally* true, but its also misleading. It says "Allows creation of small nuclear-powered space station with a construction module at the ship's location." If the construction module is included, then the whole station should be ready to go at the same time. Make it take 30, 45 or even 60 days to set up, fine, whatever, but the tooltip is a problem. Because as it stands, the construction module being "included" is irrelevant. It would be exactly the same if the kit only had the station core and a power plant and I added the construction module after I placed the station.

[debott]

Yes, everything you say is correct as far as I can tell.

Originally posted by Sunshine06:

the construction module being "included" is irrelevant. It would be exactly the same if the kit only had the station core and a power plant and I added the construction module after I placed the station.

The point ot Platform&Outpost kits is the core module. Yes, the power and construction modules are near-useless as you can build them just as fast in the regular fashion.

Technically, constructing anywhere away from a mine should take much longer for the materials to be delivered. If that were the case the kit would be more useful, too. I am not certain why the devs decided that this delivery delay only applies to boost. I'm outspokenly against that gameplay balance.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by debott:

I am not certain why the devs decided that this delivery delay only applies to boost. I'm outspokenly against that gameplay balance.

Because trying to make it any other way would turn it into a logistical nightmare.

[Pawleus]

The point is you can't currently build with boost a station around Callisto (outside of the Asteroid Belt) at all - you have to send a colonizer there, first.

Edit: However, colonizers are my favorite way of colonizing the Asteroid Belt so I have no idea where your frustration comes from, @OP.

[Ericus1]

Originally posted by debott:

Yes, everything you say is correct as far as I can tell.

Originally posted by Sunshine06:

the construction module being "included" is irrelevant. It would be exactly the same if the kit only had the station core and a power plant and I added the construction module after I placed the station.

The point ot Platform&Outpost kits is the core module. Yes, the power and construction modules are near-useless as you can build them just as fast in the regular fashion.

Technically, constructing anywhere away from a mine should take much longer for the materials to be delivered. If that were the case the kit would be more useful, too. I am not certain why the devs decided that this delivery delay only applies to boost. I'm outspokenly against that gameplay balance.

"Something something mass drivers delivering resources something something."

You're right, it's a lot of magic hand-waving by the devs to emphasize the space economy.

Oh, and OP, there is an upside to the kits: the total resource cost is less if you use a kit than if you build the individual modules. It's not much, but it's something.

[debott]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by debott:

I am not certain why the devs decided that this delivery delay only applies to boost. I'm outspokenly against that gameplay balance.

Because trying to make it any other way would turn it into a logistical nightmare.

We disagree on that. In my opinion there are multiple ways to improve this balance in varying degrees of complexity. The least logistically nightmarish one: remove boost time delay.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by debott:

The least logistically nightmarish one: remove boost time delay.

Boost is the only one that can, at all times, be said to objectively have a definite delay, since we know exactly where it's coming from.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by debott:

[..] remove boost time delay.

If I understand right what you mean I would be very, very strongly against it - it would make colonizers much less desirable and we already have science ships basically useless. It would also make the pace of colonization much too fast and it already is too fast in my experience.

[debott]

Originally posted by Pawleus:

Originally posted by debott:

[..] remove boost time delay.

If I understand right what you mean I would be very, very strongly against it - it would make colonizers much less desirable and we already have science ships basically useless. It would also make the pace of colonization much too fast and it already is too fast in my experience.

Yes, I think you understand what I mean. However, I purposely did not elaborate further how I imagine this might work. It just would be the simplest way to balance boost with the current ISRU system. That doesn't mean I think it's objectively better.

Best case/wish scenario would be if both Boost and ISRU were subjected to some time delay, as stated above. And I'd like to mention here that any crewed module would technically always have a similar delay as Boost, since workforce can only be imported from Earth most times.
And I think it were cool if colonizing would always require a colony ship, which indeed brings its own 'logistically nightmarish' problems, i.e. how would you build your first colony ship then?

[Patrus]

In my opinion, it would be nice, if they changed it as follows:

If you already have a hab in some place, the boost cost and delay to deliver resources to that station should be equal to the cost of delivering resources to the hab, that is currently closest to Earth.

For example:
I have a station at Earth's low orbit.
Cost of delivering 10 resources to that station is, let's say, 10 boost and it takes 30 days.

I build a station on Mercury. The boost cost of delivering 10 resources to that base on Mercury should also equal 10 and it should also take 30 days.

It makes logical sense: bases can transport resources to other bases using mass drivers, which is apparently very fast (practically instantaneous in the game).
Currently, when I want to deliver some resources to Mercury from Earth, I pay lot of boost, to presumably deliver them there by rockets and then I need to wait a long time. Why don't they instead deliver them to station on Earth's orbit and then send them with mass drivers to Mercury? That would be much more optimal.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by debott:

It just would be the simplest way to balance boost with the current ISRU system.

I would advise against thinking about balancing anything to the current ISRU system as in my perception it's just an obvious placeholder.

[Sunshine06]

Originally posted by Pawleus:

The point is you can't currently build with boost a station around Callisto (outside of the Asteroid Belt) at all - you have to send a colonizer there, first.

Edit: However, colonizers are my favorite way of colonizing the Asteroid Belt so I have no idea where your frustration comes from, @OP.

You can like it and it still make no sense at the same time. My issue is solely with the tooltip and how it bait and switches the player into believing the kit is worth using. There is no logical reason why it should say it includes the construction module when there is no meaningful gameplay difference to its inclusion.

This also is a good opportunity, I suppose, to bring up how the construction module's excessive build time precludes it from being useful. An example: say I researched Orbitals recently and my first one in LEO just finished upgrading. The tier 1 station had a solar panel, a xeno lab and a point defense array. The orbital finishes and I want to add a handful of new modules. Why would I make a construction module that takes 180 days to build, whose only selling point is speeding up the build time of other modules (a largely meaningless amount too, might I add), to help speed up modules that only takes 60 days? It makes no sense from a game design perspective to disincentivize the player from using a mechanic in this way. The Nanofactory/Complex are also largely useless for expanding your habs for similar reasons, but they at least have the secondary function of monthly cash generation. This whole game is playing out cost/benefit analyses. This one doesn't add up.

One way to fix this off the top of my head is to have the construction module decrease the cost of the module. Early game when you're only mining the moon and maybe Mars, you're fighting for scraps of material so every decaton counts.. 10-15% cheaper modules would be a good incentive for the player to consider. A second way I could see it being truly useful is if it sped up the construction for the entire orbit it was in. 5%,10%,15% for each tier respectively, max of 50%. Just like the research habs.

[Pawleus]

You might have a point that the tooltip might be misleading - you understand it too literally, though.

However, the construction module is far from useless - it also helps in construction of higher tier modules, including higher tiers of constuction modules, and allows simultaneuous creation of multiple tier 1 hab cores in the same system of astrobodies. Yes, its value is usually low so I often replace it with eg. a second spacedock on a tier 1 hab.

I can only guess what were the reasons of making times of building them so long but they had to be important ones if they were increased 6x. I suspect some strong exploit here.