What & what not to do with Habitats

[Knight.R]

So i had the Utopia DLC for a few days and i still dont know jack about what i am doing.
Hell 1800+ hours into the the game i still don't know what i am doing. I feel like i am just fumbling along wondering what i am doing with my life...

Anyways the only thing i know about habitats are that mineral buildings are a waste and their was some argument about what produces more energy 4 habitats or a ringworld which i still dont know jack. Also then theirs the research buildings if its even worth building them compared to a planet. any advice on habitats is appreciated.

[Monocaine]

I personally use the ring world. And use the four different sectors for different things.

1.Minerals
2.Energy
3.Science
4.Food and Unity ect.

[Lilalinski]

Just build specializied habitats, mostly energy or research.
A energy habitat produces 141 energy and 16 unity, a Research Habitat produces ~50 Research each and 16 Unity.
in late game i am spamming habitats everywhere

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1265281509

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Habitats are best used for science, also okayish for energy (you'd still be better off producing it planet-side, tho). As far as building them: no other choice for already colonized systems (since you can't convert those into ringworlds), everywhere else - depends on consumer goods you can spare.

[bellou5134]

HODOR dude thats alot of Habitats i usualy only build 5 or so :)

[Terijian]

if you only build 5 habs you wasted an ascension perk

[NixBoxDone]

Habitats are absolutely fantastic for either science or energy production. Personally I like using habitats for energy credits (10 habitats for 50 k in minerals produce more energy credits than a full dyson sphere while also being capable of producing unity and capable of being build around uninhabitable planets in your otherwise already fully exploited systems - well profitable) and use the ring world sections for research and mineral production. The reason for that is that research profits a lot from scientists that use assist research (HUGE boost) and orbital observatories on your star ports - two things that get better for each laboratory you can fit on the surface, so you really want both to boost 24ish tiles of labs if possible.

Also keep in mind that you can only have 1 ring world section being completed at a time, but nothing stops you from building 5 habitats at once as long as you have the minerals. Once you unlock habitats your production will SKY ROCKET. You'll have energy credits out the butt due to the habitats and your planets can ditch power plants and become more efficient in other production types. Build habitats for energy, use special robots (reduced upkeep, increased energy credit production) or gene tailored pops on them and replace every power plant on your specialised planets with what they should actually produce (labs on your science planets, mines on your mineral rich planets, etc. tt.).

You'll become an economic power in no time and will never run out of space to expand because a full ring world with 100 tiles only needs an unoccupied system (you should have dozens to hundreds of those in your empire) and habitats can be built around almost any planet in systems you already claimed (which also makes them easy to defend: one habitat produces enough energy to make it worth building 3 to 5 military stations in that system to protect it and you can build between 4 and 8 or more habitats in a single system if you got lucky on the planet dice :P).

[Terijian]

Basically you spam habitats everywhere you can afford to and fill them with labs and solar collectors

[Kegbelly]

Originally posted by Terijian:

Basically you spam habitats everywhere you can afford to and fill them with labs and solar collectors

cant say i have noticed the AI building them ? is the code broken (may need to pay more attention lol )

[NixBoxDone]

No, they do build them. I've come across a few as the game approaches late game. You just have to keep in mind that the AI is usually pretty inefficient, economically speaking.

Due to the way it is programmed it will prioritise a lot of things over habitats. It'll also usually pump very high numbers of minerals into its overcapped fleet and hold even more in reserve for dire circumstances, which means it has a hard time getting the 5000 extra minerals required for a habitat together.

I'm also pretty sure that the voidborne ascension perk is not a very high priority for the AI.

Consequently I think you'll see them more in higher difficulty games on bigger maps where the AI can amass more planets and gets a higher resource multiplier so it has more stuff left over to devote to such expensive projects.

Btw, I've also seen the AI refurbish or build mega structures (dunno which, first I noticed them was when I got the message that one was completed - by then it was too late to find out if they had built it from scratch of just repaired a broken one).

[HugsAndSnuggles]

They do build megastructures from scratch. Most seemed to prefer building nexus tho, last I played.

[Knight.R]

Originally posted by NixBoxDone:

No, they do build them. I've come across a few as the game approaches late game. You just have to keep in mind that the AI is usually pretty inefficient, economically speaking.

Due to the way it is programmed it will prioritise a lot of things over habitats. It'll also usually pump very high numbers of minerals into its overcapped fleet and hold even more in reserve for dire circumstances, which means it has a hard time getting the 5000 extra minerals required for a habitat together.

I'm also pretty sure that the voidborne ascension perk is not a very high priority for the AI.

Consequently I think you'll see them more in higher difficulty games on bigger maps where the AI can amass more planets and gets a higher resource multiplier so it has more stuff left over to devote to such expensive projects.

Btw, I've also seen the AI refurbish or build mega structures (dunno which, first I noticed them was when I got the message that one was completed - by then it was too late to find out if they had built it from scratch of just repaired a broken one).

I feel every time i see you answer a qusetion here it ends up being beautiful.

[NixBoxDone]

Originally posted by Knight.R:

Originally posted by NixBoxDone:

No, they do build them. I've come across a few as the game approaches late game. You just have to keep in mind that the AI is usually pretty inefficient, economically speaking.

Due to the way it is programmed it will prioritise a lot of things over habitats. It'll also usually pump very high numbers of minerals into its overcapped fleet and hold even more in reserve for dire circumstances, which means it has a hard time getting the 5000 extra minerals required for a habitat together.

I'm also pretty sure that the voidborne ascension perk is not a very high priority for the AI.

Consequently I think you'll see them more in higher difficulty games on bigger maps where the AI can amass more planets and gets a higher resource multiplier so it has more stuff left over to devote to such expensive projects.

Btw, I've also seen the AI refurbish or build mega structures (dunno which, first I noticed them was when I got the message that one was completed - by then it was too late to find out if they had built it from scratch of just repaired a broken one).

I feel every time i see you answer a qusetion here it ends up being beautiful.

I try to help. >_<

[BigSlick(AK)]

Originally posted by NixBoxDone:

Habitats are absolutely fantastic for either science or energy production. Personally I like using habitats for energy credits (10 habitats for 50 k in minerals produce more energy credits than a full dyson sphere while also being capable of producing unity and capable of being build around uninhabitable planets in your otherwise already fully exploited systems - well profitable) and use the ring world sections for research and mineral production. The reason for that is that research profits a lot from scientists that use assist research (HUGE boost) and orbital observatories on your star ports - two things that get better for each laboratory you can fit on the surface, so you really want both to boost 24ish tiles of labs if possible.

Also keep in mind that you can only have 1 ring world section being completed at a time, but nothing stops you from building 5 habitats at once as long as you have the minerals. Once you unlock habitats your production will SKY ROCKET. You'll have energy credits out the butt due to the habitats and your planets can ditch power plants and become more efficient in other production types. Build habitats for energy, use special robots (reduced upkeep, increased energy credit production) or gene tailored pops on them and replace every power plant on your specialised planets with what they should actually produce (labs on your science planets, mines on your mineral rich planets, etc. tt.).

You'll become an economic power in no time and will never run out of space to expand because a full ring world with 100 tiles only needs an unoccupied system (you should have dozens to hundreds of those in your empire) and habitats can be built around almost any planet in systems you already claimed (which also makes them easy to defend: one habitat produces enough energy to make it worth building 3 to 5 military stations in that system to protect it and you can build between 4 and 8 or more habitats in a single system if you got lucky on the planet dice :P).

Another thing to consider is where to place hab's, you can use them to massively increase your fleet cap, with out having to expand your borders to gain more planets. Each Hab, adds 6 to the fleet cap, plus 12 pops adds 2.4 more. If you're adding to your core sector, look for systems with 7-9 uninhabitable planets and fill it with habs. This will only add 1 system to your sector count, but add between 49-63 to your fleet cap. A 9 planet system with populated habs will expand your fleet more than a completely populated ring world with 4 space ports. If you decide to build habs in non-core sectors, consider allowing the sector gov. to colonize, so you only have to worry about building.

I don't disagree with @NixBoxDone's perspective on using terrestrials for science. But, I wanted put this out there for consideration... If you want to build habs for science and do genentic modification - you can stack pops with Intelligence + Physicist/Engineer/Sociologist traits to maximize research output, combine this with the Sedentary trait if needed for trait points and so they don't migrate off the hab. Unless you're doing Synthetics, Droids and Robots have a severe penalty to both energy and research, even with the Superconductive or Logic Engines traits, it's still a net negative production modifier.

Another useful tactic with habs is to use them to replace the border footprint gained by a frontier outpost. For example, in the late game, I found an unclaimed system on the edge of the galaxy. I dropped a frontier outpost to establish claim, then put a habitat up. Afterwards, I could drop the outpost and regain the monthly influence with out loosing territory. As the pops and habs grow, the borders grow too, potentially giving you more systems to put habs on in that area - effectively stealing the other empire's property and resources.

[NixBoxDone]

Indeed. Habitats are way past borderline OP and straight into Royal Flush territory. No other ascension perk is as versatile as they are - only ascension perks come close, but you need 2 of them to really benefit and two of them affect your relations with certain empire types, which habitats do not.