Orbital Habitat tips

[Zorro]

I could use some advice on orbital habitats since districts came around I never can seem to get them going. Growth is slow due to the limited districts and I never have enough housing or jobs for them. I did take the voidborne trait but that does not seem to help. Any advice or making them more useful?

[corisai]

Originally posted by Zorro:

Growth is slow due to the limited districts

How pops growth is related to amount of districts? oO
Are you about void dwellers origin?

[tempest.of.emptiness]

There are a lot of variables that affect how your habitats should be designed and grown, so a set of general tips is going to be necessarily vague.

Slow growth typically should not be an issue, because by the time you are building habitats you will usually have planets that are either full or in a productive position where you can afford to pause their development while you develop your habitats. This means that you can relocate pops to your habitats manually, or allow your planets to overcrowd to generate emigration push to your habitats, either of which will boost the effective growth rate of your habitats. In addition to that, if you are playing an empire with access to the gene clinic -> cyto-revitalization center then building that will directly boost your growth rate as well as provide a good chunk of amenities.

Which districts to build depends on the function of the habitat. There are two basic designs:

1) Six (Eight if you have voidborne) work districts: This design is for energy habitats, mining habitats, and research habitats.

Depending on your species' housing requirements you will probably need to replace one of those districts with a housing district, to provide the housing needed for necessary infrastructure buildings. If your species has a housing penalty then you might need to replace more than one, although in that situation you might want to reconsider using habitats at all because the cramped space is most productive for species with lower housing requirements.

The jobs that are provided by the districts will unlock a number of building slots, some of which will be used for infrastructure. How you use the rest will depend on circumstances, although typically you will want to use at least one for an appropriate output-boosting building (Energy Grid, Mineral Purification Plant, Research Institute, or their upgrades or analogues).

2) Six (Eight if you have voidborne) Housing districts. This design is for trade, manufacturing, or forge habitats.

This design uses buildings as the primary source of jobs, either because the type of jobs you want to focus on are not available from districts (manufacturing, forging) or because providing those jobs with buildings is better than providing them with a district (trade).

You will want to make sure that you provide the infrastructure that your habitat requires using some of the building slots, and then fill up the rest (up to the housing limit of your habitat) with buildings that provide the jobs for your habitat's intended focus.

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Be sure to set your habitat type so that it provides a bonus to your habitat's intended function. For example, if you are building a habitat to mine minerals, then you should set the type to mining habitat.

There are two main types of habitats not mentioned above: refining habitats and fortress habitats. I don't recommend trying to build a dedicated refining habitat, but I do recommend throwing some refineries on your other habitats to fill up extra building slots when doing so won't put the habitat over their housing limit (and when there isn't enough housing for another fully-upgraded focus-related building). Similarly, I find that fortress habitats are best created by taking an energy or mining habitat and adapting it by filling out the building slots with fortresses. Since they provide their own housing, you may be able to put six to eight fortresses on your habitat (depending on available amenities), which is typically enough to do the job. You may want to switch the habitat's focus to fortress habitat if the role as fortress is worth giving up the resource output bonus of a resource-output-boosting focus.

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Hopefully this is enough to set you on the right path, although just be aware that habitats are being reworked in a future patch and so some or all of this may change at that point. At the very least, the role of voidborne will change.

[Meewec]

for mining/energy habitats, which i really only build if i really need one of those two resources, i just fill it up with those respective districts and then fill any building slots(besides amenities) with fortresses and mote manufacturing to supply the fortresses for upgrades. trade and research habitats will end up as pure housing habitats with the buildings being filled with trade buildings or science buildings and the manufacturing for their upgrade resources until i start running out of housing, then i keep building fortresses and mote manufacturing.

[adobo]

Housing isn't really that important in habitats. If you need more space, build more habitats. Jobs are more important so if you're stuffing it full of refineries then put a few commercial districts or buildings to cover job needs.