Labor for other planets

[jonbrave]

I am having trouble understanding Labor, on non-HomeWorld planets

I am thinking it would be nice to have some Labor generated on some planet other than my HW, so that I can use that in addition to my HW, e.g. to spread the load of building Mining Bases. Sounds reasonable?

Obviously, I know I could build a Factory, but we're trying to avoid that.

So:

1. I have had my HW build a Mining Base on a Construction Materials Asteroid.
   
2. I have had another non-Labor planet Import Materials from the Asteroid.
   
3. That planet now shows 10 Labor/min. The Asteroid shows it has 1m:44s still to run (I used a few seconds at my HW before switching).

But I am not finding the planet can do anything with its Labor!? If having selected this planet I click on, say, another Asteroid which offers both Construction materials and Aluminum I do not get the 2 Build ... Mining Base options that I do get if I start from my HW.

Questions:

1. Why is this? Is it because the Construction Materials costs 22.5 Labor and the Aluminum costs 45 Labor, and the 1.75 minutes I have left @ 10 lab/min represents a total of 17.5 Labor currently available to the planet and that is insufficient for the Mining Base builds?

2. So maybe I could build the Aluminum Mining Base from my HW. Then I could export that to the other planet, and it would provide a steady rate of Labor which that planet could then use to build anything, unlike the limited Construction Materials?

3. Is this whole approach worthwhile? Would it be a good idea to get some Labor up & running on a non-HW planet as i think?

Thanks!!

[FourGreenFields]

The homeworld isn't usually the best place for power-houses. Try to get some usefull scalable resource; if not available at least a large tier III or tier II resource planet.
And I'd recommend having one big labour planet. You can combine the construction capabilities of several planets using drydocks ofcourse, but not for stations, and it's inefficient. However, if you do happen to have a planet with some labour (i.e. because the resource isn't exportable, or because the main labour-powerhouse is at max capacity and couldn't use it anyway), it's a good place to build small things (like asteroid bases in a close system, scout ships, etc.).


Have you waited a short ammount of time (= didn't do this during paused game, or let it unpause before checking)? Otherwise it sounds like a bug. A planet with labour should be able to build stuff, regardless of whether it got that using resources, or by other means.

[jonbrave]

Originally posted by FourGreenFields:

Have you waited a short ammount of time (= didn't do this during paused game, or let it unpause before checking)? Otherwise it sounds like a bug. A planet with labour should be able to build stuff, regardless of whether it got that using resources, or by other means.

I have let the game unpause and run for quite a bit. I have been very exact in my description. I would doubt there is a bug here, it's pretty fundamental to however Labor is supposed to work.

If I am not correct in my guess that the reason is that the the Asteriod it is importing from for 10 Labor/min lasting 1 minute 45 seconds is insufficient to build stuff costing 22.5 or 45 Labor, could someone explain how that does work?

[IllyiaSvara]

Planets need an inherent source of labour in order to construct things (the tutorial does lack in some of the extra bits)

An inherent source of labour for that planet is either from facotires or from having a labour resource (Iron, Aluminum, Titanium, Local Asteroid Field, Super Carbons, HydroConductors) either on the planet or imported to that planet.

Construction materials act as a boost to production but not a source of production on their own.

Without the source for production the boost while present can not be used.

Construction material asteroids well not imported to a blank planet without any labour already present enable construction.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by IllyiaSvara:

Planets need an inherent source of labour in order to construct things (the tutorial does lack in some of the extra bits)

An inherent source of labour for that planet is either from facotires or from having a labour resource (Iron, Aluminum, Titanium, Local Asteroid Field, Super Carbons, HydroConductors) either on the planet or imported to that planet.

Pretty sure the +1 labour from named planets and stuff works too.

[IllyiaSvara]

Yes named planets work since it adds the resource to the planet itself.
Construction materials work slightly differently due to using a different hook which instead just adds to the labour of the planet but does not provide a source.

[jonbrave]

@IllyiaSvara
OK, thanks, this makes more sense.

So, Construction Materials on their own shipped to a non-Labor planet show "10 Labor/minute" but the planet cannot actually use it.

I have just built an asteroid Aluminum Mining Base, from my HW. I have just started shipping that Aluminum Labor Pressure to the planet without inherent Labor. After a few seconds, its Labor has risen from 10/min (from the Construction Materials, that it could not use) to 12/min. But most importantly it can now actually do something like build Minimg Bases, Orbitals, Ships, etc.! I believe that corresponds to what you explained. This seems like so unobvious to me from the tutorial/non-manual/Wiki, have others figured this out and I'm just dumb??

Now, and only now, I'm ready to try to understand what @FourGreenFields says above. Why is the HW not ideal as a Labor planet...?

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by jonbrave:

Now, and only now, I'm ready to try to understand what @FourGreenFields says above. Why is the HW not ideal as a Labor planet...?

The HW is generally a mid-sized planet, with no non-exportable buff (or maybe 1 labour? Anyway, not enough to matter much).
There are some non-exportable resources that grant boni to labour production (like asteroid fields iIrc). Those will make the labour you export there more efficient.
But, most importandly, there are bigger planets. Especially the enormous vast plains planets. More space for cities, factories (both civilian and imperial), and whatnot. Won't make much of a diffierence early-game when you only import one or two labour resources, and there's still more than enough room on the planet surface. But at some point, surface area will become the limiting factor.

[IllyiaSvara]

Theres a fair few little bits that aren't expalined in the tutorial. The main stuff is, but the small nuances aren't.


The HW serves as your general planet. In some games it is all you well be able to use for something like a labour world just due to luck of the draw with galaxy generation.

However there are better options out there if available.

On default settings you can normally get only 1 world to Level 5 and another to level 3. Sometimes you'll be lucky and able to get two to Level 5 other times not so lucky.
Given you have limited options for how much you can do your main wolrd well more often than not be your main labour world as well just since more people means more pressure capacity allowing you to make use of more labour resources.

Theres a few ways to pick your main world; What Resource it has and How much Surface space it has.

Surface space is important you may have an amazing scaleable resource available for use but it might just be extremely tiny in surface space meaning while you can certainly keep making it level up most of the pressure won't be used due to running out of space. You also won't be able to build many or any Imperial buildings. The HW surface space is around the minimum you want for going full out. It has enough for all the civilian buildings and then enough space for a few Imperial buildings.

Resource of the planet is important:

Scalable resources - These are resources that as they level up gain extra bonuses alongside just normal population increae. (FTL Crystals, Marenium, Quartz, Phosphate, Cyllium, Allondium, Space Ferns and Vast Plains) The usefullness of each one can be dependant on what your going for in your style of play and what you have around. For example Quartz planets aren't super powerful without a good soruce of artifacts and then a good production of energy, they can however be nice for production due to their Free labour storage. On the otherhand Phosphates are always very useful to have and level but can also be left to the side or only partly levelled if a better options exists.

Vast Plains get a special mention - these are good for pretty much any and all styles of play. As they level up their bonus isn't as strong as say a fully levelled FTL crystal world or a Cyllium worlds, Vast plains only reduces the total maintence cost of Imperial buildings on that planet down to a minimum of 0 (note the word total). However the extremely valuable part here is its huge surface area much much larger than normal worlds. This means it can be an amazing hub for everything in your empire or in some playstyles become a labour powerhouse (collectivism attitude maxxed plus stacking vast plains with factory upon factory for Godtier flagship health)

T3 resources - These all have a special bonus to one type of resource, for production the important one is Hydroconductors. It give +50% to all labour production on that planet, facotries, labor pressure, civilian buildings making use of it, asteroids. Anything and everything that produces labour on that planet gets +50% output.

Local Asteroid Field- If you don't have any of the above resources and if your lucky enough to get a good size one it can be better than the homeworld in a pinch. While it is not as powerful as Hydroconductors it does give a +50% boost to civilian labour output (the small buildings you see getting built automatically on the planet surface are civilian buildings). Given enough pressure and space civlian buildings well be built automatically and make better use of the pressure than otherwise what it gives. Local asteroid Field planets can be good production planets because of this if large enough and leveleed up enough to handle all the labour resource imports.

The main world you want to transition to after early game well be dependant on the above factors if you are royally screwed in terms of these and don't get any the HW well remain your main world. If you get one of the above and it has a good size surface space at least the same as the HWand then is what you want to use, swapping to using that as your primary world will serve you more in the long run.

[jonbrave]

Blimey! Looks like there are a lot of nuances to learn. Makes my head ache...

Thank you for your posts, people. ATM I'm just second game, trying to get a handle on things, coming to grips with labor.

[jonbrave]

@IllyiaSvara
Came back and re-read your long post. Thank you so much for the detail, very good!

Unfortunately, my hard disk decided to totally die out of the blue. Nice.