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Stellaris Dev Diary #58: Habitats

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is going to cover a feature coming in the (unannounced) expansion accompanying the 1.5 'Banks' update: Habitats. As before, I still can't say anything about the release date of the update/expansion other than that you're in for a bit of a wait.

Orbital Habitats (Paid Feature)
One of the things we have stated that we want to address is the lack of options for building 'tall' in Stellaris: Even if you're playing pacifist xenophiles that have no interest in conquering others, sooner or later your empire is going to have their borders closed in on all fronts, all the habitable planets in your space will be terraformed, and your only option for further expansion is to grow your space through conquest. When we say that we want to enable building tall, however, this doesn't mean we're going to make being a five-system empire just as good as being a fifty-system empire: There should always be an incentive to expand your borders, but for those who do not want or simply cannot do this, we want there to options other than just stagnating.

Orbital Habitats is one of our solutions to this problem: Instead of expanding to new systems and colonizing new planets, you create new, artificial 'planets' for your Pops to live on. Orbital Habitats are massive space stations that function like small (currently size 12, though this may not be the final number) planets that (like Gaia Planets and Ringworlds) have 100% habitability for all species. They can be built around any non-habitable planet (not asteroid or moon) in your space, and there is no limit to the amount you can build other than the number of such planets you have to build them around. Habitats function exactly like a planet: They can be colonized with whatever Pops you want to live there, they can be worked for resources by constructing buildings there, and they count as a planet for the purpose of empire research costs. In order to build a habitat, you need to have researched the maximum level of spaceport technology and picked the 'Voidborn' Ascension Perk (for more info on Ascension Perks, see dev diary 56)
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Habitats mostly do not have tile resources with the one exception that if the planet they are orbiting has a resource that could otherwise be worked by a mining or research station, that resource will be present on one of the Habitat's tiles. Instead, Habitats have their own, unique set of buildings distinct from the normal planetary buildings. Overall, Habitats are efficient when it comes to research and energy general, but do poorly when it comes to food and mineral production. These buildings are 'single-stage': they have a fairly large upfront cost and high immediate research production, but cannot be upgraded. The reason for this is to allow for easier management of systems with several habitats in them.

Graphics-wise, Habitats use different models depending on which ship set you have selected, and each ship set (including Plantoids) has its own habitat model. They also have their own planet icon and will get a unique planetary graphic and tile set (that is still a work in progress and thus not shown below), emphasising the ways in which they differ from regular planets.
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That's all for today! Normally, this is where I'd tell you what next week's dev diary is going to be about, but this time I have to keep it a secret for the time being... so all I'm going to say is that it's going to be big.

Very big.
 
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I really don't see the logic in having stations in orbit of things like Barren, Tomb, and Frozen worlds instead of just colonizing the surface. And it seems to me that Habitats should have very, very low habitability since you're living on a ship the entire time...

It would be nice if mining/research stations were made a bit more like ships, possibly with the ability to upgrade them and give them some firepower or improve their resource production.
 
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I'm sure the details are still work in progress but can we have any indication where youre shooting for in terms of the cost of these structures. Are we looking at teraforming level of expenditure, gaia world, higher?
 
I'm sure the details are still work in progress but can we have any indication where youre shooting for in terms of the cost of these structures. Are we looking at teraforming level of expenditure, gaia world, higher?

According to the OP, they just cost 5,000 minerals and 50 influence. Pretty cheap, honestly.
 
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According to the OP, they just cost 5,000 minerals and 50 influence. Pretty cheap, honestly.

Thanks that does seem cheap, i can think of several games where ive had large empires where i would easily have been chucking out dozens of these just to use the extra minerals which doesnt seem to be the intention with them.

Hopefully the tradition requirements will help stop that, otherwise limiting it through influence costs might be a good approach. Still, too early to really be guessing on these things. Those numbers may bear no relation to the final ones whatsoever.
 
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Forgive me if it's already been said: will we be able to blow up conquered habitats?
 
I really don't see the logic in having stations in orbit of things like Barren, Tomb, and Frozen worlds instead of just colonizing the surface. And it seems to me that Habitats should have very, very low habitability since you're living on a ship the entire time...

It would be nice if mining/research stations were made a bit more like ships, possibly with the ability to upgrade them and give them some firepower or improve their resource production.

I think Orbitals are a bit bigger than ships.
 
making them indestructible is just plain stupid and further ruins the immersion. ffs :(

making them destructible would force players to keep defence fleets instead of death balling

also add a -200 genoside penalty for blowing one up

poor show paradox :(
 
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making them indestructible is just plain stupid and further ruins the immersion. ffs :(

making them destructible would force players to keep defence fleets instead of death balling

also add a -200 genoside penalty for blowing one up

poor show paradox :(

They're the size of a small planet in terms of living space.

It might "break immersion" but it would also be a game breaker in terms of balance.

Also, they've alluded that it will eventually be possible to blow up planets, at that point it will be possible to destroy habitats as well.
 
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Habitats are not armed and can not be destroyed, since we do not yet have mechanics for planet destruction. When we do, they'll be destructible along with normal planets.

They will be destructible at one time.

As for immersion, there were no habitats earlier. Now there are. Immersion +1. They keep improving this game with new stuff. You cannot expect them to add every possible immersion-improving thing that we would want (Espionage anyone?), have it done in a reasonable amount of time and have it well-tested.

However, that being said, I would think you should have the option to dismantle a habitat once it has been transferred to you (or you are just bored with it). But, I can imagine that would cause other balance issues (where does the displaced populace go for instance).
 
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making them indestructible is just plain stupid and further ruins the immersion. ffs :(

making them destructible would force players to keep defence fleets instead of death balling

also add a -200 genoside penalty for blowing one up

poor show paradox :(

Why would you want to blow it up? It really makes no sense when you can invade and take it over. Why waste a perfectly good colony?
 
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I really don't see the logic in having stations in orbit of things like Barren, Tomb, and Frozen worlds instead of just colonizing the surface. And it seems to me that Habitats should have very, very low habitability since you're living on a ship the entire time...

It would be nice if mining/research stations were made a bit more like ships, possibly with the ability to upgrade them and give them some firepower or improve their resource production.

Given what a 12 Tile planet represents, a habitat would be more Floating City then rinky dink floating ship. Your home on the Habitat could be as big, if not bigger, than a standard 2 story House and you would travel/commute to work like we do now on earth. You won't be stuck in Space in a box the size of a small container and be stuck there for ever...

You ever been in a 4.5 million dollar corner Condo on the 25th floor of a high-rise building? That is what living on a habitat should be like, just with a different view out the windows. LOL ;)
 
Forgive me if it's already been said: will we be able to blow up conquered habitats?

No. They technically count as planets, and since there's currently no way to destroy planets the best you can do is depopulate them through purging.
 
Do you think a 4x game that does have realistic population growth could be interesting (not saying Stellaris should have that, but a hypothetical game)? I.e. population would grow quite slowly and therefore becomes a really scarce resource?

I think Stars! sort of did that, with population growth rates in the 2-10% range per turn at optimal population density (which was when the planet was around 50% full).

Your homeworld started at the optimal population density for growth, so to keep growing optimally you had to find other worlds to colonize right from the start. You also had to move pops around a lot.

And since buildings were limited by population, and you couldn't capture enemy population (only kill them), you really wanted to optimize your pop growth.

Buying up your growth rate during race creation was really really expensive and *still* overpowered. n.n
In the country you live in perhaps. That is not true for the Planet as a whole.

I was more thinking that the commonwealth was the evil nazi humans who wouldn't care, but admittedly I've never played with them or looked at them closely.

Also, you don't need to have sex with someone to get them pregnant. It can be a purely medical procedure.
 
I have to be honest, I dont like the look of the habitats. I personally would prefer it if they looked more like ring worlds, the one in the picture just looks ugly.

Making them more like ringworlds would also save on graphics gore, as the new habitat would essentially be a converted planet.