How to prevent auto Upgrading of Space Ports.

[Lucian]

I usually start the game by building a small space port. I don't want it upgraded automatically to medium or large because it costs too much early in the game. Unfortunately the game seems to insist on automatically upgrading to a Large space port after a period of time, even if I have ALL space ports set to MANUAL for both upgrade and refit in the design menu. you'd think that would do it, but apparently not.

Does anyone know how to convince the game to stop auto-upgrading my small space ports, at least until I have plenty of money and can afford it?

[Bingeling]

It happens if you accept the retrofit suggestion. The AI will do its own judgement on upgrading in the retrofit decision.

You can probably also stop it by tweaking the population requirements for spaceports in empire settings.

[Lucian]

Hmm, I didn't get a retrofit suggestion for the space port, do you mean the "apply new technology?" box? Because I do click yes on those but they apply to everything, not just the space port.

I'm trying an experiment right now where I have the ship auto-design tick box turned off and that seems to be doing the trick at least so far, but I would love to find a way to just stop my space port from auto-upgrading, not everything else as well. I don't care if ships upgrade by themselves but a Small space port auto-upgrading to large in the early stages of the game is usually devastating for my cash flow.

[Bingeling]

It is the box after a design upgrade where it suggests "Retrofit all ships and bases". I can't remember the exact wording.

I would suggest to always answer "no" to that one, and rather retrofit by class or similar in the ship list. If you want to you can just select all and "retrofit", but that may have unwanted actions like sending far away exploration ships home to retrofit.

I think the box appears if you have the construction AI on suggest.

[Lucian]

Uh yeah that's the one all right, and I've been hitting yes every time thinking that it would just apply the tech without upgrading the entire spaceport from small to large. Oh well, at least its easily fixed, I'll just follow your advice and retrofit by class. Thanks very much for your help and sorry about the noob question.

[Bingeling]

I think it is wrong that it changes spaceport class, but that is how it work.

And there is absolutely no need to be sorry about asking questions about the game. [:)]

[ASHBERY76]

Just set the station policy to 100000000 population before it upscales.

It was needed because the A.I would never build large station no matter the population and importance of the colony.

[Lucian]

Ooo I like that, Lets you have your cake and eat it too! And I guess I can always set it back to normal when I can afford auto-upgrades again. Thanks for the advice, definitely sounds like the least painful way to go. [:)]

[CyclopsSlayer]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

Just set the station policy to 100000000 population before it upscales.

It was needed because the A.I would never build large station no matter the population and importance of the colony.

Will it let you do that now? It used to allow input of huge numbers, and then adjust them to programmed min/max's. iirc, LSP was 5B population.

I solved that issue long since with deleting the SSP/MSP designs at the start of the game and redesigning the LSP from scratch.
I also design my Starbases as Economic / Defense Outposts. They serve as SSP's without all the programming baggage associated with them. Just give them NO Yards.

[DeadlyShoe]

As mentioned, when the AI looks at retrofitting a spaceport it will go up in size if the spaceport meets its population criterion. I use 2000/8000/15000, as worlds below 2000m population typically can't even pay for a spaceport's maintenance cost. Overuse of spaceports is a big way non-cheating AIs cripple themselves.

[Blabsawaw22]

So the question remains, Do/Should I put starbases on all my other colonies?

I have 10 colonies.. 1 spaceport .. and should I put 9 Starbases on other colonies with no spaceport?

[Bingeling]

The medical and recreation facilities are a good boost to happiness, that will help population growth and allow you to tax a bit harder.

If you feel like "min-maxing" I would create a cheap star base design with these two and the necessary pieces and place at every colony with no spaceport. You can include a few docking bays and maybe a shield or two if you feel like it. For a weakling base it may be cheaper to build a new rather than try to make it powerful enough survive a decent attack.