Some thoughts about Stations

[zgrssd]

I had some thoughts about stations.

Exploration Station/Deep survey vessel
Let's assume I have a planet with unexplored resources.
Let's also assume the planet won't get a mining station, colony, Research Station or Resort base anyway.
I as player can just plop down a mining station to explore it. I do that regularly with colonize-able planets (so much so, I wish "unfinished exploration" would appear on the resource lists).

There is however a few issues with it:
1. The AI can't do it
2. I don't have any UI or Advisor support to do it
3. This station is paid for by private industry
4. If I only build it for the exploration, I will totally forget to scrap it. If I build it anyway, scrapping it could disrupt my economy.

That is why I think something dedicated would be better. A Exploration Base. Or maybe a "Deep Survey" ship. Only needs to be as quick as the average mining station about exploring, main thing is that it is placed with Advisor help and usable by the AI

If it was a station, it would be a good candidate for a self-deploy station (see below). It would also need a reminder that it can be scrapped (similar to what you do with Terraforming stations).
But even just a slight variation of the Exploration ship (extra Solar Panels, a big special Survey module) or a special 3rd ship mission (Deep Scan) could do.

Either way having better Sensors would still be worth it - simply because you don't need to way for the deep survey vessel.

Civil Support Station
Currently a Small Spaceport is the smallest thing you can place over a planet to get a Dock, Laboratories, Recreation and Medical center above a planet.

It would be nice if we could get a "Tier 0" spaceport, that does only that part of the job. Just a place to put lab, recreation station and medical station. Something a lot cheaper then a full Spaceport to build and maintain. Maybe the colony ships could even carry the resources for one with it or it could be made as a self-deploy station?

Self-deploy station
Currently, to build stations we have to:
1. Wait for a constructor to finish building or a previous mission
2. Travel all the way to a suitable resource stockpile
3. Travel all the way to the build site
4. Build

The obvious (and likely only) solution early game, it could maybe be improved up later:
Self-Deploy Stations are basically a folded up space station with a single-use hyperdrive.
It is build in a Shipyard. Launches itself off to the target. Deploys. Scraps all the parts for moving. Then it just does it's job, while it all the resources from the moving parts can be retrieved by a freighter.

Naturally it should not be a early game tech. My best idea is to apply size limit. Like the 1st iteration can only deploy small mining stations, resorts and research stations. Why we might already be on middle sizes. But the longer the game goes, the more stations might be eligible for this kind of remote deployment.

[AKicebear]

Nice ideas - all would add to gameplay (and the AI).

I'd like to see the spaceports differentiated by level (1-7?) instead of by SML. That could lead to:
- Spaceport level also corresponds to feasible construction yard slots
- Construction policy settings for colony size to build a given spaceport level, rather than just SML
- Minimum distance between spaceports of same type - no need to space level 7 spaceports side by side (if you set that distance accordingly)


I'd like to see similar for Defense Base preferences - we have a few coarse toggles, but what I'd really like is ability to set % of local colony revenue to spend on local defense base maintenance. A similar % of local revenue on spaceport maintenance may also be a preferable policy setting instead of (or alternative to) population.

[zgrssd]

Nice ideas - all would add to gameplay (and the AI).

I'd like to see the spaceports differentiated by level (1-7?) instead of by SML. That could lead to:
- Spaceport level also corresponds to feasible construction yard slots
- Construction policy settings for colony size to build a given spaceport level, rather than just SML
- Minimum distance between spaceports of same type - no need to space level 7 spaceports side by side (if you set that distance accordingly)


I'd like to see similar for Defense Base preferences - we have a few coarse toggles, but what I'd really like is ability to set % of local colony revenue to spend on local defense base maintenance. A similar % of local revenue on spaceport maintenance may also be a preferable policy setting instead of (or alternative to) population.

Good idea to differentiate Spaceports on levels/number of allowed Yards, instead of the coarse size. I mean we already have 3 Sizes of Yards, might as well make it official.
But personally I would make sure they start with at least 2 Yards. That is often a important thing to avoid deadlocks of the single yard.

I had some ideas about defense bases and Invasion. Need to get around writing them down.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Some good ideas here, I always wanted a smaller star base for small starting colonies that is only a docking port and recreation, medical and commercials... not much else.

Currently I have the Shipyard which is the smallest station with two yards and a dockyard with no weapons as the default station on planets. If it is a border world close to any potential fighting it instead becomes an armed outpost which is one shipyard and then trade the other space for fighters, weapons and defences. At least until I can build defence bases after this there is no point in putting weapons on spaceports at all, at least they have the lowest priority of everything else. When I can build defence bases the Spaceport is all defences and PD.

[AKicebear]

Currently I have the Shipyard which is the smallest station with two yards and a dockyard with no weapons as the default station on planets. If it is a border world close to any potential fighting it instead becomes an armed outpost which is one shipyard and then trade the other space for fighters, weapons and defences. At least until I can build defence bases after this there is no point in putting weapons on spaceports at all, at least they have the lowest priority of everything else. When I can build defence bases the Spaceport is all defences and PD.

Almost exactly how I deal with the basic spaceports and defensive bases too.

I set the construction policy for medium and large spaceports at relatively high thresholds - say 10M and 20M population. Then I use manual upgrades to decide where my very basic starter spaceport, which goes nearly everywhere, should upgrade early or to one of the intermediate designs besides the three SML the automation uses.

I set those policy thresholds so that the spaceport construction menu populated suggestions correctly - don't use the automated building as its all or nothing with many other types of bases.