"Development Level >>"? Figuring out what all these numbers do.

[Kira Goto]

two T2 farms in the others

There’s T2 farms? I thought there’s only the T1 space agricultural installation [for orbital builds]. Unless I’ve been so blind to miss it all this time…

Different note - How many refinery hubs should I expect to need to counter a terraforming economy’s consumption of polymers and semi/superconductors? With just a single one I built in a new system today, I’m missing those from a newly built Coriolis*, but otherwise got all the metals I wanted to have from it, since my original build is suffering from the industry nuke of geologicals at the moment. My plan was to put down 4 plus a surface port in the fifth planetary slot, but figured I’d ask for some input. Mostly I’d like the polymers available to cover for their production, as my original refinery still provides the conductors without issue.

*Primary port of a good enough system I spotted during chaining efforts, at a 317ls distance to star. Wasn’t too bothered to try looking for another similar one with non-atmospheric, non-geological HMC or system with lots of rocky bodies near, even if I probably should’ve.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Why non terraformable? Ideally I think you would want it to be terraformable and not tidally locked, that way you'll get 1.2 extra ag (boosts on the planetary influence and the strong links from the farms) for a total of 3.0 vs 1.0 tourism.

Yes, you're right, I meant terraformable there.
(Though as Kira correctly points out too, you can't get T2 Agri orbitals, so the restriction to T1 puts you back to 0.8 anyway. It's still probably inferior to the HMC most of the time)

Thanks both.

One thing that immediately struck me: Fruit an Vegetables seems to be a strange beast. A squad mate of mine has a Coriolis with 3.40 refinery, 1.45 agriculture, 1.00 terraforming and 0.05 military. F & V supply is a mind-boggling 273,000 units, but there's no water and few other ag products.
I assumed it's a commodity that's hard to kill by other economy types.

F&V has bizarrely wide ranges.

Supply is either about 5t/economic unit or about 160t/economic unit with seemingly little middle ground. If you get lucky and roll high it's basically impossible to kill. If you get unlucky and roll low, then consumption is generally in the 3-13t/economic unit range and you'll need a good fraction to guarantee outweighing that.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

Yes, you're right, I meant terraformable there.
(Though as Kira correctly points out too, you can't get T2 Agri orbitals, so the restriction to T1 puts you back to 0.8 anyway. It's still probably inferior to the HMC most of the time)

You'd get 1.0 ag from the body, 0.4 each from the two farms, then all three of those links get a 0.4 boost for a total of 3.0 (vs 1.0 tourism) which I'd still prefer over trying to beat the natural extraction economy from a HMC.

 

[Aratac]

Hello fellow Cmders,
I need some more advice pls. I understand the rules are still in flux and could change again.
I have a dedicated system with a scientific outpost established around a rocky planet that I would like to turn into a high tech production hub, close to my refinery system hub.
I have 3 HMC worlds close to system entry, each with 4 planetary slots and 1 orbital slot. 2 have geologicals and 1 does not. None have biologicals. The system has an asteroid belt and gas giants with pristine reserves.
On the non geo HMC, I plan to build a civilian T1 surface port and 3 high tech surface structures. Then put a Coriolis in the orbital slot.
I'm thinking 3 x T2 scientific hubs as they don't have the -2 security associated with the high tech hubs even though I lose the wealth gains.
To get the points in need to build the planetary scientific hubs and orbital coriolis, I plan to build 4 relay installations.
Also is anyone aware of which structures can boost system security without increasing the 'military' economy? I've been using relay stations but they only have one security pip.
Any advice is appreciated.
Cheers

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

Also is anyone aware of which structures can boost system security without increasing the 'military' economy? I've been using relay stations but they only have one security pip.

Military outposts (tier 1, no cost) or government installations (tier 2) both give 2 pips security.

 

[_Flin_]

Would I have to construct 4 different Coriolis stations to guarantee availability of all mats to large ships (unless I go ground settlements, which might be more sensible), or is there some clever way of combining economies?

No, there is no clever way.

You can, however, concentrate on Refinery, it is the most important.

But you need High Tech base Ports as well, because of Muon Imagers.

Focused stations are the way to go, and even when you want large supplies for T3 ports, outposts will be sufficient for non-refinery commodities. Yes, it will increase the time, but a Type-8 will take care of every type of economy supply in a few runs.

 

[Kzak]

There’s T2 farms? I thought there’s only the T1 space agricultural installation [for orbital builds]. Unless I’ve been so blind to miss it all this time…

Yes, there's three types in total of surface farms - small and medium agricultural settlements, which fall under T1, and the large agricultural settlement, which falls under T2 and presumably gives a bigger strong agricultural economic influence than the medium/small variants.

 

[Kzak]

No, there is no clever way.

You can, however, concentrate on Refinery, it is the most important.

But you need High Tech base Ports as well, because of Muon Imagers.

Focused stations are the way to go, and even when you want large supplies for T3 ports, outposts will be sufficient for non-refinery commodities. Yes, it will increase the time, but a Type-8 will take care of every type of economy supply in a few runs.

Muon Imagers are also produced by surface ports with Industry economy, so both high-tech and industry will work for that.

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[Kira Goto]

Yes, there's three types in total of surface farms - small and medium agricultural settlements, which fall under T1, and the large agricultural settlement, which falls under T2 and presumably gives a bigger strong agricultural economic influence than the medium/small variants.

It was in the context of orbital slots specifically, not the agricultural surface settlements, that I made that comment. Hence why I was confused.

 

[SteveWW57]

I have just built an industrial outpost on an icy planet and got one of the things that are in short supply.

 

[hutandrei]

Yes, you're right, I meant terraformable there.
(Though as Kira correctly points out too, you can't get T2 Agri orbitals, so the restriction to T1 puts you back to 0.8 anyway. It's still probably inferior to the HMC most of the time)

Thanks both.


F&V has bizarrely wide ranges.

Supply is either about 5t/economic unit or about 160t/economic unit with seemingly little middle ground. If you get lucky and roll high it's basically impossible to kill. If you get unlucky and roll low, then consumption is generally in the 3-13t/economic unit range and you'll need a good fraction to guarantee outweighing that.

In my case, I have a tier 3 starport (Orbis) that has Fruit & veg.
It's over a rocky, no bio or terraforming. The only agri influence is from a single space farm (strong link) + 3 other agri weak links.
There is a ind. settlement on the ground, and another extraction facility in orbit.
All together it looks like this:

Refinery: 1.9
Industrial 1.3
Extraction 0.9
Agri 0.55
Military 0.3
High Tech 0.15

The supply of Fruit and Veg is over 1 million!

 

[Greasetrap42]

Does anybody know?

If you have a planet with two hubs and two tier 1 surface ports:

• Do the hubs give full influence to both surface ports, effectively making two strong link surface ports and influence on orbiting Coriolis super awesome?
• Or do the hubs give 50% of their influence to each surface port, making the two surface ports kinda equal to just one, and the effect on the orbiting Coriolis pretty much the same if we hadn't bothered with the 2nd T1 surface port?

 

[Kzak]

Does anybody know?

If you have a planet with two hubs and two tier 1 surface ports:

• Do the hubs give full influence to both surface ports, effectively making two strong link surface ports and influence on orbiting Coriolis super awesome?
• Or do the hubs give 50% of their influence to each surface port, making the two surface ports kinda equal to just one, and the effect on the orbiting Coriolis pretty much the same?

From the first post in https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/elite-dangerous-trailblazers-update-3-now-live.636973/:

• Two types of link are available: Strong and Weak. A strong link provides a higher economic boost than a weak link
  • Strong links are created between a port and any facility located on or around the same local planetary body. They may also be created between ports if there are multiple of this type on or around the same body
    • In the event multiple ports are present, the highest tier port will be linked to. If both ports are of the same tier, the port which was built first will be selected
    • In the event both a planetary and space-based ports are present, planetary facilities will create strong links with the planetary port, which will pass these strong links on to the orbital port following the same prioritisation rules regarding tier and build order

 

[Kira Goto]

From the first post in https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/elite-dangerous-trailblazers-update-3-now-live.636973/:

The only thing I dislike about that is that it discourages building more than one (colony) planetary port per body. I say colony since industrial and high tech come with their predefined economy ports, providing you wanted the second port to have more than just the planetary economy and/or weak links.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The only thing I dislike about that is that it discourages building more than one (colony) planetary port per body. I say colony since industrial and high tech come with their predefined economy ports, providing you wanted the second port to have more than just the planetary economy and/or weak links.

It can be good if you have a suitable planetary economy - the second one not picking up weak links is often more useful than it picking up strong links could be.

 

[SteveWW57]

Adding a medium industrial settlement to the industrial outpost has increased the muon imagers.

 

[Ro Anne]

From the first post in https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/elite-dangerous-trailblazers-update-3-now-live.636973/:

Thank you for this reminder, I keep thinking that a planetary port (tier 3) would have higher priority over an orbiting Commercial Outpost. But this makes a sort of sense.

So... I have an icy world with pristine reserves and no volcanism. Say I build 4 refinery hubs, 1 civilian planetary outpost, and 1 planetary port... then in orbit 1 Commercial outpost, 1 Coriolis, and 1 Orbis.

The 4 refinery hubs strong-link to the planetary port (and form weak-links to other bodies' primary ports).
The planetary outpost, Commercial Outpost, and Coriolis get 1.40 Industrial as the planetary override and nothing else, period. This could be useful for say a science outpost. They all strong-link to the Orbis.

The planetary port has 1.40 Industrial from the override and then... 4*0.40 refinery? Or 4*0.80 due to the pristine reserves. It strong-links to the Orbis and "passes along" its strong links.

The Orbis starts with 1.40 Industrial from the override. It then gets:
0.80 Industrial from the Planetary Outpost (0.4 from one strong link, boosted by pristine reserves)
0.80 Industrial from the commercial outpost (0.4 from one strong link, boosted by pristine reserves)
0.80 Industrial from the Coriolis (0.4 from one strong link, boosted by pristine reserves)
0.80 Industrial from the Planetary port (0.4 from a strong link, boosted by pristine reserves) plus 3.2 Refinery (4 strong links "passed along", boosted by pristine reserves, for 4*0.4*2)
Total of 4.6 Industrial and 3.2 Refinery

Can someone confirm I have the link mechanics correct? Obviously there are much better options, I would replace the Planetary Outpost with another refinery hub or at least a non-Colony version... this is just an example to catch a lot of interactions at once.

Also I presume that all incoming weak links go to the Orbis. In fact I assume that if the largest port in orbit was an outpost, they would go to that and not a planetary port (even tier 3).

Thank you so much in advance. I feel like I'm close to understanding. Even if mysterious modifiers change the numbers, I need to know these underlying link mechanics.

 

[hutandrei]

Does anybody know?

If you have a planet with two hubs and two tier 1 surface ports:

• Do the hubs give full influence to both surface ports, effectively making two strong link surface ports and influence on orbiting Coriolis super awesome?
• Or do the hubs give 50% of their influence to each surface port, making the two surface ports kinda equal to just one, and the effect on the orbiting Coriolis pretty much the same if we hadn't bothered with the 2nd T1 surface port?

My situation.

One rocky planet.
One refinery hub on the surface
Two outposts in orbit

The first outpost economy:

Refinery 3.45 - before building the 2nd outpost it was 3.05
Military 0.3
Agri 0.2
Extraction 0.15
Industrial 0.15
HighTech 0.15

The second one:

Refinery 1.4

The market on the second one (as you can see it's a pure refinery market, not diluted by other links):

 

[Rip_Steakface]

Industrial and high-tech you can use the intrinsic-economy versions of the stations - the T1 orbital outposts are cheaper but not large pad (though most constructions don't need that many of those goods anyway), or the T1 surface outposts. They don't pick up planetary economies or generate weak links, so they should be safe to stick in the same system as each other. Industrial you could alternatively stick a colony port on/over an ice world.

Water you can get from surface extraction economies, as well as agricultural, so if you can find a landable HMC without volcanism/biological/rings you can stick a surface colony port on that. Could be in the same system as the above two.

Fruit and Veg is going to be the trickiest: the best option is probably:
- find a HMC without volcanism/biological that isn't tidally locked. That means you're only fighting a single Extraction economy for production, and Agri strong links don't get a penalty.
- it also needs to be landable and have a lot of surface slots
- and probably shouldn't be in either your refinery system or your industrial/high-tech/surface extraction "safety" system because this will generate a bunch of weak links and doesn't want any incoming ones either
- T1 colony surface port, then as many Agri settlements as will fit.
...then you need to hope you get lucky. A 2:1 ratio of Agri to everything else should often be enough to get fruit and veg supply, but with bad luck you might need to go to 4:1

Another option which might work - though requires a rarer planet to start with - is if you can find a non-terraformable WW with three orbital slots, put a colony outpost in one of them and two T2 farms in the others. That'll get you 2:1 over the Tourism economy but if that doesn't work you'll have no way to get it higher.

So I thought it through and wonder: Why the Extraction ground port? Shouldn't the Colony turned (mostly) Agri surface port on the HMC produce water as well?

I am considering setting the systems up like this... option 1:
System A: Refinery Coriolis
System B: Industrial orbital outpost; high-tech orbital outpost; HMC as described with Colony surface port and Agri settlements

Would there be any problem with weak links in System B? Do T1 orbital outposts pick up weak links? I guess so, but would that be a problem in this case?

An alternative could be option 2:
System A: Refinery Coriolis
System B: Industrial orbital outpost; high-tech orbital outpost
System C: Any "dedicated economy" outpost as starting station; then HMC as described with Colony surface port and Agri settlements

Would be interested in hearing your thoughts. And feel free to tell me if I am totally wrong with my ideas.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

System B would end up with weak links to the orbital outposts, which probably would take out some of the more generic Ind/HT goods. You could cover that by building two outposts at each planet so that the weak links only attach to one of them.

Or you could go for the option of putting the weak links in a separate system, though then you've potentially got more work to build up development level (and security if desired) in two systems than it would take just to build some bait outposts.

Shouldn't the Colony turned (mostly) Agri surface port on the HMC produce water as well?

It should do - especially since both surface extraction and agriculture produce it!