Adjust asteroid base build costs to be a budget/entry T2 option (in line with landing pad count)

[EmpyreanChaos]

Now that the build costs of colonization structures are available, I find it hard to justify building an asteroid base over other T2 orbital options as you pay basically the same build cost (or slightly more depending on material availability) for a structure that has location restrictions (must be built in a belt or ring) and only 2/3 the L pad count, and less than half of the S and M pad count.

Lore/theory-wise I would expect the asteroid base to have a significantly reduced cost in structural materials (Steel, Titanium, etc.) as you are using the asteroid for structural integrity instead of building from scratch. Maybe offset this with an increased demand for mining equipment or equivalent.

Currently I feel like there is a steep "cool" tax for asteroid bases that is not in line with the actual utility of the structures compared to the other T2 orbitals. I'd suggest an overall material cost reduction to roughly 2/3 of the other T2 orbitals, which would match the reduction in L pad count.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Asteroid bases do have a bunch of advantages over the Coriolis T2 options, though.
- you get a starting production economy (Extraction) which you could combine with a Refinery Contact to locally produce requirements for your next station, and also gives you a slightly wider range of import trade options than a Colony would.
- it has much stronger boosts to most of your system properties

Station​	Security​	Tech Level​	Development Level​	Standard of Living​	Wealth​
Coriolis​	-2​	1​	2​	3​	2​
Asteroid Base​	-1​	3​	7​	-4​	5​

With the Asteroid Base, you get a lower Security loss, three times the Tech Level boost, and massive Development Level and Wealth boosts which are almost as good as an Orbis at a quarter of the commodities.

(You also trash your Standard of Living by making your population live in a giant rock, but a cheap Commercial Outpost can counteract that, and Asteroid Base + Commercial Outpost is still way cheaper than an Orbis)


Now, admittedly, we don't yet know what these various properties do, but they might be important later.

 

[Kissamies]

Lorewise, it would be interesting if the materials required would be more different. Sure, some materials would be still needed to build the trusses and structural reinforcements, but the other materials might represent the work needed to excavate a cavity in the asteroid. More power generators, explosives, that sort of stuff.

 

[aRJay]

Now that the build costs of colonization structures are available, I find it hard to justify building an asteroid base over other T2 orbital options as you pay basically the same build cost (or slightly more depending on material availability) for a structure that has location restrictions (must be built in a belt or ring) and only 2/3 the L pad count, and less than half of the S and M pad count.

Lore/theory-wise I would expect the asteroid base to have a significantly reduced cost in structural materials (Steel, Titanium, etc.) as you are using the asteroid for structural integrity instead of building from scratch. Maybe offset this with an increased demand for mining equipment or equivalent.

I suspect you are greatly over estimating the structural integrity of an asteroid with the possible exception of metallic ones they are likely to have the structure of a ball of stones held together by damp sand.

Currently I feel like there is a steep "cool" tax for asteroid bases that is not in line with the actual utility of the structures compared to the other T2 orbitals. I'd suggest an overall material cost reduction to roughly 2/3 of the other T2 orbitals, which would match the reduction in L pad count.

 

[o2thaZ]

I suspect you are greatly over estimating the structural integrity of an asteroid with the possible exception of metallic ones they are likely to have the structure of a ball of stones held together by damp sand.

Oh man, none of this stuff is realistic or real anyway.
Let's just have fun instead.

 

[varonica]

Oh man, none of this stuff is realistic or real anyway.
Let's just have fun instead.

FDEV are trying to keep it as realistic as possible while making it fun, they surely could go full fantasy but chances are they would lose a lot of players.

Now as for Asteroid bases, for most small asteroids the size of stations they aren't suitable as structural parts as already stated, however that's not to say they aren't a good idea, the purpose of building your base inside an asteroid is to protect against stuff like small rocks, radiation both solar and cosmic and to help regulate temperature, I don't disagree with if it's not a full sized base make it cheaper, agreed entirely, but most asteroid bases have the full set of services while the smaller outposts miss out on stuff like Vista Genomics and Shipyards, so if your asteroid base has full services it should be the same cost.

 

[o2thaZ]

FDEV are trying to keep it as realistic as possible while making it fun, they surely could go full fantasy but chances are they would lose a lot of players.

Now as for Asteroid bases, for most small asteroids the size of stations they aren't suitable as structural parts as already stated, however that's not to say they aren't a good idea, the purpose of building your base inside an asteroid is to protect against stuff like small rocks, radiation both solar and cosmic and to help regulate temperature, I don't disagree with if it's not a full sized base make it cheaper, agreed entirely, but most asteroid bases have the full set of services while the smaller outposts miss out on stuff like Vista Genomics and Shipyards, so if your asteroid base has full services it should be the same cost.

If I look at a starport, it has living spaces, habitat rings, storage, solar panels and even an engine.
All these things are more abundant on a big starports, since these things don't exist on asteroid bases it doesn't make sense the building cost are the same. (realisticly)
You can't base building cost simply on the amount of pads and services offered, that would be unrealistic?!

And personally I don't believe all these things we have in the game are realistically possible anyway.

 

[varonica]

If I look at a starport, it has living spaces, habitat rings, storage, solar panels and even an engine.

No they don't all have those, some starports don't have habitat rings and most starports don't have engines, it's rare for a starport to have engines. And are you actually claiming that Asteroid bases don't have living spaces and storage, really? You know the point of building an asteroid base is to build inside the asteroid, living spaces storage etc. I would think, if they are building inside an Asteroid then the habitation and storage would also be inside the Asteroid. Asteroid bases are classed as full Starports, and just as there are many different models for non-Asteroid based Starports, there are different models for Asteroid Starports.

An Asteroid Base is classed as a full Starport in the game, it's just a different model for a Starport, what you are asking FDEV to do is create a new category of sub-Starports and do all the code work to separate them out from regular Starports, and if that's the case why shouldn't Starports that don't have habitation rings cost less to build, lets make a new category for them as well, and the ones with engines, lets make them cost more. I mean it's only dev time and code and we aren't paying for it.

 

[CMDR Protomaniac]

Asteroid bases do have a bunch of advantages over the Coriolis T2 options, though.
- you get a starting production economy (Extraction) which you could combine with a Refinery Contact to locally produce requirements for your next station, and also gives you a slightly wider range of import trade options than a Colony would.
- it has much stronger boosts to most of your system properties

Station​	Security​	Tech Level​	Development Level​	Standard of Living​	Wealth​
Coriolis​	-2​	1​	2​	3​	2​
Asteroid Base​	-1​	3​	7​	-4​	5​

With the Asteroid Base, you get a lower Security loss, three times the Tech Level boost, and massive Development Level and Wealth boosts which are almost as good as an Orbis at a quarter of the commodities.

(You also trash your Standard of Living by making your population live in a giant rock, but a cheap Commercial Outpost can counteract that, and Asteroid Base + Commercial Outpost is still way cheaper than an Orbis)


Now, admittedly, we don't yet know what these various properties do, but they might be important later.

And here I am picking asteroid base just because I thought it was cool.