General (Colonisation) Add the ability to exchange Tier 3 construction points for Tier 2 points?

[KKomrade Sylas]

Basically as the title says. T3 ports take such an insane ammount of commodities I'm just never going to do it solo. T2 stations though? I'm down. I could build 4 Asteroid Bases or Coriolis stations with the same ammount of commodities it would take me to build a single Orbis. I understand these T3 constructions are meant to be a group effort and that's fine.

Because I'm building T2 facilities around the system, such as hubs, oddysey settlements, space installations and stations, I'm going to end up with a lot of T3 points that I'm just not gonna use, while I'm gonna be short on T2 points to build what I actually want to build, like large settlements or T2 space installations to not have -30 security or -90 standard of living. Say, the 4 asteroid belt spots which, at the moment, only allow you to build Asteroid Bases in them, seems like a good long term project for a fully 100% Extraction economy system. If I'm mathing correctly, that's gonna leave me needing 18 T2 points for all those asteroid bases. And I'm gonna have a ton of T3 points left over that will never be used for anything.

I think there should be a simple menu to 'trade' Tier 3 points into Tier 2 points. Could be 2 for 1, could just be 1 for 1, only trading down (So you can't trade UP your T2 points to get T3 points)

The specific numbers and mechanics of such a thing would be down to the devs deciding what works best, but the general gist of the idea is: Let me do something with T3 points other than putting down an Orbis that's gonna take me a month to build.

 

[aRJay]

I haven’t got to that stage in my colonisation yet but an ability to trade down at a one to one rate sounds reasonable.

 

[Kira Goto]

For systems where I may plan to build a number of T2 structures but not T3 (either because it’s not a worthy enough location to or just not looking to commit that sort of long-term effort to a system), I would very much welcome it. Lets me use those T3 points for something instead of just sitting there unused.

The only possible downside (should it even be a concern) is if people use the mechanism to get more T2 Odyssey settlements for 2 T3 build points. Probably wouldn’t be a massive problem if one at all, though. If it was, I’d still take a 2>1 conversion rate for the build points as you generally need less of the T2 points than T3.