orbital installations what is their significance?

[S0rkvild]

Apart from tilting the sliders one way or the other, what is their real purpose?What is the difference between a satellite and a relay station? Communications station? Farm? Pirate base? Mining outpost? Military? Security outpost? Medicine? Research outpost? Tourist? Bar?
Can someone explain this and break it down into its components? Why and for what purpose would someone build this into the system? Thank you.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Installations do one or more of four different things in terms of overall system construction

1. Most of them provide economic influence, which is in many cases the only orbital-type asset you can use to boost a station with a strong link, or generate weak links
2. They all provide some sort of system variable change (what Security does is more obvious than what Wealth does here)
3. Some of them are pre-requisites for construction of other types of asset
4. Some of them enable services at certain stations

...as well as also providing the installation POI in-game which can generate combat scenarios, be raided for cargo or engineering data, etc. and giving you either a T2 or T3 point as appropriate to their own tier.

So for example for your first two:

• The Satellite station provides 1 chevron of wealth, 2 of standard of living, and 1 of development level. It allows building of surface Tourism settlements. It doesn't provide any economic influence. It enables Universal Cartographics and Vista Genomics at stations on/around the same body.
• The Relay station provides 1 chevron of security and 1 of development level. It allows building of Security installations. It provides a High-Tech economic influence (as a Tier 1 structure, at strength 0.4 before modifiers). It enables Universal Cartographics and Vista Genomics at stations on/around the same body, and also enables the commodity market service at certain orbital outpost types around the same body.

There are various third-party tools out there which summarise the properties of all the various installation types in a convenient place (though since Frontier have only just documented the service-enabling effects of them, they might not be updated for that - you can read the patch notes for those in the meantime)

 

[Raivin]

Also, they're pretty cheap for construction points for your Tier 2 builds

 

[S0rkvild]

Installations do one or more of four different things in terms of overall system construction

1. Most of them provide economic influence, which is in many cases the only orbital-type asset you can use to boost a station with a strong link, or generate weak links
2. They all provide some sort of system variable change (what Security does is more obvious than what Wealth does here)
3. Some of them are pre-requisites for construction of other types of asset
4. Some of them enable services at certain stations

...as well as also providing the installation POI in-game which can generate combat scenarios, be raided for cargo or engineering data, etc. and giving you either a T2 or T3 point as appropriate to their own tier.

So for example for your first two:

• The Satellite station provides 1 chevron of wealth, 2 of standard of living, and 1 of development level. It allows building of surface Tourism settlements. It doesn't provide any economic influence. It enables Universal Cartographics and Vista Genomics at stations on/around the same body.
• The Relay station provides 1 chevron of security and 1 of development level. It allows building of Security installations. It provides a High-Tech economic influence (as a Tier 1 structure, at strength 0.4 before modifiers). It enables Universal Cartographics and Vista Genomics at stations on/around the same body, and also enables the commodity market service at certain orbital outpost types around the same body.

There are various third-party tools out there which summarise the properties of all the various installation types in a convenient place (though since Frontier have only just documented the service-enabling effects of them, they might not be updated for that - you can read the patch notes for those in the meantime)

I read earlier that orbital installations are system-wide so they affect all stations? Is this still a valid thing?

I'm also curious of other installations such as agri or mining? Does that mean if my outpost is orbiting a non-landable body adding such installation should enable certain wares like foods or mined resources?

What does Govt installation do?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I read earlier that orbital installations are system-wide so they affect all stations? Is this still a valid thing?

Mostly, yes.

The effects on system variables are system wide
The pre-requisite enabling for other constructions is system wide
The effects on station services may be system-wide or may be localised to the body they orbit (more often system-wide)
The economic influence is local to the body as a strong link, and system-wide as a weak link (see below for more on what that means)

I'm also curious of other installations such as agri or mining? Does that mean if my outpost is orbiting a non-landable body adding such installation should enable certain wares like foods or mined resources?

Or indeed if it's orbiting a landable body. If an installation has an economic influence listed, it will create a strong economic link to a station orbiting that body, which will add an amount of economy of that type (between 0.1 and 1.2 strength, depending on the installation and the context of the system and body it orbits) to the station. It will also create weak links to stations orbiting other bodies (these are always strength 0.05) which will affect their markets too - though not as much.

This isn't as simple as "adds foods" - it makes the economy more agricultural (say), which increases the likelihood that agricultural exports such as food, drugs, fabrics, etc. are exported, and increases the likelihood that agricultural imports such as many forms of machinery, manufactured product, technology, etc. are imported. So if your station was previously an industrial station, you might find that it stops exporting Crop Harvesters and starts importing them (if not, the amount of Crop Harvesters it exports will almost certainly still fall somewhat relative to the other things it exports)

The exact outcome of this is very difficult to predict with certainty, so if you're in any way picky about what your stations import or export it's best to try to keep them to a single economy type as far as possible until you have a much better understanding of how Elite Dangerous constructs station economies.

What does Govt installation do?

Provides a moderately cheap way to improve system security, standard of living and development level without altering the economic balance of the system in any direction. That "without altering" bit is potentially very useful if you have your station economies set up how you want them, and just want to make the system more secure and productive overall.