When you realize that all of you buildings are wrong

[Virtualaughing]

How many years now? So... Building defense modules at the edges for better coverage is wrong. If some of your modules are damaged or destroyed it is not a big problem.

[LameFox]

That is not necessarily true. Destroyed modules can mean missing cargo, crew, or even docked ships and their personnel (if any).

Although what it has to do with where you place defense modules I have no idea?

[Virtualaughing]

That is not necessarily true. Destroyed modules can mean missing cargo, crew, or even docked ships and their personnel (if any).

Although what it has to do with where you place defense modules I have no idea?

I like to build stylized districts for workforce. Even if not making sense to have dock modules there I like to build some anyway. Then some defense. Before observatory decks they were good for that too...
As an amateur I have made some production modules with weapons. Huge mistake. I don't like to use the default templates since Sol expansion.

I like to imagine my workers going for vacation in luxury ships so they need to have a dock close by. I could imagine if you organize some days off when they return, their productivity increase. THAT type of micro-management would make sense.

Never forget to use 2 type of workforce. Build some food for both of them locally.

[RainerPrem]

Never forget to use 2 type of workforce. Build some food for both of them locally.

Why that???

[Buzz2005]

every different race hub module adds to the growth rate

[BitByte]

Never forget to use 2 type of workforce. Build some food for both of them locally.

Why that???

It doubles workforce generation and helps especially huge stations getting full production speed more faster than what you get if use only 1 type of workforce.

But I still don't get the point building defences to outside is wrong. If you have outline 1 round of defence modules and use longer range turrets they definately launch attack sooner than inner defence modules.
On the other hand if you have 3 layers of defence modules and they have different turret configs (1 layer of longer range/slow&high damage, 1 layer of mixed short&long and 1 layer of shorter range/faster/accurate against fighters) it operates like onion and can take the more hits. If modules get damage then your station repair drones will fix them and bigger damages are fixed using construction vessels.

[Blaze1st]

In my experience the most effective way to build defense modules is both vertically and horizontally to minimise the enemy ability to snipe them one at a time (a common weakness of the AI designs).

For a basic defense the tried and tested method is the cross, typically I put 5x5 in a + pattern which will deal with most things.

My biggest defense station on a Xenon gate to deal with swarm spam is actually flipped entirely on it's side so it makes a big wall across the gate exit and is so large that if anything tries to manoeuvre around it they will be shot to pieces before they even clear an edge.

As for pop growth, I just stick a casino and a gamblers den (and maybe the BOR terraforming reward one if you have it, I just started that project) and never had much problem growing pops even when building all the habitats last. Juggling more than one pop type just seems an unnecessary faff to me.

If you plan the station ahead and build the habitats early, likelihood is that by the time the rest of the station is built you'll already be close to peak efficiency. Else if you do it last might take a few hours but that's no biggie it'll get there before you know it if you are busy doing other things.

For context my largest workforces are around 20k and those stations take an absolute age to build anyway so pops are not what I tend to be waiting around for on them.

[adeine]

Defence modules don't really do much anymore except against Xenon.

[Blaze1st]

Defence modules don't really do much anymore except against Xenon.

I dunno about that I use mine to snipe ARG Behemoths crossing to ZYA territory (the 5x5 cross)... they pop almost instantly and also happily deal with any S/M ships that turn hostile. They all use plasma and flak.

The biggest problem with station defense (not just the modules) that I see is they won't use their defense drones OoS. I'm constantly having to teleport to sectors to save stations from being destroyed by a single S/M because AI doesn't react until I am in sector.

[GCU Grey Area]

Defence modules don't really do much anymore except against Xenon.

They work fine against other factions in my game. Used these defence platforms to keep ARG & BOR out of Heretic's End. Armed predominantly with a mix of L beam & L plasma they slaughtered numerous fleets, nothing got through to attack my HQ.

[Virtualaughing]

But I still don't get the point building defences to outside is wrong. If you have outline 1 round of defence modules and use longer range turrets they definately launch attack sooner than inner defence modules.
On the other hand if you have 3 layers of defence modules and they have different turret configs (1 layer of longer range/slow&high damage, 1 layer of mixed short&long and 1 layer of shorter range/faster/accurate against fighters) it operates like onion and can take the more hits. If modules get damage then your station repair drones will fix them and bigger damages are fixed using construction vessels.

When you actually watch your ships shooting factories you will see that they don't follow logic as i would. Look at any castle. They have slits where they can cover the enemy but the enemy can't hit back their defenses. Only the walls surrounding them. If you put platforms outside of your structure, then they become easy target.

[adeine]

Defence modules don't really do much anymore except against Xenon.

They work fine against other factions in my game. Used these defence platforms to keep ARG & BOR out of Heretic's End. Armed predominantly with a mix of L beam & L plasma they slaughtered numerous fleets, nothing got through to attack my HQ.

Yes, gate defence continues to work because it forces ships to pass through (though sometimes they teleport past).

For anything else, in most cases they do very little as they're outranged by primary weapons and ships don't suicide into range as much as they did in the past.

[Virtualaughing]

If you plan the station ahead and build the habitats early, likelihood is that by the time the rest of the station is built you'll already be close to peak efficiency. Else if you do it last might take a few hours but that's no biggie it'll get there before you know it if you are busy doing other things.

For context my largest workforces are around 20k and those stations take an absolute age to build anyway so pops are not what I tend to be waiting around for on them.

My best recent discovery is after you finish with a plan. Save it, then you can remove parts if you mess the order up and then, reload the plan later on. My HQ has 900 production modules. In a new save I just load the plan and then play around with this removing and re adding thingy. My builds mostly about to use the Copy Sequence function. This functionality can undo of any amateur architecture you might created and adjusted, re built in later games.

With the ever changing of the HQ the solid/gas storage added way too late. It wasn't about good amount of habitation. Since the ice problem is no more I have re added water production too. Also a good advice is that we can redo things, save as a plan without actually Confirm module changes.

A "select all" radio button type would be nice when we poke into the shipmenu dealing with individual goods. Medical and food supply of any stations via traders still can be problematic.

[BitByte]

When you actually watch your ships shooting factories you will see that they don't follow logic as i would. Look at any castle. They have slits where they can cover the enemy but the enemy can't hit back their defenses. Only the walls surrounding them. If you put platforms outside of your structure, then they become easy target.

That's why I talk about layers. And like @Blaze1st said use both horizontal and vertical building method. This reduces amount of blind spots.
If we talk about pure defence platforms (for example near gates) I have many years used H-style edge defence (sides go vertical).

To normal stations I use defence modules to replace crosses in some parts of station design (usually more near the edges). Also my normal stations are built to vertical so there also comes additional layers where place defence modules even if they would be on edges.

[GCU Grey Area]

When you actually watch your ships shooting factories you will see that they don't follow logic as i would. Look at any castle. They have slits where they can cover the enemy but the enemy can't hit back their defenses. Only the walls surrounding them.

A few years ago I experimented with stations designed that way, using cheap structural elements essentially as ablative armour to absorb damage that would otherwise hit more important modules (e.g. habitation, production, admin, etc). In one of my Split games I used Argon habitation modules this way (human shields to protect their Split overlords). Worked to an extent, certainly made it much harder for critical modules to be destroyed. However this approach was much less useful for preventing damage to defence modules. It significantly reduced firing arcs for turrets making them less effective. Turrets that can track their enemies across a wide arc perform much better than those which only have a narrow slit to shoot through. Since then have gone back to ensuring my defence modules always have clear firing arcs, even if that does make them more vulnerable.

[Blaze1st]

Firing arcs are important in high attention but irrelevant in OoS. Not too sure about medium attention but OoS there is no collision so if it's not a location you are planning to ever watch in real-time then you don't need to consider firing arcs really.

I still do of course because I also just want things to look like they are planned well.

[GCU Grey Area]

Firing arcs are important in high attention but irrelevant in OoS. Not too sure about medium attention but OoS there is no collision so if it's not a location you are planning to ever watch in real-time then you don't need to consider firing arcs really.

I still do of course because I also just want things to look like they are planned well.

I always build with the expectation that I may well be there if there's a battle near one of my stations. When I see one occurring I find it irresistible to teleport aboard one of my ships, so I can enjoy the spectacle from right in the middle of it &, whenever it's practical, take part personally. Although that does depend on how big the station is (I also enjoy building monstrously huge stations that stretch my graphics card to it's limits).

[Blaze1st]

@GCU Grey Area

I'm almost exactly the same in all those respects except that I try to tweak things to not have to teleport and watch unless as you say it is a big ol' fireworks display that I just want to enjoy. Otherwise doing so kind of feels like forced supervision most of the time to avoid silly things happening (like not using defense drones or getting any lucky hits OoS).

[GCU Grey Area]

I'm almost exactly the same in all those respects except that I try to tweak things to not have to teleport and watch unless as you say it is a big ol' fireworks display that I just want to enjoy. Otherwise doing so kind of feels like forced supervision most of the time to avoid silly things happening (like not using defense drones or getting any lucky hits OoS).

As I understand it, although drones aren't shown on the map while OOS they are included in the damage calculation. A station with defence drones will do more damage to attackers than one without.

[LameFox]

I tested that in a custom start once. While the drones do deal damage in low attention, it's extremely low. If it feels like they're not working it's likely because they are close to meaningless relative to turrets.