Spaceport Question

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dereck
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Spaceport Question

Post by dereck »

Is it necessary to put a spaceport in each colonized planet within a system or will one station work for all colonized planets?

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RemoteLeg
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RE: Spaceport Question

Post by RemoteLeg »

It's not necessary to build one at each colony, no.
The primary job of a spaceport IMO is to build & repair ships, so you want to build one wherever this is likely to happen.
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btd64
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RE: Spaceport Question

Post by btd64 »

I build 1 in every 4th system depending on the systems strategic location....GP
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SirHoraceHarkness
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RE: Spaceport Question

Post by SirHoraceHarkness »

My strat is to set a colony to build a ssp-1 automatically as it takes very little materials to build and has very low maint costs but has an economic bonus to the planet so its impact on planet growth is reduced further. After the planet is established and generating a decent income I can upgrade it to a current small port and gain all the bonuses. It also gives you access to the basically limitless cargo capacity of the world so even the smallest spaceport can store just as much as a large and it helps to have many low cost ports when you want to quickly build up a fleet so you pause and queue them up in each port and enjoy the massive parallel construction.
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Damiac
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RE: Spaceport Question

Post by Damiac »

There's a slight issue with that though, the more spaceports you have the more your freighters will want to move stockpiles of resources around to keep a good reserve at each planet. It supposedly leads to a lot of resource shortages, although that might not be as bad as it was in previous versions. I also find small space ports tend to get clogged up more, so I prefer to have a relatively small number of medium or large ports, and defense bases with medical and recreation facilities on all my other colonies.

The biggest issue I have with lots of spaceports is that your fleets don't automatically distribute themselves across them for refueling and retrofitting. So if you have 3 or 4 big fleets fighting on one side of your empire, they might all go to a tiny spaceport on a fresh colony to repair and refuel, taking a hell of a lot longer than it would have at a medium port on a well developed planet.

Do you find your fleets loitering around a lot, or do you have many resource shortage issues (When you have a decent source of that material)?
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SirHoraceHarkness
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RE: Spaceport Question

Post by SirHoraceHarkness »

Colonization is something I have on full manual and have a one planet at a time approach to expanding the empire to control the sometimes dodgy ai behavior when you expand too quickly. I find a smaller amount of highly developed worlds fare better than a rash of colonies splitting up your private sector hauling capacity and opening more planets to pirate raids or outright takeovers by an opportunistic ai empire as you are busy somewhere else. Now late game once I get the colony tech expanded so I can settle other world types with my empires races I will spam colonize as the economy by that time can absorb several worlds all building spaceports and defence bases with the resultant system defence fleets to keep colony filchers at bay until enough troops can be generated and fortresses and shields can be built. So with each new colony auto building an ssp-1 I get an instant boost to building and docking bays so needed materials can be transferred faster so the infrastructure can build quicker. As to keeping fuel and other key materials at hand across the empire I will build mines on everything in range for those specific items and be more sparing on the less critical materials and gases to keep maint costs down. Each world also gets six defence bases and they also store fuel so eventually the reserves are built up enough to keep a wartime fleet topped off and the private sector humming along.
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Twigster
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RE: Spaceport Question

Post by Twigster »

I put (eventually) a LSP at my home world, additional colonies in the same system get my custom-designed Planetary Defense Base (the main feature of which is Medical and Recreational facilities to improve the Morale of the colony); other systems get a SSP per system if any significant distance from the nearest older colony. Colonies much farther afield will sparingly get LSP- this really depends on colony distribution.

Important Note- I play with ZERO automation, so that will make a difference in decision-making.
Damiac
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RE: Spaceport Question

Post by Damiac »

I play without automation as well, at least for most of the game. Toward the end I sometimes automate my explorers and constructors.

Maybe overbuilding space ports isn't as big a deal as it used to be. I'll have to try out building one at each colony in my next game and see if I have the problems other people have described. I know the main dev himself said that you should only build one space port every 4 colonies or so, but that was a long time ago. Things may have changed since then.
Twigster
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RE: Spaceport Question

Post by Twigster »

Hmm... I also play in huge galaxies. It usually ends up I place one SSP in each system, not each colony. I really don't know if things have changed vis a vis one space port/colony- that seems wasteful to me. Bottom line for me: the AI in certain mods gets absolutely vicious late game in huge galaxies at higher difficulty settings. Late game, even my SSPs get pretty hefty as far as damage potential and defense goes, and I find that really helpful in megawars.
Damiac
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RE: Spaceport Question

Post by Damiac »

Sorry, that's what I meant, one per system, not colony. Well, it's good to know that you're having success with it, I've been avoiding it due to reading about all the issues people were having, but it sounds like they might be fixed now anyway.
Twigster
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RE: Spaceport Question

Post by Twigster »

Sure... handled properly, a large empire in late game will (should?) have an economy that can support all else and a liberal amount of heavy SSPs.
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