How do you design and place your spaceports?

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How do you design and place your spaceports?

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How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/6/2013 11:48:08 PM

zenkmander

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This topic has been discussed extensively in the past. I wanted to check in with you guys and see your current strategy regarding spaceports and how it's working out for you.

It looks like some people build at least the standard SSP on every colony, some go for a minimal SSP design simply for med/rec, some use defensive bases for med/rec, etc.

Elliot has recommended one port for every 3-4 colonies, but of course this is highly situational; it might be advisable if those colonies are close together, but what if each one is at least a sector apart?

There's also the issue of resource shortages, and this is my main concern. In your experience, what is the best way to overcome resource shortages, particularly when it comes to spaceport strategy? Do you find that having more spaceports makes it harder for the private sector to prioritize (so they get stretched thin), or does it actually improve the flow of resources and ensure your colonies have good stock?

I've noticed in my current game that colonies without ports take quite a long time to get a stock of resources necessary for constructing/building pretty much anything (even smaller things), and it's not until an actual order is placed that the private sector will slowly adapt and deliver. Is this how it should be? Would it be better to place spaceports on all colonies, or will that strain the supply line even more?

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/7/2013 12:51:48 AM

Tampa_Gamer

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I used to place at least one spaceport in every system until I started playing Shadows and ran into massive resource shortages. After reading Elliot's rationalization as to what the ratio of mines to spaceports should be and the emphasis of what happens if you have too many (e.g. way too few resources since spaceports by design build up huge stockpiles before distributing), I switched to those ratios and rarely encounter any shortages unless I forgot to uncheck the auto upgrade button on mines or something.

< Message edited by Tampa_Gamer -- 12/7/2013 1:52:44 AM >

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/7/2013 4:39:35 AM

Icemania

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During the early game I keep to a single spaceport at my homeworld. I use a custom small spaceport (much smaller than the default design so I can build 2 super speedy explorers prewarp very quickly) and progressively upgrade to large (much larger than the default design, otherwise there is always a huge construction backlog as you expand). Since resources are scarce, and private resource distribution takes time, I build all of my exploration ships (typically building up to 70-80 on large maps) and most of my pirate extermination fleets (typically 5 fleets of about 12-14 ships) at my homeworld. At those early colonies I build starbases. Defence is primarily ships at this stage (or short-term protection agreements) but the bases supplement.

Once into the mid game, resources become abundant, and I'll start to build medium spaceports in the sort of ratio suggested by Elliot i.e. one per 3-4 colonies. Typically they are built at the larger conquered independents. I don't apply one spaceport per system as I tend to focus on territory expansion, so I rarely have more than one colony per system i.e. so it would be almost equivalent to building a spaceport everywhere. Those spaceports help with some limited ship building efforts (both state and private) and retrofitting colony defense ships. Regional capitals will have a Large Spaceport.

Late game I'm in the habit of building spaceports on every colony. I'm not sure if this is the best strategy. However, as resources are massively abundant, and no more large volume ship building is needed, there is really no downside.

< Message edited by Icemania -- 12/7/2013 11:36:20 PM >

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/7/2013 4:09:53 PM

Plant

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Spaceports serve 3 main purposes.
They carry the Medical and Habitation Centre, which increases happiness for greater population growth/tax rate.
They determine the demand for the storage of resources. I am not sure how it works, but small ports store less than larger ports. Or it could just be a side effect of that the Ai and you normally build larger ports on larger and older colonies. The next purpose is related the this purpose. Starports are used to build ships. naturally you would want to build your ships on the starports with the available resources. Hence the recommendation for a single starport in your empire in the early part of the game. All your colonies are likely to be close to your homeworld and so it makes sense for all the resources to be transfered by freighters to be stored there.

I decide to build additional large starports at locations where it would make sense for resources to be gathered. Like near a cluster of colonies which are too far away from the original large starport. Usually I take the distance where it makes sense to build a new large spaceport to be around 2-3 sectors, otherwise I feel freighter take way too long transfering resources around. I especially take care to build large spaceports where the rarer resources where needed for military ships are produced, such as on continental and swampy planets where you might find carbon fibre, chromium and polymer produced all on one colony.

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/8/2013 6:51:21 AM

Icemania

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Plant, in the mid and late game, beyond large spaceports, what approach do you take and why?

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/8/2013 10:35:51 AM

Darkspire

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And the epic battle continues

Every post I read you two are still at loggerheads, can we not just agree to disagree or go on a date or something?

Darkspire

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/8/2013 11:15:13 AM

Icemania

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The question above was my peace pipe. You know, try to show an interest. If anything we more or less agree so far above. The economy discussion isn't going anywhere but going to try elsewhere. And if that fails we can provide some amusement.

< Message edited by Icemania -- 12/8/2013 12:25:44 PM >

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/9/2013 3:13:13 PM

Plant

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Only Darkspire would try to turn an innocuous question into one with hostile intent...

Mid and late game, I would start building small spaceport on every colony as a general thing to do, though I prefer the more mobile military ships as a way of defence. Even if resources get abundant later in the game, I still prefer to gather and build in a centralised fashion. I basically ignore medium spaceports as a design altogether. To be honest, I don't give much attention to the design and placement of small ports. Mostly I design and build large spaceports as a place to gather resources and build ships where efficient.

How and why do you decide where to build your small, medium and large spaceports?

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/9/2013 3:40:06 PM

Darkspire

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quote:

Only Darkspire would try to turn an innocuous question into one with hostile intent...

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/9/2013 4:36:32 PM

zenkmander

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Plant

Mid and late game, I would start building small spaceport on every colony as a general thing to do, though I prefer the more mobile military ships as a way of defence. Even if resources get abundant later in the game, I still prefer to gather and build in a centralised fashion. I basically ignore medium spaceports as a design altogether. To be honest, I don't give much attention to the design and placement of small ports. Mostly I design and build large spaceports as a place to gather resources and build ships where efficient.

How and why do you decide where to build your small, medium and large spaceports?

Early game, I will only build small spaceports at a couple strategic locations in the empire; so colonies that have decent resources, decent population, and a good military position.

As the game progresses, I will retrofit those strategic small ports into medium ports (all manually designed of course) so they act as a centralized hub for the surrounding colonies in that area of space. Then I'll begin building small ports at the next most important colonies. This includes colonies with maxed population and/or great resources.

Late game, I retrofit those medium ports to large, and make sure a small port is built at most colonies, excluding those which have no strategic value, no decent resources, or are still in the very early stages of development (less than 500M pop). Any colonies that are between 100M and 500M pop get a minimalist defensive base with medical and recreation facilities.

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/9/2013 11:49:33 PM

Icemania

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Plant
How and why do you decide where to build your small, medium and large spaceports?

To extrapolate a little on my previous post:

Early game

I keep to a single spaceport at my homeworld. I start with a custom small spaceport (much smaller than the default design so I can build 2 super speedy explorers prewarp very quickly) and progressively upgrade to large (much larger than the default design, otherwise there is always a huge construction backlog as you expand). Since resources are scarce, and private resource distribution takes time, I build all of my exploration ships (typically building up to 70-80 on large maps) and most of my pirate extermination fleets (typically 5 fleets of about 12-14 ships) at my homeworld. At those early colonies I build starbases. Defence is primarily ships at this stage (or short-term protection agreements) but the bases supplement.

Mid game

At this point it's a hybrid, most colonies have a starbase, with spaceports in the ratio suggested by Elliot i.e. one per 3-4 colonies. While resources are abundant, they are not so abundant that a spaceport at every colony is feasible without potentially creating resources shortages. I still build small spaceports so medical/recreation benefits flow as quickly as possible then upgrade to Medium. The Medium is also a bit smaller than the default i.e. Small is designed to get up ASAP, Medium is my custom design for colonies en masse. I don't apply one spaceport per system as I tend to focus on territory expansion, so I rarely have more than one colony per system i.e. so it would be almost equivalent to building a spaceport everywhere. Those spaceports help with some limited ship building efforts (both state and private) and retrofitting colony defense ships. Regional capitals and the larger conquered independents will have a Large Spaceport.

Late game

I'm in the habit of building spaceports on every colony. I'm not sure if this is the best strategy. However, as resources are massively abundant, and no more large volume ship building is needed, there is really no downside.

< Message edited by Icemania -- 12/10/2013 12:50:42 AM >

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/9/2013 11:54:19 PM

Icemania

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quote:

ORIGINAL: zenkmander
Early game, I will only build small spaceports at a couple strategic locations in the empire; so colonies that have decent resources, decent population, and a good military position.

What about your homeworld? A large spaceport early is handy to build those fleets (both military, exploration and private). I used to build small spaceports early game as well but started to look more closely at freighter movements and found a large quantity of resources was moved away from where it was needed most i.e. homeworld.

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/9/2013 11:59:46 PM

Icemania

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quote:

ORIGINAL: zenkmander
As the game progresses, I will retrofit those strategic small ports into medium ports (all manually designed of course) so they act as a centralized hub for the surrounding colonies in that area of space. Then I'll begin building small ports at the next most important colonies. This includes colonies with maxed population and/or great resources.

As a somewhat reformed spaceport spammer myself, mid-game spaceports everywhere can cause resourcing problems. That said late game I still spam but at that point I can't see much of a downside.

< Message edited by Icemania -- 12/10/2013 1:00:44 AM >

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/10/2013 12:05:33 AM

zenkmander

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Yes I build a large port at homeworld, and make it bigger and bigger as the game progresses.

Edit: The frustrating thing about it is that it's hard to tell whether spaceports help or hinder supply lines once you have a lot of colonies. Colonies without ports seem to be of lower priority for freighters, but having more ports doesn't result in a clear-cut improvement to resource shortages.

Hopefully the new patch will help with this.

< Message edited by zenkmander -- 12/10/2013 1:08:15 AM >

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/10/2013 12:32:24 AM

Icemania

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How many construction yards do you place on your early game large spaceport? I use double the default (i.e. 24) as otherwise I can never keep up with ship building even with Bakuras and even that I'm starting to think is not enough.

Agree on your supply lines comment. As soon as you have a spaceport, the resources will flow ... and early game in particular they are flowing away from where you want them ... so I would say it's a hindrance. I'm not sure what the right strategy is late game and would be great for someone to invest some time in tracking the detail. In this case it doesn't hinder, so even if the benefits are minor ...

< Message edited by Icemania -- 12/10/2013 1:44:37 AM >

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/10/2013 4:06:46 AM

zenkmander

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I use the default amount of yards in early game and I haven't had many issues with ship building, but then again I tend to design bigger so I don't need to make as many.

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/10/2013 5:38:25 AM

Icemania

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I also build to max size (well all state ships anyway). The problem I have is that most of my ship building is early to mid game, with a combination of a lot of exploration ships, get pirate extermination ships going as soon as I can afford them, plus being a megalomaniac with expansion (so lots of private construction).

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RE: How do you design and place your spaceports? - 12/10/2013 2:58:12 PM

Plant

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It depends on the game. For me, sometimes double is not enough. Generally speaking, I don't mind having a small queue of private ships as I can simply move my state ships up the queue. On the other hand construction yards cost very little in maintenance, if you got big queues of private ships, it is best to add more.

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