Building space stations
Organizations, including the one controlled by the player, can build space stations anywhere in the galaxy.
The most valued locations to build a production space station are the one in close orbit to the star, as the latter provides essential solar energy. Another significant factor is the relative security of a stellar system, which comes from the police patrols of the controlling organization. Proximity to a large trade hub is often a good condition too.
One must first survey a location and deploy a beacon, the latter will be used for various interactions. In this case, I use it to create a building site.
Deploying a beacon
The builder then must pay upfront a sum to the controlling organization and a monthly fee. Not doing so is considered to be hostile toward the faction. The price is essentially dependant on the proximity to the star.
No fee, but the controlling faction will turn hostile
It might be more profitable to build on the outskirt of a stellar system or in an unclaimed system, however, a feature under development will expand pirate's behaviors, and specifically extorsion, making security a significant factor.
Building a space station is a significant endeavor, and requires a large supply of building materials. A construction site work as a temporary trade node, and traders will supply the station with the necessary goods over time.
An overview of the system
Colonisation
Colonisation was already introduced before as it was already implemented in the "abstract" galactic history generator. Until now, organizations were not expanding after this generation.
A colony ship traveling to a barren planet
If the budget allows it, and if the organisation has the "new worlds" policy enabled, new colonisation projects will emerge. It essentially works like building space station , since colony ships are huge "XXL" sized ships. Therefore a construction site is created around the capital and the ship is slowly built but also supplied with food, water and building materials.
The player gets a mail about any colonisation project, as it represents a profitable opportunity.
Once finished, the ship will pick up settlers at a chosen city and travel to the designated planet to establish a new city.
A new colony on a martian planet
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This isn't yet the big devlog about cities, but it is coming along. A lot of work is also done on polishing the UI, imroving the AI and patching bugs