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[Yunru]

I would like to point out you can both enable growth restrictions, and apply them to vanilla stations.

[Chikanuk]

Agree with Mondaymonkey about gameplay perspective.
Now about O'Neill cylinders and stuff in general and why im sure it must have high habitability (sorry for poor eng. btw):
Its because space, "want" to kill you. Rare planet have same lvl of danger as open space.
If you want to construct stating where hundreds of thousands (or even more) ppl live on regular basis, you need to have safety mechanism of safety mechanism of safety mechanism to every system. Ask any real engineer, and he will tell you — EVERYTHING what can be broken will be, most of the time in most inappropriate moment.
And in space every time it will cause huge problems, at best. At worst, it will kill everyone on the station.
1. You waste processing facility is broken and need 2 weeks to repair? Too bad, imagine being lock inside your room with toilet removed.
2. Water recycling broken? Hope engineers will fix it before water reserves run out, which btw can be huge, like on planet.
3. Power shortage? At best, it will cause huge panic. Inside dark station corridors. With delicate machinery... Yeah.
4. But this is only "minor" issues.
5. Shielding is broken? Well, anyone, who didn't by those lead underwear what was on sale last month will regret this.
6. Air recycle system broke? You will have few hours before everyone dies.
7. Reactor gone full Chernobyl? Everyone will be dead.
8. Asteroids and asteroid clouds. Solar flares... Etc. etc.
And dont forget about psycology. This is why submarine crew consist on trained and selected marines, not just random dudes with wifes and childrens.
On planet, atmosphere, gravity, surface and magnetic field — they all your friends, who will protect you for free. Even on bare rock you can simply bury you stating inside in and have decent protection. And you will have much more extra space for storage. On empty space it's up to you.
This is why habitability on stations must be high, cuz its parameter, which show us, how difficult and costly to live on given place.
For example, with game technology I'm sure you can build a palace in the middle of lava lake. But it will cost you much more than building same palace on earth-like planet with mild climate.
This is I'm sure, what no way its possible to have station, which will be cheaper and safer than settlement on living world. With can be hot, have active tectonics or strong storms... But humanity face it since the beginning and can handle it even without space-lvl technology.

Btw, whole idea about O'Nill cylinders is pure sci-fi. These things are completely impossible in foreseen future. And tbh, original idea have some serious engineering flaws. Like this huge mirrors and stuff.

[Chikanuk]

Oh, almost forgot! In game we have planet conditions, which is increase habitability... Damn, i play to much of Stellaris. Ofc HAZARD rating. And some looks like they ask to be applied to stations: No Atmosphere, Extreme Cold, Darkness, Low Gravity.
Stations have no atmosphere and extreme cold around it 100% of times, also no natural gravity (at worst planets have low gravity) and sometimes darkness. But on the planet it will end in 200% hazard at best. But for some reason stations ignore this completely?

[Mondaymonkey]

@Chikanuk

You are exaggerating. Yes, space is a dangerous place to live, but once you make all safety preparation and duplicate systems - it isn't that bad. And as your station get bigger - it became even easier, as more and more decks now surrounded with other decks, not cruel vacuum with space rays. And the more independent sections you have - the more potential backup sources and shelters you have in case of emergency. Potentially even safer than on planet, because stations do not suffer some logistic problems, planets do.

Hazard level should be higher than on planet because of other reason - constant maintenance. If you build a power plant on surface - you does not need to check foundation often, as giant piece of concrete will be fine for centuries. But if you build the same plant on space station, any "foundation" it could potentially have will not take that long, mostly because station could not be fully stable and any bulkhead will suffer continuous dynamical stress, that will lead to spontaneous (sometimes catastrophic) breakdowns. Yes, it could be (and should be) prevented with early diagnosis and repairs, and it is not even a hard thing, problem is - it is constant check&repair process you are unable to stop and have to waste resources for that.

And that is not all. Off course, some industries benefits from zero gravity, as some physical/chemical process are much easier in space. But most of the industrial activities (and a living infrastructure) requires constant directional force field (gravity) to function normally. Imagine milling-machine with no gravity... That is a hell with zero visibility and constant clogged airfilters. Dust, steam, any liquids or opened fire is a disaster with no gravity. So you need to make it, and it's even not that hard - spinning sections are easy solution. But when something is constantly spinning - maintenance problem started. Friction, you unable to avoid will do hell a lot of problems in connection point, staring from material deterioration and finishing with sealing problem. Again constant check&repair.

So, yeah, hazard level should be a little bit higher, than on decent habitable planet.

Oh, almost forgot! In game we have planet conditions, which is increase habitability... Damn, i play to much of Stellaris. Ofc HAZARD rating. And some looks like they ask to be applied to stations: No Atmosphere, Extreme Cold, Darkness, Low Gravity.
Stations have no atmosphere and extreme cold around it 100% of times, also no natural gravity (at worst planets have low gravity) and sometimes darkness. But on the planet it will end in 200% hazard at best. But for some reason stations ignore this completely?

Again. Station do have atmosphere (inside) and the bigger it became the less is surface that contact the vacuum.

Stations do not suffer from extreme cold or heat - there are stable temperature inside because of cooling/heating systems, that are not that expensive in maintenance. Yes it's a additional maintenance penalty, but not as big as would be on planet, as it is relatively easy to normalize temperature when surrounding environment is vacuum not surface&atmosphere with thermal conductivity. Consider stations as large thermoses.

Darkness - no more than on planets. Inside of a station is no darker than inside large surface buildings - they all have artificial lighting. So I wouldn't apply this to stations at all.

And gravity... well you can create any gravity you need on stations. So except of minor maintenance penalty - no problems with that.

So, no, I doubt it will be 200%. Rather 125-150%.

[Chikanuk]

And the more independent sections you have - the more potential backup sources and shelters you have in case of emergency

I don't think they can be 100% independent. Running (for example) 10 different water\waste\air recycle systems will be a huge problem. Running 10 different reactors with 10 different power grids will be a nightmare. And i don't think it will be much less problem if one of them blow up.
So I disagree on this point.

Hazard level should be higher than on planet because of other reason - constant maintenance

This is what I try to say - Example with palace in lava pool. Well, it's hard to express your thoughts on language what you hardly know.

Again. Station do have atmosphere (inside) and the bigger it became the less is surface that contact the vacuum.

Well, this all can be applied to planetary structures: No atmosphere? - No problem, we have it inside! Pitch black darkness? - Who cares, we have artificial light instead! Etc. Not even mention such minor things like "it's a little bit hot\cold outside". But in game this conditions give 25-50% of hazard rating each.

So, no, I doubt it will be 200%. Rather 125-150%.

I was talking about 150% before. Like in the barren worlds. IMHO they comparable in terms of how hard to manage and grow colony of them.

[Uhlang]

It's no secret that space wants to kill you, but it has its benefits too, such as no outside gravity or atmospheric pressure.
Fending off storms and tectonic activity in entire worlds with gravity, atmospheres, and biospheres we're not evolved for seems harder than maintaining a relatively small space structure that can be built and reshaped to our liking.

[boggled]

A century ago airplanes were extremely dangerous, expensive, and the almost-exclusive domain of the military and government. Today, air travel is very affordable and safer than driving a car. I imagine space habitation will undergo a similar evolution over time due to technological advancement and ultimately be able to justify a 100% hazard rating.

[Taikonaut]

A century ago airplanes were extremely dangerous, expensive, and the almost-exclusive domain of the military and government. Today, air travel is very affordable and safer than driving a car. I imagine space habitation will undergo a similar evolution over time due to technological advancement and ultimately be able to justify a 100% hazard rating.

Wait, lorewise wasn't it a problem that no one in Starsector could innovate because of the collapse and how pretty much most tech is lost tech and most blueprints have DRMesque locks on them?

[ZeCaptain]

Wait, lorewise wasn't it a problem that no one in Starsector could innovate because of the collapse and how pretty much most tech is lost tech and most blueprints have DRMesque locks on them?

Throw enough Alpha AIs at it and DRM shouldn't be a problem anymore.

[Yunru]

A century ago airplanes were extremely dangerous, expensive, and the almost-exclusive domain of the military and government. Today, air travel is very affordable and safer than driving a car. I imagine space habitation will undergo a similar evolution over time due to technological advancement and ultimately be able to justify a 100% hazard rating.

Wait, lorewise wasn't it a problem that no one in Starsector could innovate because of the collapse and how pretty much most tech is lost tech and most blueprints have DRMesque locks on them?

Right, but that was after a golden age. They'd already done the innovating.

[Uhlang]

Found some lore relevant to the current topic.

Derinkuyu Station was built post-collapse on the bones of an old set of Atlas maintenance gantries which were welded together then boosted out of Ancyra's gravity well and stabilized in Galatian asteroid belt to serve as a base for mining operations. A recent lapse in public order involving the 'long walk' of the governing Hegemony colonel has seen control default to a loosely organized council of rogue miners.    

–In-Game Description

    Station Conditions

        Population04
        Population: Tens of thousands of people live on Derinkuyu Mining Station.

        Hazard Rating: 100%

A bunch of Atlases welded and duct taped together are canonically less hazardous than the vast majority of planets.
Make of that what you will.

[Mondaymonkey]

Suggestion: terraforming projects and structures blueprints.

I mean, we have blueprints for planetary shield. So... Why not use same mechanic to all <most> TASC buildings? And no need of quest (like Red planet), just random rare drop things? Perhaps some packs? Same thing to all the stations (except the gates, they ave a quest).

Yeah, I can understand this feature can make frustrating some <casual> players, but it can give additional flavor to all the rest.

P.S. And the option to disable this in settings, would be great.

[boggled]

Suggestion: terraforming projects and structures blueprints.

I mean, we have blueprints for planetary shield. So... Why not use same mechanic to all <most> TASC buildings? And no need of quest (like Red planet), just random rare drop things? Perhaps some packs? Same thing to all the stations (except the gates, they ave a quest).

Yeah, I can understand this feature can make frustrating some <casual> players, but it can give additional flavor to all the rest.

P.S. And the option to disable this in settings, would be great.

I don't think randomly generated blueprints for structures would add anything compelling to the gameplay. The player is already prevented from using terraforming in the early game due to the money requirements so there's no need for blueprints. If I do add blueprints, they would have to be unlocked from a quest, but the quests take an enormous amount of time to create and I don't want to burn myself out making more.

[Mondaymonkey]

No, no, no! No quests. Just rare drop thing.

In other words: no luck - no buildings/projects/stations.

Something like couple tech packs with rarity ~ 0.2 of normal.

[boggled]

No, no, no! No quests. Just rare drop thing.

In other words: no luck - no buildings/projects/stations.

Something like couple tech packs with rarity ~ 0.2 of normal.

You mean like the random ship blueprints the player finds from salvaging, exploring ruins, etc.? Like I said earlier, I don't think randomly dropping blueprints for TASC structures would add anything interesting to the gameplay - only frustration.