I was contemplating this as well. Perhaps separate the "Orbital Infrastructure" from the "Ground Colony" a bit, so if you build a station above a planet for the 250,000 schmeckels, then you have that, but not the rest. Then you upgrade or specialize it with modules accordingly.
As is, Vanilla stations are purely military right:
- Space Station
- Battle Station
- Star Fortress
ProposalMaintain three tiers of space stations, but have them in a separate row under the colony buildings of said planet (or stable orbit). I would propose the following:
Station Types and ModulesSpoiler
Orbital Outpost
Basic station where you can build facilities to house hundreds of people (size: 2).
Facilities: Yes (perhaps limited to 2-3 slots)
Industry: No
Hangars: No *
Batteries: Light *
* One could imagine upgrading one or the other a level. For instance, you could install Hangars for mining drones that bring in a bit of ore from the system, or let the Patrol HQ take that slot. (Digressing, perhaps some asteroid rings should have a "stable orbit" where you can build a station and you can see if the resources of the belt are any good)
Orbital Station
A large station that can house thousands of people (size: 3-4) working in various capacities.
Facilities: Yes
Industry: Yes (1-2)
Defences: Medium (upgradable to Battlestation)
Orbital Complex
A very large station that can house hundreds of thousands of people (size: 5)
Facilities: Yes
Industry: Yes (2, 3 with additional investment)
Defences: Medium (upgradable to Star Fortress)
Orbital Industries and DefencesSome industries that might be a bit unique to an Orbital Stations and Complex
Spoiler
O'Neil Section
Creates a section of the station with a mild, habitable climate where colonists can live or relax.
Changes Hazard Rating by -50%
Possibly allows increases size by 1
Hydroponics
Similar to aquaponics in that is requires a large initial investment and subsequently a lot of upkeep
Asteroid Mining
Requires: Nearby ring system
Produces: Ore and Mining or Boring Drones for defence if stations is not upgraded with Heavy Batteries
Fleet Spawn: Asteroid Mining Fleet (e.g. Venture, Shepherd and Salvage Rigs) that goes out an mines the asteroids or debris (perhaps bringing back salvage loot at the end of the month).
Gas Syphon
Requires: Orbiting Gas Giant with Volatiles
Produces: Volatiles
Orbital Defenses
Heavy Batteries (Replaces Ground Batteries)
Effectively making the station a Battlestation
Heavy Defence Drones (Replaces Heavy Batteries)
Effectively making the station a Star Fortress
(Perhaps have this require a Production Blueprint?)
Hazard RatingAs is now, I believe all stations have 100% hazard rating.
Would propose the following (Low-/Mid-/High Tech): 250/175/125 %
Why:
In part role-playing, that you have a low-tech station where things break all the time and you're trying to get things to work more than just have a pleasant place to work. Mid-line solves some of these problems while High-tech is on top of them providing a pleasant place to live and work. All of these also play into the costs, so having low-tech mining operations might be profitable, but if you want to have more fancy things going on, you'd probably want to have a Mid-line station at least.
Final thoughtsI always found it a bit weird that the player could build Mid and High Tech stations at the start of the game at the same price. Perhaps make them unlock with Blueprints and/or have price scale inversely similar to Hazard Rating (i.e. Low-tech cheaper than High-tech)