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[YourLocalMairaaboo]

-Is there any lore in vanilla starsector regarding what gas giant colonies are like?
-Or are there colony lights visible on the dark side of the planet that can be used to infer what the population density is like?

1.- Not that i know of, in fact, i don't think there are any gas giants colonies at the start of the game so that we could at the very least take a hint of what those descriptions have to say. EDIT: MODS DON'T COUNT
2.- There are no visible lights in gas giants like you see in the "night time" of other habitated planet types.

I would either ask the devs somehow or look at how other similar games handle Gas giants... IF they handle their habitation at all, because as far as i remember on any other game i've played, it is left to the imagination. Pretty much the only instance i can remember of gas giant habitation is in the older Star Wars movies and even then it's not super clear.

Since post-colapse tech is unsophisticated i would bet gas giant habitation in star sector is pretty messy and convoluted.

They would probably be spread out into "towns" of floating habitats that are relatively close to each other, but not a single giant mass.

Yeah that's also what I thought when I mentioned Bioshock Infinite. If the ships weren't mentioned I would headcanon it away by saying that the generators need solid ground to transfer the force. If the agrav generators are originally from ships, couldn't they have habitats of roughly the same size as the ships, and use it in the same way? Unless it messes with the floatation in some way lol. 

Hmm, it seems there isn't much to go on from vanilla, and I want to base TASC on starsector lore, not Star Wars or other fictional settings.

I don't have an art asset for Domed Cities that depicts a gas giant, so I should probably leave it as being unbuildable there.

Regarding the agrav generators, I agree that it makes sense they could just use them similarly to ships on gas giant colonies. I'll make it so they can be built without Domed Cities on gas giants.

Ok, now THAT is quite the buff to gas giants.

[mortache]

Ok, now THAT is quite the buff to gas giants.

Well tbh gas giants aren't exactly great for anything, especially since with this mod you're not reliant on them for volatiles. They could use a little bit of buff.

[Toxo]

I don't have an art asset for Domed Cities that depicts a gas giant, so I should probably leave it as being unbuildable there.

https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-dae129ed4ebb4ffa94698276b4ef5755-c
https://preview.redd.it/2dxfamz6tez71.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=b0db2f7e0bad36550ce11a1308c62d43d4c6ae45
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/71/c1/ac/71c1acb923003427ba236c60db6aa131.jpg

Fix'd

keep in mind that "domed cities" would actually be the preferred building method for gas giants.
the more empty, normal pressure room you encapsulate in your colony design, the more buoyancy it will have, staying adrift at higher altitudes and even lower outside pressure values, reducing material costs, maintenance and fuel costs.
You need quite a lot of energy to keep small, dense structures at an altitude above the point of them being crushed to death by the atmosphere of a gas giant, so you can't just dump hab-modules with an airlock on a planets surface and be done with it. They'd get crushed like tin cans before they would reach an altitude where they could float.
Building city-sized blimps is meta here, and needed for proper colony planning on a gas giant.

[boggled]

So I have been playing with this for a few days now and I really really like it. I think it adds a new dimension to colony building and finished up what is kinda of a lack-luster system in vanilla. Personally I feel like its quite balanced as well, I think the costs are pretty good for what you get from paying for them. I did have a couple of ideas though:

- A couple of people said they disliked the massive reduction to ground defenses that having domed cites brings. To me its feels right, but as a compromise would you consider having the planetary shield building mostly (or completely) negate the defense malaise? Personally I think having to go through a quest and building a new structure with upkeep is a good offset cost, and it makes sense from a realism perspective as well as.

- Would you consider adding the "no atmosphere" modifier to orbital habitats? It would be handy for the Catalytic Core/Synchrotron Core items, it would allow creation of one stop ore mining/refining or volatiles/fuel refining station, and it does makes sense considering its in space. You could add in a copy/paste of domed cites structure that cant be removed and is created when the station is to cancel it out and bring the habitability back to 100%, and again I feel like that makes sense from a realism perspective since a space station would be quite vulnerable to being bombarded or invaded.

- Would you consider adding some sort of underground cities to counter extreme heat/cold? The cities on Sindira are underground so its possible in universe. Instead of adding a malaise to defenses you could add one to accessibility instead, maybe like -5% per colony level to represent the increasing difficulty of getting all of the orbital traffic in and out in a limited window of safe time.

1-No, he will not have shields counter the defense penalty. That has already been established. MAYBE you could convince him to have domes be possible to build on meteor impact worlds if shields are up, though with some extra penalties to stability or somethig, if you think the shields need a buff and can get enough people to agree, but that is a whole different story.
2-They can already use them.
3-Would need a FAR stronger penalty for that sort of buff, but I could see the concept working.

I previously had an "arcology" planet type in TASC, but I removed it a while back. I think adding something like that back in wouldn't be great because it's inconsistent with planets like Chicomoztoc which are basically an arcology world, but are not of the custom planet type.

I don't have an art asset for Domed Cities that depicts a gas giant, so I should probably leave it as being unbuildable there.

https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-dae129ed4ebb4ffa94698276b4ef5755-c
https://preview.redd.it/2dxfamz6tez71.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=b0db2f7e0bad36550ce11a1308c62d43d4c6ae45
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/71/c1/ac/71c1acb923003427ba236c60db6aa131.jpg

Fix'd

keep in mind that "domed cities" would actually be the preferred building method for gas giants.
the more empty, normal pressure room you encapsulate in your colony design, the more buoyancy it will have, staying adrift at higher altitudes and even lower outside pressure values, reducing material costs, maintenance and fuel costs.
You need quite a lot of energy to keep small, dense structures at an altitude above the point of them being crushed to death by the atmosphere of a gas giant, so you can't just dump hab-modules with an airlock on a planets surface and be done with it. They'd get crushed like tin cans before they would reach an altitude where they could float.
Building city-sized blimps is meta here, and needed for proper colony planning on a gas giant.

I'm not sure any of that artwork fits for Domed Cities. They're not really domes - more like solid structures.

I think you're correct about the physics behind gas giant habitats. But the colony would already be built like that from the outset, right? What would change once Domed Cities was built? It's different on terrestrial worlds where the colony would originally be spread out and the buildings/cities look more traditional, as shown by the vanilla artwork.

[mortache]

I'm not sure any of that artwork fits for Domed Cities. They're not really domes - more like solid structures.

I think you're correct about the physics behind gas giant habitats. But the colony would already be built like that from the outset, right? What would change once Domed Cities was built? It's different on terrestrial worlds where the colony would originally be spread out and the buildings/cities look more traditional, as shown by the vanilla artwork.

Have you seen the airship from Fallout 4? They basically live inside of the big balloon. Zeppelins did have solid structure inside, though on earth you need hydrogen to make it float. It'll be different deep inside a gas giant though, like 75% atmospheric pressure with Helium + oxygen could actually work, it would weigh half as much as regular air.

[Toxo]

I'm not sure any of that artwork fits for Domed Cities. They're not really domes - more like solid structures.

I think you're correct about the physics behind gas giant habitats. But the colony would already be built like that from the outset, right? What would change once Domed Cities was built? It's different on terrestrial worlds where the colony would originally be spread out and the buildings/cities look more traditional, as shown by the vanilla artwork.

You know, when a dome of a solid surface city breaks, all inhabitants have to flee inside the buildings and await repairs, while the in-dome atmosphere is contaminated / beasts roam the streets. An emergency, sure, but not necessarily a life ending scenario. You'd just be inconvenienced until order is restored and the dome repaired.
On a gas giant, the dome is your lifeline. If it breaks, the city falls, literally. And I for my part wouldn't build my lifeline out of inferior materials, just to have them be transparent. You need to build light and pressure resistant first and foremost. And in case of introduced stress (like attacks, crashes), you want your dome to bend like a metal, not shatter like a crystalline structure, be it glass or some other stuff. Sure, maybe a cloud city would have emergency thrusters, but they'd consume extreme amounts of fuel, and run out of it pretty fast, considering they are carrying a city against the high gravity of a gas giant.

Also, initial gas habs would be small and self-sufficient structures, strapped under giant blimps made of flexible fabric, simply because they need to be. Settlers wouldn't be able to afford them otherwise, and it would explain why factors like extreme weather would affect them. They'd soon consolidate around landing pads and other infrastructure, forming communities around refineries and space ports, but still be a chaotic amalgamation of "blimps", forming loose structures in much the same ways as small initial settlements grow and incorporate landmarks around them.
To consolidate them and build giant cloud cities would require a similar industrial undertaking to building a dome over a whole city, so cost wise it checks out, while offering the same benefits as a dome on a solid surface - a consolidated structure (or multiple of them) can withstand the weather and atmospheric conditions much better, offer superior access to all its facilities via high speed transportation, and keep giant amounts of space inside breathable and under normal pressure, reducing costs of life support and decon measures, while its high population density would attract more business from outside the planet.

Last but not least, you already have a custom building in the mod that replaces domed cities in favor for a structure befitting its environment: seabed cities.
So why not call them something along the line of cloud cities, with a couple of modifiers you deem fit to differentiate them from normal domed cities, and call it a day?

Bonus points for switching out the Artwork for mining on gas giants. Something along the lines of a floating refinery (maybe the one in the foreground of the first pic?).

[dro]

just to have them be transparent

Try living without Sun mate.

Quick introduction to material science: An object is transparent, when the crystalline structure is ordered. Transparent Metals, as we call it, do have rather ceramiclike attributes than metalic. They bend but their elastical and plastical deformation span is too short. They are substantially harder than most metals etc.

Same attributes apply to plexiglas. Less bending, harder surface, breaks very easy compared to, lets say ABS or PLA which is used in 3d printing.

So, Lore and realismwise, this means: Either in Gas giants, this building will be from solid strong material, which would increase the construction cost AND since you have to pump energy because of missing sun, maintainence cost increases. Or from transparent material for the sake of energy and heating / cooling considerations, which would obviously have its toll in colony defence value.

Additionally, metals has significantly lower specific heat capacity. This means, you basically build your colony in an oven or a deep freezer. Ventilation and cooling in Hot / Very Hot Planets or Heat cost in cold / very cold planets have to be considered.

[Toxo]

Try living without Sun mate.

Every astronaut does.
Windows are structural weakpoints, which you want to generally avoid in a structure meant to withstand high pressure differentials. Submarines typically have none, unless its a shallow graded one with the front viewing capsule. The ISS has the cupola, 7 panels, embedded into and reinforced by a solid frame for observation/experimentation, as well as 6 side viewing ports for docking / EVA monitoring.
You only use windows, sparingly, if you need them.

Further, blocking out the sun, and having a heat-transporting outer hull helps the colony regardless if its a hot or cold gas giant, because it inevitably generates heat from its own energy generation/consumption. And while it will have an easy time to shed heat on a ice giant via simple heat pumps / hull radiation , possibly allowing for a transparent dome spanning the top; on a hot gas giant, you'd need active cooling, much like a refrigerator, driving your energy-costs ever higher by allowing sunlight to directly blast the interior space of your colony, which you want to cool down instead. And while metals do have a high heat transfer rate, you need to transfer heat from all over the colony towards radiators on the outside anyways, so lining the interior hull with coolant pipes is a convenient step in construction you'd take, anyways.
Considering just the electricity demand of new york city (which would be a giant understatement with how much more power demanding a sci fi infrastructure would be), you'd look at 11 TerraWatt-hours per day of energy, that will eventually end up as heat, needing to be transported out of your colony. That's plenty and them some, and just gets worse if you were to add not only the surface heating of - lets say just Manhattan's 59,1km² - direct sun exposure, but solar heating of 5.91 × 10^13 liters of air above it, if your dome is just 1km high.

Hydroponics can run on artificial UV light, and a vitamin d10 insufficiency from lack of sun exposure can be alleviated by further UV-added interior lighting, and proper food additives. Given the advanced age of space-faring this setting is in, keeping a settler alive inside a gas giant colony would be no more complicated than keeping a spacer alive aboard ships.

[mortache]

Does the Ouyang Optimizer only increase the colony conditions of volatiles? I thought it gave extra like the Stellar Reflector since it's an extra structure and not just a decision. I might have Extreme Weather to my +2 volatiles gas giant for nothing lol.

[Toxo]

I might have Extreme Weather to my +2 volatiles gas giant for nothing lol.

That's precisely what you got.
and atmospheric procesors can't be build on gas giants, either

basically, the ouyang optimizer is a one time use terraformer, improving a gas giants ressource yield greatly, if it was 0 or -1, or improving it slightly if it was +1 already. and in turn, it forces extreme weather, driving up the hazzard rating. Ofc, it can still be worh to do, if you resort to a siphoning station, cause you don't care about the weather on that.

[mortache]

I might have Extreme Weather to my +2 volatiles gas giant for nothing lol.

That's precisely what you got.
and atmospheric procesors can't be build on gas giants, either

basically, the ouyang optimizer is a one time use terraformer, improving a gas giants ressource yield greatly, if it was 0 or -1, or improving it slightly if it was +1 already. and in turn, it forces extreme weather, driving up the hazzard rating. Ofc, it can still be worh to do, if you resort to a siphoning station, cause you don't care about the weather on that.

I built it on the siphoning station, I don't think it can even be built on gas giants. They're both colonized. Anyways, a little bit of heads up in the tooltip would have been great, since it adds an irreversible change. On the other hand, making it like Stellar Reflector Array giving +2 extra volatiles would be great too, since gas giants are rarer compared to other planets especially now that we can spam astropolises

[boggled]

I might have Extreme Weather to my +2 volatiles gas giant for nothing lol.

That's precisely what you got.
and atmospheric procesors can't be build on gas giants, either

basically, the ouyang optimizer is a one time use terraformer, improving a gas giants ressource yield greatly, if it was 0 or -1, or improving it slightly if it was +1 already. and in turn, it forces extreme weather, driving up the hazzard rating. Ofc, it can still be worh to do, if you resort to a siphoning station, cause you don't care about the weather on that.

I built it on the siphoning station, I don't think it can even be built on gas giants. They're both colonized. Anyways, a little bit of heads up in the tooltip would have been great, since it adds an irreversible change. On the other hand, making it like Stellar Reflector Array giving +2 extra volatiles would be great too, since gas giants are rarer compared to other planets especially now that we can spam astropolises

I'll adjust the description of the Ouyang optimizer to make it clear that it's a permanent change.

There is logic in the Ouyang optimizer that prevents it from doing anything if the gas giant already has maximum volatiles, so it shouldn't be possible to have a situation where it only makes the gas giant worse by adding extreme weather without improving volatiles.

[mortache]

I might have Extreme Weather to my +2 volatiles gas giant for nothing lol.

That's precisely what you got.
and atmospheric procesors can't be build on gas giants, either

basically, the ouyang optimizer is a one time use terraformer, improving a gas giants ressource yield greatly, if it was 0 or -1, or improving it slightly if it was +1 already. and in turn, it forces extreme weather, driving up the hazzard rating. Ofc, it can still be worh to do, if you resort to a siphoning station, cause you don't care about the weather on that.

I built it on the siphoning station, I don't think it can even be built on gas giants. They're both colonized. Anyways, a little bit of heads up in the tooltip would have been great, since it adds an irreversible change. On the other hand, making it like Stellar Reflector Array giving +2 extra volatiles would be great too, since gas giants are rarer compared to other planets especially now that we can spam astropolises

I'll adjust the description of the Ouyang optimizer to make it clear that it's a permanent change.

There is logic in the Ouyang optimizer that prevents it from doing anything if the gas giant already has maximum volatiles, so it shouldn't be possible to have a situation where it only makes the gas giant worse by adding extreme weather without improving volatiles.

It's clear that the weather change is permanent, I just didn't know that it wouldn't do anything to boost my gas giant and station both of which were at +2 volatiles already. That lack of incentive to build the thing when already at max volatiles is what I was talking about when I mentioned the tooltip.

[Soviet Tom Bombadil]

missing TASC and IndEvo hard right now. Didn't realize how much of my game experience was connected to these 2 mods.

[Lappers]

missing TASC and IndEvo hard right now. Didn't realize how much of my game experience was connected to these 2 mods.

TASC still works fine with boggled's most recent "unofficial" version he posted somewhere in the past couple pages. Haven't tried IndEvo.