Building Update

Historical Event

Building Update
Start Date
2017-11-27
End Date
2019-04-18

Buildings received a major overhaul to use the same designer that the Spacecraft Update implemented for spacecraft. However, a lot of other things also changed with how buildings and cities worked.

All old-style cities were removed and replaced with a new-style capitol on 2019-04-18.[1]

Note that this is not the same as the World Update that happened in 2013.

Description

New Building Designs

The new building designs define the number of manufacturing workshops, commodity storage capacity, capacitor storage capacity, number of homes, number of offices, and so on.

A single building design can be used by all building types that the design fulfills the requirements for. For example a generic industrial building design can be used for for all factories if so desired.

New Buildings

Buildings can now be placed anywhere on a world, no road or town square is required.

Each building now have individual commodity storage, they store what they produce and other building fetch from them if they need something. This means that there is no magical commodity stockpile, all commodities exist in buildings somewhere in the city.

Tools being used are now stored in the individual buildings.

Manufacturing Overhaul

Manufacturing of new-style buildings now has a pool of workshops depending on the building blueprint. These workshops can be allocated to different manufacturing processes as desired. Number of workshops define how many workers will work on the given manufacturing process. The number of workers working a manufacturing process will multiply the input and output of the manufacturing process, but the process duration will remain the same.

New Cities

A city is not required under the new system, buildings can be left independent and function just fine. Buildings will however benefit from being part of a city, such as easier management, city reports, increased citizen migration, tax income and capital declaring.

A capitol building will form a city with all buildings in its jurisdiction around it. The jurisdiction can be expanded with police stations. Buildings within a jurisdiction belong to the empire that made it.

World Ownership

A world can be claimed using a flag. When claimed all buildings and cities on the world will change ownership to that of the claimer.

Another empire can takeover a world by claiming it with a flag of their own. To prevent this a military headquarters is required.

Military Bases

A military headquarters can only be built on a claimed world, and there can only be one. While the world has a military headquarters it cannot be claimed by another empire.

A military headquarters is required to establish a base on the world, allowing construction of other military buildings. A base function similar to a city as they are given a name when the military headquarters is placed and start sending city reports, they are however always worldwide and only consist of military buildings. While there are other military buildings on the world, the military headquarters cannot be destroyed. And while a world has a base, all civilian buildings cannot be destroyed.

Commodities Fetching, Sharing and Trading

Cities no longer just send commodities back and forth between each other for no reason. Instead individual buildings now have to fetch the commodities they need or want from other buildings they are connected to.

Factories and other manufacturing will fetch commodities from other buildings when run. Warehouses and storage tanks can store anything, but they will only fetch the specifically selected commodity type. Stores such as; retail stores, groceries and cantinas will fetch a small supply of the commodities they will sell. Some special buildings will fetch and store some essential commodities, for example; airport terminals will fetch air, hydrogen and gasoline, capitol will fetch and store some food, and military headquarters will fetch and store some weapons and armor.

World Population Limits

This content was only useful during the MMO. It does not apply to the singleplayer game. Reason: Numbers are completely different for the singleplayer game

The population limit, compared to old-style cities, has been increased dramatically. All worlds can now have populations in the thousands, and ringworld arcs can have millions.

Overpopulation morale penalties start once the population limit is exceeded and scales up to -20 at double the population limit.

However all worlds now have a building volume limit depending on world size and a building count limit of 500. This means that the collective volume of all buildings on the world has to be below the limit, but making many many tiny buildings is also limited.

Morale penalty is -1 per 1000 cubic meters of building volume in excess of the maximum, rounded up. e.g. 1 to 1000 cubic meters excess = -1 to morale, 1001 to 2000 cubic meters excess = -2 to morale. There is no limit on this morale penalty. A -1 morale penalty is incurred for every building beyond that the max building count.

Limits by World Size

World	Size	Area	Population Limit [2]	Max Building Volume [3]	Max Building Count [4]
Sphere 1	1,894m diameter	11,268,913m²	5,6345	1,625,639m³	250
Sphere 2	3,788m diameter	45,075,652m²	22,538	6,502,554m³	250
Sphere 3	5,682m diameter	101,420,217m²	50,710	14,630,603m³	250
Sphere 4	7,576m diameter	180,302,609m²	90,151	26,010,072m³	250
Sphere 5	9,470m diameter	281,722,826m²	140,861	40,640,676m³	250
Sphere 6	11,364m diameter	405,680,870m²	202,840	58,522,556m³	250
Sphere 7	13,258m diameter	552,176,739m²	276,088	79,655,712m³	250
Sphere 8	15,152m diameter	721,210,435m²	360,605	104,040,000m³	250
Sphere 9	17,045m diameter	912,781,956m²	456,391	131,675,712m³	250
Sphere 10	18,939m diameter	1,126,891,304m²	563,445	162,562,560m³	250
Sphere 11	20,833m diameter	1,363,538,478m²	681,769	196,700,672m³	250
Sphere 12	22,727m diameter	1,622,723,478m²	811,361	234,090,080m³	250
Ringworld arc	229,814 x 17,850m	4,102,166,484m²	2,051,083	295,884,256m³	250

World Population Growth

The population growth is based on the city morale. There are three different population growth sources: baby births, indigenous migration, and space traveller migration.

• Morale affects birth rate.
  • When morale is zero or more, babies will be born in the city, if the world population is two or more.
  • When morale is less than or equal to the number of breeding pairs, no babies are born in the city.
  • The rate of baby production is based on the number of breeding pairs (1/2 the world population) and the magnitude of the morale.
  • The maximum rate per world is one baby per minute.
• Morale affects migration of indigenous people, on habitable worlds and ringworlds.
  • When morale is zero or more, indigenous people move into your buildings.
  • When morale is -2 or less, citizens depart the city to live among the indigenous.
  • At -1 morale, indigenous people neither arrive nor depart.
  • The magnitude of the morale increases the rate of arrivals and departures.
  • The maximum rate per world is one arrival and one departure per minute.
• Morale affects travellers arriving and departing from airports, at buildings connected to an airport.
  • When morale is zero or more, travellers arrive via airports.
  • When morale is -2 or less, travellers depart via airports.
  • At -1 morale, travellers neither arrive nor depart.
  • The magnitude of the morale increases the rate of arrivals and departures.
  • The maximum rate per world is one arrival and one departure per minute.

Controversy

An example of a flood of unrelated designs showing up when placing a building, which causes massive player confusion

Alongside the designer controversy described in Spacecraft Update, the specific changes of the building and city overhauls have also been criticized:

With the expansion of the system to buildings and cities, many players have voiced confusion with city building. New buildings no longer used "levels" for production and size, and instead determine their capabilities just from volume allocated during designing. This has been argued as a bad thing, as it lowered building flexibility and removed part of the decision making process when building cities, having it all be done in the designer instead. This has also been argued as making city-building feel less "gamey". While this aspect has caused confusion by itself, another aspect of the system has exacerbated the issue: The new system enabled design multi-use, where a single building design can be used by many building types that the design also technically fulfils the requirements for. For example, a machine shop design being usable as an explosives factory due to using the same volume. If a design is usable for other industries, it is listed under the available blueprints for every compatible industry. This resulted in the same design being usable for many different industries, so one can see a machine shop when placing a refinery, or a design studio when placing an airport, which only caused further player confusion and has been described as far less "friendly to play" by returning players.[5]

Military aspect

The military aspect of cities was also changed and criticized, during the MMO era. The original system used military flags that were placed throughout a city and had to be captured in order to take control of it, with military buildings optionally used to add defences to the city. When captured, the population would need time to flip loyalty to the conquering empire. With the overhaul, loyalty, town squares, and military flags were removed, instead having the entire world claimed by an empire using a single flag. Only the empire that holds the claim can build on that world. When the world is claimed, all buildings come under control of the claiming empire. That claim is protected by a "military base", which is a separate type of city just for military buildings. The entire world becomes part of the "base", unlike cities. The base is started by a "military headquarters", which itself is also protected by the other military buildings. Building damage, HP, and terrain deformation were added to allow destruction of military bases in order to capture the world claim and thus all cities. Regular city buildings were also given HP, but they can only be damaged if there's no military base. Now, in order to claim a city, one must destroy every military building, then the military headquarters, then place a flag and all cities will flip ownership. There is no more city population loyalty, so the cities instantly become fully owned by the conqueror. Alternatively, the player can simply continue destroying the city from orbit. The destruction aspect has been criticized for turning combat from an intuitive "on the ground" capture system, into simply bomb from orbit and wait. There is no chance of recapture if the enemy decides to bomb the city out of existence. Terrain deformation and the new designer have also led to massive building exploits. The claim/base aspects have caused massive player confusion, with many players unsure about the difference between a "claim", "base" and "city", confused about why both claim flags and bases can be placed outside of cities, and also being unsure how to provide resources to bases. Some players may also not know about the claim system, allowing any other empire to visit their planet, plop a flag anywhere, and instantly take over all the cities. Because there is no "town square" anymore, by default a city has no troops and no protection from capture.

The way officers, crew, and troops are generated was also changed. Extra military buildings were added specifically to produce them. However, these mechanics are extremely unclear and players still voice confusion about why their city has no crew or troops available. These mechanics were changed to make it easier to generate crew from cities directly, however this mechanic is still seen as more confusing than the old city system.

In addition, pressurized roads were completely removed, and the canopies/shells of HEV buildings are no longer automatically added, instead requiring the designer to manually add them. Both of these aspects have been criticized.

Changes

• Buildings
• Building Design
• Construction
• Manufacturing
• Cities
• Biodome
• Added Base
• Added Private Security Contractor
• Added Drilling Rig
• Added Nuclear Fuel Plant
• Added Shed
• Added Storage Tank
• Added Airport Radar
• Added Military Headquarters
• Added Military Barracks
• Added Space Marine Barracks
• Added Starforce Academy
• Added Military Guard Post
• Added Military Motor Pool
• Added Military Dock
• Added Military Airport Terminal
• Added Military Gun Tower
• Added Military Radar
• Added Fences and Walls
• Added Bridge
• Added Space Elevator (Planned)
• Added Ground Platform
• Added Sea Platform
• Added Aerial Platform
• Removed Town Square
• Removed Military Flag
• Removed Condominium

Links

• 2017-11-27 Status Buildings
• 2017-12-01 Buildings Debut
• 2017-12-06 Claims, Buildings and Bugs
• 2017-12-07 Bug Fixes
• 2017-12-09 Storage and Bug Fixes
• 2017-12-14 Stores and Light Sources
• 2017-12-15 Bulldozer and Bugs
• Dynamite Crater
• 2017-12-21 Roads, Fires, Craters
• 2017-12-28 Bugs
• 2017-12-30 Map
• 2018-01-02 Landscape Plants, Sea Chests, Lost Gas Giant City
• 2018-01-06 Capitol Building
• 2018-01-11 Blueprint Size, Buildings, Sea Chest, Gear Lost
• 2018-01-24 Custom Textures, Bugs
• 2018-02-16 Bugs
• 2018-02-22 Power, Transporter Places, Nav HUD
• 2018-03-01 Broker, Airport, Air Base, Transporter
• 2018-03-02 Broker, View Aspect, 7500 Spacecraft
• 2018-03-08 Buildings, Roads, Officers, Landing Beacons
• 2018-03-14 Buildings
• 2018-03-16 Designer, Small Craft, Mother Ship, Turbo Lift
• 2018-03-22 Designer Preview
• 2018-03-23 Designer Station
• 2018-03-26 Terrain Update, Servers
• 2018-03-29 Door Animation
• 2018-04-04 Load Balance, Airports and Cities, Sticky Ground
• 2018-04-05 Spacecraft Factory, Vehicle Factory
• 2018-04-09 Production Lines
• 2018-04-12 Fetch Vehicles, Building Tech, Storage Tanks
• 2018-04-13 Production Line Headache, Power Plant Design

• 2018-05-24 City Report Crash, Web Server Upgrade, Helmet HUD
• 2018-05-31 Slow Building Placement, Client Crash on Exit, E-mail Address Changed
• 2018-06-01 Suffocation in Turbo Lift, Smoke Lockup, Drop Current Item Button
• 2018-06-05 Building Terrain Error, Server Load Distribution
• 2018-06-06 Road Construction, Patent Development, Non-free Blueprints
• 2018-06-08 Building Construction, Hospitals, Discord
• 2018-06-11 Server Deadlock, Indigenous Punishers
• 2018-06-13 ROLLBACK due to broken air production.
• 2018-06-12 Morale COUNTDOWN

Old Pictures