I am trying to get into the new economy system and I am preety much improvising as I go along but I have hit one major annoyance: What exactly is the point of habitats anymore? I can not build mining facilities, which were never that good anyways but an option nonetheless. I also can not build solar arrays anymore, so no basic ressource extraction anymore at all, I guess. Now, that leaves me with the problem that even at maximum energy and mineral extraction on my planets I am still in need for more energy and minerals. What I do not need is more space on habitats that I can fill with buildings that only use up ressources I do not have in the first place and I can not produce on habitats at all in the second place. So, what am I missing? I am very much lost on how to deal with this new economy. I can barely extract enough minerals from my planets to keep going, so what is the point of additional building space on habitats? To me they appear pretty useless right now.

I suspect that the Idea is to use planets for minerals only and leave the rest to habitats? But mining districts are limited in number so what do I do with the remaining pops? Research? The number of research focused habitats I can support is, however, very limited. Actually, I have never reached the point where I needed more space for research than my planets provided, because of the limit on mining districts is putting a very definitive limit on my economy anyhow. Compared to previous runs I am lagging far behind the AI, which would actually be good, of only I knew what I was doing and how the economy works in the first place.

I feel like I am missing something or, I don't know, I am too stupid for this update. My habitats increase ressource consumption to the point of pointlessness, because new planets seem so much more profitable in comparison but by the time I have five planets the pointless and repetetive micro management of the obstructive interface becomes so tedious that I end up watching summaries of DC comics on youtube instead, which is quite depressing and a waste of anyone's time. (From what I can tell, DC comics are bad beyond words. Before you waste ANY time on that nonsense, read up on ancient babylonian poetry instead, it is much more rewarding. No shit. By the time you are hooked on comic books your parents are well within their rights to disown and despise you.)

habitats = space for people (robots, slaves or whatever you happen to use as pop)
space i.e, the bigger the planet the more space breaks down into jobs + homes

the 4 basic dist types are; city (only homes i.e, no jobs), power, mine or farm (each with 1 job + 1 home)

the special buildings are jobs only... a few have 1 home but most are just jobs

a planet that has only cities + special buildings is very nice while other planets could be all farms and that is just as nice because you get more food per pop and you can sell the food to pay for whatever else you need

watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu089STzDEw

I agree on the topic of habitats. I simply can not afford to build them now, as opposed to before, when they where a great way to create a booming economy. Much more micro management in the game since the 2,2 update as well. I do generally like most of the new stuff, but I sorely miss sector management. In the game that I have going presently, I have about 30 planets which amounts to 24 sectors. Most sectors contain only one planet, and the list is so long it is hard to manage, plus I want a Governor for each sector as well. Before the 2.2 patch I would have created about 5 sectors and managed each one more like a single planet, plus my Governors seemed to do a better job of reining in the conquered masses with the old game. I would add conquered planets to a sector right away and move on to the next one. For me, sector management was one of the fun parts of the strategy, and it eliminated much of the tedious stuff. As for habitats, I am looking for suitable planets to colonize now instead of bothering with them. Before the 2.2 patch I would build many habitats and populate them with robots, by clicking the build pop button and filling the habitat up entirely with them. They would put a demand on energy, but they don't get cranky and you just had to build more generators to compensate.

Thank you for you answer, but I do not quite see how your points relate to the economic utility of habitats. My Problem is that pops on habitats consume so many consumer goods that I cannot produce enough minerals on my planets to pursue a habitat based strategy. As long as habitats offer no way to produce minerals or (consumer goods without the use of minerals) I do not see much use for habitats anymore. At least for now I am not lacking in space to build research labs.

I agree they are not as good as they were but they were not ment to be that good before... assume paradox will patch it by the end of the year

I just realized that Habitats do not offer any way to add housing beyong housing districts... So what is the point of the other districts then? If I build research and trading districts, I will end up with no housing. This makes no sense. I am so confused.

If you build 5 housing districts you have space slum... or be it a gold plated one

I make 4 science and 1 city district then I add my psi to police the unwashed until doll ques get too high... you can always replace them with more homes later on or resettle people to new planets

the only real point of a habitat is that it gives you a planet where you need one and the sector management bonus carries over so a capital gov with good science is nice

@ribroast just turn off the sectors ui and turn on planets instead... the point of sectors is you can set them to a basic build plan and forget about them so the real issue here is people want more ways to set that plan

Not sure about habitats - did not build them since 2.2 yet. But concerning the economy in general I learned that the market is really important now. At the start of the game you'll likely have minerals in spades so sell them. In the endgame you'll likely be starved for minerals as you need to convert them to rare ressources and alloys in large quantities. Buy what you need.

Yeah it is like 100 x more micro management, but at least you're making descisions and not mindlessly bulk-upgrade buildings as soon as a new tech is researched. As conquest is heavily disencouraged with this patch managing your economy is basically the main gameplay until the endgame crisis events take place.

After playing for a while I think I found one potential use for habitats: I managed to conguer a bunch of habitat that the AI has built with the Master Builders ascension perk wich affords to extra districts, so these were as spacious as it gets. If you have Utopian Living Standards set for your population, you can simply build eight living districts, build a few research labs if you so please, but most importantly build anything that generates amenities and trade value. Having a resort world and other means of increasing empire wide amenities or reducing the usage of amenities also helps. Then just let the remaining pops sit around unempleyedly (Is that a word?) and let them generate research due to their utopian abundance living standards.

Or you could just cram them with fortresses to increase your fleet capacity and unitiy production.

However, even with this knowledge I did not feel it was worth the effort, because when it comes to research through enemployed populace, arcologies and ring worlds work just fine - Better, actually. I certainly do not want to invest an ascension point into the ability to build habitats when instead I could just go for galactic wonders, which does give me ring worlds plus all the other megastructures.

You can't build research labs on habitats, and their research districts are horrible. If you're egalitarian, just fill them with more living space for more unemployed pops instead. Fortress spam is also great for fleet capacity, and definitely the premier use of habitats in general right now.

For authoritarian empires, they make good breeding grounds. Just keep resettling pops that appear there. Habitats aren't mutually exclusive with those other options, and they can be used together. You can only build one ringworld at a time, and you can't make arcologies out of thin air. The big problem with habitats is the ascension perk costs to access them, as you note. They simply aren't worth perks anymore. If you lack the megacorps DLC they're decent since you won't have access to arcologies and that's one less obligatory perk tax (effectively giving you an extra slot to pick habitats instead). However, if you do have megacorps they simply aren't worth the perk.

Overall I really feel habitats should be demoted to a rare tech rather than a perk. In fact, there are a lot of perks that just aren't relevant due to the power creep over successive DLC's.

thats like saying a battleship is better than a cruiser, yes but you pay more for them and get them later in the game

Habitats are early game tech, don't cost any where near a ring world or dyson spear & you can build more than one per system... in my games that is worth a point

You don't have to pay an ascension perk for cruisers. It's a technology, and there's nothing stopping us from acquiring as many of those as we like, so cruisers aren't mutually exclusive with anything else. If they did cost an ascension perk, they wouldn't get used. We only get 8 ascension perks total over the course of the game, and a minimum of 27 perks to pick from if you have all the DLC. Moreover, many of the DLC perks are blatantly overpowerpowered, and voidborn is just one of many perks that just isn't competitive with the game-changing options available.

As I said, habitats would be perfectly fine if they were just a rare tech. It's the fact that they're mutually exclusive with much better options that is the problem.

First I agree with a lot of what is said, they are needing some sort of buff (and/or influence cost reduction), and/or perhaps a demotion to a rare tech is needed. I also don't have Megacorp, so perhaps that might be why I see more utility in them then others with this expansion.

They are great for getting research up and running quickly, since you don't have to wait for your population to increase by 5 before unlocking a building slot to place a research building.

Fortresses (upgraded) do provide +3 housing and +4 naval capacity (It's been a little while since I've played so maybe I'm getting these numbers wrong). So you don't really need Anchorages any more (although you can't build as many starbases, so they should be put to better use in any case).

Of course you could do this with any planet, but minerals are pretty much the top resource in the game since only planets provide these (I don't have Megacorp, so no matter converter, and there is no longer any matter fabrication buildings).

I've attached an example of a habitat configuration that worked pretty well for me (Providing 6 Anchorages worth of Naval Capacity and maximum research).

Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting at all that Habitats are great where they are, I still believe they need a buff (Perhaps have all districts provide the necessary housing might be an idea in addition to other ideas suggested here).

You can (and should) just resettle pops to bring new colonies up to 5 people immediately. This negates the "new colony" growth penalty and gets the colony rolling more quickly.

I'm not a fan of research districts on habitats. They're just really inefficient compared to other options, and you're way better off just shuffling things around to support more research labs on your regular planets.

The best way to handle minerals is to build a ringworld and fill two segments with agriculture and generator districts respectively. Then demolish generator and agriculture districts on your other worlds and replace them with mining districts. It's roundabout, but it effectively lets you rebalance your districts to give you more mining.