Introduction to Facilities

Lesson 1: Introduction on Facilities


In the Combine, there are many facilities that can be built, as you must already know. This class will give you the information to determine which one is best for each case, and how to best resolve any issues regarding planetary stats.

First, let's start with the best tool you will have on this, the City Designer. Also, keep sure to look at the Facilities Rules Page, if you have any doubt.

Talking about rules, let's make sure we know them well. First of all, facilities need to be built on City Grids, so remember to exclude any Lava Squares when making plans for the planetary stats. Besides that, keep in mind that facilities need to have roads on at least two sides, the City Designer validates this automatically when the "2 sides free check" box is active.

There are also some things that you need to keep in mind:

Most facilities require some amount of energy to keep them running. If the total amount of energy on one grid is:
Greater than zero, then you can continue to build facilities on that grid.
Equal to zero, then you can only build either a Power Generator (which of course supplies more power to your grid) or any of the facilities which require no energy to function (i.e. Parks, Statues, Fountains, Clean Slabs, etc.).
Less than zero, then you can only build a Power Generator, and all other facilities on that grid are then powered down.
One of three conditions must be met in order for you to be allowed to build facilities in any given city:
You must own the city.
You must get permission from the owner of the city.
If the city is NPC-owned, you may build at will, without permission of any kind.
In order to build a new facility (assuming you meet the conditions above), you must own the datacard for that type of facility. If you do not meet this condition, you will have to either buy or obtain the datacard from someone else - its usually fairly easy to rent DCs.

Building facilities on hidden cities doubles the costs of construction, and when building on toxic planets, or planets that have no atmosphere, there is a 500,000 credit fee for terraform.


With these rules in mind, and the construction knowledge you gained in the Basic Construction class, we can begin the actual City Planning class.

Rules of Building and Restrictions


1st rule of building: Plan

Plan what facilities you will need on the planet before you start construction of the first facility. It can be hard and costly to undo badly located facilities or the bad planetary stats those facilities may cause. Also look to see what terrain types are available, as not all buildings can be built on all terrain types. This may be the key to having a well built planet instead of a poorly built one. So make sure to look at the planet as a whole first, before looking at individual cities.

2nd rule of building: Be flexible

The best buildings to build will vary in different situations. Being able to adapt your normal plans for the planet you’re planning for is key. These factors could include terrain size restrictions and the goals of your faction for a particular planet.
For example, if you are in a production faction and need x number of factories on a planet. Figure out how many facilities you will need to offset the negative effects of those facilities before you go to even lay down the slabs. If there isn't enough room then maybe your plans are too ambitious and you need to scale back or use a different planet.

3rd rule of building: Optimize

Make the most out of the available city grid. Make sure almost all roads are shared by at least 2 facilities or even more rarely 3 facilities when at all possible. Go back and look at your design after you finish make sure as many roads are shared as possible. This may cause you to have to move your facilities around a lot.

Tips

On planets with multiple terrain types it's best to organize the terrain types by their size restrictions, so you can determine which facilities will be suited for each of your cities. You may have limited space to build large facilities such as 7x7s. For Example: It may be better placing a lot of small facilities in a cave or hidden city and saving a rock terrain city for nothing but large facilities.
Only the planetary stats for the entire planet matter, individual cities can have greatly varying stats.

City optimization


Why should you optimize a city design? First, cities cost quite a bit of credits to create. So making the most of the city space available is important.

To optimize city space it is best and easiest to start with the largest facilities and work your way down to the small ones. Facilities of the same size are usually best placed together side by side with a road between them. 7X7s usually work best in a block of 4 in a square with 1 road between them in a cross shape which will allow a 1x1 to be placed at the crossroads. When using this design it is most beneficial to place a 5x5 in the adjacent corner.

Tips

   Almost all flats on a planet should be 50 flats and/or 100 flats. All the other high rise and skyscrapers should only be used as final touch ups to the ER as a planet nears completion.
   Semi-detached houses should be saved only for hidden cities and caves and used sparingly even then.
   Personal Residences are waste of space, not to mention destroy planetary tax income.
   Rather than go into details about tax effects here, just know that PRs, SDHs, and council flats reduce tax income which hurts the New Republic's income.