A Vision for Space Colonization

Low Earth Orbit: Low Earth Orbit extends from about 100 kilometers from the Earth's surface to geosynchronous orbit, about 36,000 km up. It is not not pictured. We already have a number of orbital buildings, which have too few people in them to be considered cities. So they are what I consider to be synthetic colonies: they are build by cities on Earth, even though they are not physically located in the cities. I would keep them that way.

Cislunar Space: Cislunar space is the space that is farther from Earth than geosynchronous orbit, and it extends out just a bit past the Moon. Compared to Low Earth Orbit, where the International Space Station is located, a colony in cislunar space would have to go longer without resupply, but it is still close enough to Earth for easy communication and emergency evacuation. It will be humanity's next step in off-planet living after the ISS. The Earth-Moon Lagrangian points, particularly the L4 and L5 points, are particularly promising places for a station because the orbits would be highly stable.

Cislunar colonies because available at Astro Environmental Systems. I imagine a unit similar to the spacecraft settler, but it can only settle in cislunar space. That's the black space to the "west" of Earth.

Cislunar colonies are not intended to grow to more than small towns. Their purpose is mainly industrial. They can build orbital solar arrays and asteroid mines to provide major bonuses to the earthbound cities. They also grant humanity experience and knowledge about living in space, which is needed to move farther out. They are required to build settlers to more distant regions.

There are a couple mechanisms by which a cislunar colony might build things for Earth. They could train a special "unit" called Asteroid Mine or Orbital Solar Array, which can build its special building on an Earth city. Or they might have exclusive National Wonders which give free asteroid mines to every city on Earth.

Moon: I very much like what Faustmouse has done there, and it serves as an inspiration for some of my work. I wouldn't change it much until Lunar Megastructures and Lunar Terraforming, where we get new buildings that let lunar colonies act less like colonies and more like real cities. That means more gold, which will be needed because colonizing the galaxy is expensive.

Sun: That's just there for decoration. In theory you can colonize the Sun, but you would have to do it at night.

Mars: A cislunar colony may or may not be required to building the seedship to Mars. Mars is much more independent than the Moon due to its farther distance (9-22 minutes for communication), and the fact that the thin atmosphere and chemical composition of the Red Planet make it a bit more suitable for independent colonization.

Of all bodies on the map, Mars is the closest to being a second Earth. I have planned a five phase growth systems. When a spacecraft settler lands on Mars, it auto-builds a Martian Colony. At various points in the tech tree, it can be upgraded Colony -> City -> Metropolis -> Megacity -> Arcology. Each upgrade opens up new manufacturing, mining, and/or food production. These produce resources that in turns are needed for the next phase of growth.

Initially Mars will be a big money drain. Despite the supposed independence, resupplies are needed and yet difficult to do. The main value is science. Since it takes a long time to grow the colonies, you will want to get an early start. They will eventually be profitable and prosperous cities. And of course you want to deny Martian real estate to your rivals.

Venus: My plans for Venus are similar to Mars, but truncated. There are three phases of growth: Colony -> City -> Surface City. Population will be lower on Venus, and the output is more industrial rather than commercial. The extreme temperature and pressure at the surface might make allow manufacture of a specialty resource that cannot be acquired by any other means.

Mercury: Mercury is small, and you can't handle the heat until Thermal Negation. Only a couple of colonies can be placed there. The main value of Mercury comes from the absence of atmosphere and proximity to the Sun, which makes it ideal for setting up a massive solar array for antimatter production. For a while this will be the only source of antimatter, which accelerates interstellar colonization.

Asteroid Belt: You cannot cross the asteroid belt until later in the game (Astrogation Constellation?). At that tech, you can start building colonies on the moons of the gas giants.

Jupiter: Jupiter has two moons pictured: Europa and Callisto. Callisto is most useful for industry and as a supply/repair base for spacecraft. It is also a staging ground for the more difficult job of colonizing Europa and other Jovian megaprojects.

Europa might be the most interesting place for astrobiology. Building a colony under the surface of Europa will open a chain of buildings that culminates in a building that will accelerate biological production throughout the empire. This will be especially important later in the game, because you will be able to more rapidly terraform home planets and exoplanets, leading to faster growth in the Galactic Era.

As for Jupiter itself, Planetary Megastructures will unlock a power plant that can harness its intense magnetic field. Building infrastructure around Jupiter will give extra moves to magnetic sail craft.

Saturn: Saturn also has two moons pictured: Enceladus and Titan. There will be a similar two-stage approach to colonizing the Saturnian system. Enceladus comes first, and it is a supply base for passing spacecraft and a good source of organic volatiles.

Titan is a fascinating place, and it is to astroecology what Europa is to astrobiology. The surface of Titan can support a small but thriving commercial society, and the hydrocarbon reserves are good for industry as well. At the end of the Titan building chain is a great wonder that also accelerates future terraforming and geoengineering projects.

There are several possible mechanisms for colonization of the gas giants. First, the planets themselves could be nondescript disks, and the moons would be small islands. A second possibility is that a "city" built anywhere in the Jovian system really spans the whole planetary system, and it can build buildings associated with Europa, Callisto, or Jupiter itself. A third is that the moons are Wonders of Nature or some other special map feature that must be in the city vicinity to access its special buildings.

Uranus: Uranus has two main purposes planned. First, it looks like the best source for mining Helium-3, which will help get out of the solar system faster and also to run fusion power plants in deep space. The second is Miranda, with its incredible geography, will be the premier tourist destination of the outer solar system.

Neptune: I plan to use Triton as a minor industrial site and as the final large staging ground for the Kuiper Belt and beyond. Triton has an advantage of good gravitational heating from Neptune, so geothermal energy keeps the colony going.

Pluto: Pluto is not a planet, but it gets honorable mention with a lonely scientific research base.

Deep Space: This is what really matters in the outer solar system. While the gas giants are optional, you need to build several O'Neill colonies in the solar system (I am not distinguishing between inner and outer solar system) in order to have enough of an industrial base to proceed. They become available at Orbital Megastructures.

The method for building O'Neill colonies will be similar to that for cislunar colonies, and cislunar colonies are needed to assemble O'Neill colonies, since they are too big to be built and launched from the Earth's surface. Although they are fixed in the map, in reality they can move freely (but slowly) throughout the solar system using solar and magnetic sails. These colonies are cities in themselves, and they provide amounts of commerce comparable to Earth cities. They also give good industrial production, being able to launch scouts to harvest asteroids.

Kuiper Belt: The Kuiper Belt is the first of the two layers beyond Pluto. This is your most important site militarily. If there are threats from beyond the solar system, you must have an array of bases on the Kuiper Belt and stop them there. They will be relatively small cities that become available at Asteroid Extraction. Great for harvesting organic volatiles and deuterium.

Oort Cloud: That's the next layer beyond the Kuiper Belt. It extends much farther and cannot be colonized or passed until Interstellar Trade. It is too dispersed to be much good for defense. The main purposes is to set up trading posts, so the Oort Cloud is good for money, and its value increases the more advanced the galactic civilization becomes.

Rogue Planets: The blue dots are rogue planets that are not orbiting any star. They are also good as trading posts and also for various illicit activities, since it is easy to hide on a planet that does not reflect starlight.

Interstellar: Colonies around the star systems are really the bread and butter of the Galactic Era. O'Neill colonies are needed to build seedships, and even then seedships are extraordinarily expensive. But interstellar colonies can build new seedships much more easily. While building out the solar system was a mostly deliberate process, interstellar space is a scramble and land grab.

Interstellar colonies are large autonomous. Their buildings are entire planets or large sections of planets. Ultimately there should be buildings to handle all the basics of a city: food, resource extraction, manufacturing, governance, habitat, recreation, and so forth. However, at least in the first half of the Galacic Era, they are not good for military production. The communication logistics are impossible, and the early colonies do not have the resources for a large military. So you will have to build a fleet of starships in the outer solar system and send them to the colonies.

Exoplanets: Not pictured are extrasolar planets. These are a few particularly special planets because they already have biosphere or intelligent life. There will be cultures that can only be built from exoplanets. But they are defended by peace-loving natives barbarians who require nontrivial military force to dislodge. There might also be a Prime Directive military civic that gives rewards to players who forego galactic imperialism.

The Far Galaxy: The yellow spray paint is galactic dust. It represents another step up in distances, and Advanced Seedships (?) are needed to cross that barrier. The terrains in the distance are defended by ultra-powerful remnants of a mysterious long-gone K3 civilization, so your advanced seedships had better not go alone.

Star Clusters: An entire star cluster can be colonized at once. A star cluster would have the same line of buildings as an interstellar colony, but with a few extra buildings that give much larger bonuses. Not many star clusters will be available, and they will be your premier cities. Colonization is a challenge due to the extreme distances and the orbital disruption that stellar density causes, so techs such as Artificial Planets and Orbital Engineering will be needed.

Neutron Stars: Neutron stars are the ultimate in resource extraction. Colliding them together causes a supernova, producing all sorts of valuable resources.

Black Holes: These are the best sources of energy and of science, due to being able to use the black hole's energy to run supercomputers. For some reason, not very many colonists want to go.

Galactic Core: This is really your goal. You must have a Galactic Core colony to build the Ascension Gate and achieve a Scientific victory. You can also build a Galactic Core Dyson Sphere for ultimate power.

Yes, I said three. The Nanotech Era runs from x92 to x107, the Transhuman Era from x108 to x122, and the Galactic Era from x123 to the end. This would leave the Galactic Era a stump, but more techs should be added there. I have 16 in planning so far. More late game techs are needed anyway, because as it is now, there would be very little time to build out a galactic empire. For several reasons, I see columns x108 and x123 as significant transition points that justify the change to a new era. Changes might be called for at the Modern/Nanotech boundary, but that's another matter. You can think of the three eras as corresponding to Types I, II, and III on the Kardeshev scale.

Here is what I see the game being like at various points in time.

Late Modern: There are many new historical space missions included. These wonders will accelerate future production, so the Modern space race matters. Players competing for a Scientific victory want to grab as many of them as they can.

Nanotech: On Earth, building out scientific and industrial capacity remains a priority, with an eye to sustainability. There are a few significant space missions, thereby continuing the space race. In space, the main priority is industrializing cislunar space. Lunar colonies are a close second priority. You will want to start with Martian colonization, though these colonies will not be mature in the Nanotech Era. Venus is a lesser priority. Colonization during this era will be slow, deliberative, and expensive.

Early Transhuman: This is where the Martian colonies start to become thriving cities. The pace of Martian development is accelerating, and a war over Mars might be fought if the game is still competitive. Not too much is happening on the Moon, and cislunar space is more or less already fully developed. Earth is mostly developed by now too, and the main focus is on speciality buildings and megaprojects such as some new arcology Great Wonders. You also want to grab and start to develop colonies at the gas giants.

Late Transhuman: Orbital Megastructures is one of the most important techs in the era, because now you can colonize deep space. You want to get as many O'Neill colonies as you can afford, and once they are built, you want to divert most of your resources to building out their industrial, commercial, and military capacity. The Moon, which had been fading in importance, takes on new life (figuratively and literally) at Lunar Megastructures and Lunar Terraforming. Now you can greatly accelerate lunar colonization, and you will want to take over the moon completely because it is profitable and you are strapped for cash. This is also when the gas giant and Venus colonies mature and Mercury colonization becomes possible. Mars is close to a fully developed planet, and your attention is moving away now.

Early Galactic: You know the pattern now. You better have worked hard on building O'Neill colonies, because now you need them to colonize nearby interstellar space. The O'Neill colonies are cranking out seedships and military starships, and the interstellar colonies are alternating between development and new seedships. This era is a land grab, in contrast to the deliberate development of the past. By now your attention has mostly moved away from the inner solar system.

Late Galactic: By now the frenetic pace of expansion has slowed down a bit, and in the final push you are focused on getting the premier goodies in the far galaxy. Interstellar colonies can shift more of their production toward development, and you will want to get critical buildings such as Ecumenopolis. However, by now the interstellar civilizations are able exceed what the outer solar system can do for military production, and you will need it for the last round of far galactic colonization. The ultimate goal is to reach the Galactic Core and build the Ascension Gate.

Just as there are specialized settler units, I foresee specialized worker units can cannot cross certain boundaries, can only work certain terrains, and can only build certain routes. I am thinking of avoiding map bonuses outside of Earth, relying instead on buildings to provide them.

In cislunar space, Mass Driver is needed to build routes to connect Earth cities with cislunar colonies and the moon. This makes it easier for cislunar colonies to do their main job of providing resources to the Earth and Moon. However, since the current lunar colonization scheme has the moon responsible for producing its own resources, I don't want Earth and Moon to trade with each other directly. That's something to be worked out.

There are two routes in the solar systems: Interplanetary Transport Network (Astrogation Constellation) and Laser StarWay (Solar Ordnance). In galactic space, Wormhole Traversal is needed to build routes, and a more advanced route might be available at Space Folding or Space Creasing. The only route I intended for Mars, Moon, and Venus are maglevs, and they become available at Supersonic Rails.

An alternative solution to resource trade dispenses completely with the notion of resources being traded over routes in space. Routes are only for fast travel. Instead, when a space colony develops a tradable resource, such as Helium-3 on Uranus, it adds a free Bonus - Helium 3 to every city (this bonus requires the right kind of terrain).

I noticed we have two new techs now with special requirements: Waterproof Concrete and Lead Glass. A third option would be to use this mechanism for the specialized knowledge that comes out of colonies at Europa, Titan, Venus, etc.

A fourth option might require new XML tags; I'm not sure exactly what can be done with the current tags. I'll use space solar power as an example. Only cislunar colonies could build solar power satellites. A microwave power plant would require that 4 X solar power satellites exist. In exchange for all this extra effort, the microwave plant would be significantly upgraded. But I want 4 X solar power satellites to be sufficient to build as many microwave plants as desired. My understanding of how it currently works is that 4 solar satellites would be needed for the first microwave plant, 8 for the second plant, and so forth. Another option, which I am pretty sure would require a new XML tag, would be for the microwave plant to produce 25*N hammers, where N is the number of solar power satellites.