Revision as of 23:34, 21 March 2015

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Overview

Environmental Domes are set up on non-core planets where you have a deed. They allow you to establish and manage a habitable environment for colonists and colony buildings on planets or moons that have not yet been terraformed.

These colonies can produce food and/or minerals which can supplement the resource supply available within the core as well as meet the needs of local expansion. Once sufficient numbers of colonies are established, options will be made available to allow colonies to trade amongst each other.

Prerequisites

Stellar Credits (SC) are acquired by purchasing premium content via the options button. SC are awarded at a rate of 100/month/premium. Deeds require 80 SC to claim and 80 SC per month to maintain.

Before claiming a deed on a planet that you intend to colonize, you should have already acquired (from Deep Six) the blueprints for Environmental Domes and Automated Fission Power Plants.

You will also need the blueprint for the traditional Transport Grids, substantial reserves of minerals for construction, as well as Graphene and Superconducting Coils. You will also need a ship with a large passenger and cargo capacity, and a suitable Hyperdrive fitted.

Deed Placement

Before claiming a deed, ensure that the land under the deed is mostly flat, and has suitable resource levels. Colonies should not be placed on extra-hilly moons at all, and you should also avoid building on hillsides except where absolutely necessary.

Use the show mb.coresample command on various plots (colored part of a show mb.samplemapoverlay) to determine a good place for the center of the deed. Beware that actual deposits of minerals do not completely correspond to the mb.samplemapoverlay. There is always some overlap. You do not want to invest your limited supplies of Graphene, Superconducting Coils, Titanium, Carbon and Aluminum on a dome when the land under the dome lacks development potential.

Waervyn shows the basics of picking a location and deed placement: Waervyn's Colonization Video

Claiming a deed

While in EVA there will be a button that says Claim Deed. Once you are in the position that you want to be your colony center, just press this button, and accept the confirm popup.

Claiming a deed does not require purchasing a deed, and has no prerequisites other than the 80 SC.

Dome Placement

Upon claiming a deed, you will want to place your first dome. Ensure the land it is being placed on is flat, or close to flat, and be absolutely sure that it has minerals present under substantial parts of the dome, if not the entire area.

Upon placing your dome, you will notice a structure at the centre of the dome, at ground level. This is the dome control tower. The commands you can use with the dome control tower console can be found in the latter part of this article.

Underwater Domes

On worlds with oceans the dome may be built either above or below sea level. However, the dome control systems will not work correctly if the dome is built partially underwater. Your dome should be either entirely underwater or not in the sea at all.

Note that in a H₂O-only ocean, you will have difficulty finding sufficient nitrogen for your undersea dome atmosphere. Nitrogen will have to be "unloaded" from a ship into the dome.

Transport Grid Placement

After placing your dome and supplying its materials, the first thing you will want to build are Transport Grids. Keep them three squares apart on one axis, and combine them at least once, preferably twice, on the other axis. The three square separation allows for two squares of land to be developed inbetween each Transport Grid. The intersecting grids can be located within the dome boundary, but they do not necessarily have to be.

Beware that nothing can be successfully built on square 0,0. This square is either unusable due to a bug, or it may be reserved for the future construction of a statue in your honour.

Energy Supply

The next thing to build are your Automated Fission Power Plants. You will need approximately 2-3 power plants before construction is finished to manage the dome's atmosphere, approximately 6 power plants for a single dome farm colony, and substantially more power plants for mining colonies.

Energy Supply Tips

As these power plants are designed for rough environments, they can and should be built outside the dome, though they must be connected using Transport Grids.

For obvious reasons there should be two independent paths for energy to reach the dome control tower from your power plants. This may mean building power plants on two sides of your colony, or by adding a transverse grid alongside the dome control tower. When deleting and adding buildings, any interruptions to supply of energy to the dome control tower (if you accidentally remove a critical transport grid section while attempting to remove a building) could have catastrophic consequences for your dome's residents.

Environmental Management

Click on the dome control tower to manage the dome's computer. You will see a console. Commands that you can use to set up your dome's atmosphere are listed below.

You will want the Radiation, Gravity and Pressure as close to 1 as possible. The Radiation and Gravity are managed in their own right. The pressure is a function of the quantities of gases present within the dome. You will need the gas amounts and water vapour (N2, O2, CO2 and H2O) to sum up to approximately 430,000 tons. They will need to be at proportions similar to Earth's atmosphere.

del

Deletes the specified command line. Each line is numbered. Syntax: del 12 (where 12 is the line to be deleted).

polarize

Sets the level of radiation shielding occurring within the roof glazing of your Environmental Dome. This prevents the radiation, where applicable, from cooking your dome's residents. The number can also be set to increase the amount of radiation received by your dome, in low radiation environments.

To calculate your polarization number, divide 1 by the radiation your dome receives. You will not be able to find the Radiation level until you have a completed dome. When you click on a completed dome the first line will show base radiation.

modgrav

Changes the level of gravity within the dome. Ideally this should be set to the difference between external gravity and 1. If a planet has over 1g, modgrav -## (## represents the number to be subtracted) is used where the number is 1 less then the gravity. If the planet is below 1g, then modgrav ## is added to get to 1g.

Examples:

modgrav -3.044

modgrav .627

heat

Heats the air/gases within your dome. Can and should be made conditional. All temperatures are in degrees Kelvin. This value should be the coolest you want your dome to get during the night. Best setting:

heat temp < 296.4

Read as "heat when temp is less than 296.4 K"

cool

Cools the air/gases within your dome. Can and should be made conditional. All temperatures are in degrees Kelvin. This value should be the warmest you want your dome to get during the day. Best setting:

cool temp > 297

Read as "cool when temp is greater than 297."

vent

Separates and expels specified gas (including NH4 and CO2, as well as useful gases such as Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide etc) out of the dome atmosphere. Can and should be made conditional, so that these gases are only expelled above your preferred upper limit for each gas.

All Carbon must be vented. The dome's computer does not do a very good job stabilizing the carbon in its molecular form. The technology to achieve this is unlikely to ever be developed during our lifetimes.

All surplus gases must be conditionally vented above the levels you want in your atmosphere. Where a gas is also needed for split or combine functions, make the vent command conditional at a slightly higher quantity than the condition set on the split or combine function.

store

Stores a quantity of unwanted gases from the dome into a warehouse, once the dome is habitable and has a warehouse.

Examples:

To store 100,000 units of hydrogen (H): store h 100000

To store 12,345 units of oxygen (O): store o2 12345

To store one million units of nitrogen (N): store n2 1000000

To store 5 units of water (H2O): store h2o 5

To store 10 units of carbon dioxide (CO2): store co2 10

To store 10 units of ammonia (NH3): store nh3 10

To store 25 units of methane (CH4): store ch4 25

split

Separates out the molecular bonds between various atmospheric gases, to yield potentially useful gases. For example, you can create a conditional rule to split NH3 into Nitrogen (required for atmosphere) and Hydrogen (can be stored and/or vented and/or recombined into water).

This can be a conditional command allowing splitting as it detects levels.

split co2 o2 < 92000

Read as "split co2 when o2 is less then 92,000."

This will split and produce c (to be vented) and o2 for dome atmosphere until 92,000 tons of o2 are in the dome atmosphere then stop.

combine

Recombines split gases or gases obtained using intake. For example, if you have H2 from an intake or a split command, and you have O2 from another split command, you can combine the two to make water. The 'Combine' command does not support conditional parameters.

To make water (H2O): combine h o2

*** Combine command is not conditional. It will free run and ignore any conditions added to it. If left in without the proper settings, it will use up available oxygen ant make a dome take much longer to become habitable, or use up oxygen and make it uninhabitable or never reach habitability.

intake

Sets the dome controls to retrieve a specific gas from the atmosphere.

To see what gases can be retrieved from the atmosphere, use the computer command show rs.composition while you are in the atmosphere.

Examples:

Intake water gas (H2O): intake h2o

Intake methane gas (CH4): intake ch4

Intake ammonia gas (NH3): intake nh3

Intake nitrogen (N): intake n

Intake oxygen (O2): intake o2

Intake carbon dioxide (CO2): intake co2

These commands can be conditional. This allows the dome to only intake what is needed. The correct syntax is as follows:

intake n2 n2 < 300000

Read as "intake n2 when n2 is less than 300,000. Seldom is '>' used in an intake since this will free run once the level has been reached, yet not intake any until that level is achieved.

unload

Allows a player to drop Hydrogen, Oxygen, and any other atmospheric elements, directly into the dome from your ship's cargo hold. Most domes will not use this feature as it's infinitely more efficient to intake and use gases that are present locally. You would normally only use this command if your dome is on a planet with no atmosphere or where a specific element is missing from the atmosphere. This is a one-off feature: it will not continue to raid your ship's hold for atmospheric gases the next time you visit your dome.

Example: unload 500 Water

Sample Environmental Controls

Epoch, Neolithica

Prime, Guild Prime

Primo Spe, Septem

Niu Heimar, Breidablick

Hobo's Dome Habitability Tutorial

Click Here

Colony Buildings and Colonists

You will already have blueprints for the basic colony buildings such as Water Tower, Residential Tower, Warehouse, Entertainment Complex, Mines and Farms, if you have built successful settlements on core planets and moons. Dome colonies are larger and slightly harder to build versions of these, though dome colonies are potentially far more lucrative.

All buildings must adjoin at least one transport grid section to operate correctly.

All buildings must have workers to operate correctly. In the core there are millions of unemployed residents, and thus finding labour is not difficult. On colonies you will only have workers present if you transport them yourself.

(We can only hope their presence is entirely voluntary. At present this is unclear, especially since the UNCA is paid per colonist but there is no evidence that the colonists themselves are being paid for their presence or their labour.)

You should request an allocation of colonists (by clicking Manage Settlement -> Recruit Colonists), while within 100,000km of your colony, once your dome is habitable and you have completed buildings for colonists to work, rest and play. You will be told which system you need to go to upon each allocation, and how much you will need to pay the UNCA for that allocation.

You should continue to recruit and transport more colonists until your colony has reached full employment.

A typical dome full of mines or farms and a few towers will require approximately 2,000 colonists. Spaceships can expand passenger space by attaching Passenger Quarter modules. A Class 7 Passenger Quarter module can fit an additional 107 passengers and you can fit as many Passenger Quarter modules onto your ship as long as you have cargo space. Higher class Passenger Quarter modules carry more passengers on your ship.

Colonist Delivery

Colonists must be brought to within 5,000 meters of the center of your deed, often called the Deed Stake. It is the right hand bottom corner of the colony name plate. They will find their own way to your colony from there. This gameplay feature will change once sufficiently large airlocks are developed.

Videos

Waervyn's Building a Dome Video

Continue to Frequently Asked Questions

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