Orbitals
Orbitals — Terra Invicta technology. A second generation of space habitats can hold hundreds of personnel.
About Orbitals
Orbitals is a Terra Invicta technology in LifeScience with a research cost of 5,000.
A second generation of space habitats can hold hundreds of personnel.
With the rudiments of long-term space existence now established, it is time to raise the stakes. More personnel, more improvements to their quality of life, and far more reliability and autonomy - further reducing the need for shipments from Earth. Even if we settle on other worlds, permanent waypoints in the space between them are a necessity if we are to efficiently transport craft, resources, and people between those worlds, and to oversee the many trade routes that spawn from such expansion. It is size that we must now address. Each resident requires a minimum volume of 17 cubic meters of personal space if they are to remain sane for more than a few months, but for orbital existence to become a long-term, large-scale prospect, we must now significantly exceed this baseline. Larger habs and more personnel also mean more of everything else, of course; more oxygen, more food, more medical supplies. Clustered and expandable micro-gravity modules, linked by arterial floataways, have been deemed the most practical approach for now, but once we move from scores of trained personnel to thousands of civilians, we will need not only larger habitats, but also a means of generating gravity.