Several buildings with either different effects or different levels of effect on the same parameters are available. These buildings are organised in several building types, each including several building categories.

Alliance buildings which can only be constructed on planets owned by alliances, which they provide with additional coordination capabilities.

Economy buildings can provide an empire with either money or work units to manufacture items or extract resources.

Environmental buildings reduce the effects of a planet’s industrial infrastructure on pollution.

Governmental buildings provide general government facilities improving the control over the population and the happiness of the population which feels like being cared about. These buildings can also feed the population with propaganda or increase the security of the planet, thus making it less prone to rebellion or corruption and harder to take over.

Health care buildings improve the population’s health, thus leading to a higher population growth on planets.

Housing buildings provide additional living space, therefore making the planet capable of hosting more inhabitants on the planet.

Military buildings contribute to the defense of a planet (to reduce the damage caused by an attacking force) or take part in the destruction of enemy fleets.

Recreational facilities provide the population of a planet with entertainment, thus increasing its overall happiness.

Science and education buildings allow for a greater scientific output of the planet.

Travel buildings are buildings which allow the population of a planet to move on the planet, to other planets of the same empire or to other empires and increase the efficiency of the transportation of raw materials and goods.

Each type of building as described above include about 30 different buildings for the smallest sets.

All these buildings have to be constructed, thus using part of the building place available on the planet. The room they use depends on their size. Of course there is a set of dependencies for each building, be it technologies or other buildings. As such not all buildings are available immediately – far from it. Moreover some buildings can be considered as different versions of others, which makes it possible to transform one building into another of the same type.

Construction of buildings includes of course a cost in money and occasionally other resources; it isn’t immediate as it was for Beta 5: the time to build depends on the size and complexity of the building, represented by an amount of work units, which are produced by inhabitants of the planets who are employed as construction workers. Finally, a building has a maintenance cost, which consists in a number of work units it requires to stay in good shape.

Buildings have hit points and can be damaged or destroyed through bombardments of the planet, or if the workforce assigned to maintenance is insufficient. Damaged building are less efficient and tend to generate more pollution.

Building destruction takes time too: it is again managed through work units which are provided by the construction workforce.

What do you think of having actual buildings? What do you think of the way we intend to manage them? Do you think the suggested categories are adequate? Can you think of others?