Largest possible colony

Just for fun, what’s the most colonists that can fit on one asteroid?

Limiting factors

Each asteroid has a hard maximum of 100 buildings. Even if it has more open squares, you’ll get an “Asteroid structure too weak!” error message, which exists because the data format only has room for 100 buildings.

In theory, an asteroid could support 100 Resiblocks for a total of 15,000 colonists, but those colonists would never accumulate without first satisfying their food, air, water, medical and security requirements. Those buildings in turn have power requirements. All this eats into the maximum number of Resiblocks we can have.

Requirements

For maximum density, we’ll use the Solar Matrix which generates 8 MW normally, and the Power Amplifier blueprint which increases that to 16 MW. We’ll even detonate our CPU for extra room.

We have some leeway in the medical and security buildings. The first 50 population are exempt from their requirements, and require only one of each building for every full 100 citizens after that.

A big happy colony

A 1,950 population colony requires 4 Life Support, 4 Hydration Plant, 5 Hydroponics, 19 Medical Centre, 19 Security Centre and 13 Resiblock. This requires 105 Power, or 7 Solar Matrix. Total building count: 71.

This colony would cost 361,500 CR to establish, or 491,500 CR including the initial cost of the Solar Matrix and Power Amplifier blueprints. Without the blueprint tech, the same colony could be built with Solar Generators for 368,500 CR and 92 buildings.

Either way, we don’t need any Decontamination Filters (10+ Medical Centres will treat 100% Radiation). The colony will grow to maximum capacity within about 6,500 days, at which point it will be earning 4,000 CR per day from an undocumented game mechanic that pays you 2 credits per citizen and 100 per colony per day.

But there’s still room.

The biggest, happiest colony

At a population of 2,700, the colony is almost maxed out at 99 buildings: 18 Resiblocks, 6 Life Support, 6 Hydration Plant, 7 Hydroponics, 26 Medical Centres, 26 Security Centres and 10 Solar Matrix, at a total cost of 508,000 CR before blueprints. In exchange, a daily tax of 5,500 CR can be yours.

Such a colony will accept an extra Resiblock and raise the maximum to 2,850, but the colony runs run short of medical and security at 2,750 and food at 2,800, which is a disaster for morale. A Living Quarters would be more reasonable as it adds only 50 capacity, but the final 2,750th colonist would still push security and medical over the limit.

Forget happy

If we’re willing to take some risks and sacrifice the workers’ quality of life, a colony can grow even bigger.

First, destroy all Medical Centres. This saves us 26 squares, 26MW of power and 130,000 cash. As long as you have no Radiation and don’t get a virus outbreak, you don’t need Medical Centres.

You can now build 3,800 population colony with 25 Resiblocks and one Living Quarters, earning 7,700/day for an investment of 511,500 CR. A 26th Resiblock instead of Living Quarters would raise that to 3,900, but colonist #3,850 would trigger the security shortage again.

Forget security too

If you’re going to trigger security, there’s no mechanical benefit to having even one Security Centre. Since our colony has 37 of them and they each use up 2MW of power, we can grow our colony to absurd size if we’re willing to put up with constant security alert status.

A 6,600 person colony can be built using 44 Resiblocks, 14 Life Support, 14 Hydration Plants, 17 Hydroponics, and 11 Solar Matrix, at a total cost of 558,000 (688,000 including blueprints) and earning an absurd 13,300 CR per day.

Since this setup uses 100 buildings and you can’t add another colonist here without building a Resiblock, this is the absolute maximum size of a colony. It’s not possible to destroy an air/food/water building without dropping the output below 6,600, and destroying even one Solar Matrix would immediately shut down all Hydration Plants at a colony with no surplus, killing colonists at a rate of over 20% per day.

Even at the stable level of 6,000, there’s a catch. Without security, the colony will be permanently stuck at maximum level “Security Alert!” Every 30-59 days, there is a 20% chance that one of your blueprints will be stolen. If that blueprint is Power Amplifier, your colony’s power output immediately drops by half (176MW to 88MW). This is exactly enough to power your Resiblocks, but everything else goes offline… including Life Support.

In summary

2,700 is the largest colony you can safely build, assuming you spend a lot on power blueprints. That raises to 3,800 if you ignore Medical Centres, but your colony will lose all that population once there’s a virus outbreak. Finally, you can push the population up to 6,600 if you’re willing to endure security alerts, but you’re doomed as soon as someone steals your Power Amplifier tech.