On base establishment fees

[Arrathir]

As of the last devpost, molp elaborated on the intention behind base establishment fees which can be read here or relevant sections screenshotted below.

I would like to emphasize that the base establishment fees were intended to compensate players that contributed or developed a planet’s population infrastructure. However, the community currently utilizes the fee as a barrier of entry and a means to keep other players out.

In a multiplayer game about economics and production, I am of the opinion that a “One Person, One Planet” model is not beneficial for PrUn in the long term. When presented with a 10 million base establishment fee, a player’s options are limited to:

1. Look for an alternative.
2. Reach out to the Governor and arrange a “buisness deal”.
3. Settle the base, pay 10 million, and roll the dice.

'Business deal' meme

Here is a spreadsheet which lists all planets that have a settlement fee based on currency used. A quick breakdown shows:

Antares: 7 Planets
Benten: 5 Planets (add +1 for a cheeky 9.9M)
Moria: 34 Planets (add +1 for a cheeky 9.9M)
Insistor: 59 Planets (add +3 for a cheeky 9.5M)
NOTE: Insistor is over-represented because the void sectors default to their currency.

Backup spreadsheet images

This makes for a total of 105 planets as of 8/13/2026 with a 10 million establishment fee.

The OOG Infrastructure Calculator puts an ADM+COGC at roughly 3 million leaving 7 million for the various POP buildings. For low tier and resource extraction planets, the expense to develop is significantly smaller than the base establishment fee that can be charged per player.
Higher tier planets cost more to develop but with just a single player settling those expenses are essentially reimbursed in full.

For example, EvoV breaks down the cost of building a TECH/ENG planet as shown below:

The total cost to develop this plant was approximately 11 million which is broken down to 6.82 million for infrastructure and 4.2 million for technician and engineer growth. As shown at the beginning, Evo indicated a 5 million fee would have been sufficient yet a 10 million base establishment fee was still implemented. This demonstrates the establishment fee is being utilized as a barrier to entry to prevent other players from settling. While one of EvoV’s planets was the example used to illustrate the situation, there remain many other planets that are operated with similar styles of play.

Once a base establishment fee is established, it’s essentially permanent as there is a lack of counter-play options, maintenance requirements, or expiration date(s) in place. If the only player on the planet leaves the game, the base establishment fee remains until someone else settles, pays, and potentially removes it upon electing themselves to governor. There is no detriment to implementing a base establishment fee, which are inherently a “Get off my lawn” or “Enter at your own Risk” sign.

I am for players having the ability to invest into new planets and protect their investment to a reasonable degree, but how much protection should be afforded such investments? For all the mechanics recently implemented to assist with settling planets farther away from the CX (E.G. gateways, colony ships, new resources, etc), high base establishment fees on non-faction planets do the exact opposite. It stymies development of surrounding systems as players erect walls and lock-down desirable planets for their personal use.

[Ogrebeef-Backkicker]

I would say that in most cases the 10M settlement fee is NOT being to used lock people out of a planet.

There are two reasons that it is commonly used:

1. Manage the effect of new bases on population. On smaller planets a sudden influx of new bases can wreak havoc on available workers for several weeks. The governor would prefer that people notify him of their desire to set up a new base. Then he can start setting up workforce programs, ask people to wait a week of two before starting a new base or building out an existing one. The base establishment fee is then reimbursed or temporarily removed so that new bases can be started in an orderly fashion.

2. Disincentive for hostile planet takeovers. If people have to pay a 10M fee that they may never get back then they are less likely to set up bases for the purpose of taking over the government to raid the treasury.

[SLKLS]

The problem with the 1-person-planets with 10M fee is that only one person has to go on there, has to run first in ADM and have a base worth more pops to have total control over gov and CoGC while on a planet with 5+ bases it would be way harder to do that.
So there the 10M fee makes sense as a security for the pioneer. Usually it is still a “doorkeeper” fee which you usually get paid back, partially or whole, if the pioneer is happy with you being there (reasons see post above).

So I would propose having the tax capped at something like 10M / (amount of bases/3) with max 10M with that value connected to the inflation index. This would mean a planet with 3 or less bases would have the 10M safeguard while a planet with 10 bases has the fee capped at 3M and a planet with 100 mabses at 300k.

[Hevlikn]

Wow, Evov’s take here is wild.

And also completely misses the point.

I don’t think it unreasonable for those developing the frontiers to be reimbursed for that investment, but ‘I can’t change the COGC on my planet’ is spicy.

That’s entirely your choice to settle a planet with no infrastructure, and burn loads of money, probably an un-recoupable amount, to set it up. I would say that, especially trying to do that alone (with limited life-support available to actually develop the pop), it does not make any economic sense.

(Why have a ROI of 30-60d when you can break after half the year? - I’m not joking 11M / 100k/d = 110d. And the more advanced chains often have higher ROI or even -ve)

Further, perhaps collaborating on that effort would be cheaper for everyone, and a lower more accessible fee would be more likely to recoup. (Maybe 10 bases for 1M, or even 100 for 100k!; ah but 10% of 10M is less than 0% of a potential 10M)

What the issue has been, is using this mechanic to limit or restrict bases where the development is complete and the investment recouped.

[CoinCrafter23]

Except you ignore the most compelling argument: but I want to.
In all seriousness, I often have an ulterior motive when I settle a “private“ planet. My first, YI–552D, was a sandbox in which I could experiment with population mechanics and governance as a whole. I learned a lot of foundational skills there, and learned how to put into practice a lot of tools I still use for population management. In the case of the UB–808 system, there were two factors driving my colonization efforts: one, I was planning on centering a lot of production around UB–808A, and two, I can often be capricious and change bases on a whim, and so having a dedicated system of planets where I call the shots of what is running what has been a huge help over the past couple months. It has saved me a lot of headaches with moving shipping around, and dealing with populations is a lot easier and quicker than if I were to move to other planets in the faction. The fact that it is about as far as Boucher, and halfway between ANT and HRT, has also been very useful.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind if people settled as well. They would just need to be willing to accept that I have been doing something specific there. 10 million sounds to me like excellent compensation for taking away the freedom I currently have to manage those planets as I see fit. If I recall correctly, each cost about 3 million to set up, closer to 5 million in the case of building a TEC and ENG population. 5 million over that represents about two months worth of profits from that base, which seeing as I would now be beholden to another player on planet seems like reasonable recompense for losing my freedom

[RNGzero]

I see some comments here trying to justify the fee as being helpful in some capacity, but each reason boils down to preventing settling to some degree.

Paying 10m and settling is not inherently act of aggression but it seems a portion of the community views it as such… Why? Because a player paying 10m to settle would take 3 months at 100k/day to earn just that fee back (forget paying for the base, permit, & maint.). So it’s not logical for a player to do so…which keeps these planets private.

Yes… players which develop a new planet should have an avenue toward compensation, but keeping a planet private with an overinflated barrier of entry is harmful to the game. Keeping the best planets within a sector locked down prevents further development outside of faction space.

Despite the cost of developing a new planet, players still do it because it is profitable. The player can still ask for compensation over a year producing on the planet and earning their return on investment.

Yet, I see players desiring even stronger protections for private planets because 10m doesn’t apparently seem to be enough… The Corporate Planet System

[CoinCrafter23]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but how much of that did you actually read? Because my intent with that system was to think of something that aligns with the dev’s original purpose for base establishment fees, while also allowing (not requiring) players to go solo, while also allowing the community to permanently break that power as they see fit.

[SLKLS]

@RNGzero

Despite the cost of developing a new planet, players still do it because it is profitable. The player can still ask for compensation over a year producing on the planet and earning their return on investment.

Already talked about before:

But how do you enforce that? You just need one player landing on “your” planet, running first on the ADM and they have the control over the government. So the pioneer can’t get the funds out of the gov accounts if the other player doesn’t want that.

And overall a upfront payment is just better for the governor as the costs to get pops (mainly a problem for high tier pops) are there no matter if the base stays for 45d, 90d, a year or goes AWOL after a few days. Meanwhile the return via taxes depends on how long the prodductions run.

.

And the core problem was that the 10M fee on a cheap to build on planet with 100 bases used mainly for newer players where the base costs ~2M (little costs for permit and ship) sets the costs to 6x compared to what 10M are for a HQ30 player where the permit alone is multiple time the fee so it is hardly a “lock” at that point.

[RNGzero]

So, the YXZ player running for office before the governor to get their 10m back isn’t the entire story. This actually played out on Celebdil where a member of parliament stopped the governor & co. from taking out 8m multiple times despite being out voted. The motion to make the payout can be voted on…but a single member of parliament not voting delays the motion. When no-body is looking… they can suddenly vote “yes” and then cancel/refuse the contract to actually make the payment.

So a player settling and believing they can sneakily get their 10m back by being first in an election may find reimbursement more difficult than they anticipated.

Planets with 10m settlement fees keep out the average PrUn player (under 3 bases) unless they take out a loan/grant. Players with a decent amount of time in the game would know to look somewhere else. Players with level 30+ HQs are not the average player and have the pocket book to readily pay 10m.

When KR and RE were released, I half expected players to privatize each resources but the locations were spoiled on the early access server. So multiple bases were settled on those rocks prior to the update. For new or critical resources, a 10m entry fee is one of the few cases where it’s appealing to ensure access.

@CoinCrafter23

So a motion never needs to be made… thus a planet is private until the founder desires it. You go even further by ensuring that “share” cannot be incidentally released to a player outside of the founder’s intended user.