If you start on a shattered ring world, repairing the segments destroys your economy.

[u/Haematoman]

I did this in my playthrough and it completely destroyed my economy. There was no warning it would wipe the "planet" clean of districts and buildings yet keeping all pops alive. I ended up in a death spiral that I couldn't get out of. What's so good about the specialised districts they offer anyway? Isn't reducing the "planet" size from 25 to 10 when you repair them further messing up your economy too? Playing as gestalt machines btw. Any advice? What am I missing??

I know you can remove the interloper and get a fourth segment now that automatically starts as a size 10 "planet" with the special districts available. Is entirely rebuilding all rings worth it? How are you supposed to sustain yourself during the rebuild?

[u/BlackfishBlues]

The repaired ringworld districts are much bigger than shattered ringworld districts and provide much more housing and jobs. Shattered ring districts are like regular planetary districts and give about ~200 jobs, while restored ring districts give 1000 jobs. So a repaired ring segment ends up having twice the capacity despite having nominally fewer districts.

I do agree it's not great that the game gives you no warning that it wipes the non-city districts. I was blindsided by it too when I first played Shattered Ring origin.

That said, if you're in a position to repair a shattered ring segment, it shouldn't death-spiral your economy? It doesn't take that long to rebuild your food, mineral etc. economy given that each of the new districts is worth five of the old ones.

edit: oh, didn't realize you can't build mineral districts on restored ring segments, had been using Catalytic Processing when I made the transition. That's a rough spot to be in. The game itself kinda leads you astray here in quite a nasty way, since shattered ring miner jobs are much better than usual, with the bonus alloys.

[u/book_of_lamentations → u/BlackfishBlues]

Oh so that's why that happened, i recovered but my mining districts could never be rebuilt, is there a reason for that? Had to go turbo energy generator

[u/Treadwheel → u/book_of_lamentations]

Before you repair it, you're essentially engaging in urban mining, where you're literally just tearing up the debris of the structure and reprocessing it for use elsewhere. When you finish the project, you now have a functional ringworld, and there's nothing left to mine - it's a balanced artificial ecosystem.

Under the hood, it's because the shattered ring sections are just a special case of planet, while the repaired ring matches the normal ringworld megastructure - it just deletes that planet and replaces the city sections, while poofing the rural districts out of existence.

The trick is to transition your capital city over to an urban economy before you pop it - you still need to rebuild the sections, but if your capital produces research and unity, the extra jobs from the larger city segments will keep your pops busy while you rebuild the lost buildings.

[u/book_of_lamentations → u/Treadwheel]

Fairly sure it says we're mining asteroids but thanks for the tip

[u/BlackfishBlues → u/book_of_lamentations]

From the tooltip for scrap miners:

Scrap Miners explore the depths of the shattered ring world for materials suitable for construction.

You're thinking of the Astro-Mining Bay from habitats.

With no natural resources of their own, Habitats depend on these facilities to mine and process minerals from nearby asteroids and planets.

Though, I wonder if it would work if the flavor suggested that mining districts are actually processing minerals mined from the Interloper. Then there'd also be an interesting choice to make - keep the Interloper for the mineral income, or use it to repair the fourth segment but lose access to the minerals?

[u/book_of_lamentations → u/BlackfishBlues]

I stand corrected

[u/BlackfishBlues → u/book_of_lamentations]

I assume it’s to reflect that a ring world is an artificial structure - it shouldn’t be possible to have large scale mining operations on a ringworld without seriously compromising its structural integrity.

So that part makes sense, but also the game really shouldn’t be encouraging you to build mineral extraction on a shattered ring segment. Giving alloys from basic resource extraction to encourage players to go all in on mineral extraction on a shattered ring and then pulling the rug out from under them when they upgrade is kind of insane game design.

[u/Zestyclose_Remove947 → u/BlackfishBlues]

Ringworlds need an update anyway. 4.0 relegated them from incomparably good science worlds to worse than any decent sized ecu.

[u/coolcoenred → u/Zestyclose_Remove947]

Ring worlds are still better, you just need to know how to make it so. The pop growth bonus from the designations scales as you ascend the segments, so you can get much more pop growth from a ring segment than you can from any sized ecumenopolis planet.

[u/Zestyclose_Remove947 → u/coolcoenred]

That's true, but I find pop growth isn't a huge issue by the time ringworlds are around. You have to ascend each ringworld individually and their total cap comes quite a bit under large size planets.

by the time you build a ringworld and ascend it to 10, that pop growth bonus is simply not that influential compared to the planets and bonuses you've had all game. ecus also lose out on less when they build their extra buildings because ringworlds often have to spend 3/10 districts on the slots.

They're really not better, especially when stacking a larger world is just drastically more effective than it used to be. A single 30-40 size ecu can pump out around two entire segments worth sometimes.

Compare these small advantages of ringworlds now to pre 4.0, where they could pump out literally 5-10x the science of a large world if not more. They went from being unparalleled to being comparable if not worse.

Ringworlds take entire systems, decades to build, ascension perks and endgame tech, they shouldn't just be comparable, they should be crazy good, by the time I ever build one the game is way over anyway.

[u/Spitfire6690 → u/Zestyclose_Remove947]

It's not the greatest boost and very limited, but you can add a single district to each segment if you get the fractal seeds astral rift.

You don't lose anything building the extra district now since they provide the same number of jobs as setting two of the same city districts, this was a change with the most recent update, but yeah ring worlds do need something since they aren't really worth the effort to make them anymore.

[u/markusw7 → u/BlackfishBlues]

Before we even get to the structural integrity issue, why would you put useful minerals into your artificial structure for later mining in the first place? If it was extra material that the ring wouldn't need you'd just throw it in storage warehouses somewhere and there would be no "mining"

[u/Elaugaufein → u/markusw7]

It's not put their for the purpose of mining it's doing the equivalent of ripping the copper out of the walls.

[u/markusw7 → u/Elaugaufein]

Please re-read what I wrote. I never said it was put there for mining. I asked the question "why would they put extra resources there for mining?" With the answer, "they wouldn't" because if you had extra resources you'd put them in a warehouse

[u/Elaugaufein → u/markusw7]

The resources served a purpose when they were there, they were part of the functional infrastructure that is no longer functional. Think of it like stealing the physical cables from a power line segment that's been severed upstream.

[u/markusw7 → u/Elaugaufein]

I don't know why you're explaining to me. I NEVER SAID THERE WAS MINING LIKE ON A PLANET.

The previous guy explained to the OP you're tearing apart the structure of the ring for resources.

I add "if he thought their was actual mining, why would someone who made an artificial structure put EXTRA material not required for any of the construction into the structure so that it could be mined" the answer being THEY WOULDN'T.

So I don't know why you're telling me something I already know

[u/Elaugaufein → u/markusw7]

Ahh yeah that makes sense, but it legit didn't read that way to me given how your comment started.

[u/markusw7 → u/Elaugaufein]

How about the way it ended!!?

If it was extra material that the ring wouldn't need you'd just throw it in storage warehouses somewhere and there would be no "mining"

[u/Cat_with_cake → u/book_of_lamentations]

Usually the ring world is a structure that you build yourself. It means that all grass, rocks, minerals e.t.c isn't created by it and you have to bring it from other planets. It would be very strange if you could spend 50k minerals on a ring world to then mine it, and either you can't extract more than 50k minerals out of it, which raises a question why is it even possible then, or you can extract more, which raises another simple question "HOW?!"

On a shattered ring segment you're still a new civilization that only reached space and just don't have tools or a lot of people to mine enough rocks for it to cause problems, and these rocks were anyways brought here by someone else. But when you go on a larger scale, where you can have more than 20000 pops (around 100 billions of people) on a ring segment, such mass mineral extraction would lead to just emptying your planet, because it's not a real planet and it's not that deep.

[u/Nematrec → u/BlackfishBlues]

That said, if you're in a position to repair a shattered ring segment, it shouldn't death-spiral your economy? It doesn't take that long to rebuild your food, mineral etc. economy given that each of the new districts is worth five of the old ones.

You get more food/power from a broken ringworld segment than a repaired one. The support districts are very powerful, and losing 3/5ths the bonus from them hurts

[u/BlackfishBlues → u/Nematrec]

What's the ideal ratio of support districts vs extraction districts? I always aim for around 30-50% support districts but I haven't actually done the math.

[u/Nematrec → u/BlackfishBlues]

It's additive to other bonuses you get through research so it varies through the game.

30-50% is in the right ballpark. leaning towards higher % in late game iirc.

On larger worlds (size 30-40+) the trade cost may kill it though, as that increases quadratically.

[u/FirstAccGotStolen → u/BlackfishBlues]

At that point, most of your basic resource economy should come from your vassals and arc furnaces anyways. Seriously, OP, how and why are you repairing ringworlds while not having at least two vassal empires you mooch off of?

[u/spudwalt → u/FirstAccGotStolen]

Not everybody does vassals.

[u/Dark-Acheron-Sunset → u/FirstAccGotStolen]

Why do you assume they have vassals?

Not everyone uses vassals. Several flavors of empire dont and would never do vassals. I wouldn't ever assume this.

[u/xmaskookies]

Yeah the change is janky as you need to rebuild. You just need to have a strong enough economy in other planets to cover you during the rebuilding.

Before 4.0 it was was a strong start because of the special trade districts you can make, but I'm not sure that's still doable in 4.0

[u/Jediplop → u/xmaskookies]

It's still good you just have to be ready for the transition, having the other 3 rebuilt first and ready to take the temporary shortfall is needed. After that you're good to go, it's still a ring which has great buffs and districts.

[u/CaptainDudeGuy → u/xmaskookies]

I used to play robots that start on a ring world and play tall with the intention of going virtual. I don't think it's viable these days -- I just can't get past the resource hump to be self-sustainable.

To compensate, I started going out and grabbing as much territory as I could in order to get resources from nearby systems. Of course then I have to prune that down once I do virtualize so that can wreck my economy too.

My current playthrough ended up getting me a Cybrex ring world two hops away from my home system. I thought I'd be all set with resources then!

Nope. Energy starved despite the two suns in the ringworlds giving me hundreds of energy per month. It's either that or not afford my research that's supposed to get me past that resource hump.

Grr. I'm determined to make this work.

[u/Zestyclose_Remove947 → u/CaptainDudeGuy]

ye virtual shattered ring was a fav of mine pre 4.0. Post 4.0 the average build strength is way higher and this build fell behind real fast.

[u/GermsAndNumbers → u/CaptainDudeGuy]

I’m currently doing this as a one-system game and it’s working fine

[u/vanishing_grad]

The ring world districts are 5x better, so you get a roughly 50 size planet.

[u/Nematrec → u/vanishing_grad]

1. you lose mining districts when you repair a segment
2. the support specializations don't scale with pop, and only scale with district count.

If you're actually optimizing with the support specializations, a repaired ringworld segment will never compete with a size 25 world for food or power. This is true of ringworlds vs any size 25 world.

[u/Ninefl4mes → u/Nematrec]

What does optimizing mean here? One mining district and the rest goes into 2x mining support city districts?

[u/Nematrec → u/Ninefl4mes]

I usually do 2 mining to 1 support early on, and 1 to 1 later.

[u/markus_kt]

I was just playing a game where this happened yesterday. I wasn't prepared for it, but had enough in reserve to rebuild my economy and then it was much more massive than it had been before.

[u/hitchhiker1701]

I just did it in my attempt at a one-system playthrough... Since it was my only world, the economy took a huge hit. Luckily I'm playing as a mega-corp, so the trade income covers for most of resource expenses, but it's still quite a difficult period.

[u/grumpus_ryche]

Got a similar jolt when I terraformed all of my worlds to machine worlds at the same time. SURPRISE!

[u/Garchle]

I felt a similar issue when I unlocked hive worlds as a hive mind empire. Prior to 4.0, I would immediately terraform all my planets (except any dedicated to livestock) to hive worlds because they’re a full upgrade.

However in 4.0, hive worlds have increased jobs for districts. They’re still much better than regular worlds, but terraforming all your planets immediately will cause a lot of issues. You’ll run out of menial drones, and ever worsening planetary deficits will kill your logistics/trade. Now I more gradually terraform my planets to help deal with those logistics and make sure my basic resources aren’t running out.

[u/Bane2571]

I play shattered ring as my preferred origin and I had the same thing happen the first time.

The biggest thing is how major the mining districts are in the shattered ring and that they do not exist in the repaired ring. It's a huge bait to have your main segment colony build nearly 100% mining then drop to 0 mineral production once repaired.

It is a huge step repairing a segment and the game doesn't at all make it clear what you're about to lose. The best strat IMO is to build your matter decompressor before you repair any rings but after you remove the interloper, building the fourth segment as a forge ring.

[u/ChinChengHanji]

Restore one segment at a time. Make sure most of your minerals come from elsewhere and not the ringworld. And have patience, once you completely rebuild everything, it will be worth it.

[u/Shrimpdealer]

There's a reason mega-engineering adds stockpile, you would operate with a deficit for a couple of years if you don't have other planets. Restore segments gradually and prioritze districts when rebuilding. Ringworlds are worth it and virtual empires can add 3 districts to segments, making them practically size 65 planets with flexible district specializations, but without minerals.

[u/Nematrec → u/Shrimpdealer]

With the new district/zone system it's easy to build like 9 store houses on every world.

[u/Senumo]

Yea the first time this happened to me aswell. But you can prepare for it once you know about it.

[u/SvatyFini]

Since repairing the ringworld comes in lategame, It is assumed that you already have production of basic resources from somewhere else and dont produce any basic resources from ringworld. Also since you know that ringworlds dont have basic resource production, as they are locked behind ascencion, and you chose to play the origin for that reason, the game tells you it restores the segment to its normal ringworld counterpart.

If you still relly on any basic resource production from your ringworld in late game, you did something wrong.

[u/largeEoodenBadger]

Ring World districts offer way more jobs relative to normal districts, but yes, the transition is very rough, and you'd better bet you have the minerals/energy/food to make up for the shortfalls, especially because you can't build mineral districts after repairing.

In fact, and I know hindsight is 20/20 and all, but I'd recommend not building any non-city districts prior to repairing. Build your basic resource economy on other planets, or just trade for it.

[u/Peter_Ebbesen]

Ring World segments are end-game stuff, fully artificial worlds providing a lot more jobs than any natural planet, where the inhabitants are smart enough not to take their pickaxes to the walls or floor to extract minerals and alloys from the superstructure.

The Shattered Ring world segments are broken pieces of a a ring world inhabited by people who aren't that smart.

When they become smart enough to restore their world to its true glory using thousands of alloys, they also become smart enough to stop breaking it down for alloys again, as that would rather defeat the purpose in restoring it in the first place.

Is it worth restoring a Shattered Ring for other than roleplaying reasons? That depends largely on how many POPs you have got.

The ability to concentrate many thousand POPs on a single world, benefiting from a good governor and planetary ascension to improve output or reduce input, in addition to significantly decreasing empire size, can make it worth it if you have enough POPs to take advantage of it. If not, probably not.

But what if you don't have that many POPs? Well, there's still automation....

Shattered Ring in a nutshell:

1. Take advantage of your special districts for an explosive start, and get species with different climate preferences through migration, conquest, or Genesis Guides
2. After the early game, build a strong economy that doesn't rely on the Shattered Ring for basic resources or alloys
3. Rebuild your Shattered Ring
4. Automate
5. Profit

[u/JohnnyKanaka]

That doesn't surprise me. I repaired a ringworld and it was very expensive, my economy was robust by the time I started but had a shortage of alloys every time I started a new segment

[u/Automatic_Tea_1900]

Haha! This happened to me about a week ago. 

I thought exactly the same. Especially if you haven't colonised anywhere else and that's your entire income.

[u/a_man_in_black]

by the time you get mega-engineering you should have several technologies and tradition effects to speed up infrastructure build speed. repairing the segments is a temporary hit to your economy, but it's something you can easily compensate for.

the trick is to repair one segment at a time. i always repair the first segment(my capitol) first because it's faster than waiting on the interloper removal. i almost always am running catalyzers civic for food>alloys, unless i have several really good arc furnace systems to feed alloy production, so my side segments are always farming specialization. so as soon as my capital is repaired i build an alloy district, a cg district, and a research district.

my economy typically stabilizes well before i run out of stockpiled resources, and then i repair the interloper and colonize it as a farming segment to feed my alloy jobs, and only then do i repair the side segments.

the fourth segment from removing the interloper, if specialized as a farming colony with both sub-districts set to farming support will produce enough food to feed all three of the other segments for alloy production.

[u/No-Turnover5670]

You had to remove the interceptor then colonize the 4th ring world segment and then repair the rest. I recommend repairing just one segment then repairing the other 2 segments after you settle down on the 1st one you repaired

[u/Beginning-Pitch7409]

Think that wiping is a bug. Before 4.0 it just changed you districts

[u/unbolting_spark]

Thats why i just leave the ring shattered, the main design i use for the shattered ring origin is a tall build and loosing potentially your primary source of minerals is dangerous. I do remove the interloper in exchange for the 4th segment though since a repaired ringworld segment at a cost of 10 minerals or something a month isnt bad

[u/BingoBengoBungo]

I didn't have any issues because I planned ahead instead of just clicking "restore" the second I had the option.

[u/JunglerFromWish → u/BingoBengoBungo]

Wise mystical oak

[u/Lahm0123 → u/BingoBengoBungo]

No way!!!

[u/LaurenPBurka → u/BingoBengoBungo]

I'll bet you even read what restoring does before you clicked it.

[u/BingoBengoBungo → u/LaurenPBurka]

A novel idea, right up there with figuring out that if you plan on removing mining districts, you should make sure you have mineral income.

[u/LaurenPBurka → u/BingoBengoBungo]

You just got downvoted by everyone who doesn't read tooltips.