Market destruction

Up to date for latest version, 0.98a.

A market is destroyed either by decivilization through the collapse of its ruling polity or depopulation via saturation bombardment. Both are fair game for both NPC and player faction markets unless it is protected.

Destroyed planetary markets leave behind a Ruin market condition of corresponding size, which can be looted from orbit and through tech-mining, and leave behind its orbital station as an abandoned station, which will remain even if the planet is recolonized and a new station is built.

Destroyed standalone station-markets will simply become an abandoned station and cannot be repaired or repopulated.

Decivilization

Decivilization (logged as "Decivilized" in your fleet log) occurs through destabilization of the market, which may even occur through a combination of events without player interference.

Decivilized planetary markets additionally leave behind a "Decivilized Subpopulation" market condition.

Requirements

For a market to decivilize, it must be at 0 stability for at least part of a period lasting around 16 months, where:

• the first month (i.e. approximately 16 months ago) must have had a stability of zero at sampling time (samples are taken at a random interval of 20-40 days)
• the market must currently (at the time it's checked for decivilization) also have zero stability
• at least half the months in the sampling period must have had zero stability
• at least three months in a row (the 'streak') must have had zero stability

The chance of decivilization at the time of the deciv check (done every 5-15 days) starts at zero with a three-month streak, with every additional month adding 10 percentage points to the deciv roll.

Once a market is at risk of decivilization, the game will notify the player that a market is "deteriorating", and the market will be destroyed shortly after unless the player somehow intervenes.

Methodology

• Chronic shortage of Food will cause a heavy stability penalty to the market, with shortage of Luxury Goods and Domestic Goods also having some effect. Shortage of commodities needed by common stability-boosting buildings like Supplies will also be helpful, though simply disrupting them may be easier.
  • Disrupting the Spaceport/Megaport will not cause the "No Spaceport" accessibility penalty to manifest, but will remove whatever accessibility bonus it have been providing, which will greatly impact cross-faction import amounts and sometimes in-faction imports if the market suffers enough from sufficient isolation or just great enough amounts of hostile player faction markets.
• More often, the repeated raids (either as an attempt to achieve what was described above or, more likely, the player collecting blueprints) will cause the stacking "Recent Unrest" stability penalty to stack high enough for the market to be stuck in 0 stability for 2 years, at which point the market will almost certainly decivilize unless it is protected.

Depopulation

Depopulation (logged as "Destroyed" in your fleet log) occurs through Saturation Bombardment, which only the player can carry out or be targeted by, meaning NPC factions will never carry it out against other NPC factions. The NPC factions are also completely immune to consequences of such an atrocity, and will continue doing business with other factions as usual.

Depopulated planets will not leave a "Decivilized Subpopulation" market condition (as everyone is dead), but will not clear the said condition if it existed before.

Methodology

• Each saturation bombardment will reduce colony size by 1, as well as a -10 "Recent Unrest" decaying stability penalty.
• Markets of size 3 or 4 will immediately be destroyed upon being saturation bombarded

Protection

"Story-critical" faction colonies are subject to protection from deterioration and depopulation, in an attempt to simplify quest logic and narrative without breaking them outright. Most of the instances of the market tags are removed upon completion of related story mission, with notable exceptions of Kanta's Den and Port Tse station-markets.

Because the trigger for removal of protection is strictly tied to completion of the quests, permanently invalidating the quests to begin with (such as False Idols by committing your first instance of an atrocity) will render all related markets permanently immune to decivilization.

Protected markets that should be at risk of decivilization will deteriorate immediately upon being unprotected, and will start rolling the dice for decivilization.