Base Building and Defense Guide

Your base is your lifeline on Arcadia-7. A well-designed base keeps your factory running, your resources flowing, and your colonists alive through Vermin attacks and Star Rupture events. This guide covers everything from initial layout planning to late-game defensive fortifications.

Core Structures

Every base centers on the Base Core, which defines your colony's operational zone. The Habitat connects to the Base Core and provides the interior living space where you place personal facilities like the Food Station, Regeneration Chamber, LEM Station, and Personal Storage. An Airlock serves as the transition between interior and exterior spaces, and you must pass through one to reach safety during Ruptura events.

Upgrading your Base Core to Level 2 requires 10 Ignitium (collected after Rupture events) and unlocks additional building options and expanded base capabilities. This upgrade is a major mid-game goal.

Layout Planning

Plan your base layout before you start placing buildings. A few principles will save you major headaches later. First, keep your extraction buildings (Ore Excavators, Helium-3 Extractors) near their respective resource deposits, with Rails running back to a centralized processing hub. Second, group your processing buildings (Smelters, Fabricators, Furnaces) together to minimize rail complexity. Third, leave room for expansion because you will need far more production capacity than you initially expect.

Use Basic Platforms, Advanced Platforms, Stairs, Walkways, and Roads to create organized pathways between building clusters. Elevated platforms can help you shoot down at Vermin during attacks while keeping your factory infrastructure below.

Defense Strategy

Vermin aggression scales with your base size. As you add more buildings and increase production, expect fiercer and more frequent attacks. Defense Turrets and Defense Towers are your automated protection, each consuming 50 power and generating 30 temperature. Place them at the approaches Vermin typically use to reach your base.

A common defensive strategy is to create chokepoints using structural buildings and platforms, funneling Vermin into kill zones where turrets have overlapping fields of fire. Place turrets on elevated platforms when possible for better coverage. Supplement automated defenses with personal firepower during Wave Warning phases, since turrets alone cannot handle the largest swarms.

Interior Facilities

Inside your Habitat, several critical buildings support your survival. The Food Station provides nutrition to keep your character fed. The Regeneration Chamber heals you after taking damage. The LEM Station lets you install LEM augmentations for permanent character upgrades. Personal Storage and Large Personal Storage give you inventory space for items you want to keep safe. The Basic Item Printer handles simple crafting recipes that do not require specialized factory buildings.

Scaling Your Base

As you progress through corporation levels, your building options expand dramatically. You will unlock larger storage depots, more powerful processors, drone logistics, and advanced structural options. The key to scaling successfully is to always expand your power generation and defenses proportionally to your production capacity. A massive factory with inadequate defenses will get overrun, and a well-defended base with insufficient power will grind to a halt.

Consider building satellite extraction outposts connected to your main base by long rail lines. This lets you tap distant resource deposits without relocating your entire operation. Just make sure these outposts have at least minimal turret coverage.