"The Lunar Base provides a base of operations for activities on the moon and provides the fields required to construct buildings." - In-game building description.
The Lunar Base is the first thing you build on a moon, and until it is up you can build nothing else there. A moon has no atmosphere and nothing worth digging into, so every building field on it comes out of the Lunar Base.
Getting to your moon
A moon sits in the same slot as the planet it formed over. It shows up as a small grey disc tucked into the corner of that planet in the planet switcher at the top of the screen. Click it and you are on the moon. Its coordinates are the planet's with an m on the end, so 1:4:10 becomes 1:4:10m.
Moons produce nothing. There are no mines, no power plants and no Shipyard on a moon, so every bit of ore, crystal and hydrogen you spend up there has to be flown in from a planet first. Send the resources with a Transport, then switch to the moon and open the Buildings page.
Fields
A bare moon has exactly one field, and the only thing you can spend it on is Lunar Base level 1.
After that, every level of Lunar Base adds three fields but takes one of them for itself, so you gain two usable fields per level.
| Total fields on the moon | 3 × Lunar Base level + 1 |
|---|
Cost and build time
Every level costs exactly twice the level before it. Crystal is always double the ore and the hydrogen. Build time uses the same formula as the rest of the game with the Foundry part left out, because a moon cannot have one:
| Time (hours) | (Ore cost + Crystal cost) / (5,000 × (1 + Capitol level)) |
|---|
The times below are for a moon with no Capitol on it. Free fields is what you have left over if the Lunar Base is the only thing you have built.
| Level | Ore | Crystal | Hydrogen | Total fields | Free fields | Build time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 20,000 | 40,000 | 20,000 | 4 | 3 | 12 hours |
| 2 | 40,000 | 80,000 | 40,000 | 7 | 5 | 1 day |
| 3 | 80,000 | 160,000 | 80,000 | 10 | 7 | 2 days |
| 4 | 160,000 | 320,000 | 160,000 | 13 | 9 | 4 days |
| 5 | 320,000 | 640,000 | 320,000 | 16 | 11 | 8 days |
| 6 | 640,000 | 1,280,000 | 640,000 | 19 | 13 | 16 days |
| 7 | 1,280,000 | 2,560,000 | 1,280,000 | 22 | 15 | 32 days |
| 8 | 2,560,000 | 5,120,000 | 2,560,000 | 25 | 17 | 64 days |
| 9 | 5,120,000 | 10,240,000 | 5,120,000 | 28 | 19 | 128 days |
| 10 | 10,240,000 | 20,480,000 | 10,240,000 | 31 | 21 | 256 days |
| 11 | 20,480,000 | 40,960,000 | 20,480,000 | 34 | 23 | 512 days |
| 12 | 40,960,000 | 81,920,000 | 40,960,000 | 37 | 25 | 1,024 days |
| 13 | 81,920,000 | 163,840,000 | 81,920,000 | 40 | 27 | 2,048 days |
There is no level cap. The doubling carries on as far as you can pay for it. The build times get silly fast though, which is why the first thing to do after level 1 is put a Capitol on the moon.
What it unlocks
Everything. Nothing at all goes up on a moon before Lunar Base level 1, and once that lands all four of the other moon buildings open at once.
- Capitol: the only thing on a moon that speeds up construction. It is cheap and it pays for itself on the very next job.
- Oracle: scans the solar systems around you. Moons only.
- Warp Gate: moves a fleet instantly between two of your moons. Also needs FTL Tech at level 7.
- Lunar Dock: the recall point for a Hephaestus Class Attack Platform.
That is the whole list. Mines, power plants, storage, the Shipyard, the Research Lab and the Foundry are all planet only, so a moon never produces or builds anything on its own.
Making it faster
Level 1 is always 12 hours, because you cannot have a Capitol on the moon before the Lunar Base is there to give it a field. After that a Capitol divides every moon build time by one plus its level, so Capitol 3 turns a two day Lunar Base upgrade into twelve hours.
Two other things move the clock:
- The Lunar Dockyard alliance perk. If your alliance has bought levels in it, every moon build runs faster for every member, up to double speed at the top of the track. It works on the first Lunar Base too, which is the one thing a Capitol can never help with.
- Credits. Any job with under five minutes left finishes for free. Anything longer costs 1.12 credits a second, so rushing a fresh 12 hour Lunar Base from the start is about 48,000 credits.
Watch your fields
This is the one that catches people out. A moon has very little room, and the Lunar Base is the only structure in the game you cannot tear down.
Say you finish Lunar Base level 1. You have four fields, one used, three free. Spend all three on Capitol levels and the moon is full:
Everything is greyed out now, the Lunar Base included, because an upgrade needs a free field to move into. The only way out is to tear the Capitol back down a level, wait for that to finish, then upgrade the Lunar Base. Decide how big you want the Lunar Base before you spend the room, or keep a spare field.
The Overview page has a Moons table under its Buildings tab listing every moon you own with its levels and its field count. That is the quick way to spot one that is about to box itself in.
More Info
The More Info button on the Lunar Base row shows what the next six levels cost. It is the only structure row that never grows a Teardown button, however high the level gets.
Ignore the Strategy Tips line about moons being harder to destroy. That text came across from the old game. Nothing in SFC2 destroys a moon. The only way to lose one is to abandon the planet it shares a slot with, which takes the moon with it.
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