Outposts are buildings that must be constructed on a planet before any other Buildings are built. They require 2 Tools, 5 Building Materials, 1 Life Support and 15 minutes (construction time) to construct. They allow Astronauts or Workers to be stationed on a planet or moon long-term, and allow tasks to be performed such as scanning the surface, gathering resources, and launching expeditions for tech points or credits. (Note that Workers can still be temporarily transferred to the surface without an Outpost, but will not be of any use and may not be left behind.)
Without an Outpost, you can still operate out of one or more Landers to collect stone samples, complete daily assignments, launch some simple expeditions for credits, and perform maintenance on landers and vehicles. However, you are much more limited: you can only use astronauts, which are much more expensive than workers; you cannot generate any extra life support, only use what you brought with you; you can only launch one expedition per 30 minutes, and it has a fixed value; you cannot construct more advanced vehicles, only the basic Rover; you cannot launch research expeditions for tech points; you cannot collect more valuable resources like gold when stones depreciate in value; you cannot run tours of the surface; and when you send a ship back to Earth to sell the stones, you must bring all of its passengers home too.
Unlike other buildings, the materials to construct an Outpost can be held in the Lander responsible for building it. However, it is also possible to build an Outpost from materials unloaded on the ground at the site (substituting a compressed Life Support pack for the 5 life support points).
Population[]
Each Outpost can support a limited population of astronauts, workers, and tourists. You can still bring in more staff beyond this cap, but once the cap is exceeded, only spacecraft with all seats filled will be allowed to leave. This is intended to ensure that the Outpost will not be over capacity once all ships have departed.
Each Outpost level adds 5 to your population cap, while each additional building level (but not the modules within buildings) adds 2. You can also temporarily add space by bringing more landers and loading surplus population onto them.
