how to terraform and colonize?

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obould
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how to terraform and colonize?

#1 Post by obould »

Hi

I am trying to colonize planets with e.g. poor environments:
I send an outpost and then I want to terraform but I cannot place a building 'terraforming'.
Can someone explain how it is done?

Best regards
obould

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Vezzra
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Re: how to terraform and colonize?

#2 Post by Vezzra »

You need to fully colonize a planet before you can terraform it. Either colonize it with a colony ship instead of an outpost ship, or upgrade the outpost by producing the colony building of the species you want on that planet. Terraforming before you put a species on the planet is not possible (yet).

Crius
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Re: how to terraform and colonize?

#3 Post by Crius »

You first have to colonize it with a species before you can terraform. This is because the game needs to know which "direction" to terraform.

Devs: what about a terraform building per planet type? Eg: Terraform to Desert. Duration dependant on how far from the selected planet type it is so that it takes just as much time to go from "hostile" to "good".

This will allow players to pre-terraform before colonization but might need balancing - or make it an alternative tech to population enhancing techs.

obould
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Re: how to terraform and colonize?

#4 Post by obould »

Can I increase my population count on a poor planet so I can reach the minimum population required for terraforming?

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MatGB
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Re: how to terraform and colonize?

#5 Post by MatGB »

obould wrote:Can I increase my population count on a poor planet so I can reach the minimum population required for terraforming?
Yes, research cyborgs, xenological genetics and xenological adaptation.

I am hoping to come up with a way of remote terraforming again (a mechanic in the game that was removed as it stopped working allowed the (expensive) terraforming of outposts, but I haven't worked it out yet.

The idea of a terraform to building is a possible solution though, will ponder more. Other ideas (or even patches/pull requests) very welcome
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: how to terraform and colonize?

#6 Post by Geoff the Medio »

MatGB wrote:I am hoping to come up with a way of remote terraforming again...
A bombardment effect could be used for terraforming... either explicitly intended as such, or as a side-effect of heavy orbital bombardment.

Crius
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Re: how to terraform and colonize?

#7 Post by Crius »

Geoff the Medio wrote:A bombardment effect could be used for terraforming... either explicitly intended as such, or as a side-effect of heavy orbital bombardment.
Ooh, that's actually also a nice additional idea. Consequences!

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Vezzra
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Re: how to terraform and colonize?

#8 Post by Vezzra »

Crius wrote:Devs: what about a terraform building per planet type? Eg: Terraform to Desert. Duration dependant on how far from the selected planet type it is so that it takes just as much time to go from "hostile" to "good".
I had a very similar idea: make additional, "super/enhanced" colony buildings for each species that in addition to turning an outpost into a full-fledged colony also terraforms it to the preferred environment of the selected species. Build costs and time have to be adjusted accordingly of course (dependend on how "far away" the target planet type from the current is).

Would reduce micromanagement a bit (player only needs to queue one building).

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Vezzra
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Re: how to terraform and colonize?

#9 Post by Vezzra »

Geoff the Medio wrote:A bombardment effect could be used for terraforming... either explicitly intended as such, or as a side-effect of heavy orbital bombardment.
Hm, turning a planet into e.g. "radiated" after heavy bombardment with "radiation bombs" sounds like a very good idea.

However, I'm unsure if we should have some "orbital terraforming device" ship parts that allow terraforming into e.g. terran using the bombardment mechanic. In order to balance that thing, I guess it will have to be ridiculously expensive, the process should take more than just one turn (which will require some nifty scripting when trying to do that via the bombardment mechanic), the ship with that part should be consumed by the process (otherwise you can go on "terraforming rampage" too easily IMO), and it would be nice if the "Bombard" button could have a customizeable label - pressing "Bombard" to terraform sounds a bit counter-intuitive to me... ;)

Don't know if all that can be done cleanly in FOCS.

banduri
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Re: how to terraform and colonize?

#10 Post by banduri »

Crius wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:A bombardment effect could be used for terraforming... either explicitly intended as such, or as a side-effect of heavy orbital bombardment.
Ooh, that's actually also a nice additional idea. Consequences!
/me likes to 'terraform' a medium sized planet into an asteroid belt b/c it is already possible to terraform a system with a nova bomb into deep space :P

Anyway: I think there should always be some sort of [robotic]life on a planet that actually does the terraforming. But I agree on the idea to have a choice on the target of the transformation.
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project (this includes pullrequest of the useraccount banduri at github)

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