Terraformation

Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be habitable by terrestrial organisms.

Terraformation requires technology, for initiation research and for the actual terraformation.

Using Terraformation, you can affect the atmosphere, ocean, natural life and climate of your worlds. Terraformation cannot change a planet's or moons orbit, add or remove planets or moons and the likes in your system, nor can it affect specials. Terraformation can be applied to any terrestrial world. Rings, Asteroid Belts, Gas Giants and Heliosheaths cannot be terraformed.

Worlds can have the quality of their atmospheres improved (or reduced at your discretion). Any goldilocks orbit world can be upgraded up to a Type I atmosphere, while any non-goldilocks world can be upgraded up to a Type IV atmosphere.

A goldilocks world can additionally have its climate altered - in this case a climate is added or removed. Regardless, a world cannot have more than 3 climates. In all cases, the combination of climates must remain legal.

Any world can have an ocean added (or removed). The type of ocean depends on the orbit type. Cold worlds get methane oceans, hot worlds get molten rock oceans and goldilocks worlds get water oceans.

Finally, a habitable planet can have natural life added if it is not already present.

Terraformation always happens to the world as a whole. In other words, you must terraform the entire planet in one go. You cannot terraform only a limited number of zones. Additionally, terraformation is a slow process. Unlike zone upgrades, where you can upgrade one zone each week, terraforming a planet is a major operation that takes much longer.

If you have completed one or more generalization technologies, it is possible to terraform worlds in systems owned by other players, with their permission. Since you'd be paying to improve their planets, you probably want to ask some form of compensation, including costs to repay the initial technology investment.

Clarification: If you are terraforming a world outside your own system, the player who's system is being terraformed must provide the . They can produce them on their own, or you can ship them to that player yourself, or they can come from any source. Regardless the player who's planet it is must have the in the proper system - you provide the technological knowhow, they provide the materials. You still pay the Individual Planet Research cost (though you may ask the other player to reimburse you).

There are three costs to terraformation: first, the proper technology is required. Second, there is a financial cost to do basic research on how to apply the technology to the particular planet. This is the base cost. Finally, there is a cost per zone.

If a player has the correct technology, they first pay the base cost to initiate the terraformation process. Once the base cost has been paid off, they need to supply enough to cover the cost per zone. This payment in can start once the base cost has been paid. The planet is terraformed once the full cost has been paid for.

Only one terraformation process can take place on a planet at the same time (the payment of the initiation cost is part of the terraformation process). Thus it is not possible to add a Type IV atmosphere and an ocean simultaneously. It is possible to terraform multiple planets with the same system in parallel. During terraformation, it is possible to construct zones on a planet and production is unaffected. The bonus from terraformation is applied to the whole planet, the turn after the entire terraformation process has been completed.

While the base cost to initiate the terraformation process is being paid, it is possible to pause the terraformation process. However, once you begin paying , you cannot stop until the terraformation process is completed. At minimum you must pay 25 each turn. If you fail to provide this amount, nasty things happen. You do not want this ¹⁾.

Terraformation is bound to the completion limit.

Although it is not possible to run two terraformation processes concurrently, it is possible to combine multiple terraformation projects into a single larger project:

• The initiation research cost (in ) of the composite project is equal to the sum of the component projects cost.
• The required amount of is equal to the sum of the component project's cost.
• The minimum duration (in ) of the final project is equal to the sum if the minimum durations of the component projects.

The benefits of the component projects become available only after the composite project has been completed. The composite project fails or succeeds as one, so it is not possible to do half of the work, and then abort; this would lead to 'nasty things'.

Terraformation takes a minimum of 1 turn for every 4 zones on the planet, rounded up. The table below lists the minimum durations for different planet sizes. The duration time only counts the time spent paying . For your convenience, the table below lists the minimum durations:

Even with the technology known, it is necessary to do some research on how to apply the technology to each individual planet. The costs depend on the process of terraformation. Additionally, once this cost has been paid, a number of must be paid, a set number for each zone on the planet, which differs per technology. The table below lists the precise costs. The costs for small moons are the cost in per zone.

Terraformation Process	Individual Planet Research	for Small Moon	for Medium Moon	for Large Moon	for Small Planet	for Medium Planet	for Large Planet
Climate change (add or remove)	250	25	75	175	175	475	925
Surface Heating (Type IV Atmosphere)	750	75	225	525	525	1425	2775
Atmospheric Purification (Type III Atmosphere)	750	75	225	525	525	1425	2775
Hyperactive Stromatolites (Type II Atmosphere)	750	100	300	700	700	1900	3700
Photosynthetic Rebalancing (Type I Atmosphere)	750	100	300	700	700	1900	3700
Deep Polar Melting (Oceans)	500	100	300	700	700	1900	3700
Biogenesis (Natural Life)	1000	200	600	1400	1400	3800	7400

Below is a list of Terraformation Technologies. Not included is technology to change planetary climates or to 'terraform' planets in Hot or Cold orbits. This will be added later. Technology can be reused on other planets, though you must pay the individual planet cost each time.

A note about the story part of the technologies: The technologies include more than their story. It includes extensive research in other methods to produce similar results. Thus, if the specific description is not appropriate for your world (for example, melting the ice caps on a very hot desert planet), you can still use the technology, it just works slightly different than described.

Suppose a medium sized planet with no atmosphere or ocean needs a Type IV atmosphere. First, you need to have the Surface Heating Technology. If you have this, you need to pay 750 to start the process. The turn after this total amount has been paid, you must pay 1425 , with a minimum of 25 per . The process takes a minimum of 5 turns to complete.