Fwurg

[Mercury]

I have made some significant revision to the terraformation rules. Notably terraformation is faster, requires more Terraformation Modules and the associated technologies are cheaper to develop.

Hopefully this will make Terraformation more available and useful. Let me know what you all think!

[Iladriel]

getting type II or I atmosphere is still very hard, it now requires natural life on the planet, which it didn't need before the change.

[The Lifebringer Clans]

Funnily enough, it doesn't change my actual timetable much. It does make me feel a whole lot better about going for the Biogenesis tech. Previously, it would have been a purely RP-motivated decision, and now it's actually more useful/necessary.

[Veolian Commonwealth]

I like this. I had already planned to drop terraformation until much later, but this change had me rethink that.

@Iladriel: I'm afraid atmosphere I and II always required natural life. As far as I know nothing changed in that regard.

@Lifebringers: I have a rather large chunk of resources available for terraformation research and such. We should try to set something up IC?

[Iladriel]

it can be argumented that natural life will always develop on an atmosphere I or II planet when you wait long enough, and so you need to pick it in system creation.
But when you turn a dead cold rock into a planet with atmosphere, natural life didn't have the time to develop naturally, so you wont have to also have natural life

[Lady Peinaili de Montrève]

mm. i like this change, at first it seemed not viable for me to participate in any research done into terraforming, besides the fact that it provides the given technology, for a significant amount of time,

With these changes however, it is becoming an economically interesting subject for negotiations for me. While i have not yet completed the calculations, it does give me to opportunity to partake in terraforming projects much sooner then first anticipated.

[Veolian Commonwealth]

it can be argumented that natural life will always develop on an atmosphere I or II planet when you wait long enough, and so you need to pick it in system creation.

I'm rather sure this is not the reason one must select natural life if one wishes an atmosphere I or II, and will argue this below. However, this is an interesting hypothesis.

But when you turn a dead cold rock into a planet with atmosphere, natural life didn't have the time to develop naturally, so you wont have to also have natural life

I think the natural life requirement is not based on the fact that life will eventually develop. In my opinion it is based on the fact that an atmosphere I or II actually requires an ecosystem to support it. For example, naturally occurring processes will slowly decay an atmosphere's oxygen component. Once (nearly) all oxygen is consumed, the atmosphere will degrade into a type III atmosphere and will not be able to support oxygen-based life.

To counteract this, organisms (or other self-sufficient processes) are introduced to the planet's type III atmosphere during terraformation. These organisms will then free oxygen bound in other compounds. The exact same reasoning applies to planets created during system build time: natural life represents the ecosystem required by the atmosphere I or II to actually stay on that habitability level.

[The Lifebringer Clans]

@brend: I'm definitely interested in cooperation. I was going to send a PM earlier, but I'm still considering whether I want to wait for the results of the genetics research. There might be interesting technologies there as well.

@iladriel: I think that originally, the terraforming rules were as you said. At least, I interpreted them that way as well. I like the change, however, because it makes Biogenesis a more viable technology to research. I also agree with brend it makes more sense from an ecological perspective.

@gerben: I think that for me, this is the one downside of the reduction of the technology costs. I liked the fact that you had to be very determined / terraforming focused / mad to research these technologies. Two or three people could have focused on these technologies, and other people were unlikely to follow, because the investment was that high. This means that only the terraforming-focused nations would develop this technology. (and presumably, the Trade Fleet focused nations would develop trade-focused tech, and so on)

With the reduced costs, it is more likely that these technologies will be researched rapidly and cooperatively by a large group of players. In end, nearly all players will have nearly all technologies, which kind of isn't the point, I think.

[Mercury]

I am glad people seem to be generally positive.

The system building rules list very clearly that a Type I and II atmosphere requires natural life. The non-game technical reason for this is that oxygen is a very aggressively reacting element. It easily reacts with such common elements as Iron and Carbon and as such does not remain in atmospheres without intervention. Even if species may breathe other gasses (Hydrogen, Methane), any gas that is sufficiently energetic to be used by complex life will naturally react with other elements rather than being retained in the atmosphere - that's the whole reason complex life is able to use the gas!

Thus, the Natural Life requirement is there, as Brend suggested, to provide a source of the energetic gas powerful enough to sustain a balanced system. Additionally, Natural Life helps stabilise the environment to values that are ideal for life (see Gaia hypothesis) which further improves the habitability of the planet.

The old version of terraformation did not explicitly mention the requirement of Natural Life for type I and II atmospheres. As this (having the Natural Life requirement) was how it was intended, I added the notes to the new technology entries to serve as a clarification. I personally do not think this clarification will be of much consequence to anyone - there's a long way to go before even the first world will even be terraformed, let alone run into trouble over this.

That being said: since this (including the new prices etc) is a change in the rules, if you feel this change throws a wrench in your plans, you are allowed to make adjustments to your designs, as per the meta rules

[The Lifebringer Clans]

Question. The Biogenesis technology can be applied to habitable worlds in goldilocks orbits. I presume habitable means a type IV atmosphere or better? I can't find a definition of habitable on the wiki.

[Veolian Commonwealth]

I had exactly the same question: as far as I've been able to piece together 'habitable' in the context of Natural Life means atmosphere IV OR an ocean.

This seems to be the only viable meaning, otherwise it would not be possible to create natural life because it needs a habitable world (which is defined by an atmoshpere I or II, which in turn requires natural life).

[Mercury]

Habitable means a planet qualifies for natural life but may or may not actually have it. The exact requirements are a goldilocks orbit planet with either an atmosphere or oceans or both. By rare exception, a Cold Orbit planet with the Frozen Oceans special also qualifies. I will add a separate entry on the wiki.

EDIT: done