Hey, so...I'm a fan of the Exploration / Expansion tech tree, and it got me to wondering about the comparisons between planets, and whether or not any of the terraforming options were "no questions asked" aka - Do any of the the terraforms grant *only* increases in all FIDS categories? Answer is yes!







This is assuming these 4 terraforms are valid - haven't personally checked each one. I also don't know if various anomalies are invalidated/destroyed if you terraform the planet, but I'm guessing they are not. It seems you should never keep a lava, barren, or arctic planet when you gain the ability to terraform into jungle, arid, terran, or tundra.



You can't turn anything into an asteroid or gas giant, or vice versa (it appears), which makes the gas giants, in particular, places to super-specialize if you really want to stack bonuses



If you want the best terraformed production (desert), it'll come at the cost of all base dust production - a desert only comes in as a 7 on FIDS

Highest Dust or Science base, via Arid or Tundra, are both pretty good choices of planets otherwise, with FIDS at 10

The fertile planets are nicely balanced



Other planet facts:



Terran, Ocean, and Jungle are a triplet, basically : each of them provides 3 food, then gives 4 of one IDS category and 2 in the other two

The Gas Giants, similarly, all provide no base food and rotate one IDS as a very high per pop of 10, with the other two categories providing 1

Tundra + Arid, Arctic + Desert, and Barren + Lava are all paired, same FIDS value but rotating categories

Asteroids provide no food, but have the highest and most balanced IDS

Hm. Have you already included the fact that some buildings and exploitations give special bonuses to e.g. lava planets? Those seem to be the best industrial planets by far, since they get huge bonuses from industrial exploitation and a number of system improvements, that terran or jungle planets don't get.

You probably need to also factor-in the fact that the number of population slots varies according not only to planet size, but also planet type.



For instance, Jungle planets have more slots than Lava planets even when both are at size "Medium".



Does anyone actually have the table for that? (slots by type + size)

Yes, it is important to consider population and specialization building factors.



About Jungle vs Lava (for industrial purpose), I tend to think that this is the size of the planet which finally define which type is the best :

- tiny-small-medium > I go lava terraformation

- large-huge > I go jungle terraformation



Why? Because more a planet is big, and more the gap in term of population slot increase between class I and class IV planet. For example, the gap for a medium sized planet is only 2 or 3, whereas for a huge one it is 5 or 6... (sorry I dont remember the exact numbers but you the idea)



By the way, nice table nefoyd.

Kruos wrote:
About Jungle vs Lava (for industrial purpose), I tend to think that this is the size of the planet which finally define which type is the best :

- tiny-small-medium > I go lava terraformation

- large-huge > I go jungle terraformation

Actually, given the the same system improvements and planet exploitations, and maximum buildings (in Lava's case the Interplanetary Transport Network), Jungle is always better than Lava, no matter the size.



This is with 3D Replication Tanks and Interplanetary Transport Network. Since the other improvements increase per population on any planet, or by percentages, the difference will be even greater in favour of Jungle planets.



No matter what the size,

Terran is always best for Food,

Jungle is always best for Industry,

Arid is always best for Dust and

Ocean is always best for Science.





(Okay, to avoid having to eat my words, add an "according to my calculations" in front of everything. My Excel skills aren't the best, but I think I got everything right...)

Planet types probably need a balance tweak or two.

and adding the star system improvment "interplanetary transport network? giving +2 industry production per person on lava planets

Randeng wrote:
and adding the star system improvment "interplanetary transport network? giving +2 industry production per person on lava planets

Exactly. Great improvement.

OMG, he has already added it^^ well, jungle's better for production, really weird, but that's fine! I think it's normal!

As for what can be terraformed:







Of the ones I have tried, both features and resources stay after a terraform.



Oh, and yes, you can terraform using more than one step, i.e. Barren to Arctic to Tundra to Terran

Messej did a great comparison/write-up here /#/endless-space/forum/33-strategy-guides/thread/14044-which-planets-are-actually-the-best



Lot better than my initial steps

the first table in your post is nice and clear nefloyd.

Don't undermine what you did, it's quite useful and interesting