There is obvious gradation of easy to colonize planets to difficult to colonize. Terran, ocean and jungle are easiest to colonize they are 1 class. Arid and tundra are 2 class. Desert and arctic are 3 class. Lava and barren are 4 class. Gas giants and asteroid belts are 5 class. Right now if you have special techs research, you can form any planet into any other type. I doubt this is possible even for non human race. There is no scientific way to turn gas giant into anything else. My suggestion is to restrict terraforming.



This will be made by 1 step terraforming only with no possibility to terraform more than once. For example, barren (class 4) can be terraformed into desert or arctic (both are class 3) only. After that you would not be able to turn it again.



Barren - desert OR arctic.

Lava - barren only.

Arctic - tundra only.

Desert - arid only.

Tundra and arid both can be terraformed into class 1 planets.

Negative terraforming (like turning terran into barren) should have no restriction on gap, but should have 1 time change only restriction.

Gas giants and asteroid belts can't be terraformed.

Monphat wrote:
Right now if you have special techs research, you can form any planet into any other type. I doubt this is possible even for non human race. There is no scientific way to turn gas giant into anything else.

Well...Why? If you have the tech to terraform, and the time and resources to do so, why would you only be able to do the process once? If I need more "habitable" planets (like Terran or Ocean), perhaps in a system that isn't doing well and really needs an approval boost or a food boost, I'm going to pick a Desert or Arid planet and start terraforming again and again until I can get my Terran.



As for the gas giant thing, that's actually being discussed here: [Suggestion] Gas Giants



Saying that you doubt the process is possible is kind of silly, and so is saying there is no scientific way to "terraform" a gas giant. Well, today there isn't. We still barely have the whole space travel thing figured out, if you can even call what we know right now as having "figured something out." But whose to say that in the sci-fi world set roughly a millennium from now won't have the tech or understanding to just keep terraforming and terraforming until they had what they want?

I agree with FinalStrigon on pretty much all points, don't see why it should be only once posible to terraform. The whole terraforming process indeed is a hard thing but given the sci-fi setting it is somewhat realistic.

I think what he means is that the reason the planets are what they are makes it almost impossible to fully terraform out of, while i still thing you need to be able to terra form all the normal planets, it still doesent feel like it takes long enough.

Igncom1 wrote:
I think what he means is that the reason the planets are what they are makes it almost impossible to fully terraform out of, while i still thing you need to be able to terra form all the normal planets, it still doesent feel like it takes long enough.

I can't really comment on the length of terraforming, as I personally have never done it. I've never really felt the need to so far in my games.



As for the planets being what they are to hinder terraforming...I'm probably misunderstanding you, but isn't that the point of the tech? You terraform an arctic planet by heating it up, either through cracking the crust to make a lava planet or somehow creating greenhouse gasses like crazy (note, I can't remember the descriptions of the terraforming tech, so I'm guessing here). One thing I did just think of, though, are the requirements for terraforming.



The Earth, as far as I remember reading, is pretty much the perfect distance from the Sun to have life. Any further away and we'd freeze, any closer and we'd roast. Should this be taken into account for the planets in the games? It might cause more work, as the devs would need to flesh the system out more, do the math and all that for each type of star and find their habitable zone and whatnot, but...I just realized it's a bit off that you might be turning a planet with might be as far away from the star as, say, Pluto, and making it into a Terran or Ocean world.

FinalStrigon wrote:
I can't really comment on the length of terraforming, as I personally have never done it. I've never really felt the need to so far in my games.



As for the planets being what they are to hinder terraforming...I'm probably misunderstanding you, but isn't that the point of the tech? You terraform an arctic planet by heating it up, either through cracking the crust to make a lava planet or somehow creating greenhouse gasses like crazy (note, I can't remember the descriptions of the terraforming tech, so I'm guessing here). One thing I did just think of, though, are the requirements for terraforming.



The Earth, as far as I remember reading, is pretty much the perfect distance from the Sun to have life. Any further away and we'd freeze, any closer and we'd roast. Should this be taken into account for the planets in the games? It might cause more work, as the devs would need to flesh the system out more, do the math and all that for each type of star and find their habitable zone and whatnot, but...I just realized it's a bit off that you might be turning a planet with might be as far away from the star as, say, Pluto, and making it into a Terran or Ocean world.

What i ment is implyed by your second paragraph with the planets being diffrent distances and such.

As I already stated in a similar topic I think that initially the planets should be the type roughly according to the distance of the planet, but that shouldn't keep you from freely terraforming. A race which can really terraform a planet will find ways to divert/concentrate the received solar radiation per planet to do just that, terraforming.

KNC wrote:
As I already stated in a similar topic I think that initially the planets should be the type roughly according to the distance of the planet, but that shouldn't keep you from freely terraforming. A race which can really terraform a planet will find ways to divert/concentrate the received solar radiation per planet to do just that, terraforming.

Alright, that makes sense. Sorry for repeating concerns.

FinalStrigon wrote:
The Earth, as far as I remember reading, is pretty much the perfect distance from the Sun to have life. Any further away and we'd freeze, any closer and we'd roast. Should this be taken into account for the planets in the games?

This isn't actually true. The 'perfect distance from the Sun' thing is the result of something called 'anthropocentric' thinking.



Essentially the people who originally claimed this were literally getting it backwards. The Earth is not 'perfect for life', the life on Earth is perfect for Earth.

Monphat wrote:
Right now if you have special techs research, you can form any planet into any other type. I doubt this is possible even for non human race. There is no scientific way to turn gas giant into anything else. My suggestion is to restrict terraforming.

Imagine a setting where you had the technology to make full use of anti-matter and had quite a large amount of anti-matter (which I suspect we have due to anti-matter plating) then it wouldn't be entirely impossible.



Here is a rough outline:



=> means conversion

-> means transfer



Matter + Anti-Matter => Energy -> Collector -> Buffer -> Energy-Matter Condenser => Matter + Anti-Matter



For example:



1 kg of Helium + 1 kg of Anti-Matter => Energy -> Collector -> Buffer -> Energy to Matter Condenser => 1 kg of Silicon + 1 kg of Anti-Matter (subtract some mass because of energy loss ala heat)



Rinse and repeat.



In a Sci-Fi setting this is not totally unfeasable and would allow for a conversion of ANY materials into ANY OTHER material and therefore allow conversion of gas giants into planets consisting of rocks with a similar mass.