The current system allows you to upgrade and downgrade your planets. An upgrade does not only change your system FIDS-stats & exploitation-usage, it also changes the max population and thus a higher tier planet is ALWAYS more productive in any way than a lower tier. The advantage of additional population is so big:

a huge Lava planet has a max population of 4

if you upgrade this planet to jungle-planet, it gets a population of 10.



So downgrading could make sense, if you want to "raze" the system, but if i am right, this functionality will come in the future (even though it was not chosen in the last G2G). So why is this function in this game, it is not beneficial at all Oo!

1. Because having a science planet on a forge system is pointless no matter how good it is.

2. Terraform to Terran is very late game if you want a production planet before that its either lava or nothing.

3. More Pop is only more productive if there is actually pop available, dont have 60pop right at the start.

1. you can "upgrade" your artic planet to a jungle system, instead of downgrading it

2. You are going for Jungle, if you want to have industry, but even Desert is superior to Lava. The disadvantage on FIDS by loosing 2 population is just insane.



Lava -15 0 4 1 0 5

• -15 Approval
• 0 Food
• 4 Industry
• 3 Industry through exploitation
• 1 Dust
• 0 Science
• 4 Population
  
  

So your final Industry value is (4+7) * 4 population = 44



Desert -10 1 5 0 1 7

• -10 Approval
• 1 Food
• 5 Industry
• 0 Dust
• 1 Science
• 6 Population
  
  

So your final Industry value is: 5 * 6 population = 30



So Lava is superior? No, because at the point where you can have +3 industry, you are going to have other improvements with +industry, too. And they are also boosted with your 2 additional population. The first update is "Heavy Isotope Refineries", which grants +10 industry & +1 industry per population on "Desert, Arctic, Arid, Tundra". So we are talking about 16 in total for our desert planet and 10 for lava. This results in:

Lava: (4+7+10) * 4 population = 84

Desert: (5+16) * 6 population = 126



Each additional +industry is favoring the desert planet. Even an artic planet would be superior & you are able to benefit from it right from the beginning & you do not have to wait for your +3 industry exploitation-tech.



And Jungle is >>>> Terran for production:

same population (10)

+2 industry explotation

+4 industry on jungle (instead of only 2)



3. That's why you aim first for food & especially your production system can & should be boosted by other systems with population, to be able to produce early.

Like said, upgrading to Jungle is very late game, have to downgrade before. Late game, Terran is the best production world as shown here. Also you are ignoring that the pop doesnt magically come out of thing air. 4 comes before 6, so in such a system with 5 production planets+1 food the population must be bigger than 4*5lava+..6food=26. So until the system grows above that number extra pop bonus doesnt come into play since any pop can be reshuffled to other lava planets.



+10ind is per system, not pop, lol that would be grand.

Ok my fault with +10, but still Lava looses:

Lava (4 + 7 + 0) * 4 = 44

Desert (5 + 6) * 6 = 66

Regardless of what, you want to produce, downgrading never produces more, but you suffer from less overall production + less affinity.



The technology of food => industry is pretty insane, as i have read in your thread. Thus the faction trait of Sowers (-50% Food) is pretty crap in the endgame ?

You are correct in the fact that a desert planet of same size can provide more industry than a lava planet IF you also set desert on industry exploitation (at large planet size lava comes very close)... But - that would mean NOT using the desert planet optimally - desert planets are better suited for dust exploitation (5 per dust population unit) than for industry (3 dust per population unit). And when you are using dust exploitation on the desert world (better efficiency) lava world of same size will produce more industry ...



There also a few details you are ignoring in your desert vs lava industry output potential comparison. Planet size & available technologies ...



Mid Game Techs

Desert Industry per population = 5 (from type) + 3 (3d replication - exploitation) +1 (heavy isotope refineries) +1 (planetary transport network) = 10

Lava Industry per population= 4 (from type) + 6 (3d replication exploitation) + 2 (planetary transport network) = 12



[Code]

Planet Size Tiny+2 Small+1 Medium Large Huge

Desert I 4*10=40 4*10=40 4*15=40 5*10=50 6*10=60

Lava 3*12=36 3*12=36 3*12=36 4*12=48 4*12=48

Desert D 4* 7=28 4* 7=28 4* 7=28 5* 7=35 6* 7=42

[/Code]



Endgame Techs



Desert Industry per population = 5 (from type) + 3 (3d replication - exploitation) +1 (heavy isotope refineries) +1 (planetary transport network) +2 (predictive logistics) + 1(hydrosequencing) + 2 (non-baryonic shell) = 15

Lava Industry per population= 4 (from type) + 6 (3d replication exploitation) + 2 (planetary transport network) +2 (predictive logistics) +1 (hydrosequencing) + 2 (non-baryonic shell) = 17



[Code]

Planet Size Tiny+5 Small+4 Medium+3 Large+3 Huge+3

Desert I 7*15=105 7*15=105 7*15=105 8*15=120 9*15=135

Lava 6*17=102 6*17=102 6*17=102 7*17=119 7*17=119

Desert D 7*12=84 7*12=84 7*12=84 8*12= 96 9*12=108

[/Code]



Strategic resources, anomalies and luxuries combinations can also shift the balance ...

While it is true it's recommended to exploit Industry instead of Dust on Desert, whether it's optimal depends on your goals. I don't care for dust at all, so Industry exploitation is optimal for my goal at least.



One good downgrade I almost always do is Terran > Tundra; Better Science and Industry, less food (not needed with explored moons, administrator heroes, hydro sequencing, etc etc etc) and less dust (don't care, also not needed with moon sweeping, hydro sequencing, trade routes, exploitative taxation (+2dust per pop), etc etc).



I'd rank the best Industry planets as such:

Jungle > Tundra > Desert > Lava

and Science:

Ocean > Tundra > Helium > Arctic (Yes, Tundra beats Arctic with Science exploitation due to a higher max population. Sower tundra planets have no problem growing quickly due to the great Industry on them and the Extreme Infrastructure unique System improvement)



I love Tundra, oodles and oodles of raw I & S. Hooray for early Tundra terraforming as Sowers

peddroelm wrote:
You are correct in the fact that a desert planet of same size can provide more industry than a lava planet IF you also set desert on industry exploitation (at large planet size lava comes very close)... But - that would mean NOT using the desert planet optimally - desert planets are better suited for dust exploitation (5 per dust population unit) than for industry (3 dust per population unit). And when you are using dust exploitation on the desert world (better efficiency) lava world of same size will produce more industry ...







Strategic resources, anomalies and luxuries combinations can also shift the balance ...

So what if dust exploitation is a "more efficient" choice for a desert world? When you are talking about an industry system, and a desert planet with the industry exploitation is better than a lava world, you want the desert planet with the industry exploit. I don't terraform to desert to get more production, but then decide I should switch them to dust - that would be silly.



And anything that adds more industry per population (without respect to type) will naturally favor a higher population cap, so resources/anomalies can only make desert + industry an even better choice. The only time lava might be better is when you are below the population cap.

Indeed, but on your production system, you are going to boost population with other systems, so you should never face the problem of "low population".



In fact, the numbers peddroelm proof my thesis, that it makes no sense to downgrade. The advantages of extra population are to big. Which leads to the point of if it is really a good idea to have no real advantage of having a low tier planet & why there is a downgrading function, if it makes no sense to use it.

when people talk about lava, don't forget that one of the early industry improvements provides a +2 to lava in addition to the +2/+3 for the production exploit.

Lava planets are almosts useless. They cost much approval and have a minor output of dust, science and food. Besides, the maximum production that a lava planet can provide is inferior to a desert planet production.

So, if you want much production and doesn't have the technology to create a jungle planet, use a desert planet instead.

general_bulgarvski wrote:
Lava planets are almosts useless. They cost much approval and have a minor output of dust, science and food. Besides, the maximum production that a lava planet can provide is inferior to a desert planet production.

So, if you want much production and doesn't have the technology to create a jungle planet, use a desert planet instead.

Or indeed, play Sowers and terraform the entire galaxy into Tundra

Ultimecia wrote:
Hooray for early Tundra terraforming as Sowers

If tundra transformation is considered an "early" tech then yes, Desert is better for industry and downgrading is pointless, i guess. Ofc while waiting for the tech, pop and infrastructure someone else is building a fleet already. This is what i see you guys omitting, pop, techs, time, all magically instantly created out of nothing for evaluation. And sufficient dust support too you might need a income Arid planets arent that frequent.

I would classify Tundra terraforming mid to late game. Terraforming period is pretty late because you need a couple of things to make it work:

- Adamantium (which means Atomic substrates, a late Right tree tech)

- Soil Revivication (to terraform to Desert, the stepping stone to Tundra if coming from Lava/Barren)

- Tundra terraforming tech (very late as non-Sowers)



So you are completely correct, it isn't early at all. It's a nice goal to work towards once your military is acceptably well teched and developed because the boom in economy (by which I mean science/industry ) from terraforming to desert/tundra is incredible because there is longer such a thing as a bad system.

I generally find it worthwhile to start upgrading to desert on my forge worlds as soon as possible even if the worlds are nowhere near pop cap simply because the slight hit in production is outweighed by the following three factors. I similarly make the jump to tundra for the same reasons (plus the extra science). I do often side-grade over to lava though since I largely consider barren worthless and if I really think I will need the production I have downgraded arctic to lava before.



1. Getting that production time out of the way now when I do not need to decide between wasted food or building that ship (or other thing) I need.

2. Increased food from desert means it will hit that max pop sooner.

3. More happy, higher taxes.