I don't think I'm alone when I say that I find the existing mechanics around Terraforming, Habitability, and Blockers somewhat underwhelming for a sci-fi game.
Terraforming is simply a click with no real interesting choices and habitability, a number that is easily worked around by other means such as taking techs with direct boosts to habitability or genetic engineering your species.
How to make this more interesting?
Give all starting species freely selectable options such as:
Preferred Gravity: Low / Medium / High
Preferred Temperature Freezing / Cold / Average / High / Superhot (non-lithoid species would be restricted to the middle three).
Planets
Every planet would have a series of 'planetary factors' and these factors could be changed by terraforming:
Terraforming
Terraforming would then be a measure of selecting which particular Planetary factor you wish to begin modifying or what terraforming modifer you wished to remove. A terraforming unit would need to be built on the planet and it would take time to take effect.
For instance, if you wanted to make an unbreathable atmosphere breathable you would build a terraforming unit, select the unit to change the atmosphere to breathable, and then it would begin its process. Over time, the Oxygen content would begin to increase and the habitability penalty suffered would begin to reduce.
Some terraforming options (perhaps changing the gravity setting of a planet), would require higher-level terraforming technologies.
Terraforming could be accelerated by adding multiple terraforming plants onto a planet, however as each would take up a build slot, this would be a trade-off between productivity and how fast you want the terraforming features / planetary factors removed.
Robots and Lithoids
Robots and Lithoids would not be immune to all planetary factors/terraforming penalties but they would enjoy certain benefits.
i.e. While Robots don't breathe, and therefore would not be penalized by any Atmosphere (or complete lack of), they would still have a preference for the gravity of their homeworld, work best within a given planetary temperature, and would still be impacted by things such as acid rain, extreme weather conditions & other terraforming factors.
An equivalent to genetic modification (adaptation), should be included if robots wish to seek to mold themselves to the environment rather than terraform the environment to them.
Terraforming is simply a click with no real interesting choices and habitability, a number that is easily worked around by other means such as taking techs with direct boosts to habitability or genetic engineering your species.
How to make this more interesting?
Give all starting species freely selectable options such as:
Preferred Gravity: Low / Medium / High
Preferred Temperature Freezing / Cold / Average / High / Superhot (non-lithoid species would be restricted to the middle three).
Planets
Every planet would have a series of 'planetary factors' and these factors could be changed by terraforming:
- Atmospheric Oxygen Content: (Ranging from no-atmosphere / 0 and upwards) - If there isn't a breathable atmosphere then habitability would be set to a flat 20% for races who breathe.
- Ocean Coverage: This would represent the % of a planet covered by oceans and you could have a mechanic whereby more ocean = more districts for aquatic species and vice versa when a planet is mostly land.
- Gravity - Low / Medium / High If you're species has a different gravity value to the planets, then you'd suffer a large hit to habitability until it was terraformed to match.
- Temperature - Freezing / Cold / Average / High / Superhot - Much like gravity, if these values differ then you'd suffer a hit to habitability until the issue is somehow addressed.
- Planets would also have one or more Terraforming modifiers and this might range from things such as; extreme acid rain, volcanic activity, tectonic instability, extreme wind patterns, etc - All would have modifiers to planets overall habitability and all would be something that could be eventually resolved by terraforming.
Terraforming
Terraforming would then be a measure of selecting which particular Planetary factor you wish to begin modifying or what terraforming modifer you wished to remove. A terraforming unit would need to be built on the planet and it would take time to take effect.
For instance, if you wanted to make an unbreathable atmosphere breathable you would build a terraforming unit, select the unit to change the atmosphere to breathable, and then it would begin its process. Over time, the Oxygen content would begin to increase and the habitability penalty suffered would begin to reduce.
Some terraforming options (perhaps changing the gravity setting of a planet), would require higher-level terraforming technologies.
Terraforming could be accelerated by adding multiple terraforming plants onto a planet, however as each would take up a build slot, this would be a trade-off between productivity and how fast you want the terraforming features / planetary factors removed.
Robots and Lithoids
Robots and Lithoids would not be immune to all planetary factors/terraforming penalties but they would enjoy certain benefits.
i.e. While Robots don't breathe, and therefore would not be penalized by any Atmosphere (or complete lack of), they would still have a preference for the gravity of their homeworld, work best within a given planetary temperature, and would still be impacted by things such as acid rain, extreme weather conditions & other terraforming factors.
An equivalent to genetic modification (adaptation), should be included if robots wish to seek to mold themselves to the environment rather than terraform the environment to them.
