The ability to terraform your planet would not only make the planet more aestheticly pleasing but it would be practical in the sense that it would change life on the planet. For instance if I had an ice planet with slowed production and wanted to extract more resorces out of it I could terraform it into a molten planet where minerals and resources would be more easily available. This would also fit nicely into the game as an expensive and difficult to obtain one use item.

With terraforming, planets would each have there own use. For instance:
Desert: Trade
Ice: Spacestation Friendly
Terra: Population
Volcanic: Mining
Desolate: Industry
Liquid: Science

I can see the use if you wanted to stay in an particular solar system but, all you would have to do is go explore and find a planet that had a faster way of gathering resources.

Demetrius wrote:I can see the use if you wanted to stay in an particular solar system but, all you would have to do is go explore and find a planet that had a faster way of gathering resources.

Yes but this way you could speed up industry, science, etc. by considerable means.

Or if you couldn't acquire another planet, for whatever reason.

Realistically, Terraforming is a very, very, very, very lengthy process.

jawdan wrote:Or if you couldn't acquire another planet, for whatever reason.

Realistically, Terraforming is a very, very, very, very lengthy process.

Doesnt mean it has to be in limit theory

Terraforming is also not what you really want, from the sounds of things. Terraforming is making a planet more Earth-like in order to make it habitable. You wouldn't terraform a planet to make it easier to mine. That woudl just be, well, planetary demolitions and mining. No terraforming involved.

Kayse wrote:Terraforming is also not what you really want, from the sounds of things. Terraforming is making a planet more Earth-like in order to make it habitable. You wouldn't terraform a planet to make it easier to mine. That woudl just be, well, planetary demolitions and mining. No terraforming involved.

But with terraforming you would be able to manipulate the hand the algorithms gave you and literally change the universe. It wouldnt always be useful, but it would be a good thing to have just in case you want to go into a full blown mess of industry or population or science or something.

I get the feeling you people are confusing genres again...

In a 4X game, terraforming makes sense, since your race can only inhabit certain types of planets, and your industrial capacity is directly connected to the total population. As such, to win the game, you want as much industry and population as possible.

In a space trading game, that point is moot, as you don't operate on a galactic scale of manufacturing. Increasing the productivity of your stations/bases shouldn't require you to terraform the whole shebang - it's probably more along the line of "lets add another installation here".

Terraforming is, even in those 4X games, a long, expensive (for a fricking star empire) and tedious process that stretches over a timespan of several in-game-year-equivalents, not a quick "let's drop a genesis bomb on the planet and set it to 'paradise', I need a new vacation spot" type affair.

Besides, once again, why even bother finding a nice planet to colonize if you can just terraform it? This is again one of those suggestions that removes the incentives for going out there and exploring the vast and endless universe the game generates.

Hardenberg wrote: Besides, once again, why even bother finding a nice planet to colonize if you can just terraform it? This is again one of those suggestions that removes the incentives for going out there and exploring the vast and endless universe the game generates.

Well said.

Not to mention it will ruin the character of a lot of systems.

Seedy backwater space station orbiting a dead desert planet with no atmosphere?

Nope, every place is a paradise.

The Hedge Knight wrote:Not to mention it will ruin the character of a lot of systems.

Seedy backwater space station orbiting a dead desert planet with no atmosphere?

Nope, every place is a paradise.

sounds perfect to me.
as for terraforming being a feature...ill pass perhaps in lt2 if its a feature a lot of people are wanting. i mean the polls already show that there are people wanting good looking planets so who knows.

nmull wrote:The ability to terraform your planet would not only make the planet more aestheticly pleasing but it would be practical in the sense that it would change life on the planet. For instance if I had an ice planet with slowed production and wanted to extract more resorces out of it I could terraform it into a molten planet where minerals and resources would be more easily available. This would also fit nicely into the game as an expensive and difficult to obtain one use item.

With terraforming, planets would each have there own use. For instance:
Desert: Trade
Ice: Spacestation Friendly
Terra: Population
Volcanic: Mining
Desolate: Industry
Liquid: Science

Oh no! time for another forum newbie to revive a long dormant topic that was dead on arrival the first time it was proposed!

Note: Even though I have followed this project daily for the last 8 months, there is a lot of stuff that I don't know, so please pardon (and feel free to correct) any ignorance on my part.

I don't think I agree with nmull's suggestion to have terraforming allow a planet to perform one function, but this thread seemed to be the closest to my thoughts.

While sitting at my work desk today, thinking on limit theory instead of work, (on break, of course! ) I though to of a few questions:
0. How deep will the RTS game play be in Limit Theory?
1. What are the large scale projects that highly developed players and AI can work towards in the "end game".
2. Will there be AI factions large enough to be considered Empires rather than Corporations?
3. Will there be penalties (i.e. waste/corruption or another limiting factor) for having too large of an "Empire" to prevent a single aggressive and dominant AI from taking over 1000's of sectors over time?
4. If so, would there ever become a time that upgrading the planets you already control in a more substantial way than just a new city gives you more benefit than developing a new planet?
5. How important will planets be to trade, manufacturing, etc...? (more or less than stations?)

This idea makes the big assumption that the answer to Question 5 is planets are important:
Josh has previously mentioned finite universes as being an play option when limit theory is released. Smaller universes tend towards more strategic play because there are simply less sectors to go around. My suggestion is that terraforming be incorporated into limit theory as an RTS aspect of the game for players who play in a single universe for an extensive amount of time. Terraforming would be a valuable way to enhance* planets (or sabotage enemies! ) later into the game when new planets are hard to come by and technological know-how is high.
Note: Terraforming would also be more relevant to larger universes if the answer to question 3 is yes.

Terraforming could require the ability to collect elementary gases/elements (H/He, Ore, etc..) from the universe, use large scale fusion to create the rarer elements required (O/N/C, etc...) packaged into expensive-to-produce "terraforming units" and delivered to the intended planet by ships.

*(Terraforming would by definition make a planet more tolerable to a race allowing more population to inhabit a planet, increasing trade, productivity, and importance to a sector. It would probably need take a substantial amount of resources and tech to be balanced.)

Thanks for reading. I should stop fantasizing at work.

P.S. Perhaps "Terraforming" is not exactly the right word. Perhaps the more general "Planet Manipulation" is more relevant.

Before we can get into any of that, I have to ask you a quick question:

Did you use the search function?

Ashenraynor wrote: While sitting at my work desk today, thinking on limit theory instead of work, (on break, of course! ) I though to of a few questions:
0. How deep will the RTS game play be in Limit Theory?
1. What are the large scale projects that highly developed players and AI can work towards in the "end game".
2. Will there be AI factions large enough to be considered Empires rather than Corporations?
3. Will there be penalties (i.e. waste/corruption or another limiting factor) for having too large of an "Empire" to prevent a single aggressive and dominant AI from taking over 1000's of sectors over time?
4. If so, would there ever become a time that upgrading the planets you already control in a more substantial way than just a new city gives you more benefit than developing a new planet?
5. How important will planets be to trade, manufacturing, etc...? (more or less than stations?)

Seriously, the FAQs are pretty good, and searching will get you a lot (a lot) more, but the best place to look for this sort of thing is really the Commonly Proposed Ideas thread. There's even a section on "Planets / Planetary interaction" where you can find out more info on this stuff.

Anyway, I had a spare ten minutes, so here's my quick response to your list:

Ashenraynor wrote:0. How deep will the RTS game play be in Limit Theory?

This one's too big to touch here. I suggest a little additional reading.

Ashenraynor wrote:1. What are the large scale projects that highly developed players and AI can work towards in the "end game".

Seriously, check out the Bosses / End game content / Super Weapons section in the commonly proposed ideas thread (and also see the answer to your #2 below).

Ashenraynor wrote:2. Will there be AI factions large enough to be considered Empires rather than Corporations?

Short answer? Yes, more than likely. As suggested by the below post, from the topic Personalisation:

JoshParnell wrote:I took it to mean "late game" ~ certainly there is no "end game" in LT, as there is no ultimate goal...unless you set one for yourself

But I took the question more to mean "how large is the economic spread," i.e., will there be financial goals that span many orders of magnitude of wealth, such that there's still a great deal to do even if you manage to get a very powerful ship, for example (whereas, in Freelancer, you're pretty much done once you've got a Hawk and Nomad blasters).

In LT you're only done when you believe you're done. As advertised in the KS, you'll never actually be "finished" with any "superlative" goal, since the universe is infinite ~ you can never really know if you've found the best ship, best tech, hardest enemy, etc. You might be the king of region X and think that you've totally dominated the scene, but then stumble over a few regions and realize that the leading factions in region Y could all single-handedly carve your assets into finely-powdered dust without so much as lifting a finger

Ashenraynor wrote:3. Will there be penalties (i.e. waste/corruption or another limiting factor) for having too large of an "Empire" to prevent a single aggressive and dominant AI from taking over 1000's of sectors over time?

I think that issue is still under debate (or at least Josh hasn't filled us in on his plan yet). Try checking out the topic How to limit player power in a sandbox universe for a lot of discussion, but not much in the way of WoG.

Ashenraynor wrote:4. If so, would there ever become a time that upgrading the planets you already control in a more substantial way than just a new city gives you more benefit than developing a new planet?

Not much on Planetary Ownership at the moment, as it was billed as a post-release stretch goal, and thus is probably going to wait until Josh has done just about everything else before it gets any love. (See the post below, that I found under Histories and colonisation)

JoshParnell wrote:

Jenga wrote:2. Colonisation - If you found an empty planet/system could you colonise it yourself, install facilities on planets, build stations in orbit. Maybe these could give you income over time and provide you with missions as raiders attack your installations.

Hey Jenga,

2. Colonization is also not confirmed, but if it makes it, that'd come with the "Planetary ownership" post-release update.

Ashenraynor wrote:5. How important will planets be to trade, manufacturing, etc...? (more or less than stations?)

Lots of discussion on this, and more about the economy in the Dev-log 24 September - Real economy thread, especially the below (seems to suggest they're more important from a quantitative basis if nothing else):

JoshParnell wrote:planets (and potentially other entities) will need to acquire resources on a regular basis in order to continue to "operate", so you know there will generally be demand for those goods. But that part of the game is not yet fleshed out enough to speak to

Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions and directing me to the commonly proposed idea thread. I have used the search feature extensively, but I guess my limit theory search skills need some work.