Planet optimizations through terraforming?

[LST Theunknown]

Hey Guys,

do you recommend to terraform all planets to the high tier like Terran or Atoll? I am concerned that it's not effective because some planet specialization are good for specific planet types :x

[Grzemek]

It all depends on who you're playing as and what your goal is. Sometimes it's better to increase the pop size, sometimes it's better to keep that sterile/fertile or temperature tag. Specific factions have bonuses to specific planet types (Sophons to Cold and Fertile, possibly to Hot through their quest; Riftborn have some Sterile support); and sometimes you just want more pop because either you're amassing those 20 collection bonuses from minor pops and need as much space as possible to cram everyone in. If you want to go hard on Influence then probably going with as many slots as possible is the way, since you want that Influence specialization.

Superlategame the Food exploitation is strongest for industry, because it's +3 and +3 on Fertile, while all other FIDS specializations stop at +2 and +2, so with Food->Industry conversion the specialization alone grants more than the other ones. And industry lets you build all other yields.

I haven't sat down and crunched all the numbers yet, but this is why Jungle is my fav planet to terraform into. It's both Fertile and Hot, so Food specialization (or Industry if I'm not at conversion/max pop yet) and AI Labor bonuses are granted. It's only 1 pop smaller than the golden quartet or fertile temperate ones, so pretty capacious. It has base science yield 0 though but for now I want to believe that all the Industry letting me build science buildings fast makes up for it.

Take it with a grain of salt because I'm the kind of player who knew only 2 ends to terraforming in Endless Space 1: either Hydrogen when I went hard Dust production, or everything to Methane for everything else (okay, maybe to Ocean for trade and highest pop, but I rarely did that).

There's also substantial Industry cost related to terraforming, so it's not uncommon for the game to conclude before it's worthwhile.

[Cani Terrae]

That's a good explanation. I would add that some terraforming has a purely beneficial effect. Monsoon to Terran/Forest is entirely beneficial. Boreal to Ocean, etc. You can tell what stats will change when you hover over the terraforming option.

You're entirely right that sometimes you may want those lava planets instead of an atoll. Oddly, you can only terraform towards the direction of fertile idyllic worlds, so be careful not to terraform a barren or toxic world you want to keep!

[glythe]

In ES2 I would never touch an ash/lava/desert planet as they offer massive industry potential.

Pretty much everything else you want to turn into something better unless it is already a nice planet (ocean/atoll/med/jungle/monsoon).

Research is nice... but I never keep cold planets. I know that sounds odd but I almost always play a custom faction with rational minds II or III.

[Grzemek]

Not sure about Boreal to Ocean being purely beneficial. You lose the Cold tag, so if you want Science you lose some bonuses from buildings and planetary exploitations.

Yeah, even though I raised the argument above about science and Cold planets, I prefer Hot ones. Cold planets take ages to raise their scientific infrastructure, and raw planet output alone isn't enough. But bottom tier trash for me is Toxic. Can only terraform into Temperate, and temperate is only good early for Xenoindustrial/Public-Private, and lategame for Dust. So Savannah, Steppes and Monsoon are middle grounds I dislike too, by extension.

I only keep Boreal for Sophons, since it's Fertile and Cold, and they have special techs for both tags. Also, Boreal is the best Cold planet to stop at IMO, so Sophons' +100% science on cold planets Law is probably best on Boreal. IF your cold systems have those thousands of Industry to spare anyway.

Also I usually go for the Cold planets terraforming skip for Unfallen, for the reasons above.

For some time I relied on the terraformation chart in steam guides, until I tried to terraform Desert with Riftborn into even crappier Sterile planet. And the game said no, while both the guide and both wikias say "just reverse for Riftborn LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL" which is wrong. Once you hit Sterile, you're done terraforming, and their paths aren't just reversed standard ones. Someone on reddit linked to this thing on Games2Gether: https://medias.games2gether.com/forums/cyrob/TerraformationChart.jpg

Everything is true for standard terraforming, but for our space number bois.

[glythe]

Boreal is complete trash to me as it has +0 industry.

[Chrono]

As Horatio, it think that the best way is to get max population, and I always try to end with Atolls or Oceans

[rabureta]

Originally posted by glythe:

In ES2 I would never touch an ash/lava/desert planet as they offer massive industry potential.

Desert's population outpaces the innate industry bonus on Lava/Ash. You want to terraform to Desert at first opportunity, then to Jungle once you have biofuel.

[Sublustris]

Always consider planet size when deciding if you are going to terraform the planet. Large and huge planets are better suited for terramorming, as they will give you more population slots, that will compensate lower basic per pop planet output. For this reason, small and tiny planets are rarely good candidates for terraforming.

Sometimes you may want to stop at temperate planet types, instead of going to the end of the chain. Big temperate planets are best for specific system improvements, dust and influence production.

Riftborn are exclusion to this rule, due to thier reversed terraforming tree. They also unlock additional slots on sterile planets later on. Rare occasion when you don't want to terraform to sterile when playing Riftborn, is when minor population lives there and is not suited for that biodiversity type.

[glythe]

[quote=0xFB Sublustris;3441214221472486504
Riftborn are exclusion to this rule, due to thier reversed terraforming tree. They also unlock additional slots on sterile planets later on. Rare occasion when you don't want to terraform to sterile when playing Riftborn, is when minor population lives there and is not suited for that biodiversity type. [/quote]

Just so we are all clear it is a bug that you can build the burrows to max any population to 14 size. It is supposed to only increase the planets by 1 and then not be something you can make again.

[Bob McBob Jr]

Overall which planet is optimal depends on a lot of things. Approval is a big one. In the early game I usually find myself having approval troubles even without over-colonizing. Terra-forming up can be a big help with this at the cost of losing some per pop bonuses. Lategame, with the biofuel plant, it becomes more productive to have high fertility planets as the food is converted to industry. Additionally food can always grow more pops more quickly for growth benefits (unless your empire is capped out and you can't afford anymore colonizing which I've never had a problem with). AI labor comes in at the midgame for +5/+5 on sterile/hot. Climate engineering comes even later for a+4/+2 on Fertile/Cold. So I was thinking, what is best to start and to end the game with? Well here are the base planet stats.

Lava(Hot/Sterile): Pop - 1-5, Food - 0, Ind - 16/p, Dust - 2/p, Sci - 0/p, App - -8/p
Ash(Hot/Sterile): Pop - 2-6, Food - 0, Ind - 12/p, Dust - 4/p, Sci - 0/p, App - -5/p
Desert(Hot/Sterile): Pop - 3-7, Food - 1, Ind - 8/p, Dust - 6/p, Sci - 0/p, App - -3/p
Arid(Hot): Pop - 3-7, Food - 2, Ind - 8/p, Dust - 4/p, Sci - 0/p, App - -3/p
Medit(Hot): Pop - 5-9, Food - 6, Ind - 6/p, Dust - 3/p, Sci - 0/p, App - -1/p
Jungle(Hot/Fertile): Pop - 5-9, Food - 6, Ind - 5/p, Dust - 3/p, Sci - 0/p, App - -0/p
Atoll(Temp/Fertile)l: Pop - 6-10, Food - 8, Ind - 6/p, Dust - 4/p, Sci - 2/p, App- -0/p

Barren(Cold/Sterile): Pop - 1-5, Food - 0, Ind - 0/p, Dust - 2/p, Sci - 16/p, App - -8/p
Ice(Cold/Sterile): Pop - 2-6, Food - 0, Ind - 0/p, Dust - 4/p, Sci - 12/p, App - -5/p
Arctic(Cold/Sterile): Pop - 3-7, Food - 1, Ind - 0/p, Dust - 6/p, Sci - 8/p, App - -3/p
Snow(Cold): Pop - 3-7, Food - 2, Ind - 0/p, Dust - 4/p, Sci - 8/p, App - -3/p
Tundra(Cold): Pop - 5-9, Food - 6, Ind - 0/p, Dust - 3/p, Sci - 6/p, App - -1/p
Boreal(Cold/Fertile): Pop - 5-9, Food - 6, Ind - 0/p, Dust - 3/p, Sci - 5/p, App - -0/p
Ocean(Temp/Fertile): Pop - 6-10, Food - 8, Ind - 2/p, Dust - 4/p, Sci - 6/p, App - -0/p

Toxic(Temp/Sterile): Pop - 1-5, Food - 3, Ind - 2/p, Dust - 8/p, Sci - 2/p, App - -8/p
Steppes(Temp): Pop - 5-9, Food - 4, Ind - 2/p, Dust - 5/p, Sci - 3/p, App - -1/p
Savannah(Temp): Pop - 5-9, Food - 4, Ind - 3/p, Dust - 5/p, Sci - 2/p, App - -1/p
Monsoon(Temp): Pop - 5-9, Food - 6, Ind - 2/p, Dust - 4/p, Sci - 2/p, App - -1/p
Forest(Temp/Fertile): Pop - 6-10, Food - 8, Ind - 4/p, Dust - 4/p, Sci - 3/p, App - -0/p
Terran(Temp/Fertile): Pop - 6-10, Food - 8, Ind - 3/p, Dust - 4/p, Sci - 4/p, App - -0/p

Immediately I can see a few things.
Total production per pop (add all per pop except approval together) decrease by 1 or 2 each terraforming except for Tundra/Mediterranean and the final upgrade. The progression goes as follows:
18 (Barren/Lava) > 16 (Ice/Ash) > 15 (Desert/Arctic/Toxic/Tundra/Mediterranean) > 14 (Snow/Arid/Boreal/Jungle/Steppes/Savannah/Monsoon) > 19 (Forest/Terran) > 20 (Atoll/Ocean)
Atoll/Ocean are strictly better than Forest/Terran by +1/pop at the expense of being both harder to terraform into and less flexible. Both a barren and lava planet can become forest/terran but only lava can become atoll and only barren can become ocean. So if you want to add production to you barren planet forest is the best you can do.
Steppes/Savannah/Monsoon are all about equal. Steppes is slightly inferior as industry and food are more important than sciences. They are all slightly worse than Tundra/Mediterranean.
Hot Planets are generally a little more important than cold planets as you have to actually build the things you unlock with research. I have found in most of my playthroughs that I ALWAYS have improvements I can build.
Without ANY improvements Mediterranean is better than jungle due to higher pop bonuses. Same with Tundra/Boreal.
There is a MASSIVE +6/pop jump from Boreal/Jungle to Ocean/Atoll that improvements will have to cover.
With basic +50 from colony approval you can only afford 2 pops on a lava/barren/toxic world without rebelling.
Toxic worlds SUCK. Only 15 Total production for a -8 approval
FIDSI buffs comparatively less effective on small planets. A Huge lava planet has 5 people while a Huge Atoll has 10 for a 2x population increase. A tiny lava has 1 pop while a tiny Atoll has 6 for a total of 600% of the population. Tiny and small planets should always be terraformed to the max level. They should even be terraformed BEFORE SIMILAR LARGER Planets as the population increase is the same but with less of a FIDSI hit. TIny lava to Tiny Desert grants 2 pop spaces while huge lava to huge desert gives ... 2 pop spaces.

At the very beginning of the game I would recommend looking for low approval cost planets with a preference for hot ones. Food will produce pops faster and production will produce everything faster. The drop in per pop production will be countered by having more pops. Additionally, your first system upgrade gives you +10ind on fertile and temperate making Atoll the best planet. You can see this difference yourself by starting a game as a custom faction on a jungle planet then the same faction on a atoll planet. Now, what do improvements do to this? I have made another list of all the planet type related improvements (and hero abilities though I'm mostly ignoring them) below (using the wiki, don't know if it's missing something from this or that faction).

Fertile: +1pop, Food 20(OverseerH), Ind 10, Dust 4/p, Sci 10+4/p
Sterile: +2pop, Food 20, Ind 20(ImperialH)+5/p, Dust 10 (CounselorH)
Hot: Food 25, Ind 10(GuardianH/OverseerH)+5/p
Cold: Food 5+2/p(Sophons), Ind 10(Sophons), Sci 80(TechnologistH)+2/p
Temp: Ind 10, Dust 4/p, Sci 10, Influence 4 (VodyaniQuest)

This is where Jungle/Boreal takes the lead over Tundra and Mediterranean with +4 Sci/pop, +4 dust/pop, 1 extra pop and 10 ind from being fertile well overtaking the -1 TP they had before. Sterile also gets a boost both from the extra pops which even out the percentages, +5 ind/pop and approval not mattering as much this far into the game. Now a Huge lava planet has 7 pop to Atoll's 11 (64% instead of 50%) and produce 28/p +45 while atoll is 32/p +40. It's still not as good unless you pop count is small but it's better. Now the question that you have all been waiting for: Jungle/Boreal or Atoll/Ocean? For this I will be using a fictitious pop with a +0 bonus and filling each up. All planets are Huge.

Atoll: Total Production - 392, Food 88, Ind 86, Sci 86
Jungle: Total Production - 315, Food 85, Ind 110, Sci 50
Ocean: Total Production - 392, Food 88 , Ind 42, Sci 130
Boreal: Total Production - 265, Food 65, Ind 10, Sci 120

So, holy c***. Boreal sucks compared to Ocean (unless you give it a technologist hero or are playing Sophons). On the other hand for Ind/Sci/Food Atoll and Jungle are about on par. You roughly trade 30 Ind for 30 Sci. I'd give Jungle the edge there but you get +80 dust p/turn from Atoll. This difference is further increased by any general FiDSI bonuses you have. Take Sefaloros which have +3 ind/pop. This pop bonus triggers 1 more time on Atoll than Jungle closing that Ind gap by 3. The first tier general hero skill gives +1 food/+1 ind to each pop again closing the gap even more. The smaller the planet the more that 1 pop matters too as Jungle's Ind/pop bonus gets to apply fewer times. That said both are good. Maybe terraform all your tiny/small/medium planets to Atoll and leave the large/huge ones jungle?

So, the best planets are Atoll/Jungle>Ocean>Everything else (Unless your playing Riftborn)