Lichen, when does it kick in?

[sneakyweazel]

I have few biodomes that should output lichen and plants but there is zero change to O2 from lichen or plants. What are the parameters for activating lichen growth?

Currently I am around 3 centigrade on the positive side, >350mbar atmo and <18mbar of O2. Year is 65. Is there a time limit on how long I can take and when should I see lichen to start growing?
Cyanobacteria has colored all the larger bodies of water and O2 change seems to be halted, am I screwed?

[cswiger]

Surface plants don't do much below 10 C, and they want more than 20 C to grow rapidly.
You also need enough surface water such that you have rivers flowing on the surface.

There are no time limits.

You should be importing or making 700+ mbar of Nitrogen.

[wraith_73]

Just start importing or producing Nitrogen and Greenhouse Gasses. Once the atmo warms enough, the lichen will spread quickly and in a few years you'll begin to see the O2 start moving in a positive direction. 40C is roughly 104F. Plants seem to grow when the temp gets over 20 but they grow slower in the colder weather, I'd try to keep it around 30C(86F). Getting too hot won't stop plant growth, but I think it starts to slow down again once you get around 50C.

The only way to really screw yourself is to neglect your nitrogen. I use three spaceports to shuttle it in, but the exchangers work as well. Earth nitrogen levels are 78% of the atmo. Anything over 70% is exceptable, in that it will prevent your O2 from getting over 30%.

The higher your water levels, the faster you will generate O2, and the greener your Mars will be.

[sneakyweazel]

Thank you for your encouraging words!

Started to import nitrogen and it now sits at 37% of 575mbar atmo. Also got finally to 20mbar of O2 and the lichen has kicked in! It now produces whopping 1.16mbar of O2 a year and climbing I can see green around the biodomes!

I do not dare to raise the temperature at the moment as I'm not too sure about water levels. Perfectly happy with 500m and i can still mine resources from flood plains :)

BTW; It is year 105 and I think the story line should be borked as every character should be dead from old age ;-) and another 100 years to go until Stage 4 : green mars is completed at this pace

[wraith_73]

Originally posted by sneakyweazel:

Thank you for your encouraging words!

Started to import nitrogen and it now sits at 37% of 575mbar atmo. Also got finally to 20mbar of O2 and the lichen has kicked in! It now produces whopping 1.16mbar of O2 a year and climbing I can see green around the biodomes!

I do not dare to raise the temperature at the moment as I'm not too sure about water levels. Perfectly happy with 500m and i can still mine resources from flood plains :)

BTW; It is year 105 and I think the story line should be borked as every character should be dead from old age ;-) and another 100 years to go until Stage 4 : green mars is completed at this pace

Once you reach 400M of water, temperature is no longer a factor. All the surface water of Mars is melted and you have to deep freeze the planet to get it to reduce back into ice caps. Crashing a comet into your Mars raised it to 500M. The only way to raise the water level higher is to import ice from Europa along with the alien space monsters that go with it...Okay, no alien space monsters..pity.

I've played a game that went almost 200 years. Apparently, we have control over the human lifespan in this game. The longer you drag it out, the greater the advancements in medical science behind the scenes. ;p

[Zuul]

Don't be too worried about water levels, just finished my last game importing ice almost the entire time. I believe I was a fuzz over 1400m and that was not yet enough to cover all the flood plains. For temps I generally target 12-15 C. While this doesn't give rapid plant spread, it does allow it to spread to "most" locations and it does so quite gradually. This more or less acts as a brake on your O2 conversion rates so they don't overtake your nitrogen levels. This way usually finishes in 60ish years I think.