How do you get plants to grow?

[seekster]

I am at the Stage 4: Green Mars part of the terraforming plan. I have over 21 degrees C, 438.5 Mbar, 733m of water, and 31 Mbar of O2 (I am being careful to make sure that Nitrogen rises at a greater rate than O2). I see some parts around some of my biodomes that look to be a brighter shade of green than the lichen but when I click on the plant icon (the one on the top left with the other terraforming icons), it says that I do not have any plants, just lichen and cynobacteria. Also O2 is going up at a snails pace and I need 120 mbar to complete this terraforming stage.

Does anyone have any advice on increasing O2 without setting everything on fire? I heard plants do a much better job converting CO2 to O2 than lichen do but no matter how I place my biodomes they only seem to grow lichen.

[torment52]

The bright green could be your trees starting, they are slow. I assume you did research the tech? The one that gives the biodome starts with just lichen. And make sure there is lots of room near the dome and humidity. Plants wont grow near roads. Can you post a screenshot?

[Mordtziel]

Make sure you have the appropriate researches and that there's both biodomes and organic material dumpsters that can pull from the areas the biodomes are generating. Next up, making sure the area is warm "enough" and humid "enough". I can't say on the exact numbers offhand, but I believe 30c and at least 60% humidity is needed for plants? Finally, you need a lot of nitrogen in the air. I wanna say it was around 250 mbar of nitrogen that it started growing plants (maybe that was lichen going berserk?)? But keep pushing it. The more, the better.

EDIT: To give an idea on what I did on my playthrough when I really started pushing for green: Every nitrate resource was converted, every "extra" Carbon deposit was pumped into the air to increase CO2, 3 spaceports dedicated to GHG, a couple dozen GHG factories, 5 spaceports dedicated to nitrogen, 8 spaceports dedicated to ice, aerobrake every asteroid immediately, biodomes in every growable area, and multiple organic material dumpsters in every area that they can function in. Shortly after doing this, my O2 variation spiked over 140 mbar/yr (or so the buggy graph claimed) shattering that goal.

Though let me give the warning: ♥♥♥♥ goes down as you approach Stage 5. So don't go hard unless you're ready.

[Slayrix]

Kinda pointless to go for a green mars considering the devs have prohibited you ever making mars fully green... you will soon learn that once you place a building over any vegetation it will instantly go away and never come back meaning in the end you will have a partially green mars with a bunch of ugly red blobs all over mars where your buildings are

[Mordtziel]

Originally posted by Slayrix:

Kinda pointless to go for a green mars considering the devs have prohibited you ever making mars fully green... you will soon learn that once you place a building over any vegetation it will instantly go away and never come back meaning in the end you will have a partially green mars with a bunch of ugly red blobs all over mars where your buildings are

You could relocate your entire industry to the southern pole where altitude is too high for vegetation anyways, leaving the entire planet that can grow vegetation to grow it. You could then build along the seas/oceans to give them a beach-like look. The world is as green as you want it to be as long as you're not looking to recreate an overgrown, forgotten ruin.

[Rocky Mountain Oyster]

Originally posted by Slayrix:

Kinda pointless to go for a green mars considering the devs have prohibited you ever making mars fully green... you will soon learn that once you place a building over any vegetation it will instantly go away and never come back meaning in the end you will have a partially green mars with a bunch of ugly red blobs all over mars where your buildings are

Not actually true anymore either, the HOME update added a research that allows vegetation to grow along roads and buildings