Restore planet quality

[Kanly]

I would like it if there was some way to restore planet quality that has been lost due to invasion. I hate when a planet loses quality with no way to get it back.

[Calin]

yea, that's also a thing I'm curious about. I never made it into the late game tech tree, and I might be making stuff up, but i feel like there's a terraforming tech somewhere. the issue is that i also don't know if this would break the f*ck out the late game balance as intended by the game's philosophy. It kinda bothered me when I got to the invasion stage of my first and only xeno war a year or two ago and realized i was gonna end up with what i think the forums call "dead worlds"

i'm a big 40k fan so i love doing the whole templar exterminatus on a xeno planet, since every good space marine/templar knows xenos need to be purged/bruned/killed, but I don't like the fact that that particular role playing style leaves me with a garbage economy and no way to build a bigger fleet than what i had before the orbital bombardments. i get that if i wipe out a xeno ai with a single fleet, i probably dont need a bigger one, but it'd be nice to play the fanatical templar tyrant every now and then lol

TLDR: want late game planet quality heal, not sure it was ever an intended feature. cannon aside, terraforming's a standard idea in sci-fi, but not a deal breaker in this game for me

[Brutus Aurelius]

Well, I can answer two main points there.

1) There is Terraforming Technology in the late game Planetary Construction branch. So far we have Terraforming Reactor 1 and 2, for an effective bonus of +2 and +3 Quality respectively.

2) The Templar don't seek to destroy worlds, only to remove the Xeno scourge from the surface of inhabitable worlds. The main missons of the Tenplar, as seen so far, are to:
Uphold Shalun Law
Safeguard Humanity
Keep the Peace between Factions.

[Calin]

I never got far enough to use terraforming/I don't think it may have been a thing during that one game I played a year or so ago when I did invade xeno worlds, so, does that bonus to quality mean it can turn a dead(?) world with 3 quality into one with 6? Or is a "dead" world an in game mechanic now, since I vaguely remember seeing that term in my game.

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As for Templar philosophy, I don't know diddly about it aside from what the game prompted me to be able to read, and it's all cool and all that they're fanatic peacekeepers dedicating to enforcing/maintaining the Edicts, but without hijacking this thread, I can say I bought this game cause it skirted the 40k space marine lore and aesthetics enough that the GW lawyers didn't perk up like polecats and scurry over to their offices to write copyright infringement letters.

So that's where I'm coming from with the purge the xenos comment. Since it quacked like a duck and looked like a duck, I assumed it was kinda like a duck so I played the game as if it was a duck. But that's more of a to each his own role playing thing. Mine just happened to fit with the OP's question. 

[Brutus Aurelius]

Dead worlds are one of two things.

1) Systems whose Orbital Bodies (planets, moons, etc) are too radioactive to support life. Basically planets that have had too many Orbital Bombardment attacks directed against them. Planets reduced to 0 Quality, either by you or the Xeno.

2) Planets whose atmosphere is not supported by the Void Engines of Human ships, and therefore are inaccessable to the Star Traders. These don't appear in ST4X, as there are no "naturally" occuring Dead Worlds in the settled Quadrants you play in.

[hlo]

Creating Dead Worlds is now a costly business since the 2.2.17 patch. Even the 2.3.1 did not bring back the old glory, not in Hard anyway. Before you can send in 3-5 stock transports and bombard the quality to oblivion blindly. Now you need to start with Scout and do that every 2nd turn. Even then your transports won't last. Transports experience points is almost worthless these days unless you want to put those experienced transports on long holidays so repair can fix them to 100% health.

[Calin]

hlo I haven't gotten to invasion since the changes. It seems that you and the Trese brothers are in a pretty legit discussion about the changes, and I wanna see where it ends before I commit more time to the game. It was a big enough shock to see one of my transports getting damaged during an invasion phase a few weeks ago (which tells you how long it's been since I've played) but I don't know if I wanna keep learning new invasion rules. Totally happy to wait, this is why I joined the forums.

@brutus, so it seems that dead world is less of a game mechanic term and more of a lore thing, cool. So what i took from your last answer is that terraforming improvements just straight up add extra quality, which means that my question's moot: the game DOES in fact have a way for you to "heal" at most 3 quality points from a planet that's been irradiated to hell and back, thanks.

This board's wonky, I tagged with an @ but Brutus' name won't edit an uppercase b to do the same.

[hlo]

Jun 3, 2015 18:19:48 GMT -5 Calin said:

hlo I haven't gotten to invasion since the changes. It seems that you and the Trese brothers are in a pretty legit discussion about the changes, and I wanna see where it ends before I commit more time to the game. It was a big enough shock to see one of my transports getting damaged during an invasion phase a few weeks ago (which tells you how long it's been since I've played) but I don't know if I wanna keep learning new invasion rules. Totally happy to wait, this is why I joined the forums.

You probably will get less of a shock learning new. For us who have been playing for a while we have certain play style. For myself I prefer creating Neutral Zones / DMZ early on to keep the xeno away from my developing colonies. Before this change I can send in transports with tankers along with escorts to bombard the daylights out of the system. I loose transports but not as bad as now. With all the changes of last 3 updates I need 3 times more ships just to barely get the job done.

P.S. I was told the DMZ tactics is only used by very few of us. 

[Brutus Aurelius]

Jun 3, 2015 18:19:48 GMT -5 Calin said:

hlo I haven't gotten to invasion since the changes. It seems that you and the Trese brothers are in a pretty legit discussion about the changes, and I wanna see where it ends before I commit more time to the game. It was a big enough shock to see one of my transports getting damaged during an invasion phase a few weeks ago (which tells you how long it's been since I've played) but I don't know if I wanna keep learning new invasion rules. Totally happy to wait, this is why I joined the forums.

@brutus, so it seems that dead world is less of a game mechanic term and more of a lore thing, cool. So what i took from your last answer is that terraforming improvements just straight up add extra quality, which means that my question's moot: the game DOES in fact have a way for you to "heal" at most 3 quality points from a planet that's been irradiated to hell and back, thanks.

This board's wonky, I tagged with an @ but Brutus' name won't edit an uppercase b to do the same.

Hmm. I might have misexplained. Dead Worlds are forever lost to you and the Xeno when they are created. To build the Terraforming Reactor, you need a Colony.

And if you want to tag me, it is @ brutusaurelius, without the space. You @username to tag person. Usernames are not necessarily the same as displau names.

[Calin]

Brutus Aurelius that makes a lot more sense, so dead worlds are a mechanic and I did remeber them correctly

hlo I call them fire bases I think, you're talking about colonies that only serve as resupply bases and get stuffed with orbiting torpedo ships right? Kind of like a colony acting as a static defense?

I guess my support becomes moot again, cause I feel like dead worlds were always supposed to be game mechanics, and reviving a dead planet might throw off the balance just like the refitting ships argument.

[hlo]

Jun 3, 2015 22:51:59 GMT -5 Calin said:

hlo I call them fire bases I think, you're talking about colonies that only serve as resupply bases and get stuffed with orbiting torpedo ships right? Kind of like a colony acting as a static defense?

After the DMZ creation period is over, then you start going out to grab FOB (Forward Operation Base) or Fire Base if you like. Regardless of quality their sole purpose is refueling of the fleet. They work better if you can get a cluster of 2-3 close together as your fleet (large by then) can refuel at the same time. Getting them productive is usually a low priority.