Topic: Terraforming: the TPB point sytme..

[jujubee]

well with the new info on the terraforming sytme using T,B,P. so what do you guys think on this stuff? if any one know more about it please share! (this goes for you too Steve  )

Edit: I would say more on it but currently I only know that it exists, the intire point of this thread is to find out more info on it (as well as discuss it)

[Gauphastus]

I'm still fairly confused about what it is. Are they like ratings for different inhabitability areas of the planet?
Do you see these when you hover over the planet, and if so, are these for strategizing what planet would be a better "investment" of your time and money?

[jujubee]

well from the podcast I gathered that yes, you do yes it, and that it is given a rating depenting on were it is in location from the sun (T), whats the population (P), and for B I forgot what it does.. any way I guess that you can transfore a planet to a certen degree depenting on its T scorre, and what not... please feel free to correct me as I'm most likly wrong.

[SpiroAgnew]

What I got from it was that it was basically a rating of how lush the planet can potentially be. Like, a T10 planet could be terraformed up to level 10, which would have more resources and vegetation (possibly) than a T4 or something. I need to reread it again.

[jujubee]

What I got from it was that it was basically a rating of how lush the planet can potentially be. Like, a T10 planet could be terraformed up to level 10, which would have more resources and vegetation (possibly) than a T4 or something. I need to reread it again.

thats perrty much what I got from it as well...

[vbGamer]

T score - Seems to be how habitabal the planet is. Something in the middle of the solar system would be 10. Too close, or too far, then it's 0 or 1.

B score - Seems to be how well certain creatures will live. i.e., there might just be enough athmosphere or air for plants to live (or land room), but not for creatures. Maybe it's the size of the planet. A small moon that's terraformed might be a 1, whereas a nice sized planet might be a 10.

P score - I'm guessing that this would be how large your colonies would be compared to your population.

[D_Malachi]

Hmm... personally, I think it adds a certain degree of challenge to the space portion of the game. Prior to this, there was a good chance that, at first, it was believed that if it's a planet, it can be terraformed and colonized just like any other... though that's hardly scientific. It would be utterly impossible to fully colonize Pluto (too cold, little to no gravity, absolutely zero atmosphere. Domed cities seem possible) and Mercury (Way too hot, perhaps a bit too small or large (haven't studied the planet's size in ages) and standard glass domes would not last long at all). However, were we to get to Venus, augment its atmosphere and add some protection from the fact that we'd be closer to the sun, it's possible... in that respect, Pluto and Mercury would have very low Terraforming scores, Biosphere scores varying (with a flat 0 for Pluto, none whatsoever, probably close to that for Mercury), and naturally a 0 in Population, as no human could possibly live on either planet for very long. However, Venus (being so close in size to Earth) would be much higher, though not quite livable yet, it would take potentially decades of work.

To sum it up, adds realism. I like it, it works well.

[SpiroAgnew]

Here it is for reference purposes:

There's a terraforming … as you terraform, this is kind of the rough idea is that every planet has a “T Score” from zero to ten, “B Score”, which is a biosphere score, and a “P Score”, which is the population score of your colony. Depending where the planets are relative to the sun they can have maximum T Scores. So planets that are really far away or really close to the center can have very low T Scores and you can never terraform them, they’re very high. Other ones will be moderately useful, like T6. That’s going cap the B Score so if I actually get an atmosphere up to a T6, which is this range. At this point, plants will live, animals won't, and colonies will be fairly expensive still. And so, this is kind of the terraform/colonization game.

Ok, so if I'm reading this correctly, the B (biosphere) score will be capped according to the current atmosphere level (how much you've terraformed it), and at a certain B level plants will grow, and a higher level (at least higher than 6) will be needed for living animals. Also, the more you've terraformed it, the less colonies cost. This makes sense (having to adapt the enviroment in the cities more and more would be more expensive).

[jujubee]

hmm I wounder if plants will evolve? or find some sort of narrel defence.. wel I guess since theres no animals to eat them the would not need them... I wounder if you did some how land on one of these planet if you would be like a blue-green algree thing?

[SL]

However, were we to get to Venus, augment its atmosphere and add some protection from the fact that we'd be closer to the sun, it's possible...

Augment its atmosphere? Are you sure ? Well, presumably the long-term problem with Venus is that it doesn't have a decent magnetic field to deflect the solar wind (It's believed that the solar wind broke down the water in venus' atmosphere). So you'd want to speed up its rotation a lot to solve that problem (Quoth wikipedia: "Venus's intrinsic magnetic field has been found very weak compared to other planets in the solar system. This may be due to its slow rotation being insufficient to drive an internal dynamo of liquid iron. As a result, solar wind strikes Venus's upper atmosphere without mediation."). Then you'd want to break the CO2 in its atmosphere up somehow to reduce the greenhouse effect and to get some oxygen in the air. Ideally, you'd also bleed off some of the atmosphere somehow to reduce the atmospheric pressure. You'd probably want to get rid of the sulfuric acid and sulfur dioxide clouds while you were at it.

[jujubee]

However, were we to get to Venus, augment its atmosphere and add some protection from the fact that we'd be closer to the sun, it's possible...

Augment its atmosphere? Are you sure ? Well, presumably the long-term problem with Venus is that it doesn't have a decent magnetic field to deflect the solar wind (It's believed that the solar wind broke down the water in venus' atmosphere). So you'd want to speed up its rotation a lot to solve that problem (Quoth wikipedia: "Venus's intrinsic magnetic field has been found very weak compared to other planets in the solar system. This may be due to its slow rotation being insufficient to drive an internal dynamo of liquid iron. As a result, solar wind strikes Venus's upper atmosphere without mediation."). Then you'd want to break the CO2 in its atmosphere up somehow to reduce the greenhouse effect and to get some oxygen in the air. Ideally, you'd also bleed off some of the atmosphere somehow to reduce the atmospheric pressure. You'd probably want to get rid of the sulfuric acid and sulfur dioxide clouds while you were at it.

solar wind is a good point... this also rises the question what forms of UFO prpotion are there.. not to get too hyped up about it but it would be cool to have solar sails.

[Oviraptor]

However, were we to get to Venus, augment its atmosphere and add some protection from the fact that we'd be closer to the sun, it's possible...

Augment its atmosphere? Are you sure ? Well, presumably the long-term problem with Venus is that it doesn't have a decent magnetic field to deflect the solar wind (It's believed that the solar wind broke down the water in venus' atmosphere). So you'd want to speed up its rotation a lot to solve that problem (Quoth wikipedia: "Venus's intrinsic magnetic field has been found very weak compared to other planets in the solar system. This may be due to its slow rotation being insufficient to drive an internal dynamo of liquid iron. As a result, solar wind strikes Venus's upper atmosphere without mediation."). Then you'd want to break the CO2 in its atmosphere up somehow to reduce the greenhouse effect and to get some oxygen in the air. Ideally, you'd also bleed off some of the atmosphere somehow to reduce the atmospheric pressure. You'd probably want to get rid of the sulfuric acid and sulfur dioxide clouds while you were at it.

Also, it spins BACKWARDS.

[D_Malachi]

Well, perhaps we could, in theory, either simulate, recreate, fabricate, or generally speaking "make" a new one (magnetic field). And, of course, by "augment its atmosphere" I meant, basically, trying to replicate that of Earth's, so life from here could live there, if you don't count the newfound closeness to the sun to be a problem.

...Then again, we can't even get there yet. We'd have to start terraforming now to get there any time in the near, relatively speaking, future... barring any massive leaps in technology, that is, as we can basically only get to the moon with ease, more or less. We'd need something similar to Wright's "Interstellar Drive," or at least more powerful propulsion engines. Would still take a great deal of time just to get there, considering the distance.

...But, back on point, merely using this solar system as a bit of an explanation as to how the T, B, and P scores in the game reflect reality, instead of colonizing anything and everything that's not a star or other non-planetary "thing.'

[Behumat]

I grasp the whole varying scores when terraforming a planet that lies within the zone of habitability of a star. (Roughly from venus to the asteroid belt in our system) But what about worlds outside that? As I develope technologies can I terraform them? Or perhaps some natural features of certain distant worlds would allow colonization, i.e. thermal vents, dense ammonia atmospheres, etc. (Basically things that would trap heat, and mind, I'm not assuming your creature necessarily breathes oxygen)

[Stromko]

Interesting thoughts.. as it is right now we know of ONE planet that supports life. Maybe underneath the ice of Io there's thermal vents and god-knows-what, but what I'm trying to say is we know of only one method by which a planet can support life.

Maybe on the other side of the galaxy there's some species that feeds off of intense space radiation and are discussing how it'd be impossible for any planet that's exposed to visible light to support life, because this destroys the weird cells that make up every form of life on their planet. And then a few stars over, there's a silicate energy-based species talking about how biological materials could never support lifelike entities(edit: because it'd melt under high currents or some silly thing).

Until we head out and find other lifeforms, and until we find that other lifeforms thrive rather than suffer on planets like Earth, we really have no way of knowing. We've never seen silicate life, we haven't proven protoplasmic interdimensional entities, we don't know how physics work in the dark-matter universe if it exists at all.

(edit) Master of Orion 3 actually had a pretty interesting system for habitability, every species had a different model of what a perfect planet was to them. In MoO2 every race wanted a Terran or Gaia planet, in MoO3 insectoids wanted a different planet than cybernetics and gasbags wanted a different planet than humans.

I think it'd make sense in Spore if your starting planet had a random T, B, P value and these were the values your species would seek out in other planets once they made a UFO and started colonizing. But on the other hand, this might artificially limit the selection of species that can be added to your world.. or if the T, B, P values had no real effect on their evolution or characteristics, then people might well be disappointed that it's interchangeable. Frankly as I'm able to figure out this idea on my own it's a pretty bad idea in a lot of ways, they'd have to find a better way to do it if this was really a feature.