Terraforming Installation

This article contains information relevant to both the C# and VB6 versions of Aurora. Where differences exist, they are noted in the appropriate sections.

Terraforming Installation
Cargo Size	50,000 (C#) / 125,000 (VB6)
Workers Required	125,000 (C#) / 250,000 (VB6)
Total Cost (BP)	300 (C#) / 600 (VB6)
Duranium	150 (C#) / 300 (VB6)
Neutronium	—
Corbomite	—
Tritanium	—
Boronide	150 (C#) / 300 (VB6)
Mercassium	—
Sorium	—
Uridium	—
Corundium	—
Gallicite	—
Vendarite	—

Function

Terraforming Installations allow terraforming of your colonies, allowing a reduction (and eventual elimination) of colony costs. Lower colony costs mean each colony costs less to operate and require less infrastructure per million colonists. They function similarly to terraforming modules, except that they are installations and not components.

Operation

Terraforming Installations are managed on the Environment tab of the Economics Screen F2. A terraforming installation can add or subtract an amount of gas equal to the racial terrforming rate per year modified by the planetary and sector governor's Terraforming bonus and require 125,000 (C#) / 250,000 (VB6) civilians each to operate.

Formula: (Racial Terraforming Rate) * (Sector Governor Terraforming Bonus * 0.25) * (Planetary Governor Terraforming Bonus)

Terraforming Options

• Selected Gas: The desired gas to add or subtract from the atmosphere.
• Add Gas to Atmosphere: Check to add the selected gas to the atmosphere, uncheck to subtract it from the atmosphere.
• Maximum Atm: The maximum atmospheric pressure of the selected gas to add (minimum if subtracting). Enter 0 for no limit.
• Save Atm(VB6 only): Click to save the value for Maximum Atm. (It's auto-saved in C#.)

Shutting Down (VB6 only)

Terraforming installations can be mass-shutdown via the Civilian / Ind Status tab of the Economics screen. This will immediately halt all planetary terraforming and remove any associated Wealth costs. Shutting down in this way will require a 6-month warm-up time to restart terraforming. Note that orbital terraforming via Terraforming Modules are not affected.

Terraforming can be paused by selecting Terraforming Inactive. which has the same effect without incurring the 6-month restart delay (?). This method will also halt orbital terraforming.

Misc

Terraforming installations require 50,000 (C#) / 125,000 (VB6) tons of cargo space (2-5 cargo holds), but are automatically broken down into parts if only partial cargo capacity is available. When moving parts, the entire installation must be moved before it becomes operational.

Terraforming installations work in parallel with orbital terraforming modules, however only one gas may be terraformed at a time. Orbital ships do not receive the bonuses granted by the civilian administrators, and the ground based terraformers do not receive the military officer bonuses.

(How the installations are able to provide Mercury with an atmosphere 10x as thick as Earth's made of pure Neon is anyone's guess.)