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Can someone give me a crash course on colonizing, say, Mars?
Alright, I'll get you on the basics. Open up F9 and look at the top-right to see your race's tolorances:
First off, make sure the planet is within your race's gravity tolerance (AKA the "Colony cost" is not N/A. If it is, the planet has either too little or two much gravity). If it is, then it's possible to colonize it without Orbital Habitats. If it isn't, you CANNOT make the planet any better even if it has the right atmosphere, and you will need Orbital Habitats to even 'live' there.
After that, find out it's Colony Cost. If it's something other than 0.0, then it's not habitable without Infrastructure (which is a planetary building). While infrastructure is cheap, it's just better to fully terraform the planet. The higher the cost, the more infrastructure per-person is needed and the less people can work on your actual facilites (since more people will be needed to just keep the colony alive). If you have no infrastructure on the planet, your people will die off a slow and painful death.
Terraforming. First, you will need terraforming facilites (built by factories, act like ground facilities, manned my ground personnel) or Terraforming ships (AKA any ship that has a Terraforming module). Terraforming is fairly simple; select the planet in the F2 screen, select Environment / GMC, and you're in. To start Terraforming, select the Add Gas to Atmosphere button and select the gas and your Terraformers will start pumping it out. Check it off and they'll take away that gas. Set the gas to Terraforming Inactive and nothing will happen. Manned ground installations are inferior to ships with modules once you get them. There are several kinds of gasses: Those that are normal, and just fill the atmosphere and heat it up indirectly very slowly (the thicker the atmosphere, the more Green House factor there is), those that are Greenhouse that heat the atmosphere indirectly and directly (increasing the Greenhouse Pressure directly corresponding to their amount of ATM in atmosphere), Anti-greenhouse gas that indirectly heats up the atmosphere but directly decreases it (decreasing the Greenhouse Pressure directly corresponding to their amount of ATM in atmosphere, there is no limit to how low the temperature can get--you can go below Absolute Zero), then there are Toxic gasses that are hazardous in large quantities and will cause your Colony Cost to rise, and finally, Oxygen, the almighty gas that lets humans breathe. Here's what the gasses do:
Hydrogen. Toxic.
Helium. Normal.
Methane. Toxic to Oxygen breathers. Greenhouse. Vital gas to Methane Breathers. Adds Colony cost above race's natural range or above 30% of the planet's total atmosphere (?).
Ammonia. Toxic.
Water. Normal.
Neon. Normal.
Nitrogen. Normal.
Carbon monoxide. Toxic.
Nitrogen oxide. Toxic.
Oxygen. Toxic to Methane breathers. Vital to Oxygen Breathers (like humans). Adds Colony cost above race's natural range or above 30% of the planet's total atmosphere.
Hydrogen sulfide. Toxic.
Argon. Normal.
Carbon dioxide. Grenhouse.
Nitrogen dioxide. Toxic. Greenhouse.
Sulfur dioxide. Toxic. Greenhouse.
Chlorine. Toxic.
Florine. Toxic.
Bromine. Toxic.
Iodine. Toxic.
Safe greenhouse gas. Greenhouse.
Anti-greenhouse gas. Anti-Greenhouse.
Now, below all the stuff, there's something telling you the exact formula to what determines how hot a planet is.
Anyway, onto how Colony Cost works: The more a planet is out of your race's natural temperature range, the higher the Colony Cost is. If it's in it, temperature does not affect the Colony Cost. Then there's Atmospheric Pressure: The more a planet is above your race's max, the higher the Colony Cost. And then there's Toxic gas: They can either set the Colony Cost to a minimum of 3.0 or 2.0. Finally, if you do not have Oxygen or have too much, I believe the colony cost minimum is 2.0.
I hope this was understandable. I made it for all planets, not just Mars. If not, go ahead and read the bulky
tutorial and ask specific questions later.
My screen needs to be taller than it is, width is ok
Did you try the Reduced Height Windows option underneath Game Parameters?