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[Metalax]

I've been pumping greenhouse gases into the Martian atmosphere for 20 years, but the temperature hasn't budged.  How long does it take to heat up a planet?

It entirely depends on how many terraforming modules you have operating and what level you have researched the terraforming tech to. Multiple decades or even centuries are not unexpected if either of these is low.

As EuchreJack has said there is also a limit on the greenhouse factor caused by the atmosphere of three times the base temperature. If you use CO₂ or safe greenhouse gas you can reach the cap for this with relatively low atmospheric pressure.

[Calech]

I've been pumping greenhouse gases into the Martian atmosphere for 20 years, but the temperature hasn't budged.  How long does it take to heat up a planet?

A single terraforming installation or terraforming module, unimproved, adds one-thousandth of an atmosphere's worth of gas.

It doesn't actually take that much effort to make Mars warm enough to support human life, surprisingly, due to the atmospheric tolerances in the game.

Mars tends to become nearly-habitable after around 0.22 atmospheres of carbon dioxide is introduced, very approximately (in fact probably a little sooner due to the ice sheets melting). If you go up to 0.234 or above, you only need a bare minimum of oxygen (0.1 atm) to make the resulting atmosphere breathable.

So it all comes down to how many terraformers you've got - one unimproved terraformer will take a bit over 330 years to complete the task, but if you've got several terraformers they will get it done sooner - and don't forget that assigning appropriate commanders can speed the process along too (commanders with a terraforming boost apply it to all modules on their ship; I believe the civilian administrator assigned will influence only the ground-based terraforming units but, to be honest, I've never used ground-based terraformers)

[Zeebie]

As EuchreJack has said there is also a limit on the greenhouse factor caused by the atmosphere of three times the base temperature. If you use CO₂ or safe greenhouse gas you can reach the cap for this with relatively low atmospheric pressure.

I'm afraid I don't quite follow this - could you explain in more detail?

[JacenHanLovesLegos]

Do I have to have a power plant to use energy weapons? I assume that's what power requirement means.

[Tarran]

Yes, power requirement means a weapon requires power, which comes from power plants.

[Bremen]

Technically you can still shoot them once without a power plant

Given how tiny reactors are in this game, though, yeah, you want enough to power your beam weapons.

[Metalax]

As EuchreJack has said there is also a limit on the greenhouse factor caused by the atmosphere of three times the base temperature. If you use CO₂ or safe greenhouse gas you can reach the cap for this with relatively low atmospheric pressure.

I'm afraid I don't quite follow this - could you explain in more detail?

Any gas added provides a certain amount towards the greenhouse factor that is used to calculate the current temprature from the base temperature. For most gasses this is equal to it's atmospheric pressure, but for some such as CO₂ and safe greenhouse gas they add an additional ammount to the greenhouse factor, so you can hit the cap with a much lower amount of gas.

The only gas that acts differently is the anti-greenhouse gas which causes a reduction in the greenhouse factor and hence the temprature. There is no lower limit for the factor so you can potentialy cool a planet much further than you could heat it as long as you keep the total pressure under your races limits.

[EuchreJack]

As EuchreJack has said there is also a limit on the greenhouse factor caused by the atmosphere of three times the base temperature. If you use CO₂ or safe greenhouse gas you can reach the cap for this with relatively low atmospheric pressure.

I'm afraid I don't quite follow this - could you explain in more detail?

Any gas added provides a certain amount towards the greenhouse factor that is used to calculate the current temprature from the base temperature. For most gasses this is equal to it's atmospheric pressure, but for some such as CO₂ and safe greenhouse gas they add an additional ammount to the greenhouse factor, so you can hit the cap with a much lower amount of gas.

The only gas that acts differently is the anti-greenhouse gas which causes a reduction in the greenhouse factor and hence the temprature. There is no lower limit for the factor so you can potentialy cool a planet much further than you could heat it as long as you keep the total pressure under your races limits.

Fun fact: In Aurora, you can actually cool a planet below absolute zero!

As for the Greenhouse Factor, only the first 3 atmospheres of greenhouse gases apply towards raising the planet's temperature.  Thus, if you have 3 atmospheric units of Carbon Dioxide, for instance, adding more won't raise the planet's temperature.

[RedKing]

Do I have to have a power plant to use energy weapons? I assume that's what power requirement means.

Yup. Bear in mind you only need enough power to satisfy all capacitors for a 5-second increment. (And actually, you don't even need that, but as someone said they're so tiny you might as well).

Example:
1.You have six lasers (or mesons or railguns or microwaves...they all take power) with a 5-second ROF and a power requirement of 3 each. This means you need 6x3=18 power available to keep firing them non-stop.

2. You have six reduced size lasers with the "75% size/4x recharge rate" option. This means that while each laser still has a power requirement of 3 to fire, let's say you only have capacitor recharge 3 technology. So each laser can only charge by 0.75 each 5-second increment and has a 20-second ROF. Now, you only need 6x0.75=4 power available to keep fully charging your guns at all times.

This actually has some serious use when you get to talking about BIG guns. I recently prototyped a Swarm-killer design with 10 35mm lasers, with the "50% size/20x recharge" option. The smaller laser size and smaller reactor meant I could pack a shitload of guns onto a fast frame and wind up with a cruiser that could pull 10000 km/s and still had range and firepower to blast several Swarm drones to bits every few minutes while staying out of meson range. Cost-effective way to clear out really big packs of the Swarm.

[Metalax]

As EuchreJack has said there is also a limit on the greenhouse factor caused by the atmosphere of three times the base temperature. If you use CO₂ or safe greenhouse gas you can reach the cap for this with relatively low atmospheric pressure.

I'm afraid I don't quite follow this - could you explain in more detail?

Any gas added provides a certain amount towards the greenhouse factor that is used to calculate the current temprature from the base temperature. For most gasses this is equal to it's atmospheric pressure, but for some such as CO₂ and safe greenhouse gas they add an additional ammount to the greenhouse factor, so you can hit the cap with a much lower amount of gas.

The only gas that acts differently is the anti-greenhouse gas which causes a reduction in the greenhouse factor and hence the temprature. There is no lower limit for the factor so you can potentialy cool a planet much further than you could heat it as long as you keep the total pressure under your races limits.

Fun fact: In Aurora, you can actually cool a planet below absolute zero!

As for the Greenhouse Factor, only the first 3 atmospheres of greenhouse gases apply towards raising the planet's temperature.  Thus, if you have 3 atmospheric units of Carbon Dioxide, for instance, adding more won't raise the planet's temperature.

Not quite. 1.819 atmospheres of CO₂ will max out the greenhouse factor, adding more gas past this will have no effect on temprature.

Greenhouse Factor (Maximum = 3.0)= 1 + (Atmospheric Pressure /10) + Greenhouse Pressure

where greenhouse pressure is dependant on which gas is added, eg for CO₂ this is equal to the atmospheric pressure of CO₂.

The only other thing that can effect the temprature is if the planet has water present then when the temprature warms to the point that the ice melts this will cause an increase in albedo, and so will cause a jump in temperature.

[EuchreJack]

Thanks for clearing that up, I wasn't really sure of the mechanics myself.  But the point is: One can max out on CO2 quickly, and there isn't much one can do once that happens.

I'll have to remember that stat for CO2.  Does the "Safe Greenhouse Gas" work any differently, or is it just a copy of CO2?

[Wrex]

Were I to rush a planet, and pump it's atmosphere full of hydrogen sulphide, what concentration would be needed to kill off a human-like species?

[Metalax]

Thanks for clearing that up, I wasn't really sure of the mechanics myself.  But the point is: One can max out on CO2 quickly, and there isn't much one can do once that happens.

I'll have to remember that stat for CO2.  Does the "Safe Greenhouse Gas" work any differently, or is it just a copy of CO2?

I'm fairly sure that it has the same amount of effect as CO₂, though I don't have the game in front of me to check at the moment. Some other gasses also have the additional greenhouse effect such as water vapour, though it has been some time since I messed around with them and so I can't recall if they all have the same level of warming effect.

Were I to rush a planet, and pump it's atmosphere full of hydrogen sulphide, what concentration would be needed to kill off a human-like species?

It only requires sufficient that the planet is flagged as having poisonous gas present in the atmosphere to start killing off the population, if I recall correctly the minimum is either 0.001 or 0.0001 atmospheres, whichever is the minimum presense the game records. Population loss will then occur the same as for any planet without sufficient infrastructure to support the population at the sudden increase to colony cost 2 due to "unbreathable atmosphere".

[Tarran]

I seem to clearly recall all greenhouse gasses having the exact same effect, but I haven't actually checked in a while.

[Aboth Ber]

The Safe Greenhouse Gas just function perfectly as CO2 does...
It is how I terraformed Mars. Too much CO2 is not good for your health... So I always make sure the CO2 pressure didn't exceed 0,01 atm. That way I always end up using safe greenhouse gas.