Terraforming Changes

[Impaler[WrG]]

I was inspired to mess around with the Alpha by reading what people had done with it here. Here are some changes I made and some others I have only though of making and cant figure out how to implement.

First off I made formers require no tec so they are avalible to all factions imediatly, BUT they can not make farms or forests or remove fungus untill you have discovered Centuri Ecology. This means everyone can make Roads, solar panels, Mines and Sensor Arrays imediatly. These activitys realy dont require any knowlage of Planets native life if ya think about it.

Secondly I removed the -1 food penalty for mines, in my opinion this was maiking mines usless in anything but rocky squares.

I then got to thinking that solar energy collectin has nothing to do with altitude, but Wind power dose. Especialy on Planet ware the atmosphere is thick and the gravity is high their should be VERY strong winds and they would be very reliable. In real life wind power is more cost effective then solar in many places. So I changes the name of solar panes to Wind Turbines, eventualy I hope to change the graphics too. The only change I would make to them that is that they should get a +1 energy for being on the coast (witch is usaly under 1000m for a total of 2 energy).

I then axed raising and lowering terrain and drilling to aquifers as these dont much sense and seam too powerfull

I then attempted to alow Soil Enritchers in the Sea but ofcorse renamed them Fish Hatcherys. Unfortunatly this didnt seam to work and the terraformer would never complete the work.

I also tried alowing roads (purely as a steping stone) and Mag tubes in the water, renaming the Mag tube to Mag tunnels. Sea formers built the improvments (it was listed in the terrain improvments) but they didnt apear graphicaly and couldn't be used by land or sea units as far as I could tell.

Also I changes the name of Sensor arrays to Sonar Booeys (spelling?) when their in the water.

I want to create REAL solar panels too, they should have energy production that is inversly proportional to Rainfall, 3 energy in arrid, 2 in moist and 1 in rainy. And ofcorse switch Epsilon Mirrors to bosting these new solar panels rather then the now Wind Turbines. Any ideas on how this can be done?

Lastly and perhaps most important I am planing on altering forests to produce 2 food, 1 mineral, 1 energy. Then I would switch Hybrid Forest and Tree Farms position on the tec tree, then switch the names of the 2 (so the net effect is that the effect is switched). Then I would Disable the Hybrid Forest that comes with Planetary Economics (or if I could change it to being just an Econ bosting facility). With that set up the maximum output of forests would be 3 food, 1 mineral, 2 energy.

Obviously this would greatly reduce the use of forests as you no longer have the excelent mineral output, the incressed usefullness of mines will help to compensate.

Tell me if you like/dislike these changes or have tryed interesting alterations yourself. If anyone knows how to alter terrain improvments more substantialy (particulary making thouse solar panels I want) it would be greatly apresiated.