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Part 2: Advanced Tactics

Chapter 6: Terraforming
Since time began, mankind has altered the landscape under its feet to improve the quality of life. This still holds true, even 4.2 light years away from Earth, and is an important concept to put to work on the alien world of Planet. Instead of plows and tractors, you'll be putting the versatile former to work, constructing all manner of terrain improvements such as roads, mines, forests, solar collectors, kelp farms, sensors, and a whole host of others. This chapter will assist you in the pertinent art of terraforming and explain how to take a barren and unyielding landscape and transform it into a productive oasis.

	NOTE Formers can be outfitted with any type of armor available to your empire. While there's nothing wrong with giving a former armor, it comes at a price. At the middle stages of the game, when your economy is solid, you should consider armoring your formers so they can withstand the attack of the occasional mind worm infestation.

Roll out the Formers
One you've researched Centauri ecology (one of the first discoveries you should make), you can construct formers. Built from a simple infantry chassis with a terraforming unit attached and powered by a fission power plant, this 0-1-1 unit can be ordered to engage in all manner of terraforming activity. Its slow rate of movement, weak shields, and nonexistent firepower make it a sitting duck when it's doing its job. Fortunately, formers are cheap and relatively quick to build, so losing one here and there to a mind worm should not be cause for alarm. On the other hand, what most players fail to realize is that formers, like military units, can be custom built with some interesting payoffs. Before we get to details of terraforming, let's take some time and look at the various ways we can build a former throughout the course of the game.

TIP Every city should have at least two formers engaged in terraforming at all times.

Basic Former
* 0-1-1
* Chassis - infantry
The basic former is your entry-level model, capable of engaging in rudimentary forms of terraforming like building mines, roads, farms, and forests.

Rover Former
* 0-1-2
* Chassis - speeder
The rover is just like the previous model, but we've outfitted the terraforming unit to a rover chassis, doubling the movement rate.

Next Formers, continued
 
 

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