No Man's Sky

Terraforming Update

Terraforming

While most of the Vy'keen claim allegiance to Hirk or Nal, there are other smaller groups. The Hordes of Teem are one such splinter sect. They believe in the purity of struggle, and that the Universe is too tame. They set off in their ships, to find harsher worlds, to test their mettle. When they found those worlds weren't enough to meet their standards, they decided to learn how to engineer worlds, to make them even harsher.

Vy’keen Terraforming Tech can be used to create any kind of world you want. It can be peaceful and serene, or it can be nasty and stormy.

Shaping A World

Terraforming is not an instantaneous process. There are several phases to converting a world to a desired target state. It may take large amounts of various elements, such as gases mined from gas giants, as done in the Enterprise update. It may require you to nudge an asteroid or a comet into a collision course with the target planet.

This, of course, is a problem if there are people and bases already on the planet. Attempting to terraform a world may require evacuation missions before the first change is made. Surveying these worlds is a challenge! New scanner tech will help in these efforts.

The Sentinels also don't appreciate terraforming "attacks" on populated worlds. Attempting to do so will summon Sentinel ships, including the massive and deadly Sentinel Motherships from the Liberation update.

Once the process starts, it will require atmospheric manipulation. For some changes, you'll need to add greenhouse gases. For other changes, you'll have to cool the atmosphere. This will require new technical infrastructure set up at terraforming base sites.

While one person can terraform a world, it is much easier if a group of Travelers cooperate in the process.

Growing A World

Once the atmospheric manipulation has started, genetically manipulated plants can be planted to accelerate the desired changes. In order to keep these plants under control, new animals will have to be introduced into the biome. These have to be spread across the world, using Exocraft and ships. Specialized Animal Containers must be created to carry the new animals from the terraforming base genetic laboratory to their destination.

These genetic manipulation mechanisms will add new laboratory tech to that created for the Liberation update. These mechanisms can also be used to improve and enhance pets.

The Hordes of Teem created ways to manipulate plants into nastier hazardous flora. Mirrorplants, which can control their solar mirrors, are one example. Their solar mirrors can zap you with a powerful beam from a distance!

The same means can create nastier fauna and megafauna. Giant ravaging predators, on and under the ground, and in the air. Venomous Cave Crawlers, Wormhordes, and Dragons are only a few of the monstrous, fierce creatures built by the Hordes of Teem to challenge the Vy'keen.

Helping With the Efforts

The Hordes of Teem watched the Vy'keen battles with the Sentinels. They came to the conclusion that these battles were a mindless bloodbath against an enemy that could not change or submit. It was a useless fight, they believed, because you fight to win, not to keep fighting endlessly.

Nevertheless, mindless Automatons built like Sentinels could make a significant difference in the terraforming process. The Automaton Constructor takes a large supply of elements and cranks out a stream of Automatons. The Sentinels are unsure of the Automatons and occasional attack them. This will trigger an alarm at the base, which may require redeploying the Automatons to a different area or blasting the offensive Sentinels.

Occasionally, the Automatons malfunction, requiring a field trip to repair the device. Specialized Exocraft tech can usually stop a mad Automaton long enough to complete the fix. Exocraft sidecars can be added, for carrying your pet along as you ride.

Uncovering the Past

When you terraform a world, it can reveal objects and sites that have been buried for a long time. Ancient ruins, ship boneyards (from the Enterprise update), ancient ships, and other artifacts may suddenly appear. There are rumors of other, stranger discoveries made by the Hordes of Teem.

New Nexus/Station Missions

Station Agents and the Nexus will add missions to eliminate dangerous mutations that spring up on worlds being terraformed. Hazardous flora missions can be more intense on terraformed worlds. Missions to repair broken machinery extend to terraforming infrastructure. Finally, missions to deflect rogue comets and asteroids will be added to the list of possibilities.

Additionally, the terraforming process affects places where machines go bad, or at abandoned buildings. These sites could be leaking, leaving messes of Residual Goop, Viscous Fluids, and Living Slime that must be cleaned up. These sites frequently evolve strange new creatures, like those found on Living Derelicts in the Liberation update.

The Mercenaries Agent at stations know about the locations of vicious worlds, including those worlds where terraforming has gone berzerk. The Mercenaries Agent has missions to scout these worlds, scanning the life forms. There are also missions to shoot to kill, if you can survive the process.