Question regarding Orbital Terraformer and Planet Quality

from GalCiv2 Forums
I searched the forum, but I couldn't find info on this, same with the wiki. In my current game, I built an Orbital Terraformer, but I noticed that, after all of the non-useable tiles were made useable, there was no change to the quality of my planets. Is this intentional or is this an error?
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The description for the orbital terraformer is a bit misleading. All it does is instantly upgrade all yellow, orange, and red tile to green on all your planets and any planets you colonize or otherwise aquire. So what you saw in the game is what is intended.

The PQ bonus is applied when you research the upgrade techs. It is a percentage increase so higher PQ planets benefit more then lower ones.

Maybe in a future update they will add techs that allow you to expand the PQ of a planet and/or colonize some PQ 0 planets.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would really, really, really LOVE to be able to colonize PQ 0 planets. (What Terraforming really sortof refers to.) Of course, for high cost, involving sending colonists, building infastructure. Perhaps akin to constructors you'd have to send waves of terraformers to a planet, each one upping it's quality by a set ammount...or something. I dunno, but it should be pricey and take a long time but be an option.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The description for the orbital terraformer is a bit misleading. All it does is instantly upgrade all yellow, orange, and red tile to green on all your planets and any planets you colonize or otherwise aquire. So what you saw in the game is what is intended.

The PQ bonus is applied when you research the upgrade techs. It is a percentage increase so higher PQ planets benefit more then lower ones.


At first I thought that that was how it was supposed to be, but then it just seemed strange that the player would no longer be able to make the choice to upgrade a tile and then gain the planet quality bonus from it, including subsequent planets. It doesn't matter much when you acquire a planet that's at 32 before soil enhancement, etc., but it would be more beneficial for low quality planets to also have the option to gain the bonus from using the Planetary Improvement techs.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
in 1.3 beta this is still the practice of the orbital terraformer. I would like to know if it is truly intended to only open tiles but not to improve planet quality. If so it decreases the value of this achivement a lot.
On this game I was able to get the terraforming techs early due to tech trading and thought I would use the orbital terraformer to do all my terraforming for me and not spend the bc and time doing the individual terraforming. I was not planning on going neutral either. However I may go neutral to see if it will restore my PQs to where they should be (I doubt it).
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
However I may go neutral to see if it will restore my PQs to where they should be (I doubt it).

I don't know if it'll help after you've got the Terraformer, but being Neutral does enhance the PQ of your planets without the Terraformer.