Terraforming is bringing the conditions on a planet closer to those on Earth with the help of technical means. And Plan B: Terraform is a computer game that allows everyone to feel how difficult this process is.
Terraforming
Plan B: Terraform is a computer game released on Steam Early Access on February 15, 2023. In it, the player is offered to manage the terraforming of a distant planet. This process was proposed by scientists several decades ago, but so far, humanity has not put it into practice.
The point is that planets like Mars or Venus, on the surface of which a person can now stay in a spacesuit at best, can be made into twins of the Earth, where open-air cities are possible.
To do this, it is only necessary to bring the temperature on the planet to the indicators familiar to earthly life. The next step is to create an atmosphere whose composition and pressure allow at least some terrestrial organisms to exist. Then the oceans should appear, followed by the biosphere, primarily plants, which will gradually form the soil and saturate the atmosphere with oxygen sufficient for a person to stay in it without a spacesuit or breathing mask.
Terraforming is a process that should be different for each world. For somewhere, such as Venus, the atmospheric pressure and temperature are too dense, while somewhere, such as Mars, it needs to be saturated with the necessary gases and heated, for example, by using the greenhouse effect.
At the same time, we should not forget that the equipment to perform all these tasks does not come from anywhere. Most of it will have to be manufactured on the planet itself, which means creating an industry. And the people who have to do all this have to live somewhere. And cities must somehow be connected to production facilities, meaning that a transportation network will have to be built before the planet can breathe freely.
Start of the game
In Plan B: Terraform, the player is invited to figure it all out on their own. A new planet is generated every time you try to turn it into an Earth, but it always looks something like Mars. It is covered with giant craters, very cold, and has a thin atmosphere, which consists mainly of carbon dioxide.
Water is already on the planet, but you can’t swim in it. All of it is contained in the soil in the form of small amounts of ice or forms huge white caps near the poles. You can freely rotate the planet, admire it, or evaluate how the resource deposits are located relative to the three future cities.
The game is a series of tasks and stages of terraforming. You have to complete them one by one, gradually expanding your capabilities. At the same time, it is not only not forbidden to build something different from what is asked for in the task, but it is often necessary.
And all this does not begin with transforming the planet’s climate. First, we need to organize the production of the means for this: mining machines, factories for processing products and manufacturing machines, warehouses, and transportation zones. All this is available in a certain amount at the very beginning. But it’s only enough to ensure that stocks are replenished.
Urban sprawl
The game clearly shows that any complex machine begins with the extraction of resources. Then you need to organize a technological chain to get what you need. This process is lengthy because each stage of making steel from ore or steel parts takes a certain amount of time. And then there are the drones of the transportation zones that haul all this back and forth.
Most often, the task is to increase the number of people in a city or on the planet as a whole. The initial modules, designed for three people, begin to erect new buildings around them on their own, but they need resources, primarily concrete. The fact that Plan B: Terraform is made from sulfur may surprise some people, but this kind of concrete does exist. It’s not used much on Earth because the traditional cement-based one is cheaper. However, if the planet is like Mars and the water on it turns directly from ice into steam, sulfur concrete is the best choice.
However, in Plan B: Terraform, it still needs to be transported from the production site to the city, and this requires roads that are built from the same concrete. And you also need trucks that will use these roads. The beauty of the game is that all processes are automatic, but for them to start, you need to provide them with everything they need, and for this, you need to refer to other processes.
Heating of the atmosphere
Gradually, cities begin to grow and require more and more different resources. Finally, it comes to terraforming. We need to raise the temperature of the planet through the production of greenhouse gases, and this process requires the extraction and transportation of resources. It is now possible to build railroads that transport goods much more efficiently than trucks. However, the production of rails and trains requires new factories to supply raw materials. And it is beginning to run out. We need to rethink supply chains. Infrastructure is taking up more and more space and needs to be located rationally.
And the temperature on the planet is gradually rising. At the same time, it can be monitored separately in each area. At some point, it will reach zero degrees Celsius and the water will begin to melt.
Initially, small reservoirs will begin to form in the lowlands near the equator, which will gradually increase, and then rivers will form. If the player has set up mining or processing facilities somewhere in the flooded areas, they will have to be abandoned. It may be necessary to revise the existing logistics schemes, and they will entail the restructuring of something else.
However, this does not matter, because the soil in some places will be moistened enough to plant forests. The planet will finally start to turn from red to green and blue, and the player will soon reach the goal.
Plan B: Terraform can’t boast of a variety of missions, but each of them can go differently depending on how the planet was generated. The graphics in the game are quite small, but when, closer to the final stages of terraforming, industrial zones turn into a continuous whirlwind of drones and trains that are always hauling something back and forth, it is incredibly mesmerizing.
Plan B: Terraform is a game for those who like to build beautiful schemes. It is also worth playing for those who want to understand how difficult it is to inhabit a planet that has never been inhabited before.
