Spore Walkthrough – Terraforming and spice production
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Welcome to the first of many walkthroughs created by the community, here is the first one about terraforming and spice production by Kenneth:
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Terraforming
1) Finding a Suitable Planet
While it’s ok to make your colonies on any and all planets, it is best if you create colonies on planets rich with rare spice. Creating a colony on a barren planet will yield no results, so avoid colonizing those.
Common spice: Red Spice and Yellow Spice
Uncommon spice: Blue Spice and Green Spice
Rare spice: Purple Spice and Pink Spice
2) Buying the Right Tools
First off, you’ll be required to improve the Terrascore of a planet before you can start planting organisms. To do this, you’ll need to have terraforming tools. Now any of the tools sold at stores will do ok, however consumable tools are mostly useless due the fact that you will need to regulate the atmosphere and temperature regularly to achieve any satisfying results. Buying tools that can be used constantly will improve your efficiency and take less money in the long run.
Here’s a list of tools you will want to buy:
- Cloud Accumulator
- Heat Ray
- Refridgeration Ray
- Cloud Vacuum
Buy these when available and you have too much money:
- Air Conditioning
- Cold Cloud Vacuum
- Hot Cloud Vacuum
- Hot Cloud Seeder
3) Collecting Specimens
To make the Terrascore of a planet stable you will need to create an ecosystem and an ecosystem requires a balanced food chain. Before you start playing around with the environment you should first collect organism specimens from other planets that you will later use on your colony.
For each of the 3 tiers you will require the following:
- 1 Small Plant
- 1 Medium Plant
- 1 Large Plant
- 2 Herbivores
- 1 Carnivore or Omnivore
The easiest place to look, obviously, is your homeworld which already has a complete food web. However, for a little variety, you should visit other planets to gather specimens. Also note that all of the species must be unique, i.e. to complete the entire food chain, you will need 6 different species of herbivores, not 6 herbivores of the same species.
4) Improving the Terrascore
Now that you’re all set and ready to roll, descend down on the planet and start playing god.
4.1) Switch to Terraforming view
4.2) Note the current state of the Terrascore
4.3) Open the Terraforming tools and select the appropriate tool
4.4) Use the tool to move the Terrascore towards the center of the rings
5) Stabilizing the Terrascore by creating a Food Web
Now that you’ve raised the Terrascore on a planet, you will want to keep it there. The only way to prevent it from drifting back to its original state is by establishing an ecosystem. You do this by planting organisms on the planet surface.
You will have noticed that once you’ve raised the Terrascore to a suitable level, the first tier of the food web was unlocked. This gives you the ability to put plants on the planet. Note the 3 small circles in the food web display.
To create a stable environment you need to fill these spaces with the appropriate organisms.
After planting all the plant species you will get a notification that your T-Score is stabilized. The first ring on the Terrascore display will now turn yellow and you will be able to place creatures on the surface.
Place 2 herbivores and 1 carnivore/omnivore on the surface to fill the circles in the food web display and complete the first tier of the ecosystem. This will lock the Terrascore on that level, turning the outermost ring green and unlocking the second tier if you meet the right atmospheric conditions.
Now repeat this process to raise your Terrascore level to T3, keep close watch on the atmosphere/temperature, if it falls outside the ring while you’re working, you will have to do it again.
Spice Production
1) Spice Mechanics
As mentioned in the previous part of the tutorial, spice ranges from common to rare depending on color. However the price of spice does not depend only on rarity and quantity but also on the race whom you are selling to as well as the location of the outpost. Outposts which mine a certain spice or have a direct connection to another colony that does will in most cases not want to buy your spice at a large price. On the other hand, colonies with no such spice resources will usually pay a lot of money for it. Reaching prices as high as 50,000 Sporebucks per piece is quite common when dealing with rare spice. Fly around and visit different outposts when selling spice, why settle for average when you can sell for absurd!
2) Colonization
Now that you’ve made yourself a suitable planet with lots of spice, you have to colonize it to start producing it for trade. The first thing to do is buy Colony Incredi-Paks, these generally cost 150,000 Sporebucks but depending on your race’s philosophy you can get it for as low as 75,000. You can also buy them from other races who follow a different philosophy to get a discount. The maximum ammount of colonies per planet is 3.
Once you’ve bought your Incredi-Paks head back to the planet surface. Find a suitable location to place your colony and shoot your Colony Incredi-Pak to the surface. Note that the colony must be placed next to at least one spice geyser and on reasonably flat land.
3) Colony Infrastructure
Once you’ve placed your colonies, the planet officially belongs to your race. But simply placing colonies is not enough to produce any spice. To make spice your colonies must have factories, however only placing factories is not enough for a colony to function properly either. Every factory will bring unhappiness to a city, to counter this problem you have to build entertainment houses. These have no practical application but to keep the colony happiness up, each city will need at least one of these.
To maximize the efficiency of factories and entertainment buildings you will need to link them to other buildings. Each link with a house or city hall will enhance the proficiency of the building by 1, so placing a factory or entertainment building on a spot with many possible links will increase their potential efficiency.
There are combinations you should avoid to achieve best results. Placing two buildings of the same type together will produce nothing, so a colony full of factories is counter-productive as it will generate too much unhappiness. More importantly, you should never place a factory and an entertainment building together, this will only increase the unhappiness factor.
A good setup is at +120.00/hour production rate, with three such colonies, you will produce 6 spice per minute. You should also consider placing a Spice Storage on the planet which will increase its maximum capacity to 30 (with 3 colonies), taking a total of 5 minutes to refill in which time you should find someone to buy the spice you have. If we assume the average price per piece is 20,000 Sporebucks, you will acquire 600,000 Sporebucks per planet every 5 minutes. That should easily cover all your expenses.
4) Protecting your Colony
Stacked with spice and ready to go you should take a moment to slow down and consider the safety issues. With no protection, your colony will be an easy (and likely) target for pirates and other races. To prevent and easily avert such occurances, you should equip each of your colonies with a full array of turrets. A valuable piece of equipment is also the Uber Turrent which you can place on each planet, it will automatically fly after invaders and protect your cities. Don’t be afraid to spend money on your colonies, they are the essential part of your empire and a foundation for all your future endeavours.
Jake said
Nice guide, I myself used your guide to make colonies in one system, which, through an incredible stroke of luck, contained two purple and two pink spice rich planets. Now I am steadily bringing in far over 2.4m every 5 minutes, as I can usually get the purple spice to go for 70k+. thanks for all the help!
Jake said
One more thing, I would take a picture of your city layout, because some people may have trouble creating a productive city.
ballightning said
Thanks for the feedback, i have added the image.
pat said
great! just what i needed!… TY
mijo said
Thanks, I was so confused with the terra form…
Steven said
Thanks for the info !
jgrefe said
In between writing sessions, I have been obsessed with Spore. Thank you for this very useful guide.
Connor said
Thank you so much, i could’nt find a good guide and couldnt terraform to save my life. Also i didnt expect such usefull spice gathering tips! More than i bargained for FLCL.
Connor said
O also just to let you know i found someone who buys my red spice for 28k each! Not that much i know but great for red spice. And its my homeworld so i get 50/50 spice without spice packs! =D
Peter Lim said
The layout shown has an additional happiness. You can further optimise to +132/hr by replacing one of the un-optimised houses with factory, while maintaining neutral happiness
Brad Snyman said
I bought Spore yesterday,only just came out in my country, and I’ve been struggling quite a bit with making money and producing spice..
You’re guide helps a lot thanks..
If possible, could you show the best way to link you’re colonies factories and such?
Can’t see too well on the pic..
=
Ball Lightning said
You can find the best city layout at our Space Walkthrough here:
http://sporedum.net/spore-walkthrough-space-stage/
jc said
i dont know if it’s a dumb question, but can you terraform more than T3? how can you have a planet with combined sentients in there? or is that a lower form of ecosystem?
Ball Lightning said
You cannot have more then a T3 planet, i am not aware of anyway to have more then one sentient animal in a solar system, except with the possible excepting of having a zoo planet.
Fierbird27 said
Quick question. What are zoo planets and how do you recognize them from other planets. Also what is really bugging me about space stage is I get to a planet and it has a lot of water with spice mines in the water. Yet every time i place a colony near the water it won’t let me make a seaport. Please help me it is killing me.
9necat said
Hi there,
want to say thank you for this guide. I was on the brink of realising about the teraforming, hence the search on the internet. Is clear to me now. But my aim in the game, is to start a new one and make everything, to the last detail, cat themed! Yep, am cat mad. Have done a few creations, but am searching for more ideas.
The terra forming wzs difficul and realy perplexed me, but like many, you have indeed helped with your easdy guide.
One Spore addict to another,
9necat
Purrs & Whiskers & Spice
Kamikaze said
Man, that guide is really useful! Thanks a lot! Iwas having a lot of trouble making a good colonization but now i have no problems! Thanks again!
cleanzero said
simple and short but effective. thanks.
some person said
There is a layout that has 2 happiness and 132 spice production. If you put a factory as peter lim said and added an entertainment next to the existing one that is not next to a factory, you would get it.
Spiritleech said
i just made a colony that makes 180 green spice an hour and has 2 green faces
(i just set a factory 2 houses,go right,entertainment 2 houses) and ate the end i put a factory between 2 house lines
so work horizontal and vertical
Spiritleech said
srry for the double post but i just made a 160 an hour colony with maximum happy faces(5)
i would paste a screenshot but it doesn’t work srry
Spiritleech said
srry for double post
i just made one with 201 spice and 3 happy points!
screenshot won’t work doh
some person said
Spiritleech, you must have been an economic civilization, because it gives you increased spice production. In my earlier post, the added factory has to be next to the one with 4 connections.
Spiritleech said
nope im pure warrior
but it was green spice maybe u can get more green than purple
IslamicofSpore said
Thanks to this guide, i was able to become a millionasporeinaire. I even have my own ultimate colony setup.
you are lying said
Actually the best you can get as a military based civilization is 132 spice per hour with 2 happy faces. you can get more spice per hour but you cant do it without having happiness in the red.
I’ve seen several posts about people making these impossibly good colonies but apparently none of them know how to post a simple screen shot.
ballightning said
Remember it is different for if you are economic or otherwise.
ninjesama said
Thank you so much for this guide I couldn’t understand for the longest time why atmospheric generators and the such wouldn’t work on harsh planets… And also thank you for the spice tidbit, and I’m pretty lucky because my homeworld is abundant in purple spice, so I catch about 80+k for each batch!
simon said
your information is very valuable and is well written hello spice paradise!!!!!!
Tony said
This seems simple, but it’s not working for me. I have a planet which is T2, but whenever I try to put anything on it, whether it be a small plant, a medium plant, a large plant, a herbivore, an omnivore, or a carnivore, they all die and it says that its not the right thing to put on the planet. Oddly, there are already medium plants on the planet. This makes no sense, can someone please explain what is going on here?
ballightning said
Make sure you have opened slots for the plants and creatures to live on there. And place plants first, then herbivore and then a carnivore.
Timpraetor said
A curiosity – In a current game, I’m expected to T1 an assigned planet. However, no matter where I go or what I do, I can’t get the temperature up on the planet. I need Meteor or Volcano, but I can’t get those until I raise my badge levels. And, I can’t get past that mission until I T1 the planet… Catch-22.
Any tips on specifically raising temperature now that the atmosphere is dead centered verticlly?
Thanks for a great guide!
Timpraetor said
I persevered and finally received the access to the Meteor and Ice Storm terraforming tools (lots of spice runs and a number of ally jobs). In the time it took to get them, the planet’s atmosphere soared and the temperature soared. It took 3 Drought Generators and two Ice Storms to get things balanced.
This is getting fun.
aaaaa9 said
you did on mars:-) thats funny!
GIovanni said
Hey nice guide! easy to understand and pretty straightforward. Really helped me! Thanks a lot!