One thing that constantly annoyed me from the outset of Spore is how any colony under T-Score 3 is simply not worth having, yet all the visually exciting looking planets (Steamy red skies, snowy slushy oceans, water-worlds) are T-Score 1 or less.

Well, I have an answer, to how you can have your cake AND eat it; lots of money on tap, and exotic colony worlds... lava, ice, steamy, waterworlds It's quite involved the approach, but will in the end net you nice looking worlds to be proud of, yet generate a tonne of revenue; indeed, FASTER than many conventional colony techniques; in my game I actually buy all my weapons, anti-matter missiles and bombs, busters etc. from my own race I generate that much revenue - this is because instead of having to fly in and otu of many systems you need only click between a handful of planets which takes a matter of seconds.



OPTIONAL: Installing this mod willgive you bigger more varied systems and thus is ideal but you can achieve the same effect with vanilla Spore
http://www.xspore.com/community/modding/10577-release-morespace.html



Phase 1: Finding a suitable system.
Firstly we're looking for a system that contains a Purple Spice world, but additionally we're looking for a system with other planets; bonus if you can get 3 or more planets with the same spice colour on in addition to the purple. Once you find one, it's time to move to the next phase



Phase 2: Seeding your sector Capital
The Purple spice planet is going to be your new system's capital. We're going to seed a new species here, this is a well documented technique, the idea is that this planet will become a homeworld with 5-10 colonies, then we buy it off the natives and have an extraordinarily large and produtive planet; not to mention you get more intresting city plans.

It's worth noting planets with little usable surface area (ie. ocean) will produce less cities even at T-score 3 so it may be worth considering having it set to T-Score 2 (dry) until they reach civilsiation stage, limiting the amx cities to 8, but probably doing better than the 4 or 5 you could get stuck with on a water world. Anyway, terraform the planet to T-Score 3 (or 2 if it's very very watery) and drop your monolith and go make a cup of tea or fix a few eco-disasters (lol).



Phase 3: System Acquisition
Presumably your newly seeded race has now reached the space age (I hope if you were using T-Score 2 that you proped it up to T-Score 3 during the civ phase), so now either buy the system off them or bludgeon them around the head (carefully) til the planet is all yours. Now, the system is ready to start expanding and being nicified.

Now you have basiclly a blank cheque writing money for you, it's time to colonise the other planets in your system; even the ones with spice not worth spitting on. "WHAT?" I hear you say, why would you want to colonise the planets that have useless spice resources?

Well, if we have a 5 planet system, odds are at any one time at least 1 of them will be buying Purple spice at a reasonable rate, even at 29k a unit and your purple world only holds 80 spice, that's 2.3 million in your pocket every 10 minutes or less; so you can make your fortune without even having to leave the system, never worry about finding a buyer again.


Phase 4: Creativity!
Now the ability to sell spice has no bearing on your outpost colonies T-Score, so instead you can set these planets up purely out of creativity, you needn't turn them into generic T-3 forest worlds... let's see, we have:

Terra-0
Cold/Wet: Reflective Ice over most surface, snowy land, snow in air, ice storms, white sky
Wet: Waterworld, Tornados, Colourful atmosphere
Hot/Wet: Thick blanket atmosphere, red, plumes of flame, boiling oceans.
Cold: Icey world, Snow, White sky
Hot: Lakes of molten lava, burning clouds, reddish atmosphere
Any/Dry: Usually just a barren desert with little or no atmosphere colour. Moonlike.

Terra-1
Cold: Slushy ice oceans on most surface, pale skies, snow in air.
Wet: Waterworld, thick colourful atmosphere
Hot: Reddish atmosphere, dust in air.

* Terra-1 Water-level primarily effects the water level and density of the atmiosphere colouring.

Different planets exhibit different natural terrain colours in different T-scores and react differently to dye colours, so worth messing with T-Scores.

T1, Hot/Dry. Purple sky tint
T1, Cold/Wet. Natural colour
T1, Hot/Wet. Natural colour
T0, Cold/Wet. Formerly a T1 Crystal/mountain world



Then of course we have tools... the deployable structures ignore the normal clipping rules and can be placed inside or right against terrain features like rocky outcrops (See below examples), if you are quick you can deploy structures so they overlap each other, but you need to place them before the first once finishes assembling itself or your cursor will be blocked.

And let's not forget your *actual* colonies. Location, Location, Location... put them in valley basins or overlooks where the natural terrain will form a striking background; avoid putting it TOO close to rocky outcrops or it may flatten and delete them. If you do delete them or find the terrain is too flat, use terrain tools right over the edge of the colony's "basin" to form rising cliffs.

If your regular city hall looks weird all on it's own in T-0 Planets, make yourself a special "outpost command centre" city hall for T-0 worlds where it'll look more at home by itself.

Spice storage set into rocky outcrop
Bio Protector/shield built on top each other and submerged
Loyalty Booster/Spice storage combined



Hopefully, this guide'll help you guys to make worlds that not only are pretty, but functional by giving you a palce to sell spice quicker, easier and also have more places to buy tools quickly.





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Cool! I'll try that as soon as my fifth race makes it to space! (bookmarked! )

Some great ideas, I've never really had much fun with planet sculting, but this sounds like it can be entertaining.

Bump with update and added pictures =p

Beautiful pictures! Too bad my display card can't draw such beautiful details, otherwise I'll try it too......

I love some of the ideas in this mod, but it makes the game way too easy.

What I would like.
T0 to be like current T1 limit
T1-T3 have no building limits per colony, but colony limits still in place

- More planets (x2-x3), but same spice ratio. (more planets make the game bigger)
- Protectors be 100%, uber-turret = no pirate, bio-protector = no ecological disasters, happyness generator = no revolts, loyalty thingy = no surrender. (put them down when you don't want to deal with it)
- Spice storage is 100 units, regaurdless of planet T score or number of settlements. (less need to baby sit planets)
- NPC's sell 99 of each stackable thing they sell. (remove planet runs just to buy items)
- home planet generates spice at same pace as other planets. (this should be standard)

To still make the game a challenge, I like these to be normal
- No modification to mission rewards or NPC buying/selling prices. (its balanced well now)
- Spice but still generate spice normally per buildings. (homeword same as other planets though)
- Planet Raids and Disasters normal (until protectors are in place)
- T-score frequence untouched.

Something I would like just toned down a little or added.
- 5 trade routes (10 is a little high)
- Make the Start Drive 5 much larger range, but others leave as is.
- Reduce amount of Spode demands, it would be nice to actually pay a couple of these, just for fun.
- speed up star travel.
- increase the number of planet modifying tools dropped, not the number of artifacts
- - if they are linked, reduce the price of artifacts by factor their frequency increased.
- - increase health and attack of ally ships.

Excellent strategy for obtaining more productive purple spice planets!

And planet sculpting and colouring is the one thing I haven't done much of yet. This has made me want to give it a go. Thanks.

I had looked forward to terraforming and getting all creative with planets, but in the end I ended up just using all my coloring tools in rapid succession 300 times to get the badge, then giving up on sculpting forever.... But this looks like a potential reason to get back into the creative spirit! (Provided I can get my comp to run Spore at high quality )

Ryuujin wrote:
Well, I have an answer, to how you can have your cake AND eat it; lots of money on tap, and exotic colony worlds...

Excellent post and awesome ideas. I like using things in different ways than designed, and those are perfect examples. The submerged bio-protector is pretty wicked.

Nevermind i found it

Any chance at getting a video of doing the submerged utilities (atmosphere protector, etc)? I'm not sure I really follow how it's done.

Ryno917 wrote:Any chance at getting a video of doing the submerged utilities (atmosphere protector, etc)? I'm not sure I really follow how it's done.

My internet hates me for uploading big files like videos, but the explanation is extremely simple =p

1) Use terrasculpting tools (ie raise lower terrain) to raise the target area above water (may take several shots)

2) Deploy the structures (If overlaying 2 or more, you need to shoot the consecutive structures before the first finishes assembling)
3) Use terrasculpting tools again as close as possible to the structures to submerge them - flatten area at a deep patch of water next to it is a good approach.

4 Extra) If you change the planet's T-Score they may pop up to the surface again, you can use the sculpt tool to sink them again when the t-score has settled.

Ah ok, I figured it would be something similar to that. I'll probably give it a shot, along with the mod in the link you sent. I'd like to be able to place more on a T1 planet. I want more character on my planets!

Arise long dead topic, arise!





Ok, but seriously

This guide remains useful as it ever did and is one of my personal favourites that's never really been replaced and I'm linking in my new signature so I figured I should give it a bump-from-beyond-the-grave and get the knowledge back into circulation for the betterment of Sporekind (that and I was too lazy to write an entirely new guide when a perfectly servicable one already exists)

Thanks for the guide!