Special terrain and terraforming

[Barinthus]

If I was to terraform on special terrain (uranium fields, monsoon jungle, geothermal, and so on), would their unique benefits be lost or simply be added to the terraforrmed values (farm, mine, road, etc)?

What about major terraforming projects such as boreholes, condensors, raising/lowering?

[Skanky Burns]

Raising/lowering destroys specials such as geothermal and uranium fields. I would guess that it would destroy other specials as well.

I don't think boreholes, condensors or other things built on top of specials changes them though. The special is added to the new terraformed values, so boreholes in monsoon would give nutrients as well.

[Jamski]

Bingo

-Jam

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

'cepting you normally won't see teh effects on high yield t-formed squares until after restriction lifting. Exceptions being:

specials -Nut, min or energy specials
base squares

condensor farms bypass nut restrictions (including use in monsoon jungle)

[TheProvost]

I can confirm that terraforming up or down over the Uranium Fields or Garland's Crater causes the special terrain benefits to disappear. I don't know if they come back if you terraform back to the original altitude, but I doubt it. (I wasted TWO perfectly good special zones due to terraforming, before realising my mistake )

[Patashu]

Do special terrain effects boost fungus?

[livid imp]

No

[Barinthus]

What about special resources (nutrient, minerals, and energy) in fungal squares?

[Chaos Theory]

Special resources in fungal tiles are suppressed.

[Method]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
The special is added to the new terraformed values, so boreholes in monsoon would give nutrients as well.

I'm fairly confident boreholes never produce nutrients, regardless of what tile they're on.

[Chaos Theory]

I think that a nutrient increase random event (beneficial bacterium discovered) can cause a borehole to give nutrients.

Furthermore, resource increase/decrease random events increase and decrease the cap on the appropriate resource, before restrictions are lifted.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Method
I'm fairly confident boreholes never produce nutrients, regardless of what tile they're on.

I stand corrected. Didn't test with monsoon, but boreholes on nutrient tiles don't produce any nutrients.

[johndmuller]

Regular terraforming (farms, solar, mine, condensor, BoreHole) seem to survive being raised or lowered (unless they are lowered beneath the sea level - or raised above it if they were sea improvements), but sometimes the terrain type (raininess/rockiness) changes, which may affect the yield (IIRC forests which have their underlying terrain changed to Rocky will still produce normally). In the ocean, I believe that Kelp, at least, survives being lowered below -1000m and raised again (it still looks like kelp when it is below -1000m, but it doesn't produce unless you raise it again), but IIRC, the Tidal Harnesses and Mining Platforms don't handle it so well.

Monoliths are able to be raised/lowered without affecting their properties - if they become Sea Monoliths, they are quite handy for ships (now all we need is an airborne Monolith).

For the landmarks with special graphics, such as the Crater, the Volcano, or the sides of the Mesa, IIRC, the graphics of a tile will revert to the standard look if a tile is lowered below the next 1000m boundary (and I assume raised above its upper1000m boundary too).

I've heard that the Freshwater Sea can be extended or even moved around by raising and/or lowering terrain appropriately, so long as it never becomes directly connected to saltwater, which will kill the whole thing.

"Washing" removes all improvements except monoliths and (sometimes) bases; landmarks also lose their unique traits, and specials usually disappear (and new ones may appear too), but if so they may reappear (or redisappear) if the terrain returns to its original 1000m altitude range.

Units outside bases survive elevation changes OK, unless the tile they are on goes from land to sea or vice versa.

[anarchie]

I have dragged a sea nutrient special up onto land, and found it turned into a goodie pod. Of course, the pod held not only mind worms but an energy special. Weird.

[gwillybj]

Sometimes when an elevation change alters the course of a river, any units in the new path get washed away in the flash flood. I've seen this happen due to terraforming and global warming, but not due to "an hydrology pod has tapped an underground river."