You have terraformed a new world and now you must engineer and maintain the conditions necessary to promote thriving and productive populations of your chosen species. In order to succeed there must be equilibrium within the environment, food sources for your population, and fresh water supplies. You have access to a supply ship with numerous sensors, meters, stats, and monitors to be installed in various locations around your world, as well as devices to make automatic adjustments to parameters that may fluctuate. Each section in this guide contains data on the various instruments to measure values, followed by the automated controllers used to adjust or correct those values.
Weather Modification
Your world is influenced by forces out of your control. These forces drive temperatures into extremes, concentrate high velocity winds in one region while another rests stagnant. Lands are flooded here, while afar they lay dessicated. The elements of your world, which facilitate the conditions for your species, can become it’s greatest threat if you fail to intercede. Use these devices to preserve environmental balance in your world.
Thermometer: Your species may be sensitive to wide variations in air temperature. Use these devices at various altitudes to map the temperatures around your world. These are primary data points which should be used to determine temperature controller location as well as the placement of air circulation devices. Among your supplies are digital and analog Thermometers, as well as units which will store maximum and minimum values.
Thermostat: A thermostat can control your worlds heaters, coolers, and sometimes exhaust or intake fans. Your thermostat should be set to optimum values for your species, and can be adjusted to mimic seasonal changes. Once set, the thermostat will trigger heaters and coolers automatically to adjust your worlds temperatures, in order to conform to your preset values for night and day; as well as more fine-tuned temperature stages for dawn, dusk, and other conditions you may wish to create.
Hygrometer: Your species may be sensitive to humidity, in terms of vapor pressure deficit. The mass of water vapor per volume of air in a given temperature is simplified as Relative Humidity, which should be metered from various altitudes around your world. Hygrometer readings are data points that we recommend you use to determine the placement of your humidity controller, as well as the fans that generate winds in order to mix moist-air regions with dry-air regions.
Humidistat: In order to ensure the species of your new world have the optimal RH, where planetary water vapor is critically high or low, moisture may need to be supplemented into the air or drawn from it. Once installed, the Humidistat will control a humidifier or a dehumidifier to automatically correct the Relative Humidity if it drifts too far from your preset value. Both of these devices that a Humidistat can control often have a Humidistat hardwired into the device itself.
Note – the installation of your controller does not remove the need for metering at various altitudes and regions. Use the data points from meters to modify settings on controllers, so that the controllers are adjusting for the value of the meters. For example, if your thermometer closest to your species says 88º and your controller is set to 80º (as your target value), adjust the controller by lowering the setting so the thermometer closest to your species reads your target value, in this example 80º .
Atmospheric Quality
On the Atmospheric Quality deck of your supply ship, you have been provided with instruments which isolate key factors in atmospheric monitoring and control, primarily gas concentrations and wind currents.
CO2 Meter: On your supply ship you will find CO2 Test Kits you can use in various altitudes and regions around your world. These kits will allow you to meter this life-supporting gas in zones outside of the range of the sensor of your CO2 controller, once it has been installed.
CO2 Controller: Various species on your world have dose-determined optimum CO2 levels. In order to encourage thriving populations you will need to ensure the atmospheric CO2 stays within a target range. Your CO2 controller will trigger one of several CO2 injection devices to increase concentration, or it may also control your worlds exhaust system when concentrations become too high. Chose your controller based on the needs of your world and the species it supports.
Strings & Circulation Fans: Some simple techniques have never been abandoned. On your supply ship is a spool of string. Cut lengths that span from the ground into the atmosphere, and use these strings to monitor air flow around your world. Sufficient airflow ensures the mixing of various densities of air, differing in gas composition, temperature, and moisture levels. This practice makes up for the limitation of your controllers – namely that controllers are installed with sensors in a single location, to control the values of an entire world. The direction and velocity of circulation fans can be adjusted, using the strings to illustrate areas of turbulence and stagnancy, so all regions have balanced air flow.
Intake & Exhaust Fans: Optional devices on the supply ship to control atmospheric conditions are intake and exhaust fans, which are utilized to cool your world, exchange gasses or water vapor, as well as generate either positive or negative pressure. If the intake is higher in volume than the exhaust it will produce a positive pressure, conversely a higher volume of exhaust will produce a negative pressure. Air velocity from fans can be controlled using rheostat (motor speed) controllers. Not all species have a known pressure optimum.
Note: There are devices on the supply ship which combine the various Atmospheric Quality instruments into one controller. Use these if you wish to reduce the number of devices you have installed around your world, or if you require conditional triggering. For an example of “conditional triggering”, some combined controllers allow for heat exhaust as well as CO2 enriching. To reduce loss of CO2 when the exhaust fan is on, the controller will cease CO2 enrichment. Once the temperature has been sufficiently lowered, and the exhaust fan is off, the controller resumes CO2 enrichment.
Aqua-Engineering
In every new world Aqua-Engineering is essential to provide both accessibility to, as well as the quality of, your species fresh water supplies. Once sloughs have been dug, irrigating streams diverted, and fresh water reservoirs established in the regions of your world allocated for high population density, you may need to install meters and their respective controllers to keep your mineral levels, pH, temperature, and sometimes dissolved oxygen levels at optimum values.
Water Thermometer: The species on your new world may be affected by water temperature or by the concentrations of dissolved gasses at various temperatures. Use the water thermometers provided on your supply ship at various locations around your world to determine if the temperatures of your reservoirs and irrigation rivers are suitable for the local species.
Water Temperature Controllers: On your supply ship are devices to heat and cool your new worlds waters. Some devices are fitted with thermostats while others operate continuously to correct the temperature values. Use your thermometers to make adjustments to your water temperature controllers, which might be a reservoir heater, a condensation coil, or a high-volume reservoir chiller, as examples.
pH Meter: The pH of the waters on your world will play an important role in the diversity of species you host, as well as the availability of minerals in solution that many species rely on to survive. Some species are sensitive to particular pH environments, while others will alter the pH of the waters with their exudes. On your supply ship are devices that can continuously monitor your waters pH, as well as portable devices you take to any location to meter the pH of a solution.
EC Meter: The EC Meters on your supply ship will assist you in determining the concentration of the conductive dissolved solids in your worlds waters. It is important the species on your new world have the minerals they require to thrive, but not in excess or they may become toxic.
pH and TDS Controllers: Since alterations to the waters of your world need to be maintained often, your supply ship contains individual pH and TDS controllers, as well as single devices which can control both of these parameters. A pH controller will supply concentrated acid or alkaline solutions into your waters to adjust their pH to a target value. Likewise, a TDS controller will supply concentrated liquid fertilizer or fresh water to your oceans, to produce your preset EC value.
Dissolved Oxygen [DO] Meter: If your new worlds species are sensitive to, or respond to, dose-specific concentrations of DO in the waters, you will find a DO Meter on your supply ship. Adjust the temperature or aeration of your waters to increase or reduce DO values.
Dividing The Light From The Darkness
Light Meter: To determine if your new world requires supplementary artificial lighting, use the Light Meters found on your supply ship. To ensure adequate lighting response with various species on your world, your supply ship is equipped with a Lux Meter for animalia and a Quantum Meter for plantae. Once lighting is established, use your Light Meter to survey your lighting efficacy at various regions around your world, and on lamps you suspect are nearing the end of their usefulness.
Lighting Controller: Once you have determined how much artificial lighting your new world requires, you may select a suitable Lighting Controller to initiate day and night sequences at optimal intervals. Nearly all species on new worlds respond to photoperiodicity to regulate circadian rhythms or seasonal physiological cycles, among other functions. Some lighting controllers also allow for single artificial light ballasts to provide day to one side of your world while the other is dark, and “flips” the lighting at timed intervals.
Timers: Various timers can be found aboard your supply ship, which can be used in conjunction with many of the controllers you’ll
find on the supply decks. Timers can control cycles, such as “10mins on, 40mins off”, or they can control sequences within the range of predetermined periods of time such as 1hr, 24hrs, or 1 week. A range of digital and analogue timers are available on your supply ship. Utilize the multitudes of timing sequences available on digital timers for complex lighting needs such as “dawn, day, dusk, and night.” As well, a digital timer can generate day and night periods which are incompatible to a 24hr period, such as 11hrs of day and 5hrs of night.
High-Heat Shut-Off: On your supply ship is a device you may install to protect your species in the event of unforeseen problems with your cooling devices, to prevent your artificial lighting from raising temperatures to unhealthy levels. This device will shut off lighting from the source at a preset temperature value, and reinitialize lighting when the temperature decreases. To prevent lighting from reinitializing, you may use a model with a “reset button” which is required to be pressed in order to reinitialize lighting; this prevents your artificial lighting from being cycled on and off repeatedly if your cooling device has malfunctioned.
Substrate Surveillance
Substrate pH Meter: The aggregate contents of your new worlds substrate determines its pH, and can be adjusted by introducing acidic or alkaline minerals. To determine the substrate pH value, use one of the various Substrate pH Meters on your supply ship. There are probes that can be inserted into your substrate for continuous monitoring, as well as testing kits you may use to test substrate samples from various locations around your world.
Moisture Meter: Many species on your new world will be sensitive to, or respond to, an optimal moisture level in the substrate they dwell in. On your supply ship are probes which can be inserted into the substrate around your world so you may monitor moisture levels, to avoid flooding or drought.
Substrate Temperature Controller: In case supplementary substrate heating mats are required to provide optimal conditions
for your new worlds species, your supply ship contains a Substrate Temperature Controller. Install this in conjunction with your substrate heat mat, to set an optimal temperature value for the targeted substrate.
Quality Control
Brix Meter: Providing food sources for the various species on your new world is important. Once the necessary provisions have been supplied, you have the option of testing plant species for their sweetness, in case you chose to cultivate food specifically for desirability to the higher food-chain organisms. On your supply ship is a Brix Meter which can determine an approximation of the total sugar content of a sample of solution extracted from a plant’s leaf tissues or fruiting body.
Computerized Surveillance and Control Systems
To allow centralization of control on your world, your supply ship includes a computer controlled growing interface called Grobot. Once you have installed the Grobot interface, you may begin assimilating existing devices to the Grobot via radio-controlled relays, without having to alter existing electrical wiring. Grobot automates the operation of a meter or controller remotely, all you need to do is tell Grobot what the number is on the wireless relay that the device is plugged into.
Most of the aqua-engineering sensors you may want for your worlds oceans are included with Grobot, as well as an injection pump rack to control the pH and TDS of your worlds waters, so these devices will not be required additionally. Security cameras and alarms can be interfaced to Grobot so you can visually monitor your world from remote regions of space. You can also use an available phone application to check up on critical values that Grobot monitors, at any time. If you ask nicely, Grobot will even email you in the case that monitored values drift too far from presets, so you can address issues before they become problems.
Next up: Grow Store 105 – The Other Stuff, And Then Some
