Didn't notice there was a dropdown for types of discussions, so it was put in general on accident.

This is all assuming you have evolution enabled and a time factor greater than 0.

When starting on Nauvis without this mod (or any alternate planet start), the evolution factor for Gleba is frozen at 0 until either the player starts traveling toward it or lands on it for the 1st time (I am not sure which one it is).

If starting on any planet other than Nauvis, the evolution factor for Nauvis keeps going as if you started there.

I think the evolution factor for Nauvis should stay at 0 if you started on any other planet, and only start once you either travel toward or land on Nauvis for the first time (whichever matches vanilla behavior).

I only tried starting on Vulcanus. Haven't left Vulcanus yet (not even robots researched, let alone the rocket silo). Learned it by looking in the factoriopedia at the entries for spawners.

As for mods, these 2 screenshots would tell you:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3598465400
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3598465553

If it has to do with edits to the spawners, the water turret mod might be the culprit (due to an option to make the spawners and egg rafts immune to water and fire extinguishers). Here is the mod portal page: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/WaterTurret-revived

I ran into the same exact thing with a vulcanus start. I started death world settings thinking it wouldn't be too bad when I tried to drop to nauvis... whoops. I should have noticed because Nauvis was visible (as a black map) right away. and /evolution command shows Nauvis rising immediately due to time passed.

I'm playing with some of the other planet mods so maybe one of them did it? I don't have water turret.

It might be just the way it handles the start. I'm taking a guess here, but if the game always starts on Nauvis, and this mod, if the options are set for a different planet start, moves the player, then this mod would need to pause Nauvis after moving the player, while storing a variable to remember to restart Nauvis when the player 1st lands there from space (if needed to restart).

this would cover single player, I have no idea how this mod handles multiplayer if at all.

If it's how I think it is, and it's possible, that's how I would do it (I haven't actually looked up modding for this game)

Gleba starts at 0 evolution because Gleba enemies are balanced around the player reaching there having researched a few military options already, whether it was for biters or for asteroids. Nauvis enemies are not balanced for that, they're balanced around progressing along with the player.
I intentionally left Nauvis evolution ticking from the start to counteract that, as they would at least have time evolution to scale. They still might be underpowered, but they would at least be less underpowered than if they started at 0.

If I were to handle evolution, I would simply reset the evolution factor as the first player lands, since no terrain would be generated yet (I clear Nauvis whenever somebody joins the game, before Nauvis has been reached).

I could make this a map setting if that's something people truly desire, but I do think Nauvis is better balanced the way it is right now.
Here's a console command to reset Nauvis evolution if you want to use that:
/c game.forces.enemy.set_evolution_factor(0, game.player.surface)

I would like a map setting for it, myself.

Especially since that command disables achievements (and some of us use https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?t=100924 to still be able to do the achievements with mods like milestones (https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Milestones) and Show Demolisher Territory on Surface (https://mods.factorio.com/mod/segmented-units-territory-renderings) which doesn't really change gameplay

if you add planet foliax to your planets, it has a nauvis evolution reset and enemy force deletion, on the first visit to nauvis. no matter what planet you start on.

if you add planet foliax to your planets, it has a nauvis evolution reset and enemy force deletion, on the first visit to nauvis. no matter what planet you start on.

Appreciated, but I would like not to have to change the research tech tree just to reset the evolution on Nauvis.