MOD STILL IN EARLY DEVELOPMENT

Planetary threat is not functioning in the intended manner, and several placeholders are in use. Current state of mod may not be reflected in descriptions below, and future versions of mod may not be backwards-compatible.

As the landing capsule descends, your threat sensor blinks to life for a brief moment, illuminating in solid red before resting idle once more.
Through the mist, your landing site shines a cold gray, adorned with small outcrops in a gleaming sheen, the mineral you came here for.
Around it, an ink-dark expanse stretches to the edge of sight, punctuated only by the rare, faint glimmer of higher ground.
The air is still as the grave as you emerge from the capsule. Something is wrong. Was the sensor struck by a fault, or an omen?
Nothing to do but begin.

Tylwist

Found in a warmer band of the solar system, Tylwist is a rocky planet marked most distinctly by the strange substance that coats its surface, with only a few isolated patches of exposed earth.

While most of the planet is unsuitable for landing, several of the exposed patches have accessible Iridium, a rare stellar metal highly suitable for advanced industrial processes. Besides Iridium, landing sites have a solid but limited amount of iron ore, and the Ink (more details in its section).

Tylwist is difficult to permanently occupy for reasons elaborated below, and has no resources besides those mentioned above; bringing cargo rocket supplies, including a silo and non-fuel rocket part resources, is of paramount importance. You'll also want to bring machinery appropriate for the crafting chains unlocked alongside the planet, and rocket turrets are very important for any lasting visit.

Extraction

The Iridium lodged in Tylwist's surface is not straightforward to gather. Instead of being found in dispersed ore deposits like typical resources, Iridium is only found in sizable monolithic deposits. These can be carved apart with explosive, physical or laser damage; each deposit can be extracted indefinitely, though early incursions will need to be "grab and go".

After you manually break apart an Iridium deposit for the first time, automated damage sources such as turrets will join in. Rockets are the "default" approach to this, as they can be produced locally and are also useful for another function you'll see later. Iridium ore chunks are similar to asteroid chunks in that they don't stack and provide multiple pieces of final material.

After extraction, Iridium ore chunks can be processed into two distinct compounds. Iridium alloy is a simple process, requiring combination with calcite and molten iron in a Foundry followed by casting ingots in another Foundry, while the more sophisticated Latticed iridium is created with calcite and holmium solution and crystallized in a cryogenic plant using cold fluoroketone.

None of the advanced processing must be done on Tylwist, but there may be a substantial advantage if you opt to do so; a rocket can only carry five Iridium ore chunks, while it can carry 500 of either Iridium compound. As a comparison, one load of Iridium ore chunks will only produce 135 ingots at base productivity; the differential is even larger for latticed iridium.

Ink

Your extraction of Iridium is on the clock. The inscrutable amalgam that dominates Tylwist, the Ink, does not take well to disturbances; after you've mined your first Iridium chunk, it will attempt to reclaim your patch of exposed earth, with the passage of time and the harvesting of Iridium both escalating its strength.

Ink attempts to reclaim land in "surges", which bombard your landing site from all directions [INDEV]. Surges can be deterred with explosive damage [INDEV - MAY CHANGE], including as delivered by rocket turrets, and will be held back by walls, damaging them in the process.

Fortunately, you can use the Ink as a weapon against itself; it can be filtered to extract water, or agitated under steam pressure to produce rocket fuel or explosives (the latter also requires an Iridium ore chunk as a catalyst, which is occasionally consumed).

While it is not strictly impossible to remain on Tylwist indefinitely, the most intense of Ink surges will pose a significant challenge to your defenses, and all land consumed by the Ink is permanently lost. If your landing site is overwhelmed, you can abandon it entirely [INDEV], losing everything left behind but letting you begin again.

Technologies

Successfully extracted Iridium gives you access to a variety of substantial upgrades, some of which are quite useful for future visits.

• Crafting your first iridium alloy ingot unlocks the Energistic science pack, creating three with five iridium alloy ingots, one uranium fuel cell and one superconductor. It's always used in conjunction with certain "core sciences" (RGB sciences plus space and metallurgic), referred to below as the "energistic set".

• Catalytic efficiency is a five-tier research that increases the productivity of thruster fuel and oxidizer. The first tier starts at 800 science packs of the base energistic set; each additional tier doubles the required science packs and adds one or more new packs to the set. Basic thruster fuel/oxidizer receives +15% productivity per tier (+20% for the first tier), while advanced thruster fuel/oxidizer receives +10% productivity per tier.

• Catalytic modules [see section] require 1,200 research cycles with the base energistic set.

• Iridium robot enhancement [see section] requires 1,500 research cycles with the base energistic set.

• Latticed iridium manufacture requires 1,000 research cycles with the base energistic set plus EM, Production, Utility and Cryogenic science packs.

• Orbital interlinks [see section] require 2,000 research cycles with the base energistic set plus EM, Production, Utility and Cryogenic science packs. Latticed iridium manufacture is a mandatory prerequisite.

Orbital Interlinks

Also available standalone.

Orbital interlinks are advanced electrical structures capable of exchanging electricity between planetary surfaces and the space platforms orbiting them.

Each orbital interlink has a maximum throughput of 1 gigawatt, and buffers electricity within its internal capacitors (150 megajoules, equivalent to 30 accumulators). Both of these stats scale with quality.

When an interlink is constructed, or enters a planet's orbit, it will automatically attempt to pair with any appropriate interlink on the "opposing" surface. Paired interlinks equalize their buffered electricity every three ticks, allowing either surface to supply the other.

Iridium Robot Improvement

Construction and logistics robots can be upgraded with iridium to improve their capabilities.

Iridium alloy and a tungsten carbide piece can be used to upgrade robots to Shielded, which increases their durability. Health is tripled (100 > 300), they gain a minor auto-repair while in flight (about 2 health per second), and acid/explosion resistance increases to 30%.

Latticed iridium and a supercapacitor can be used to upgrade robots to Augmented, which substantially lowers their power usage. Cost to sustain flight is reduced by 40%, cost to move is reduced by 60%, and flight speed on emergency power is increased by 75%.

Catalytic Modules

Iridium has some useful secondary properties that lend themselves well to industrial process enhancement. Catalytic modules are a "hybrid" of speed and efficiency, increasing speed by a relatively small amount but reducing pollution and adding no penalty to quality or power consumption.

Basic catalytic modules are produced by combining 4 iridium alloy ingots with a speed module 2 and efficiency module 2, and offer +10% speed and -15% pollution. Advanced catalytic modules require 2 basic catalytic modules as well as 4 latticed iridium and 4 processing units, upgrading to +20% speed and -20% pollution. Quality scales both the speed increase and pollution reduction.

Compatibility & Integrations

Mod should be able to slot into existing Space Age saves without issue.

Any Planet Start is not currently supported outside of test cases (related code is commented out for release); this may change in a future update, but it's a very low priority.

Visible Planets in Space is supported; a high-definition Tylwist icon will automatically be loaded when the mod is detected.