Out in the vastness of space there lie many worlds. Some worlds are full of ice, others are full of vulcanic fumes and infinite pools of resources. Some worlds are full of permafrost and others are lain with treasures within trash. Some have trash smashing their surface, and others still are barren with only pools of acid. Now you have discovered another such world. However this world is not bombarded or covered in a pitch black, never to end night.

You have instead found a world covered in a sea of clouds.

The Sea of Clouds

Welcome to Vesta, the gas planet. Vesta is a gas giant that orbits the known solar system, however the planet has caught in its influence several of the local, large asteroids that are floating about which make a perfect foundation for us to land and conduct our operations. The pressure on Vesta is at that perfect point where the asteroids caught in its field of influence will not sink any further into the deepness, which allows us to harvest the abundant gases which are collecting around it; of which there are several.

Resources

Much like Aquilo, there appears to be a shortage of baseline resources such as Iron and Copper, however there is also no cold ocean of ammonia to utilize and turn into water. However, we do have gases. Plenty of gases. So, what kind of gases do we have available to us?

• Helium
• Nitrogen
• Methane
• Hydrogen
• Sulfur-hydroxide
• Carbon-dioxide

With a little bit of chemistry and help from our neighbors, we can turn these gases into a self sustaining and highly productive source of basic materials. So, what exactly are we here on Vesta for? Simple: we are here for Iridium.

Going deeper into bioengineering

Inside of Vesta's gasous cloudy sea live tens of millions of microorganisms, a breed of algae with the ability to calcize metallic properties. Algae is the life and blood of your factory on Vesta, harmonizing with the various gases, you can breed multiple forms of algae; but at the start all you'll have access to is just your standard copper, iron and a more unorthodox petroleum based breed. Perhaps there's potential to harmonize with other newly discovered planets?

Structures

Vesta introduces one new structure and repurposes another from the my Shattered Planet mod. The new structures include the Combustion Furnace and Electrolyzer; the Combustion Furnace is an electrical powered furnace that specializes in using gases to not only process materials, but breed algae. The Electrolyzer is not exactly as it sounds, it is not only good for separating gases or activating them, but more so for electrical activation and specifically built for agitating algae in particular. These structures also have their uses in your factory elsewhere.

Rewards?

Vesta comes with its own set of rewards for completing its logistical challenge, the most obvious of these rewards is the ability to utilize gases effectively in processing materials, but its rewards have a number of uses in plenty of areas if you're able to figure them out. However, do note that some of Vesta's content held the potential to break the progression of other mods.

The main reward and export of Vesta are Fusion Robots. I made this planet because acquiring Fusion Robots as they are in the base mod felt highly unsatisfying to me, and I desired a more streamlined method of making them. It acts likewise as a complementary planet to the Shattered Planet mod. Other rewards include Fusion Thrusters and Fusion Missiles; other various Fusion Based rewards will be added as ideas come. You also can gain one more cargo slot on your bots and one stack to your belts, among a new, perhaps overpowered, productivity research. Plasma Pipes have also been moved as a reward from the Shattered Planet to Vesta in the event you play with Vesta installed.

Welcome to Vesta.

Vesta's surface is also customizable to an extent. You can control how many islands spawn, and how large they are, allowing you to have better control of your cloudy experience.

Because of Vesta's concept being a "Gas giant" and filled with many commonly occuring gases in the universe, keep in mind that it can break other modded worlds where you have to put in some work to get some gases, such as carbon dioixide and nitrogen. However, you can enable a feature to keep Vesta's gases exclusive to its surface if you feel this will break other mods' progression.

Credits:
- TheFoundry members for their help with compatibility codes.
- Malcolm Riley: For unused textures, notably the fluid textures that I used as bases for the many fluids in the mod.
- PreLeyZero: For the various Exotic Industries textures that are present for the machines and a few highly edited item textures.
- Music present is created by the Cryo Chamber team, who allow usage of their soundtracks in non-profit projects.
- Sounds for some machines are from Mekanism for Minecraft under the MIT license.