Earendel

Hello,
It's time to reveal the last planet. So. Warning: Spoilers ahead.

Welcome to Aquilo

It's day, but stars still twinkle in the dark sky. You count the planet's sun among the stars, larger and brighter than the others, but still so dim you can barely feel its warmth at all. A howling wind chills you to the bone and gently rocks the iceberg you are sitting on.

This planet has no land. It's an ocean world of liquid ammonia. One continuous ocean covers the entire planet and it's at least 200km deep.

The best landing spot you could find was this large iceberg. The sheet of ice is only a few meters thick and seems to contain a lot of trapped air, but frozen water is a very solid material as long as it stays cold. It's able to support a landing pad, so that's good enough.

Hello,
Welcome back to Vulcanus. It's been a while.

You place your new prototype big mining drills, the pinnacle of resource extraction technology, on the closest tungsten deposit to your fledging Vulcanus factory. A few power poles later and they are happily mining away providing a new consistent source of valuable tungsten. A rail ramp and station just about fit in the area too, but without any rail supports in your inventory that line isn't going anywhere soon. Transport belt will have to do for now.

As you're returning to the main factory, placing transport belt to connect this new resource to your base, you feel a trembling from the ground. Big mining drills make a lot of vibrations, but this is on a whole other level. Something else must be going on.

You head back towards the mining site. Across a river of lava you see a truly gargantuan creature snake its way around a volcano. This formidable beast most closely resemble...

Hello,
It is time. STOMPY TIME!

If you don't want spoilers on enemies and want to discover them naturally then you might want to skip this one.

Let's continue the story from ...

Hello,
I'm sure you're familiar with the good old Nuclear reactor. It's a fission reactor that makes a lot of power in conjunction with its steam turbines. The nuclear energy system is unlocked on Nauvis, and in the context of Space Age, that makes it an early-to-mid game unlock.

For the planet Nauvis, nuclear power is great for the whole game. Water is endless, and uranium is plentiful. For space platforms it's not ideal because it takes a lot of water and a fair amount of space. Solar panels are so good in space, especially near the sun, that it's harder to justify a reactor on a small platform. If you're mainly going around Fulgora then nuclear becomes more competitive because Fulgora has more ice from asteroids and less solar energy.

Later, when you head to the 4th new planet, nuclear becomes a much better option because the solar power is so low and ice is more abundant. At that point, you've had nuclear as an option for all the 5 ...

Surprise! There are 5 new planets in the expansion.

The first planet you arrive on is a strange new land, rich with iron, copper, coal, stone, oil, and uranium. Everything a starting factory needs and more. There's also water, fish, grass and trees. Yes, this is a fertile land, and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land, and we will call it... "This Land" "Nauvis".

So yes, the new planet Nauvis is similar to the 1.1 version of the map, but there are some substantial updates. Hopefully this is a surprise for you, because updates to the base map weren't planned at all. It just got harder and harder to not make changes after getting more experience with the other planets and seeing things that were missing or broken.

For clarity, these changes affect the 2.0 version in gener...

Hello there,
Where shall we go today?

Welcome to Fulgora

You land on an unfamiliar planet, a lifeless and desolate place. The thin air is freezing cold but bone dry. A distant sun twinkles in the dull purple of the sky. Wispy clouds race by as a gale whips up sand that grates against your armour.

As you look around, you find yourself in a desert with endlessly snaking dunes of dust-like sand. The dust almost seems to hover as though gravity were overwhelmed by static electricity. As you press forward, you pass peculiar pillars of fused sand and metal. The sand gives way to rock as you find yourself on the edge of a wind-swept plateau.

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Standing on the cliff-edge, you see similar landforms ...

Hello there,
I know a lot of you have been eagerly awaiting some solid information on the new planets, if so this blog is for you. Get comfy because it's a long one.

As you already know, there are 4 new planets in the expansion. We will take an in-depth look at each planet's terrain, challenges, processes, technologies, and new gear, but not all at once. In some cases the planet content will be split into multiple parts. To kick things off I'll cover the terrain and natural aspects of the planet that is closest to being finished.

I'll need to be in games master mode for this:

Welcome to Vulcanus

Allow me to introduce this toasty volcanic wonderland, conveniently sandwiched between idyllic Nauvis and the sizzling sun. Vulcanus is closer to the sun than most would dare to venture but trust me, it's a splendid place to start your interplanetary travels.

...