Planets

Every round puts five planets on the chart: one volcanic, one frozen, one tropical, one oceanic and one apocalyptic. Each is generated fresh at the start of the round, so nobody can memorise a layout, and each is scaled to the part of the galaxy it sits in. Planets are where ore, wild trade goods, planetary ruins and most of the fauna live, and they are the only places you can walk around outdoors without a hull between you and everything else.

Finding one and landing

Planets show on the helm chart as coloured contacts, one colour per terrain type, and the contact is already named. A "Frozen Planet" is a frozen planet before anyone scans it. What is on it stays unknown until you land.

Fly the ship onto the planet's tile and press Dock; the button reads "(planetfall)". See Piloting for getting there and The Overmap for what the chart is telling you.

Two ships can be berthed at a planet at once. If both berths are taken you are told to come back later. If you arrive while the surface is still being built you get "planetary survey in progress", wait a moment and try again.

Your ship lands at a fixed berth on the edge of the map unless someone aboard uses an orbital survey console to pick the landing site, which needs research. Drop pods are the other way down.

The five worlds

Planet	Air	Storm	Notable ground
Lava Planet	Thin and hot. Bring internals and a suit	Ash storm: burns anyone caught outside	Basalt, lava flows, tendrils, geysers, telecrystal veins
Frozen Planet	Breathable but far below freezing	Snow storm: cold deep enough to beat your clothing	Snow, ice lakes, glacial core veins
Tropical Planet	Breathable, mild	Rain: soaks you, nothing worse	Dense jungle, water, wild spice pods
Oceanic Planet	Breathable, mild	Rain: soaks you, nothing worse	Beaches, shore water and deep ocean, fishing
Apocalyptic Planet	Breathable, mild	Sandstorm: batters anyone caught outside	Dust flats, dead forest, heavy ruins, telecrystal veins

Ash storms and sandstorms both roll a harmless variant sometimes, gentle embers or drifting sand instead of the real thing. The real thing announces itself first, and the warning is your cue to get under a roof or back inside the ship.

The lava world is not a walk

Lava planets have thin air as well as heat, so a gas mask and a tank are not enough on their own. They are also the only planet type where a true megafauna can appear out in the open. At most one per world, but one is plenty.

What is down there

Rock and ore. Terrain generation carves rock pockets across the surface, and mineral walls sit inside them. This is where most mining happens; see Mining & Salvage.

Ruins. Every planet type has its own pool of surface ruins, seeded fresh with the terrain: camps, outposts, wrecks, shrines, laboratories. Frozen, volcanic and apocalyptic worlds have the deepest pools. Ruins carry loot caches and the things guarding them; see Ruins & Points of Interest.

Wildlife. Fauna comes from the biome you are standing in. Volcanic ground has goliaths, legions and watchers, and nests that keep producing them. Frozen worlds have wolves, polar bears, snow legions, ice demons and whelps. The apocalyptic world has armed hermits, hivebots, giant spiders and legions in its ruin fields. Jungles have monkeys, gorillas and tarantulas; the ocean world is mostly livestock and butterflies on land and carp in the water. Elite-tier creatures show up as tumours on volcanic and irradiated ground. See Threats & Elites.

Tendrils. On volcanic worlds, a corrupted tendril is a permanent nest pouring out monsters. Kill it and the ground around it cracks open. You get about five seconds to grab loot out of the collapse by hand, one crate per person, before the tile becomes a chasm. The crate is worth the fight; see Mining & Salvage. Other worlds have their own nests, but only the volcanic tendril pays out like this.

Trade goods. Each world grows or hides something traders want and nobody can manufacture aboard a ship: raw telecrystal in the crust of the volcanic and apocalyptic worlds, glacial cores in frozen permafrost, wild spice pods lying on jungle ground, pearl clams caught in beach shore water. None of them can be scanned for. Telecrystal and glacial veins look like ordinary rock until you swing at them. Prices are at Trader Outposts; the wider economy is in Money & Trade.

Dangerous space means a dangerous planet

The five planets are dealt across the galaxy's zone bands, so there is always at least one in the safe ring and at least one out in the lawless deep. A planet's band changes how the same world plays:

Fauna spawns thicker, and a share of the rolls upgrade to the biome's meaner list: lone animals become nests.
Storms come around more often, give less warning before they hit, and last longer.

A planet keeps its band for the whole round. One the crew wrote off as lethal will still be lethal the next time it turns up.

Planets do not stay put

A planet's surface exists only while someone is using it. Once the last ship undocks and nobody is left alive on the ground, the surface is released about five minutes later.
Anything you leave behind is gone with it: dropped gear, stashed loot, a body you meant to come back for, a base you built. Take it with you or lose it.
After it releases, the planet reappears somewhere else on the chart, in the same band, as an unvisited contact again. Its terrain is regenerated the next time somebody lands.
A crewmate still alive on the surface holds the planet open indefinitely. If someone is stranded, the world will wait for you.
Wildlife clears out a few minutes after the last person leaves and repopulates when someone lands again. A planet you are still docked at keeps everything where you left it.

Landable asteroid fields

Asteroid storms are the other place to put boots on rock. They appear on the chart as hazards in three severities, at least three per round, and you dock inside them at a "mining anchorage". They are not planets (no weather, no ruins, no air) but they are the fastest way to a full ore hold. Details are in Mining & Salvage.