Thinking I had a good grasp of the game after completing 10 milestones on each of the previous levels, I was caught off-guard by the Storm Planet and had to restart twice before I figured it out.

I verified my thinking on my third try and built up to a population of 311 with leeway for more.



In retrospect, the Storm Planet is not actually all that much harder than the previous planets once you get to 20 colonists. It's getting to that 20 that could be tricky.

The main challenges you will face are as follows:

The planet is covered in lakes and mountains, necessitating quite a bit of terraforming for efficient base planning.

Terraforming, of course, is the meta-gaming practice of chipping away at impassable terrain by placing structures as close to said terrain as possible to level it into standard ground.


Build zone blocked by rock.


Build as close as you can to the obstacle. Notice part of this structure is actually under rock.


Place the structure to clear rock. You can remove the structure right away and the removed rock will still be gone.

Important note: Terraforming does not get recorded in your save game! When you load a save, all terraforming you've done is reverted. That said, any placed structures (even if not yet built) remain. So if you need to save after terraforming, make sure you save before deleting your terraforming structures.

Terraforming on most planets is neither necessary nor typically difficult, but the Storm Planet is really cluttered with both mountains and lakes.

I've found that big mountains are most easily broken down using exterior structures, alternating between mines and something else (e.g. base pad).


Here's a moderate sized mountain blocking our way. In this case, I've already managed to place the blueprint for a mine on the other side of it.


Now I want to look for a valid build location on this side of the mountain that will allow a connection through the mountain.


Notice that the connector between a mine and a non-mine external structure is rather thick.


See how we've gouged out a channel through the mountain.


From this angle, we see that we've split off a significant part of the mountain; this smaller part is fairly easy to whittle down.

Lakes are quicker to reshape than mountains but can also be quite resistant to terraforming because you can't use the mine-connector trick described above. Large enough lakes are pretty much impossible to cut down beyond a certain point, so try selecting a landing zone without too many large lakes.

Here I'm using S 60 E 153.


By the way, don't go too crazy with terraforming big mountains - the game can glitch pretty badly, forcing your builders to try and go over invisible outcrops and possibly stranding them in the air or making them take treks too long for them to survive. You see here I've managed to build right into the middle of a large mountain range, but the number of colonists who died from asphyxiation in the process put me in a cold sweat at one point.

On most planets, solar panels and windmills are your bread and butter for power. On the Storm Planet, however, these are your backup plan and you should spam the map with lightning rods instead.

Start with the biggest solar panel you can build and as soon as possible after that place the biggest lightning rod you can. Without an early rod, a critical colonist might die and tank your run.

Lightning rods should be placed as far apart as possible while keeping all parts of your base (including connectors) covered. You can click on any lightning rod (or its blueprint) to see coverage.

Next, build the largest power collector you can manage. Once you have your first farm running, build the largest wind turbine you can and another largest collector.

Thereafter, build solar panels and windmills as needed to keep power up during the day. At the same time, expand your base quickly with either small O2 generators or power collectors + base plates so that you can cover as much of the land with lightning rods as you can - lightning is what will keep your power collectors topped up when the sun is out.

Here is a small section of my lightning capture extension, Notice that lightning rod in the distance made possible by the chain of disabled O2 generators.


Here is another section using external connectors instead.

You don't start with a medic on the Storm Planet, so do not build a mine early on. Mining injuries happen often and can completely cripple your base when you only have 2 or 3 workers in total.

Instead, build a landing pad as soon as you are able: you're going to trade for ore. While trying to get to self-sufficiency, you may be forced to give up 1 or 2 of your starting medical kits in order to get enough ore to work with. Do it. You don't have medics and can't use medkits anyway.

Build a small processing plant with 1 ore processor and 1 bioplastic processor in it. As much as possible, purchase (cheap) ore and not (expensive) metal and have a worker turn it into what you need. Your bioplastic processor will be useful to generate building materials as well as trade products.

In my game, I did not build a mine or sick bay until I was at close to 20 colonists and could afford to have a medic.

I make it sound straightforward but in truth you are going to struggle badly here unless you are very lucky and keep getting trade ships that carry ore at a low price (35 or 40% commission). It will be touch and go for a while as you try to ensure you have enough food to not die, enough power to not shut down (and run out of food as a consequence), enough spares to not lose power, and enough extra goods to trade effectively. This is by far the hardest part of the Storm Planet experience.

Despite starting with only 4 colonists, you are going to run out of food much sooner than you think if you don't prepare early. Start growing food as soon as you can.

I'm a big proponent of rice + meat pasta for a few reasons.

First, rice pads and synths produce at just about the same fast rate, and keeping a 1:1 ratio is relatively easy administratively.

Second, rice produces starch, which you need for bioplastic. Yes, you will end up with too much starch that you will need to aggressively offload to traders, but that's mostly a happy problem.

Third, while 3-vegetable salads are on paper more efficient than any other option, the likelihood of a given meal maker having exactly one of each vegetable at any one time is fairly small. So you will end up with a lot of basic rather than complete meals and run the risk of malnutrition.

However, in early Storm Planet, resources are so tight and personnel so few that you cannot afford to build and run a lab. Therefore, start off with wheat + tomato pasta instead. This is less efficient than rice + meat but still quite decent at the beginning. Switch to rice + meat only when you have breathing room.

If I have not misremembered, this is the build order I used for my first successful Storm Planet colony.

1. Very large solar panel + large power collector (start storing up power as soon as possible)

2. Airlock + small O2 generator + medium water extractor (let your people breathe)

3. Landing pad (start trading early)

4. Medium lightning rod (protect against lightning strikes; just one rod won't keep you supplied with power though)

5. Medium canteen + medium bio-dome with 2 wheat pads and 2 tomato pads (feed your people)

6. Medium processing plant with 1 ore processor (ready to create metal)

7. Large wind turbine + a second large power collector (power sufficiency)

8. Add a bioplastic processor to the processing plant to start converting starch to plastic. You will end up with too much of both starch and plastic, so use these as trade goods.


Pause here to stabilise your food and power. When you are no longer at risk of starvation or blackout:

9. Build a large bio-dome + small lab but do not add components.

10. While waiting for your new bio-dome and lab to be completed, invite new colonists to join you but change ratio to 100% biologists. Keep letting them come in until you have 8.

11. As each new biologist arrives, start slowly populating your bio-dome with 6 rice pads and 2 herb pads and your lab with 6 tissue synths (2 of each type of meat). As a rule of thumb, consider each biologist to be capable of tending to 2 pads or tissue synthesizers; do not build more than your biologists can handle!

When you make it to 8 fully employed biologists, feel free to delete the medium bio-dome you'd built in step 5. This frees up some building materials to accelerate your progress.

12. Change your colonist distribution to 100% workers now and let them come until you have 8 workers. This will help you get to self-sufficiency more quickly.

13. Now hire 2 medics. Finally you can start crating medicine! Add 2 medical workbenches to the lab.

14. Build a small sick bay and place 1 bed and 1 medical cabinet in it. I personally like 4 beds and 2 cabinets, but you shouldn't splurge on more than 1+1 at this point.

15. When you have a supply of medicine as well as a sick bay, build 1 mine.

16. Hire 1 more engineer for a total of 2. Build a medium factory and place one spares workshop in it.

True self-sufficiency, finally!

Going forward, your major challenge will be to keep enough power to hedge against periods without solar and wind. Spam those lightning rods and power collectors!

A related problem is producing enough spares to keep your panels and turbines running.

Before too long, invaders will start arriving. Prepare for them by building a ring of buildings around your landing pad. When unwelcome visitors arrive, simply disable all the internal airlocks and watch them die without air.


In my game, I ended up building 2 landing pads and 1 space port within the security ring, served by 6 airlocks connected via warehouses to 3 security centres staffed by 30 guards. When I got to this point, I could simply ignore invaders - they tended to get gunned down before doing any permanent damage.

In any case, the hardest parts of the Storm Planet are in the first weeks. Once an experienced Planetbase player gets to 20 colonists with self-sufficiency, thriving should not be a problem. Have fun!