Planets and habitability: what you find down there.

The kinds of world

Kind	What it is like
Volcanic	A hot, dark world with lava and a thick sulfur sky. Close to its star.
Desert	Dry, sandy ground under a thin, dusty sky.
Barren	Bare rock with no air. Good for mining.
Ice	A cold world of frost and frozen seas, far from its star.
Jungle	A green world with a breathable sky, rich with life.
Ocean	A world of seas with island chains, breathable and humid.
Gas giant	A giant of gas that you cannot land on. Its moons can be landed on.

The new kinds

Many worlds in the game are dressed in one of fourteen new looks. Each has a base kind, which decides what lives there and what ores are found. The look decides the ground, sky, sun and landscape. Some examples:

• Bone Desert: a desert of pale dunes under a bright sun, with the bones of old creatures in the rock.
• Blood Desert: a red mesa world with a glowing red sky and iron dust.
• Crystal Forest: an icy world of violet crystal trees, with an aurora and a ring.
• Sky Isles: a breathable world of islands floating above a cloud sea.
• Canyon: a dry, breathable world cut by deep banded canyons.
• Glowworld: a jungle world, lit by its own luminous gas and a ring.
• Fungal: a spore-filled world under a glowing sky, with a red-violet haze.
• Shattered: a bare moon with a huge ringed gas giant filling its sky.
• Aurora: a cold world under curtains of green and violet light.
• Salt Flat: a dry, bright world of white salt pans.
• Storm: a world of spires and thick, stormy air.
• Banded: a dusty world with rock painted in coloured stripes.
• Violet Sea: a breathable world with a violet haze and purple seas.
• Gas Moon: a moon of a giant, which fills half its sky.

How livable a world is

Each world is scored from 0 to 100 on three things a person needs:

• Air: whether you can breathe it. Breathable air scores 100. A thin, unbreathable sky scores much less, and no air scores least of all.
• Warmth: how close the temperature range is to a comfortable 15 degrees.
• Water: whether there are seas, lakes or rivers.

The total is a weighted mix of the three, with air counting most. A world with air you cannot breathe is held under 50, however warm it is.

Score	Word
70 and over	Livable
55 to 69	Settleable: a colony can be founded
40 to 54	Marginal
20 to 39	Harsh
Under 20	Hostile

Breathable air is reached once a world's atmosphere is about 60 per cent of the way to good. Its temperature is also set to be as warm or as cold as the world naturally is.

Terraforming

Three machines work on a hostile world. You make each at a Workbench from metal, glass and copper, and set it down on the world.

• Atmosphere Processor: thickens the air, day by day, toward breathable.
• Water Seeder: on dry ground, spreads moisture and then moss and grass round it.
• Climate Regulator: where a world is too hot or too cold, pulls the day toward a comfortable 15 degrees.

Terraforming is saved with the world, so it stays changed when you come back.

Landing

When you arrive on a world, the ground below you has to load in full before your ship can settle. A ship that arrives high in the air will wait until the ground is ready. Your ship is held still until then, so do not panic if she hangs for a moment.

See the galaxy for finding worlds, and Stations, bounties and trade for what hangs over them.

← Back to the wiki · Last updated 25 October 2026. Mantlenaut is in alpha, so things change.