I read that the barren planet that force of arms is based upon, will over time change as the terraforming takes hold. Is this part of the game, or is it server controlled? What I mean is this... will players have an impact upon the terraforming? Will their be player decision making in the process, and will they have quests/things to do that speed up, slow down, or change the process and planet in some manner?

We have been told that anything that people do in game will have some effect on the planet and im sure i read somewhere on the FoA forums that as players get better at making things and finding out how to make even better things it will lead to better teraforming but dont quote me on that cause im not sure if that last part is totaly right.

Quite right.

Terraforming efforts are dependent on player actions, building or facilities and research of technology.  And a few special events are well, such as smashing an ice comet into the planet.  Nothing to worry about, well, maybe...

Originally posted by Hamilton-WDS

... And a few special events are well, such as smashing an ice comet into the planet.  Nothing to worry about, well, maybe...

Smashing a comet...  that is a great idea. I've read a few books with this kind of thing in it.Will there be a cut scene or cimematic for the impact and immediate aftereffects?

I love the idea of special events, I especially like the idea that a GM might push a button somewhere and kick off an invasion or other type of chaos at ANY time. That will gve players a real feeling of suspence and tension... as long as they don't become too regular. For them to remain special they have to be rare enough and random enough to keep speculation high.

Back to terraforming... I don't know the real theories on this sort of thing, but in FOA lore is there nanotech? If there is, you could have player input in sculpting their home regions.

Originally posted by impulsebooks

I read that the barren planet that force of arms is based upon, will over time change as the terraforming takes hold. Is this part of the game, or is it server controlled? What I mean is this... will players have an impact upon the terraforming? Will their be player decision making in the process, and will they have quests/things to do that speed up, slow down, or change the process and planet in some manner?

I can chime in a bit here, as some of this was my brain child, but it will likely open up more questions that we would not like to answer at the moment, for story control's sake. I will reveal all that I can to you, though.

K-9WD is barren, we suspect near-lifeless world (as far as we know). They are stuck on this rock with not much to work with. They WILL have to terraform if they are to survive here.  The terraforming process however takes time, huge amounts of resources and player dedication and interaction as well as corporate support for the efforts.

Players will have a direct impact on the terraforming process, and in phase 2 moreso then phase 1, will be a MAJOR part of the crafter/engineering game. If I could compare my vision, it would be SWG's crafting game on steroids. Corporates, guilds and engineers will have to work together, determine a plan of action and implement it. This may entail quests, gathering of resources and random events that occur over the course of game play. Things might not always work as planned, i.e. alternate ideas implemented and there's always one bad apple in a group trying to buck the system.

Nanotechnology ....I cannot discuss as it involves technology levels I don' t think we want to get into at the moment...but for your question:

Originally posted by impulsebooks

 Back to terraforming... I don't know the real theories on this sort of thing, but in FOA lore is there nanotech? If there is, you could have player input in sculpting their home regions.

We do have and are accepting settlement petitions, cities ideas, POI's etc and are going to try to create many of those environments within the game based on player input, stop by our public forums to check it out...

Hamilton did mention the possiblitly of an ice comet though..