Biomes

Biomes are the different environments you can encounter in the TerraTech world. Each one has different features, including resources specific to them. There are currently 6 biomes you can find as of stable version 1.4.6.

Grasslands


Grasslands are home to grassy rolling hills with a lot of trees, and average amounts of plumbite and titanite. This is also the type of biome that you start your journey in, and where many of the early GSO missions are set in.

The most common enemy techs here are GSO techs, similar to those you would find in the early missions. Invaders cannot be directly spawned in the Grasslands.


 * Resources
 * Due to the abundance of trees in Grasslands biomes, these can be a great place for getting energy once you have a furnace generator or farming rubber for Venture or Better Future crafting.
 * Grasslands contain some plumbite, titanium, and luxite, though not as abundant as the mountainous regions.
 * [[Image:EruditeShard.png|24px]] Erudite is exclusive to Grasslands. Since Erudite is one of the most expensive mineral in the game, and its seams are quite abundant compared to other resources, setting up Auto Miners/Delivery Cannons combos in the Grasslands can be a good early money boost.

Copse
This variation consists of large fields with rolling hills and small clumps of trees.

Rocky Ridge
This variation has steep rocky ridges with grass tops and more treacherous terrain than the regular Grasslands. However, rock patches are common and plumbite and titanite is plentiful here. The grass is slightly darker as well.

Woodland Valley
This area contains rolling grassy hills with a wide flat valley below. Medium to large patches of trees and rocks are streaked across the landscape. This is less of a proper biome variation and more like a little area within.

Desert


Deserts are barren stretches of sand, featuring few trees and rock patches. They are a bit flatter than grasslands, making them pretty good for travel and making bases. Of course, they are not as flat as the Salt Flats. Its flatness makes Desert quite full with enemy techs eager to engage the player.


 * Resources
 * When it comes to resources, deserts can be pretty empty. There are stray palms and groups of rocks occasionally, but not as much as grasslands, and not nearly as much as mountains. However, sometimes there are some very dense patches of resources similar to the mountain biome.
 * Because [[Image:OleiteJelly.png|24px]] Oleite and [[Image:IgniteShard.png|24px]] Ignite are almost exclusively found there, it provides a good fuel source (Oleite) and a good money source (Ignite, is the 3rd most expensive mineral in the game), however it is not really adviceable to sell Ignite, since it is relatively uncommon.

Dunes
With slightly steeper hills than the regular Desert, the naturally formed dips and ramps are the perfect place to use Venture techs and not for the best place for making a base.

Small Dunes
This desert contains small sand dunes in a ripple pattern.

Mesas
As the name suggests, this variation contains many flat-topped plateaus of varying size. The ground around and on the top of the plateaus is relatively smooth and a good place for a stationary base.

Mountains


Mountain biomes are very steep, requiring ground techs to have good clearance, traction and high power to get through. They are also full of resources, so it can be worth the risk. And since they are so treacherous, many enemy techs stay away from their steep cliffs, so the mountains can be relatively quiet.


 * Resources:
 * Trees are not as common as in the grasslands, but definitely more common than in the desert.
 * Mountains contain multiple dense patches of rock like the desert, making them a great place for mining plumbite and titanium.
 * It is the only place that [[Image:RoditeOre.png|24px]] Rodite can be found, a common crafting material for mid to late game crafting. However, the terrain often makes it hard to fully utilize all four Autominers per seam, making extraction quite slow.
 * Geothermal Vents are extremely abundant here, providing enormous amounts of free power with GeoCorp Geothermal Generators.

Terraced Hills
This variation is similar to the Desert Mesa biome, the differences being that the ground around the terraces is a lot more rugged, the tops of the terraces are not as flat, more resources can be found here, and terraces can be found "stacked" on top of each other, while the plateaus in the desert do not.

Steep Slopes
This variation involves gradual to steep slopes that climb to jagged peaks. The slopes are stacked into broken graphite-like layers at varying levels that create some medium cliffs and gorges where they converge with other layers.

Pillars
The Pillars biome contains tall, hexagonal pillars that create narrow passageways through this biome. There are also "clearings" and roughly dome-shaped black hills.

Resources are contained within black, rocky spikes which are located in the darker hill patches in very dense patches, along with many trees, but only contain Ignite, Celestite and Erudite (it always contains 1 of those), labeled as "crystal spires", which make is the best biome for a quick resource rush. However, These rocks do not reveal underground seams when destroyed, unlike other outcrops in their specific biomes.

When the "i" key is pressed to view more information on the crystal spires, it says the following: "A dense spire of rock with a crystal seam. These are formed deep in the planet['s] core. What could have caused them to emerge on the surface?" possibly hinting at a future update to the biome. Some pillars are leaning over at an angle and the biome appears to use Mountain Trees (specifically Salami Trees), combined with a desert/mountain ground pattern.

Mysterious purple lights shoot into the sky in this biome. However, they don't do anything. These lights seem to originate from small flowers on the ground. These flowers cannot be interacted with at all, similar to the lights they produce. However, as of version 0.8.2, these lights are no longer found in the biome. However, these flowers still exist and seem to be glowing in the centre with an mysterious purple glow.

All in all, this biome can be a bit of a challenge due to the narrow passages and natural barriers created by the clumps of pillars, but the resources found here mean that exploring this biome is definitely worthwhile. It is also worth noting its rarity as the biome itself is usually small and seems to have a low chance of actually spawning and at that, far away from the initial spawn location as the reference image shows coordinates over 7 and 10 kilometers respectively and the darkening of the sky when within the biome.

Salt Flats


Salt Flats are large stretches of treeless nearly flat ground. As such, these are the best places for speeding around, making bases, and farming plentiful enemy techs for parts.

Large, oddly shaped tall rocks containing resources can be found here. These rocks primarily give Carbite when mined, this can be seen with a blue shine particle emitting from the rock. Carbite, like Oleite, have an underground seam when the rock is broken, meaning it can be mined afterwards with an Auto Miner. Carbite is the best burnable fuel in the game and is relatively plentiful.

There is a chance for a Carbite rock to merge with another resource rock, such as a Titanite rock, resulting in both Carbite and the other resource to appear, those still produce Carbite-only seams though.

Celestite crystals are exclusive to this biome, and are the 2nd most expensive mineral in the game (however, Celestite is relatively rare). Overall, making this biome great as a fuel and money source.

Glacier


The resources found here are similar to the Salt Flats. The ground also looks similar to the salt flats' texture but with a slightly bluer hue. As this is an ice biome, the ground is slippery here.

The terrain here is quite rugged and mountainous, with long jagged ridges running through the entire biome. It can be very difficult to traverse, and so it's not recommended for new players or techs that are not very good off-road to go here. Wheels such as the GeoCorp Krusher Wheel or the GeoCorp Jaws Wheel excel here with their extreme grip counteracting the slip of the ice.

Achievement


 Discover a mysterious alien biome (Campaign only) 
 * Another World:

Encounter the pillars biome.
 * Completion criteria:

Trivia

 * Currently, tech spawns are not limited to biomes with the exception of the invaders (cannot spawn in grasslands).
 * The Salt Flats used to have the same sand texture as the desert, but still has the color change to the light blue it is today.

Version History

 * 0.7.5.2: Added new Ice biome. Wrap up warm and try not to slip.
 * 0.7.4.6: Added a rare occurring 5th “Pillars” biome.