Gleba technologies have far too steep an oppertunity cost.

[Theukon-Dos]

When you unlock the ability to go to planets, you immedietly have three options. Vulcanus, Fulgora, and Gleba. The player may go to these planets in any order they wish. But despite this, I feel that the technologies unlocked by Gleba are far, FAR outclassed by the ones available on the other two inner planets. To the point that it's extremely hard to justify ever going to Gleba before your third planet.

To be completely clear, I am specifically talking about Gleba's value when choosing between it, Vulcanus, and Fulgora. In Friday Facts #431, the developers talk a bit about how they wanted to make sure that Gleba felt rewarding. I won't say that they failed in doing this. Because you can definitly feel where that influenced their decision in the techs unlocked via Agricultural Science. But I feel they ended up trying a bit too hard and ended up focusing a bit too much on end-game capabilities with the unlocks. Obviously that's still extremely useful. But personally, I don't think it matters if a planet is "worth it" by the time you start making the trip to aquillo. Because you're going to need it's science packs and resources anyways, meaning you'd be forced to build it out anyways. So my metric for how good Gleba's unlocks are lies squarly on the shoulders of how useful they are before that point. And despite me genuinly loving Gleba, I'd still be dissapointed if I was first to go there first.


Rocket turrets and Advanced Astroid processing are very blatantly hard gates for Aquillo. Rocket Turrets aren't particularly good for factory defense due to Nauvis having better options and Pentapod Stompers being such a menace that rocket turrets barely phase them without a dozen explosive damage researches. While the only advanced crushing recipe useful for traveling between the four inner planets is oxide for the improved thruster fuel and oxidizer recipes. The Heating Tower kiiiinda falls into this catagory to. I say kinda because it does have it's uses outside of Aquilo and Gleba for waste destruction. But as a source of power, Nauvis has access to Nuclear as early as blue science, and water for steam is in limited supply on Vulcanus and Fulgora.

Productivity Modules are extremely powerful, obviously. But the main benefit of the planet-exclusive machines is having a natural 50% productivity boost baked-in. Not only is this boost higher than what you can get with prod 3 modules in their predicessors, but the bonus also applies to crafting recipes that can't normally take prod modules, such as belts and pipes in Foundries; or beacons, power poles, and modules in EMPlants. This is a similar problem to the one I have with Biolabs. Obviously these things are fantastic. The aformentioned Friday Facts actually talks about how they wanted these to be rewarding to get early on. And they didn't fail at that per se. Instantly doubling your ESPM and then some will always be amazing. But if you're looking at the amount of resources spent per science, then Biolabs only boosting the end of the production chain massively hold them back compared to Foundries and EMPlants. These two make nearly everything you need for all the pre-space science packs. And being used for multiple steps in their production lines means that the bonuses compound exponentially. Biolabs do have the advantage of being easier to retrofit into existing factories. But otherwise they are by far the most overrated building in the game. I will die on this hill, come home from the skeleton war, and then die on it again.

And the Epic Quality is good. But it's extremely hard to actually make use of before Fulgora, which unlocks T3 Quality Modules and the recycler. Certainly possible, don't get me wrong. But good luck, because you'll need a lot of it with how much gambling you'll be doing.

Oh, and Biochamber are also there. But I... really don't think I need to explain how badly these got snubbed compared to Foundries and EMPlants.


Again, none of those unlocks are bad. And there are even a few others that don't have the same problems, like stack inserters, tool belts, and spidertrons. But again, the problem isn't that they're bad. It's that the opportunity cost for choosing Gleba and her technologies is far to high compared to the others. Going to Vulcanus unlocks Foundries, Artillery, Coal Liquifaction, T3 Speed modules, and cliff explosives. While Fulgora unlocks EMPlants, Recyclers, higher-tier personal equipment, Mech Armor, and T3 Quality modules.

If you have the stuff from all three planets, then obviously you're set for life. But unless you're hopelessly addicted to spidertrons or dove in too deep on the Biolabs hype. Why would you ever go to Gleba first or even second?


Thankfully, there are a lot of ways that this particular pain point could be improved, to the point that I don't really want to commit to any one thing in particular. Well, nothing except buffing the Biochamber. That just needs to happen outright. I'm begging on my hands and knees for it. Please. But other than that, there are still a lot of options.

Once again, the devs mentioned in FF #431 that integrating bio-processing into your main factory is pretty hard given how much it clashes with the cold certainty of steel. But I don't think it would impossible to do. One idea I've seen thrown around is adding more plants the agricultural towers can grow on other planets, such as the carbon-bearing plants on Vulcanus, or the Holmium "trees" on Fulgora. Obviously that second one aren't actually trees, but honestly it's not a bad idea. Agriculture's lack of verticle scaling would even work well here, sense you'd need a ton of land for growing these "trees", and that happens to be in relatively short supply on Fulgora.

There could also be new biotech machines that use nutrients to run, but work to supplement the factory rather than just being part of the production line. For example, a Beacon Side-Grade that's far more powerful with 5 module slots, but doesn't stack with other beacons, or extra advanced combinators that can manage more complex logic.

In addition, if Nutrients became a much more important resource outside of Gleba, then we could take a page out of biter egg's book and add ways to improve nutrient efficiency off-world. Admitedly the amount that biter eggs multiply nutrients is a bit absurd in my opinion. But the point stands regardless. Capture bot technology could be expanded to let engineers lobotomize Demolishers, exploiting their natural regeneration abilities as a source of nutrients and perhaps even tungsten. While Aquillo could have an improved nutrient recipe that uses ammonia to turn bioflux to nutrients at an improved ratio. Admitedly I can't think of anything for Fulgora. But given that it's a dead planet, that would be rather fitting.

[angramania]

Not bad arguments but with major flaw:

But otherwise they are by far the most overrated building in the game. I will die on this hill, come home from the skeleton war, and then die on it again.
But unless you're ... dove in too deep on the Biolabs hype. Why would you ever go to Gleba first or even second?

Emotions and personal opinion instead of reasoning. Other players can have different opinion about biolab's worthiness. Considering that biolab is a main reward from Gleba, removal of this keystone argument make everything fall apart like a house of cards.

[fencingsquirrel]

Personally, I feel like the biochamber being improved would be the best balance for gleba. Why add new things when existing buildings are already lackluster. The biolab is great long term, but brings very little short term, so I think it's fine.

And the easiest way to improve the biochamber is just adding more recipes. While it has a lot already, most of those are gleba-specific. Adding an entire intrasolar nutrient logistics system only to do oil cracking and rocket fuel feels not worth it.

I feel it should completely replace the chemical plant, the way the foundry almost completely replaces the electric furnace. It would take almost no work and add a lot of use to it. The fact that it can't even do coal synthesis is just sad. I do get the theme that it's bio-related, but keep in mind the foundry was lava related, and yet we can use it off planet anyways.

[Theukon-Dos]

Not bad arguments but with major flaw:

But otherwise they are by far the most overrated building in the game. I will die on this hill, come home from the skeleton war, and then die on it again.
But unless you're ... dove in too deep on the Biolabs hype. Why would you ever go to Gleba first or even second?

Emotions and personal opinion instead of reasoning. Other players can have different opinion about biolab's worthiness. Considering that biolab is a main reward from Gleba, removal of this keystone argument make everything fall apart like a house of cards.

I mostly meant that part as a joke, and obviously the exact value of anything will always be upto personal preference. But even then, I did give my actual reasons for thinking this way. Biolabs are certainly fantastic, But in terms of resources spent per science pack crafted, the foundry and EMPlants taking effect at the start of the chain and being able to compound with themselves and each other result in a far greater boost to production than the biolabs save with their halved pack drain.

If someone thinks that the biolabs simplicity is enough of a boon compared to everything else the other planets offer that they alone justify going to Gleba first, then more power too them. But the numbers just aren't in the Biolab's favor.

[angramania]

But the numbers just aren't in the Biolab's favor.

Ok. Let's talk about numbers. As you said, we are interested in immediate effect of machinery without visiting other planets
I assume that first visit is done on stage when there are no heavy use of modules and beacons. So only P1 modules are used and only in most effective positions - yellow and purple science and blue circuits. And we will look only on the most resource hungry sciences - yellow and purple.
60 SPM yellow+purple requires 3537.4 coper ore and 4759.6 iron ore per minute

If player starts with Gleba he will get biolab, which effectively doubles science production and require rebuild of only labs, everything else can be left as is. Effect is instant and impressive

If player starts with Fulgora he will get EMP which can replace AM3 for this items: green, red, blue circuits, P1 modules and copper cable. That's all. And he have to rebuild all production lines for these items and also build new lines for other items to match increased production. And what is effect? Copper ore is reduced to 1814.5 which allows almost double production. But iron ore is reduced to 3724.3 or only by 22%. So we have massive rebuild with much less effect.

If player starts with Vulcanus he will get Foundry and BMD. Much more machines and lines can be replaced. Effect is tremendous: copper ore reduced to 929.7 or by 74%, iron to 1290.8 or by 73%. So production can be multiplied 4 times. And if we add reduced resource depletion(which is not the same as increase of production) from BMD it may be counted as outposts depletion reduced 8 times for iron and copper. It has bare noticeable effect on oil, stone and coal parts of production but they are usually less significant. Now to drawbacks. Player will have to rebuild majority of factory and logistic to get full benefits.

So Fulgora sucks compared to both Gleba and Vulcanus. Gleba gives almost immediate effect but limited to science and two times. Vulcanus gives more effect but with much higher cost. Time spent on such rebuild could be instead spent on finishing two other planets.

[CyberCider]

I feel it should completely replace the chemical plant, the way the foundry almost completely replaces the electric furnace. It would take almost no work and add a lot of use to it. The fact that it can't even do coal synthesis is just sad. I do get the theme that it's bio-related, but keep in mind the foundry was lava related, and yet we can use it off planet anyways.

Then what would the cryogenic plant do? The cryogenic plant has always been presented as the chemical plant equivalent of a foundry or EMP, and as the building that is commonly used together with them.

The biochamber was never meant to be particularly useful on other planets. Its main reason to exist was to create the mechanic of nutrient powered buildings on Gleba. For the longest time during development it had no built in productivity, two module slots, and presumably a more standard crafting speed. It was more like a centrifuge than an EMP. And even now in its current state (which it was hastily changed into mere days before release), it still feels like that. The biolab is Gleba's "cool powerful building", the biochamber is not. The biochamber should not be compared with the foundry and EMP, because it's simply not the same class of building.

The biolab is great long term, but brings very little short term, so I think it's fine

I see it as the opposite. It gives you the most value immediately, but becomes less and less important as time goes on. It's the building that will be most helpful to a player focused on completing the game, so they can have all the technologies at their disposal as fast as possible. You need half as much science to go forward, so you only need to to build half as much of literally everything. That's a pretty big deal. Not to mention it requires only minimal rebuilding of your base, all of its complexity is instead offloaded onto the process of producing it. It's also completely independent in every way. In contrast, the foundry and EMP require you to rebuild parts of your base when you get one of them, and then again when you have both of them. Either that, or you wait to unlock them both before rebuilding at all, delaying their effects.

I think it's comfortably settled in its niche, and a well balanced counterpart to its "neighbors".

[fencingsquirrel]

The main reason I feel the biolab is long term is that typically while you're completing the game you tend to get all the technologies you need while you're building up the other planets. That is, unless you're speedrunning with premade blueprints anyways. I felt this way even on marathon research times, so it'd be quadruply true on default.

[Theukon-Dos]

I feel it should completely replace the chemical plant, the way the foundry almost completely replaces the electric furnace. It would take almost no work and add a lot of use to it. The fact that it can't even do coal synthesis is just sad. I do get the theme that it's bio-related, but keep in mind the foundry was lava related, and yet we can use it off planet anyways.

Then what would the cryogenic plant do? The cryogenic plant has always been presented as the chemical plant equivalent of a foundry or EMP, and as the building that is commonly used together with them.

The biochamber was never meant to be particularly useful on other planets. Its main reason to exist was to create the mechanic of nutrient powered buildings on Gleba. For the longest time during development it had no built in productivity, two module slots, and presumably a more standard crafting speed. It was more like a centrifuge than an EMP. And even now in its current state (which it was hastily changed into mere days before release), it still feels like that. The biolab is Gleba's "cool powerful building", the biochamber is not. The biochamber should not be compared with the foundry and EMP, because it's simply not the same class of building.

I don't think it's weird to compare the Biochamber to the Foundry and EMPlant. Mostly because they all fill the exact same role in the planet's progression.
All of the planets introduced in Space Age follow the exact same early progression tree with the trigger technologies. Find the planet's basic resources, unlock and craft the planet's signature crafting station, make the more advanced resources that teach you how to use the machine, and then unlock the science.

Don't get me wrong, I know that Gleba went through a ton of reworks in dev and the Biochamber along side it. But even with that context, it's baffling to think that the Biochamber shouldn't be getting the same treatment as the other two when it's so explicitly Gleba's equivelant of those machine.

As for how to buff it when the Cryochamber also exists, there are a solid handful of recipes that neither the Biochamber or the cryoplant got access too and would be easy enough to give the Biochamber. Lubricant from heavy oil, holmium solution, solid fuel, and coal synthesis to name a few. I also think that ice melting in particular would be extremely fitting for the Biochamber from a mechanical perspective, for the sole reason that it would make the chamber extremely useful for bootstrapping power generation on Aquilo. Honestly, the concept of "Bypassing the extremely awful solar power on aquilo by using the one machine introduced in Space Age that doesn't use power to melt ice" is such a simple and intuitive concept that I was genuinly dumbfounded when I realized the Biochamber can't melt ice already.

I could also see the Biochamber getting the petro-based plastic and sulphur recipes from the cryoplant, but in exchange the cryoplant gets access to the oil refinery's recipes. they're already the same size, and the refinery didn't get any direct upgrades in Space Age. So it would be a good way for the two to co-exist in your factories.

Also I recognize that this is really stretching the idea of what a lobotomized pentapod in a jar would be able to do, but I'd also love to see the Biochamber be able to craft all the inserters. The Foundry is already able to make all the belt items, which is honestly just as questionable. And the stack inserter is unlocked on Gleba, so it makes sense progression wise.

The biolab is great long term, but brings very little short term, so I think it's fine

I see it as the opposite. It gives you the most value immediately, but becomes less and less important as time goes on. It's the building that will be most helpful to a player focused on completing the game, so they can have all the technologies at their disposal as fast as possible. You need half as much science to go forward, so you only need to to build half as much of literally everything. That's a pretty big deal. Not to mention it requires only minimal rebuilding of your base, all of its complexity is instead offloaded onto the process of producing it. It's also completely independent in every way. In contrast, the foundry and EMP require you to rebuild parts of your base when you get one of them, and then again when you have both of them. Either that, or you wait to unlock them both before rebuilding at all, delaying their effects.

I think it's comfortably settled in its niche, and a well balanced counterpart to its "neighbors".

Maybe It's just becuase I like taking my time. But I've never really found SPM to be an issue. The simplicity of biolabs is a boon that I acknoweldeged, particularly for speedrunners. But at the same time, Foundries and EMPlants aren't THAT hard to retrofit either. EMplants are 1-1 with assemblers, barring their slightly larger size. So all they take is moving a few belts and inserters around. And Foundries take Calcite to melt their ores, but that's only one extra (and non-perishable) item to add, and they're really efficient with it. The slightly larger footprint of both machines is also compensated for by the fact that they're just so much stronger than what they replace. Two foundries casting steel + one foundry to melt the iron can do the work of roughly 30 electric furnaces smelting steel and the 150 furnaces needed to smelt all the iron needed for said steel. While at the same time also consuming just over a quarter of the iron ore.

There's also the fact that Foundries and EMPlants bolster production for more than just science. If 90% of your factory's resources are going into science, then biolabs cutting the pack drain in half is only freeing up 45% of them. Foundries and EMPlants can also make non-resource items, such as belts and pipes in foundries. Or Power Poles, Beacons, and Modules in EMPlants. That last one is especially good, becuase the compounding productivity bonus from the EMPlant reduces the circuit cost of T3 modules by about 60-70%.

Biolabs are better late-game because the halved pack drain and extra module slots are way more impactful with infinite researches. Legendary production modules multiply the effectiveness of science packs by 4x. And you're definitly going to feel that when it means that a 200k research tier only takes 50k science packs to complete.

[angramania]

Foundries and EMPlants aren't THAT hard to retrofit either.

Are you kidding? 90% rebuild is not THAT hard? If you really want to get full benefits from Vulcanus you have to rebuild almost everything, including logistic. Or you can rebuild only smelters and lose great part of benefits.

[Theukon-Dos]

Foundries and EMPlants aren't THAT hard to retrofit either.

Are you kidding? 90% rebuild is not THAT hard? If you really want to get full benefits from Vulcanus you have to rebuild almost everything, including logistic. Or you can rebuild only smelters and lose great part of benefits.

If you want to retrofit foundries everywhere that they can fit. Then yeah, that's going to take a bit more effort. I do agree that Biolabs are easier for a reason after all. But saying you "loose a great part of the benefits" if you only rebuild the smelting array feels like a bit of an oversimplification. True, yes. But also ignoring the fact that replacing just the furnaces is still multiplying your production a dozen times over and then some. As I said earlier, three unboosted foundries can produce as much steel as 180 furnaces. And while not as extreme, the same applies to the other standard plates. One foundry casting iron or copper plates is able to smelt as much metal as 6 electric furnaces while also using half the total ore. That is still a massive boost with comparatively little effort. And even if you don't want to retrofit everything, you can still replace just the high-demand assemblers to make the most out of them. Such as copper wire for circuits or LDS in general.

[Khagan]

Two foundries casting steel + one foundry to melt the iron can do the work of roughly 30 electric furnaces smelting steel and the 150 furnaces needed to smelt all the iron needed for said steel. While at the same time also consuming just over a quarter of the iron ore.

Make that 30 furnaces smelting steel and 30 smelting iron. (But the point doesn't change.)

[Theukon-Dos]

Two foundries casting steel + one foundry to melt the iron can do the work of roughly 30 electric furnaces smelting steel and the 150 furnaces needed to smelt all the iron needed for said steel. While at the same time also consuming just over a quarter of the iron ore.

Make that 30 furnaces smelting steel and 30 smelting iron. (But the point doesn't change.)

Right, that makes more sense. Why do I keep thinking the iron/steel ratio is 5-1?

But as you said, the point doesn't change. That's still 20x the production per machine.

[Muche]

Right, that makes more sense. Why do I keep thinking the iron/steel ratio is 5-1?

The ratio is 5:1 in terms of material and 1:5 in terms of time, which combines to 1:1 in terms of furnaces.

[angramania]

But also ignoring the fact that replacing just the furnaces is still multiplying your production a dozen times over and then some.

Nope, not dozens. 3537.4 coper ore and 4759.6 iron ore become 1572.2 and 1540.7. So only 2 times for copper and 3 times for iron. And zero changes for oil and stone. So it can be considered equal to biolabs in terms of saving but not in terms of production. You still need to rebuild smelters and double/triple logistic and many production lines to get the same effect. In this case Gleba is clearly superior to Vulcanus.

Or we may look at this from other side. Let's double science pack production for factory with foundries to be on par with biolab factory and see how this will change required machinery:
314 electric furnaces -> 11 electric furnaces + 78 foundries
EMD: 314 -> 281
AM3: 98 -> 184
Chemical plant: 22 -> 39
Oil refinery: 8 -> 16
Pumpjacks: 16 -> 32
And also double logistic and power. All of this opposed to just replacing labs with biolabs.

[Theukon-Dos]

But also ignoring the fact that replacing just the furnaces is still multiplying your production a dozen times over and then some.

Nope, not dozens. 3537.4 coper ore and 4759.6 iron ore become 1572.2 and 1540.7. So only 2 times for copper and 3 times for iron. And zero changes for oil and stone. So it can be considered equal to biolabs in terms of saving but not in terms of production. You still need to rebuild smelters and double/triple logistic and many production lines to get the same effect. In this case Gleba is clearly superior to Vulcanus.

Or we may look at this from other side. Let's double science pack production for factory with foundries to be on par with biolab factory and see how this will change required machinery:
314 electric furnaces -> 11 electric furnaces + 78 foundries
EMD: 314 -> 281
AM3: 98 -> 184
Chemical plant: 22 -> 39
Oil refinery: 8 -> 16
Pumpjacks: 16 -> 32
And also double logistic and power. All of this opposed to just replacing labs with biolabs.

When I said production, I was referring to how much faster the foundries are than furnaces, not strict ore saving. Though I do admit it was a bad choice of words.

Other than that though, I don't think there's anything I can say that I haven't already in regards to foundries vs Biolabs. IE how foundries boost all your production instead of just science.

But here's the thing: Even if I overestimated foundries and EMPlants, I don't think it matters for the sake of my argument. This post wasn't about Biolabs being underpowered, because they're absolutely not. They are utterly fantastic buildings. When I call them overrated, that's still me ranking them a solid 10/10 addition to any factory. I just happen to think that Foundries and EMPlants are a 12/10 addition, while most people seem to put them at a 20/10.


This post is about the three planet's technologies as a whole bundle. So Biolabs aren't just competing against Foundries and EMPlants. They're competing against Foundries, Big drills, Artillery, Cliff Explosives, Coal Liquifaction, turbo belts, T3 speed modules, EMPlants, Recyclers, Mech armor, multiple personal equipment upgrades, Tesla turrets, and T3 quality modules.

Gleba does have good technologies itself. But I already explained why I think most of them don't hold up in the context of picking which planet to complete next. If Biolabs, Stack inserters, and Spidertrons are good enough for you to justify going to Gleba first, then honestly fair enough. I don't think there's anything I can say to convince you otherwise. But even then, that's only three immedietly useful technologies compared to the half-dozen plus techs the other two planets have.

[Nemoricus]

For my next playthrough I plan to do Vulcanus, Gleba, Fulgora. Vulcanus and Gleba have things I want to get, while Fulgora only really offers me the processing unit productivity tech and the electromagnetic plant. Nothing else there is really useful or interesting to me.

[angramania]

This post is about the three planet's technologies as a whole bundle. So Biolabs aren't just competing against Foundries and EMPlants. They're competing against Foundries, Big drills, Artillery, Cliff Explosives, Coal Liquifaction, turbo belts, T3 speed modules, EMPlants, Recyclers, Mech armor, multiple personal equipment upgrades, Tesla turrets, and T3 quality modules.

Gleba does have good technologies itself. But I already explained why I think most of them don't hold up in the context of picking which planet to complete next. If Biolabs, Stack inserters, and Spidertrons are good enough for you to justify going to Gleba first, then honestly fair enough. I don't think there's anything I can say to convince you otherwise. But even then, that's only three immedietly useful technologies compared to the half-dozen plus techs the other two planets have.

Ok, lets do to in bundles.
Vulcanus: Production( Foundry, BMD, T3 speed, Coal Liquefaction), Logistic(Turbo belts, Cliff Explosive), Combat(Artillery)
Fulgora: Production ( EMP, Recycler, T3 quality), Combat( Tesla, Mech armor, Battery MK4, Shield MK3, Roboport MK2)
Gleba: Production (Biolab, T3 Production, Epic quality, Heating tower, T3 Efficiency, Biochamber), Logistic (Advanced asteroid processing, Stack inserter), Combat( Spidertron. Rocket turret)

Looks like Gleba is on par with Vulcanus or even better(in short term) in productivity, superior to both in logistic and inferior to Fulgora in Combat. Amusing thing is that combat is useless on Fulgora and most needed on Gleba, if needed at all.
Once again, Fulgora is outsider and choice between Gleba and Vulcanus is matter of personal style/preferences.

[Theukon-Dos]

This post is about the three planet's technologies as a whole bundle. So Biolabs aren't just competing against Foundries and EMPlants. They're competing against Foundries, Big drills, Artillery, Cliff Explosives, Coal Liquifaction, turbo belts, T3 speed modules, EMPlants, Recyclers, Mech armor, multiple personal equipment upgrades, Tesla turrets, and T3 quality modules.

Gleba does have good technologies itself. But I already explained why I think most of them don't hold up in the context of picking which planet to complete next. If Biolabs, Stack inserters, and Spidertrons are good enough for you to justify going to Gleba first, then honestly fair enough. I don't think there's anything I can say to convince you otherwise. But even then, that's only three immedietly useful technologies compared to the half-dozen plus techs the other two planets have.

Ok, lets do to in bundles.
Vulcanus: Production( Foundry, BMD, T3 speed, Coal Liquefaction), Logistic(Turbo belts, Cliff Explosive), Combat(Artillery)
Fulgora: Production ( EMP, Recycler, T3 quality), Combat( Tesla, Mech armor, Battery MK4, Shield MK3, Roboport MK2)
Gleba: Production (Biolab, T3 Production, Epic quality, Heating tower, T3 Efficiency, Biochamber), Logistic (Advanced asteroid processing, Stack inserter), Combat( Spidertron. Rocket turret)

Looks like Gleba is on par with Vulcanus or even better(in short term) in productivity, superior to both in logistic and inferior to Fulgora in Combat. Amusing thing is that combat is useless on Fulgora and most needed on Gleba, if needed at all.
Once again, Fulgora is outsider and choice between Gleba and Vulcanus is matter of personal style/preferences.

See, now you're just outright ignoring what I said.

Yes, Gleba has technologies to unlock. I never denied this. My arguments are about how the technologies that you get there are either focused on the late game or something else does the same job. Simply listing out everything that can be unlocked ignores the context of when those unlocks become useful

I won't repeat what I said in my original post, sense I hope I got the point across well enough in it. But I really just think that 80% of the unlocks you listed for Gleba either aren't useful until you've also finished the other two planets anyways or are explicitly less useful than what the other planets provide.

Side note, you never listed Astroid Reprocessing for Vulcanus despite listing AAP for Gleba. And while I didn't consider the infinite technologies each planet provides sense I think they're all roughly equal, I should atleast point out that Fulgora gates the infinite worker bot speed research, which is the only infinite logistics research on any planet.

[angramania]

See, now you're just outright ignoring what I said.

Yes, Gleba has technologies to unlock. I never denied this. My arguments are about how the technologies that you get there are either focused on the late game or something else does the same job. Simply listing out everything that can be unlocked ignores the context of when those unlocks become useful

Exactly opposite. I have listed technologies in context of this topic - usefulness before Aquilo. Even more, in each group their are listed in order of immediate usefulness. If you want I can add rating in this context to each technology.

But I really just think that 80% of the unlocks you listed for Gleba either aren't useful until you've also finished the other two planets anyways or are explicitly less useful than what the other planets provide.

Really? What use for Artillery on Fulgora? What use for Coal Liquefaction anywhere except Vulcanus? What use of Cliff Explosive to anyone playing without cliffs? What use for combat techs for anyone playing in peaceful mode? Actually all combat techs with exception of Gleba's rocket turrets are really needed only for death world settings, Nauvis technologies are more than enough for default settings. But you have listed all this trash as superior technologies to show that Gleba is inferior. And "forgot" about T3 production, AAP, Epic Quality, Heating tower.

you never listed Astroid Reprocessing for Vulcanus despite listing AAP for Gleba.

Yes, because of context of this topic. AAP is very useful technology just after grabbing it, not so good as biolab but better than turbo belts or stack inserters in short and on par in long terms. But asteroid reprocessing has no use before Aquilo and is really useful only in very late game.

[Tertius]

I chose Vulcanus, Gleba, Fulgora after inspection of the tech tree. Vulcanus adds essential tools: cliff explosives, artillery, foundry, turbo belts, speed module 3. Gleba adds valuable improvements: spidertron, biolab, productivity module 3, asteroid processing, infinite resources to produce chips, beacons and modules, which has synergy with the foundry. On Vulcanus it's not infinite because you deplete coal for plastic, while for Gleba you deplete only calcite, which is available de facto infinitely even in the earlier game stages.

After Vulcanus and Gleba and revisiting Nauvis for biter eggs, the game is almost complete. You can do almost everything with the tech available from there. On a high level. Not the highest level, but already high. After you unlocked all of Vulcanus and Gleba and inspect the tech tree, you will see there's not much left. What's still left for Fulgora and Aquilo is just an improvement over what you can already do, but nothing really new. The EMP is nice, but not as nice as the foundry. The better combat is nice, but nothing that enables you to do things you weren't able to do before. They're nice, but you don't need Tesla guns to defend Gleba - you just need a little bit of infinite research to boost your rocket, physical and laser damage. And a good supply of repair packs and a resilient supply of replacement machines, in case a stomper stomps over it. This gives you time until you finally unlock them on Fulgora.

It's a pity the biochamber hasn't much use outside of Gleba, but this is a hint to build an interplanetary supply chain and start producing things on the planet where its production cost and logistic cost is minimal. Then transport it to the planet you need them. Transporting the final product has usually less cost then transporting ingredients.

So if it comes to Gleba, I would say it's balanced in terms of cost in general. Small tweaks aside, in general it's ok. Although it's kind of difficult and time consuming for the player to master a factory on Gleba. And if you don't master it, your supply chain fails once in a while, which could bring your whole game down. Gleba isn't just a small addition you unlock fast then proceed to the next planet. Actually, it's a major new part of the game where you spend much time, just as you do on Nauvis before you're able to go into space.

My Gleba factory is full of circuit-controlled machinery to automate and keep everything running autonomously - that's the only criticism I have. People without a mental connection to circuits might face a far bigger challenge than someone who has.