Nutrients are used to expand the population of bases.
Each population unit requires 2 units of nutrients to be maintained. Any extra enables population growth.
There are various ways to obtain nutrients.
Terrain[]
Rainy areas are found to the west of mountains.
The Monsoon Jungle and the Freshwater Sea squares provide an extra +1 Nutrient.
Xenofungus produce no Nutrients at the start of a game, except for the Gaia's Stepdaughters faction that gets a +1 bonus.
Nutrient production increases by one with the discovery of Centauri Ecology.
Terraforming[]
By terraforming, nutrient production can be increased through farms, soil enrichers, forests, kelp farms, condensers and even by raising mountains.
Condensers increase rainfall on arid and moist squares. A river may increase rainfall.
Base Facilities[]
Certain structures can also increase nutrient production:
- Recycling Tanks, +1 on base square
- Tree Farm, +1 on forest squares
- Hybrid Forest, +1 on forest squares (require the Tree Farm to be built prior)
- Aquafarm, +1 on kelp farm squares
- Sky Hydroponics Lab, +1 Nutrient for each of them built, at each base with an Aerospace Complex, divided by 2 rounded up otherwise.