Below is the artwork for Arid planets. If you compare this to the earlier Desert and Barren planets, you can see a clear progression in habitability. Part of this is reflected in the landscape, and another part in the way the atmosphere is drawn.
The Arid planet has a fuller, more Earth-like atmosphere while the Barren planet is almost airless. The Desert planet is in between.
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Arid planets are, essentially “typical Firefly episode planets”
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someone on twitter compared it to the setting for a John Wayne movie. It think both of those are fair comparisons!
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Gorgeous pictures. Your instinct about the habitability of the planet types with similar-seeming names is also in keeping with MoO’s original design. In the original game, the progression of planet quality was:
Terran > Jungle > Ocean > Arid > Steppe > Desert > Minimal > Barren > Tundra > Dead > Inferno > Toxic > Radiated.
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I think the only difference in that order is I mentally put Steppe > Arid since, to me, Arid and Desert are synonymous. However Arid planets start at size 55-70 while Steppe are 45-60 and Desert are 35-55.
Go figure!
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