Terra — Environment Simulation

Lens

Sunlight sublens

Opacity %

Temperature sublens

Opacity %

Water Carbon Mineral Metal Creatures

20° cold 50° 80° hot

Cold at/below°

Middle°

Hot at/above°

Mode

▾Selected pixel

Click a cell on the canvas to inspect and edit it.

▾Target Allocation %

Total: 100%

Water%

Carbon%

Mineral%

Metal%

Creatures%

Void (Unused)%

Paint

Choose an element, then click or drag on the canvas to paint it in. Painting sets the element toward the target amount and shrinks the pixel's other elements to make room.

Brush size

Target amount

Planetary Features

Choose a feature, then click (or drag) on the canvas to place it. Each feature occupies a single pixel — placing one on a pixel replaces whatever was there.

Geyser — slowly wells up water at its pixel over time.
Volcano — slowly builds carbon, mineral, metal, temperature, and atmosphere at its pixel.

▾Feature rates

Geyser water rate

Volcano material rate

Volcano temp rate

Volcano atmosphere rate

▾Terrain generation

▾Erosion

Solid material (carbon, mineral, metal) can probabilistically fall to a lower neighboring pixel each sim-day. The chance of a fall scales with the elevation difference between the two pixels.

Fall chance rate

Default: an elevation difference of 1/10th of a pixel's space (10, at the default space of 100) has roughly a 1-in-2 chance of triggering a fall each sim-day.

▾Atmosphere & Thermal

Maximum sunlight

Atmosphere density

Heat dispersion

Emissivity

Est. equilibrium T ~50°

Thermal Model — Energy Balance

1. Solar Absorption: Q_in = Sunlight / (1 + 0.02 × Atmosphere)

2. Radiative Cooling (T⁴): Q_out = ε × σ × (T/T_ref)⁴ / (1 + g × Atmosphere)

3. Temperature: dT = (Q_in − Q_out) × Δt / C_thermal

4. Heat Diffusion: Flux ∝ Dispersion × Σ(T_neighbor − T_pixel)

Solar energy is attenuated by atmosphere before absorption. Radiative cooling follows the Stefan-Boltzmann law (T⁴), creating strong negative feedback — hot cells radiate far more than cool ones, ensuring natural equilibrium. The greenhouse effect (g × Atmosphere) traps outgoing radiation, raising surface temperature. Thermal inertia (C) depends on composition: water-rich cells change temperature ~5× slower than dry land, producing realistic ocean-continent thermal contrasts. With defaults, global mean temperature stabilizes at ~50° across a full year.

▾Orbital mechanics

Rotation speed (rev/day)

Solar orbit speed (days/yr)

Planet tilt (°)

rotation phase · season

Terra // env-sim v2