The Planetary Transit System

"As distances vanish and the people can flow freely from place to place, society will cross a psychological specific heat boundary and enter a new state. No longer a solid or liquid, we have become as a vapor and will expand to fill all available space. And like a gas, we shall not be easily contained."

- Sister Miriam Godwinson, "But for the Grace of God"

The Planetary Transit System is a secret project in Alpha Centauri.

Effect
Any new bases you found begin at population level 3On completion of building, any base with 1 or 2 population immediately grows to 3 populationOne less drone at all bases of population level 3 and under

Strategy
This is the most important early Secret Project, easily doubling the power of your faction. The proper use is to make a lot of tiny 1-population bases while building this Secret Project. This greatly increases the number of tiles your faction can work, greatly increasing the food, minerals, and energy you can acquire and convert to useful things.

Beeline for Industrial Automation to enable this Secret Project. Then start building it, anywhere, even if you have barely 4 population points in your entire colony, and assign any minerals you can spare into building supply crawlers to speed up The Planetary Transit System. Then expand out as widely as you can, with only one or two tiles between bases, and roads between them (to speed up the movement of additional colony pods). This will yield a sudden massive boost in your population, which translates to more tiles being worked, which translates to more food, minerals, and energy available to your faction. You can then capitalize on this early advantage to snowball into an unassailable lead.