Unity pods

Unity pods were seeded on the surface of Chiron by the disintegrating UNS Unity. Depending on map settings, they are either scattered all over the map or only near original landing zones. Unity pods are almost invariably beneficial to your faction and sending out a couple of scout units to track them down can give you a powerful edge over other factions.

Note that Artifacts which are used to explore pods have a 50% chance of vanishing without a trace.

Background
The Unity carried dozens of supply pods: relatively small containers, each. containing a vehicle or piece of equipment, designed to land independently on Planet's surface. The original settlement plan called for the pods to be launched only after a careful orbital survey. This would have allowed their placement in strategic locations, near the chosen site for the initial settlement.

Unfortunately, the Unity disaster scattered them at random across the face of Planet. Supply pods were designed for soft landings, and could even float if they landed in water. They varied considerably in size. The smallest were about 200 cubic feet in volume, and contained computers or automated manufacturing equipment. The largest were about 10,000 cubic feet in size, and were designed to land in the shallow water just offshore, carrying Unity Foil craft to the surface. Some pods carried robotic explorers, which would emerge after landing to survey the region or even to begin farming or mining operations.

As the colonists explored Planet in the early decades, they were always on the lookout for supply pods. Unfortunately, the pods often "irritated" the native life forms around their landing sites. Many an explorer discovered too late that the vicinity of a pod was infested with angry mind worms. In some cases, disturbing a pod triggered an outbreak of wild expansion on the part of nearby xenofungus (see main text).

Pod effects

 * Agricultural Pod: Lots of free farms or forests in the area.
 * Alien Artifact: Gives you a free artifact to bring back to a base with a Network Node.
 * Cartographic/Sonar Pod. Shows all land/sea tiles within 5 squares.
 * Data Pod. Free technological advance, restricted to levels 1 and 2.
 * Dimensional Gate/Tidal Wave. “Teleports” unit elsewhere in same continent/sea.
 * New Resource. In normal, non-fungus, non-sea squares this event is as likely as all of the other events combined (i.e. about 50% of pods will be resources), but a “discover resource” pod has a 50% chance of producing one of the other results as well.
 * Earthquake (only if pod is on land). New mountain created here.
 * Fungal Bloom.
 * Hydrology Pod. Creates new river.
 * Materials Pod. Completes production of random item at nearest base.
 * Mind Worms (Isle of the Deep if at sea). This pod is six times more likely than any other pod (except Discover Resource). There is a 1 in 6 chance of a “big mind worms” event (lots of worms all around), otherwise only one worm is discovered. (There is never more than one Isle of the Deep discovered.) This event is ignored when adjacent to a base. If this isn’t the “big mind worms” version, then the event is more likely to be ignored the nearer you are to a friendly base.
 * Mining Pod. Lots of free mines in the area.
 * Monolith.
 * Power Pod. Lots of free solar power in the area.
 * Resupply Pod. 25-200 energy credits (bigger totals more likely at sea and later in game).
 * Sea Farming Pod. Lots of free kelp in the area.
 * Supply Pod. Normally you get a Unity Rover. You may sometimes get a Unity Foil, particularly if your continent is small. If Synthetic Fossil Fuels have been discovered, you have a 1 in 3 chance of finding a Unity Scout Chopper.