How these terraforming stats actually progress
In The Planet Crafter, Oxygen, Heat, and Pressure are your three core early terraforming lanes. Your machines run continuously, and their output is tracked as rates (like Oxygen/s, Heat/s, and Pressure/s). Those rates feed into your Terraformation Index (TI), which is your overall terraforming progress score.
Here is the part that trips up a lot of players: blueprint progression is split. Some unlocks come from total TI, but many unlock from specific Oxygen, Heat, Pressure milestones, and later Biomass milestones. So if one lane is lagging, it can feel like progress stalled even while TI is still climbing. That is normal.
What to prioritize so progress feels smooth
Early on, think in lanes: drills mostly push Pressure, heaters push Heat, and plant-focused devices push Oxygen. Keep all three moving, then spend your next upgrade on whichever lane has the weakest output.
In practice, go power first, then machine tiers: add enough power headroom, replace older machines with newer tiers, and check the blueprint screen to see whether your next target is TI-based or stat-specific. Also, some later machines help more than one stat (for example, Drill T2 and higher add both Heat and Pressure), which can rescue two bottlenecks at once.
If you feel stuck, use this quick reset loop: Add one new power source, upgrade your weakest stat with your best available machine, then check blueprint thresholds again. That usually gets momentum back fast.