Island

An **Island** is an area of land tiles on a Planet. They are where Peeps and live and build, and host the majority of the gameplay in *Before We Leave*.

Islands must be separated by at least two ocean tiles, and split the planet into distinct geographical regions. Islands have a biome that affects the type of tiles that are likely to be found there, starting with the basic Grassland Island and gradually introducing more complex mechanics. Most islands also have fertility that limits what can be produced in fields there. Most islands come with a single colour of Research in the form of Ancient Technology piles; automatically generated islands will never have ancient technology of different colours.

## Mechanics

While Peeps can move Resources anywhere by walking within an island, because of the Ocean tiles that surround each one, Peeps need vehicles in order to move between islands. Resources and Peeps can be loaded into cargo ships or airships that are loaded at a Port (or Sky Port) using the Trading mechanics. For example, automatic logistics like Smart Shipping can be used to specify a limit on the amount of resources that are located at any one island.

The population of an island determines the expectations modifier on Peep happiness, with higher population making the peeps harder to satisfy. The menu at the top of the screen will show average peep happiness on an island, as well as the amount of idle workers or work posts that cannot currently be filled (either due to the building's operations being paused, or an insufficient number of peeps present on the island). Schools will increase the number of Peeps on the island up to the total housing limit of an island.

Some buildings such as the Library are unique per island. In other cases, only one building can be made per planet, such as the Space Port, making it a bit of a strategic choice which island hosts that building. For example, placing a Spaceport on a particular island might make it more accessible to Spaceships and make it simpler to export those resources to another planet. Meanwhile, other buildings like the Aegis have to be built at every island on the planet to provide effective coverage.

## Creatures

Islands can also contain one of several roaming creatures, like animals which have sound effects as their description or "backstory". Some animals include:

* Scorpions appears on most Desert islands. Scorpions provide slightly negative happiness. Their description is "Clackity clack!"
* Dogs and Squirrels can appear on Grass islands. Dogs provide slight positive happiness (one + and listed as an "Animal Boost" within the "Selected Object Panel"), and occasionally Peeps will stop to pet the dog.
* Islands with the appropriate Milk or Wool fertilities will have roaming Cows and Sheep. The roaming ones don't affect nor limit the animals in the farm buildings.
* There will be exactly 1 Frog per save.
* Certain Guardians will roam around too. These usually have sound effects for names.

## Weather

Weather consists of three components: temperature, humidity, and wind. The values for each can be positive and negative. These can affect the output of a different buildings on an island. Note that some may be improved while others are reduced, and vice versa.

Weather is also subject to change by random weather systems, like a storm or gust of wind that will affect several tiles in a circular area. It appears that if enough tiles are covered by the weather system (some threshold), then the whole island will get affected with changes to the weather variables.

 Humidity
 Wind

1. ↑ Developer conversation - Before We Leave Discord. 22 July 2022.