Coronal Mass Ejection

A Coronal Mass Ejection, also known as a CME, is a natural phenomenon that takes place in Space Exploration. The first CME occurs at the start of the game. The second takes place at the 48 hour mark of the game on Nauvis. Each subsequent CME will trigger from 12h to 24h in real time from the previous event, the same applies to any game that recently updated to version that has CMEs and is past the 48h hour mark. After the 48h mark guaranteed CME event on Nauvis, any surface that the player has discovered in the Universe tab can be the target for a CME. The event can cause severe damage to all objects on the surface, player buildings and biter nests. Players can harness this power into a weapon in later research via Energy Beam.

• CME causes large fires, which results in burnt trees, however it does not generate any pollution.
• CMEs last 2 minutes.
• The mechanic works by generating a number of beams randomly, depending on the size of the map generated (pollution also generates map chunks). Surfaces with more generated chunks will generate more beams, however the probability of a player entity being hit is relatively the same.
• The next CME's time until its arrival and location is shown in the Informatron -> Energy Beam tab.
• The event can be stopped with the Umbrella building and providing it with sufficient power during the two minute time frame. If the Umbrella fails, gets destroyed, or is removed, all beams that would have been stopped otherwise will spawn immediately. There is no partial defense against a CME.
• A CME does not always hit player entities and there is a chance the player can survive it unscathed.

This mechanic can be altered in settings via changing its interval or potentially even turning it off.