Underperforming terraforming ships

[Theodidactus (OP)]

I have a huge fleet of 12 terraformers in orbit around a planet, they are very large and have multiple modules...
but the planet below lists 7.5 modules in orbit, and a very very slow terraforming rate.
how'd that happen?

[MarcAFK]

As I recall orbital habitats, asteroid miners, terraformers, fuel harvesters, and possibly maintenance modules sometimes bug when you send them to join a pre-existing task group stationed at a planet, I think the solution is to send them to the planet first then join the old task group. Another workaround which I know works is to tell the whole group to move away then back again.

[Rich.h]

This happens with lots of things as always comes down to the task forces not being at the actual location. In this case the game does not recognise the task force as being at the colony, make sure the task force has been orders to "move to" the colony (not planet). They should then show up in the colony window as terraformers in orbit.

[Paul M]

This happens often with the "join" command.  If I detach tankers from a jump group to refuel when they rejoin I have to tell the group to "go to the jump point" and then jump, even though the tankers detached from the group at the jump point, the group never moved and so on.

You don't have to send them away after joining, just give the group they joined the command "go to planet x" and all should be well.

[xeryon]

Tell the terraformer task group to 'move to' the planet they are already at (doesn't matter if they even have engines) and run a 5 second turn to 'reset' the database so that it recalculates the terraforming capacity present at the system body.

[Steve Walmsley]

The game needs to know which population is affected by terraformers (as you can have multiple pops from the same Empire on the same planet and each one can set different terraforming instructions).

Any time you need to send a new terraformer to join an existing group, order them to the population around which the group is orbiting, followed by the join command. It doesn't matter if both orders execute in the same sub-pulse.

Also, you can open the ship window and set the population manually (in the top right)