Buildings in BioEden fall into four jobs: keep the lights on, keep the water moving, keep the animals alive, and process materials. This page is the master list. Where a cost or effect appears in an official screenshot we quote it exactly; where it does not, we say so rather than inventing a number.
| Building | Category | What it does | Confirmed figures |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solar Pylon | Power & water | Generates electricity for everything on its network | Not published |
| Water Distributor | Power & water | Supplies water to buildings and climate devices via pipes | Not published |
| Cables & Pipes | Power & water | Two separate networks. A building can be powered and still have no water. | Limited placement range |
| Incubator | Animal care | Turns banked DNA into a living animal inside a dome | Not published |
| Carnivore Feeder | Animal care | Feeds meat-eating species so they do not hunt your herbivores | Not published |
| Watering Hole | Animal care | Water access for residents; contributes to decoration | Not published |
| Humidifier | Climate control | Raises dome humidity into a species' band | Consumes water |
| Air Conditioner | Climate control | Lowers dome temperature into a species' band | Consumes power |
| Orb Factory | Industry | “Responsible for Orb manufacturing.” A major pollution source. | Build cost 1500 + 1000; consumes 50 power; +35 pollution effect |
| Radar | Survey | Reveals map information and survey data around it | Not published |
The two buildings that cause the most confusion
Carnivore Feeder
More BioEden players search for the Carnivore Feeder than for any other building, and the reason is simple: it is not where people expect it in the build menu, and there is a second failure mode where it is placed correctly and still does nothing. Both problems have their own page — where to find the Carnivore Feeder and feeder not registering.
Orb Factory
The Orb Factory is the clearest example of BioEden's central tension. Official screenshots show it costing 1500 of one material and 1000 of another, consuming 50 power, and carrying a +35 pollution effect. One Collective Request in official material asks you to build four of them. Four Orb Factories is a large, deliberate pollution commitment, and if you accept that request without a plan to offset it you will watch your Impact Level climb and your regional pollution follow. It is not a trap exactly — it is the game asking whether you understood the trade.
How building costs work
Every BioEden building costs materials, and most also draw continuously on power, water, or both. The recycle button refunds materials, which changes how you should play: there is no reason to agonise over placement. Put the solar pylon down, look at the network, tear it out and move it. The only real cost of a mistake is time.
What recycling does *not* refund is pollution already emitted, and it does not instantly undo an Impact Level rise. Industry buildings should therefore be treated differently from infrastructure. Move a pylon freely; think twice before you commit to a fourth Orb Factory.
Reading a building tooltip
BioEden's building tooltips are dense and worth learning to parse. Using the Orb Factory tooltip from official material as the example:
- Description — what it produces, in plain language.
- Effects — icon-value pairs. The skull icon is pollution. A +35 here is the number that matters.
- Consuming — ongoing drain. The Orb Factory's −50 is power, and it must be on a network that can
spare it.
- Material required — the one-off build cost, shown as two material types.
If you only read one line, read Effects. A building's ongoing pollution contribution is what determines whether your planet trends clean or dirty over a hundred Sols, and it is far easier to not build something than to clean up after it.
Placement rules that apply to everything
- Range is real. Cables and pipes have limited placement capacity. Long runs from a single source are the
usual reason a distant building shows as disconnected.
- Two networks, two failure modes. Check power and water separately when something is inert. See
- Survey before you build. Debris sites are finite and building over one wastes it.
- Inside a dome, floor space is the scarce resource. Plants, water features and decoration all compete for it
with the animals that need room to be comfortable.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Orb Factory in BioEden?
An industrial building described in-game as “responsible for Orb manufacturing”. Official screenshots show a build cost of 1500 + 1000 materials, a 50 power draw and a +35 pollution effect, making it the largest single pollution source most players will place.
Can you demolish buildings in BioEden?
Yes. The recycle button removes any building and refunds materials. It does not undo pollution already emitted.
Where is the Carnivore Feeder in the build menu?
It sits under animal care rather than with general food buildings, and it is commonly gated behind having a carnivore in the dome first. See the Carnivore Feeder page.
How this BioEden page was verified
BioEden Wiki & Guide is an independent fan resource, not an official one. The building names, costs and effect values on this page were transcribed from official BioEden in-game tooltips visible in publisher screenshots. Where BioEden has not published a value, this page says so instead of guessing, because a wrong number in a BioEden guide costs a reader a dome rather than merely being untidy. Spot something out of date after a BioEden patch? Send us a correction and we will fix it and log it on the BioEden news page.
Primary sources: BioEden on Steam · Focus Entertainment · Official Steam discussions · official in-game screenshots. Last reviewed .