DocCool wrote:
Gaia projects require an immense amount of energy at once (hence the need for several batteries in the Gaia bowl - the number of batteries depend on how advanced your Gaia technology is), but these batteries don't need to be pre-loaded as the Gaiaforming process takes long enough so that the Gaiaformer can charge the batteries before using the energy. Once the Gaiaformer has done it's thing, the batteries (now of course empty) return to your supply. Terrans somehow found a way which makes their batteries return half-loaded (and don't even get me started about what their PI does with those returned batteries ;)).
The transdimensional planet might be like a kind of planet made of super hight pure energy which are in between two differnt dimensions/universes. The Gaia project is a hyper technological process that transform the energy in mass, creating a gaia planet, so the batteries are required to temporarily store the energy while the gaiaformer carries on the process. The more you upgrade your tech, the more your gaiaformer are efficient thus you need less storage/power tokens. As you said, it is a very long process, so your batteries won't be available for a while/till the next round. Terrans have particular gaiaformer which are able to save part of the energy from the transdim planet.