Facilities can now be placed underwater so the effective space has increased.

I know it's a stretch. I'm trying here.

+1

NO, IT HAS TO MAKE SENSE!!!!!!!!!!

sheesh......

if games are supposed to make sense, explain to me how a boy can throw a licorice flavored jellybean at his pet blob and the blob turns into a ladder that he can actually climb without hurting

Then explain the Reaper's motives in Mass Effect...,
DIDN'T THINK SO!

I've never touched anything mass effect....sorry

the icy worlds obviously arent ice all the way through to the core...there is some rock under all that frozen water.
when rock is heated it will form gaseous bubbles that expand then 'set' on contact with the water.
its these bubbles that increase the size, though the mass stays the same.
obvious innit? sheeeeeeeeeeeeesh

Ok, I was going to reply with an 'explain this thing in Halo' but I honestly think they have explained everything.

I've know halo! lol
and I understand I was just poking fun haha

You guys are missing a simply and obvious fact, this is in a galaxy far far away.

don't forget it was along time ago...

+1 lol

I was thinking this before, water is more dense than ice and therefore takes up less space, maybe due to the cracks and faults in the ice it made it impossible to build on some places of the icy world, and melting it would make it all smooth, and therefore increasing the amount of surface area you can build on

I accept this as a logical answer.

Which makes sense because a gas planet is ginormous, However I imagine it being cost-prohibitive.

Lets pretend size isn't so much the physical size, but the useful space.

PS bismuth is similar to ice.

It's a fluke of crystal structure. H2O(l) packs nice and neatly on top of each other. If H2O(s) did that, you would be correct. Most materials are actually this way. However H2O(s) has a hexagonal crystal structure. Ever wonder why snowflakes have six sides? Hexagonal packing is a significantly less efficient packing arrangement.

Heres a thought, WHO CARES? The Logic may be wrong but we want to melt icy planets and make them bigger. You guys figure the logic out, problem is YOU CANT. It doesnt have logic. Its a game, a pixilated planet in a pixilated game.

Uh, this guy cares.

Clearly.

Fake science makes scifi fun.

Well I want my Sci-fi Games to either make sense or say some really complicated things so I am like, "Well that seems to be smart so it must make sense!"

You sir, just won the internet.

heres a solution no one thought off the mass surface melters are magic

problem solved someone please lock this thread