[Fyron]

I have a suggestion for how stellar manipulation could work for creating system types. Rather than have hard coded types (nebula creation, black hole creation, etc.), just have all such components use a single ability. This ability would reference an entry in SystemTypes.txt. Now, your SM devices would just create a pre-defined system. Black hole generators would create a "Black Hole" system, nebula creators would create a "Nebula" system entry, etc. This would also allow for all sorts of cool things, like creating ringworlds that are the whole system and have lots of colonizable "planet" parts, or genisis devices that create a system complete with stars and planets, or anything else a modder would desire.

The ability could even be set up to create one of a specific class of systems at random. This would allow the creation of random nebulas that have differing abilities, all from the same component. Much like storm creation devices now, but more complex and powerful.

Or even better, SystemTypes.txt could be set up to have random variables. Instead of all Storm X systems being the same, the Storm X entry would have a random range for its values. Cloaking level could be 2, 3 or 4, all from the same system entry, without having to explicitly create 3 different entries, which leads to messiness in the QuadrantTypes.txt file, as you have to have extremely long lists to get more varied quadrants...