[grumbler]

Nomor,

A coupla thoughts about atmosphere conVersions and the related domed planets:

1. If the conVersion takes 600 turns, no one will undertake it. I haven't ever played a campaign past about turn 400, when the outcome is obvious.

2. Placing a "tax" on ACs makes them even less likely to be undertaken.

3. When domed planets finish all of their construction, they appear in the build queue window as empty of construction. However, they have quite small cargo spaces, so unless you keep transports standing by to empty them, they quickly "fill up" and can undertake no more construction. Now, the BQ window is an essential management tool, as it shows where construction can be undertaken. I don't like having to scroll past lots of "useless" empty queues to find the ones where I can actually build something and not worry about having space left for it.

Thus, if you simply make the AC a long-term project that converts atmospheres when completed, you:
1. Have the "tax benefit" of your proposed mod, and
2. Keep the project in the build queue so it isn't "empty" and there isn't any need to scroll past the planet to find "valid available build queues."

As a side benefit, you actually start to use new AC technology as invented by simply "upgrading the construction" rather than having to upgrade the facility. This makes AC tech much more valuable to research. As it is under your suggestion, it makes little sense of research AC until you simply don't have anything else to research, since it won't give you a benefit you can use.

Now, AC isn't really undertaken explicitely by anyone in the canon bar the Shadows, but if we assume that it is being undertaken implicitely by, say, the humans on Proxima, then a process rather than a standard facility type still makes sense. After all, Proxima isn't producing its own satellites or whatnot to help against the blockade, so they must be, in game terms, producing something else - which I propose is an AC.

Currently, my thinking is that an AC should take, at max tech and max (600) domed population, some 100 turns to build. In effect, this will mean something more like 200 years from game start, as planets will take time to reach max pop and it will take time to research AC3. I think this sort of timeframe will make the effort worth undertaking, but am willing to listen to other ideas.