[DirectorTsaarx]

For those floating colonies, I picture something like Cloud City from SW:ROTJ. Just imagine many of those floating around a gas giant, and you have a non-native colony.

BTW - a variant of this discussion was carried on at length many months ago, and led to MM adding a feature that allowed you to set "Colonize only home planet type" or "Colonize only native atmosphere". So, if you really don't like rock planet life forms colonizing gas giants (or vice versa), just choose the "Colonize only home planet type" option at game setup.

If you're looking for an option that allows certain races to colonize anywhere (why should energy beings care what kind of planet it is?), that's a bit trickier. Probably would have to mod the colony techs to be racial techs, and chosen at game setup. The problem is that the first colony tech should be free, but not the second and/or third. Anyone tried this?