[Evil Rich]

I have to say, I hadn't thought this one through as much as you guys.

I hadn't thought about trading colony ships, presumabley if you analyise a ship with a different colony module on you get the colony tech, which is the most rewarding abuse of the tech system.

As suggested I suppose the only way round it is the honor system or restricting people to there starting planet types, neither of which seem entirely appealing.

My instinct is that it would be better to simply agree not to trade any ships at all inc colony ships & transports.

If you want to buy slaves off each other then just trade planets, and return them if necessary when finished. Or just colonize a planet in someone else territory and then give it to them.

Then I suppose you could colonize all the planets of your starting type in there systems and then hand them over. Again hopefuly the difficulty involved would limit the abuses.