More 'peaceful' tech/components (esp. stellar manip)

[dogscoff]

It's been talked about for a long time and I think that one of the best "bang for buck" changes Malfador could make would be to give modders the tools to allow pop growth and colony-like resource extraction from hulls. Then we could make all kinds of cool artificial colonis and constructs using that.

Here's a cool stellar manip idea as well: Plantary rings. You could probably mod this by putting astroids in the same place as a planet but it would be good if the game handled them seperately. They'd be just like asteroid fields, but with a different graphic and slightly different stellar manipulation handling.

For example: When creating a planet from a large / huge asteroid field there is a chance that rather than a large / huge planet being created, you will get a medium planet and a plantary ring (small/ tiny asteroid field), which can be turned into a moon. You could then have vast asteroid fields, which can yield a huge planet + moon or a large planet + 2 moons.

Actually, when you think about it, that's a damn good idea. Say I have a large planet with a tiny moon, and I destroy them both. Do I get on huge asteroid field or a large field + tiny field? If it's the latter, how is that possible? How can you have 2 asteroid fields in one place? Thats' just one bigger astroid field. It's like trying to dig half a hole.

So basically yeah (sorry, rambling now...) hr's what I propose, in a briefer and easier to understand format:
-Vast asteroid fields. (No vast planets though)
-Asteroid fields in the same square as a planet are labelled "planetary rings".
-Multiple astroid fields in the same square are amalgamated into one big field. (If that's not how it works already)
-Planet creation may not use all of an asteroid field: it might create a smaller planet and a small "leftover" plantary ring. Perhaps different tech levels could offer some control over this.
-Add to all this the ability to move astroid fields around the map using specialised components...

... and I reckon that would mak an extrmely cool upgrade to the stellar manip options. Some of it might not need to much hard coding either- quite a high "bang for the buck" rating.