Can somebody please clarify is the number of population needed for splicing (starting 2, increased by 2 / splice ) can be altered? If so, where can I find it? From the quick look at .xml there is 

<Property Name="PopulationsAssimilated" BaseValue="0"/>

which I assume tracks the number of spliced minor/major factions, also there are a bunch of SimulationDescriptors that modify main population bonus, but I didn't find the number of current population needed for splicing (nor the increment of that). Are those hardcoded somewhere or is it me being blind?