When I played Riftborn for the first time, I was really impressed by the idea of machines which has inverted habitability preference. Lava and Barren worlds are most habitable, and Jungle and Ocean - are least habitable. 

But then I looked at the number of population slots per planet...


As I understand, planets like Terran has many population slots just to represent the fact that it can easily sustain a lots of population. Barren worlds on other side, will require something like artifical domes to allow colonists to live there. Which is more complicated thing -> harder to build -> less population can theoretically live there. It all make sense for human-like biological aliens. 

But what about Riftborn? Shouldn't that be opposite? More population on barren world, less population on Jungle?


And here comes game mechanics. Many different races can live on the same planet. How would you make "population cap" for a planet to make sense if planet is settled with both Riftborn and Imperials?


Here is an idea.

Make population slot of a planet to have a trait "allowed habitants" which will define - who can occupy it. Every planet may have "generic" slots where any population can live. And then they might have some special slots like "cyborg-only" for lava/barren planets, where only Riftborn can live. And "organic" for jungle planets where only human-like species may live. Some planets might have additional slots for specific races (Forests for Unfallen?).

Also think about Gas giants. There is a minor race which live on gas giant. And by default it has only 1 population in it. If it is their native environment - why is that? Gas giants may have 1 generic slot (for normal races - as they need to build some kind of orbiting stations to live there) and a few more for "gas dwellers", to represent how native habitants of gas giant live right inside athmospere. 


Having those "population slot types" will encourage building multi-race empires (with all political challenges around that). 

There can be anomalies which grant or reduce specific population slots for a planet.

There might be technologies which allow you core race to populate some of the "forbidden" population slots.

Races may have additional bonuses for occupying "perfect" population slot type (or just approval bonus).

For those who don't want to micro-manage populations - allow AI to handle migration between planets for a player to maximise bonuses. 


Thoughts?