increase diversity to factions and planets

Hello,

i want to make a thread about terraforming, colonization priorites of the different factions, population diversity and planet bonuses.

1) Basics:

1.1) Planets provide a different amount of population slots depending on it's type, e.g. a lava planet will provide less population slots than the same planet terraformed to an atoll planet

1.2) Planets provide different happiness bonuses/penalties depending on their type, again the closer you are to planets that are earth like (continental, atoll, ocean, forest, ...) the more happiness you get

1.3) Many populations gain bonuses depending on the planet type, e.g. Sophons gain extra science on cold planets

2) Observations/Problems:

2.1) No matter the empire i play, i usually end up with all planets terraformed to atoll or similar planet types. Sophons may get 3 science per population on cold planets but a terraformed planet can provide up to 6 (if i remember correctly) more population slots. With system development bonuses and building bonuses i usually find that terraformed planets are close to specialized planets.

2.2) The second reason i end up terraforming all planets is to get the happiness bonuses, having 3 lava worlds in a system may provide you with a lot of production but also with -60 happiness, compare that to +30 happiness if i was to terraform the planets (again the numbers are from memory).

3) Suggestions:

3.1) Instead of adding/loosing population slots depending on the planet type, each planet should have a number of population slots that can be used for all species and a number of population slots that can be used by species that feel at home on that planet type, e.g. a cold planet could have 5 population slots (white slots) and an extra 3 population slots (blue slots, because it is a cold planet) that can only be used by species that like cold planets, e.g. sophons.

3.2) Instead of giving all races the same happiness bonuses from planet types, planets should not provide any happiness, instead populations will provide happiness if they live on planets they like and provide a happiness penalty if they live on planets they don't like, e.g. sophons could give +2 happiness per pop on cold planets and -2 happiness per pop on hot planets.

3.3) major races should have their tech tree mixed up, depending on the faction, e.g. sophons would unlock colonization of arctic, tundra and similar planets first and lava planets last. basically the techs stay the same, but the planets that are unlocked vary from faction to faction.

4) Outcome:

4.1) The colonization priority and ability would vary strongly from faction to faction, e.g. no longer would forest worlds be coveted by all factions in the early game. The United Empire will covet different systems than the Sophon neighbour.

4.2) it would strongly encourage the use of minor factions or populations from other factions so you can make use of the specialized population slots and happiness bonuses

4.3) depending on your population diversity you would have more or less incentive to mass terraform. You can play a mono population empire which would lead to mass terraforming and uniformity of your systems or you could have additional species that you can use on worlds that your primary species do not like.