Not sure if this has already been suggested, but what about having the planetary bonuses (most especially happiness) based on your race rather than just he planet type. The default planets that can be colonised could alos be linked to your Race.



Say you pick Arid as preferred Habitat (in a DIY or existing Race), your homeworld should be Arid, the starting planets able to be colonised should be Arid (and possible Desert), and the Happiness bonus for those planets should be 0 (or -5 for desert). The Tech's to colonise those planets could be replaced by the current default Terran and Ocean/Jungle)



Currently I believe the only thing the preferred habitat has an impact on is your starting Homeworld (please correct me if I'm wrong). I just find it strange that a species that has evolved to live in and deal with a particular environment should be unhappy when colonising planets of the same/similar habitat.

I like this Idea too. It'd mix things up a bit by giving different sides different colonization priorities and could even be limited by restricting the preferred habitats options to just the earliest options (so you could prefer a tundra or arid environment, but still find a world without water/made of ice difficult to live on).

Yeah, it really should already be like this.



I'd like to think a race who has lived on a lava world for millions of years would not have a real problem living on a different lava world.

yeah, true, a bonus to homeworld-type planet would be great. For example, while playing as the hissho i found a jungle world that had the swamp anomaly and so it had a -10 approval rating... If would have been good if i had had a bonus for just getting that jungle since its my homeworld type in the first place.

I also agree wholeheartedly with this. A race's homeworld choice should also determine which worlds they receive bonuses and maluses for in terms of approval.

Sounds great and quite intuitive to me.

I agree, this sounds good and makes sense.

Definitely agree. Especially when making a custom race, home-world type should be one of the important choices. A species that developed on an ocean world would have problems with an arid or desert world; for a lava-world species, an ocean world might be a hellish place. Having the types of planets you can colonize at the start depend on your race would be a nice touch of immerson and flavor. Of course, the tech tree would then have to be altered slightly depending on your choice.

As I said last time in the same type of thread ; It's not because my species was born on an arid planet that I like them. I will still prefer live on a terran world even I'm coming from tatooine. I'm only use to sand, but I'm not happy with.



So first point, if a race could be happy with a crappy world, it has to be in the background of the race.

Second, of course, I think the happiness may vary according to the species (the water race and the lava world example).