I'm no expert but my advice would be to just ignore them. Here's what I've learned from some very good players: It is not worth the number of turns to gain the techs to colonize these planets, partly because even when you colonize them, they are of poor quality, meaning that they don't produce as much as habitable planets...so don't colonize them. Secondly: Some of the AI races (Krynn for one) make a habit of going after them...this makes the AI easier prey for you because they spend so many turns and their research production gaining the techs for these poor quality colonies instead of gaining techs for better warships. Hope this is helpful. Cheers, mate.

That is only true if you only have the first colonization tech for that type. Once you also have the Advanced tech for that planet type, It'll run at full just like any other planet.

The only race I'll agree with you about ignoring these techs is the Korath. Learn Advanced Toxic Colonization, then just use your spore ships to terraform other colonized planets into Toxic's for you. You'll have to wait for other races to colonize those planets, but either they spent the time to learn to colonize such a planet, or their super ability allowed it. None-the-less, once you spore it, you'll be golden. The key there was getting the Advanced Toxic tech, otherwise you'll have a planet working at 50% as CalifDude said.

Play DL if you dont want extreme colonization...

Once you get all the terroforming techs all of those extreme planets turn into PQ12-20. They are definitely worth taking in the long run, but I dont usually research the techs. I conquer them and steal the techs from the AIs.

Sentient species taste better...

It would not be really nice, REALLY NICE, if the uninhabited planet list showed at a glance not only its PQ but also whether it was generally inhabitable or was of a certain type: i.e., radioactive, toxic, aquatic, barren, HG.

Right now whether I have the tech or not, when I look at the uninhabited list, I have to click on it to see what type it is.

Maybe in the uninhabited colony list, the little pic would show what type it is. Or put an R, T, A, B, of H in the corner of the box.

Before I pick a tech of R, T, A, B, or H, I number how many there are of each type (down to 10) and pick the tech for the type of planet that is most numerous. Takes about 10 min.

I am not looking at the absolute last version of the game (I will when I get home), but it is not in slightly earlier versions of the game. It would be nice to have a colonizable sort, though I would still like to the uninhabited planet list to show their type.

QFT, huge pet peeve of mine.



Which brings up another pet peeve. That option box in the planet/fleet window should be a drop down. Clicking over and over til you get to the choice you want gets annoying.

"Crappy" little worlds also can offer fresh troops to re-fill surviving transports and serve as distracting targets for the known general AI weakness re targeting and taking major planets.

Sell them to one of the minor races for loads of moolah

You cant flip planets of minor civs.

Sentient species taste better...

I've never tried this for BC, but someone around here suggested giving a flip-vulnerable world to a stronger power as a way to curry favor. I've tried a bit of that, and it *seems* like the computer players value a gift planet more than they resent losing one to a flip.

Modding out the techs should work, in theory, and that should be easy with the new TA tech editor. But you'd also have to disable Super Abilities in your game, if you want to keep all races from colonizing them.

I don't mind the high-colonization tech planets, because depending on how the randomized galaxy is generated, sometimes they become strategically important, and sometimes they don't. Anything that throws that kind of random (but interesting) element in the game is a good thing.

The last game I finished, I had two very high-PQ aquatic worlds show up smack-dab in the middle of my beginning empire, near my home planet. In the mid-game, I had to decide whether to rush the tech for colonization, or just count on a culture flip if another race grabbed them first. In the end, it was a moot point because I won the game before any other races could grab the planets. In other games, like the current one I'm playing, there are no uninhabitables at all in my initial area of control. So researching the tech isn't a factor until later in the game, when I start to invade and might want the production. I like the way they can throw a random monkey wrench into your strategy.