[Suggestion] Terrain

It would be grossly unfair for an effect to single out or negatively impact one faction to the exclusion of others.  It's one thing to have magnetic storms; we know Advent gets hit hardest by losing all their special abilities, but everyone else loses all their's.  What you're suggesting are gravity wells where a specific faction is gimped.  You basically cannot fight there, but the enemy can fight there.  This isn't tactics, it's luck.  If a key choke point happens to punish your faction you're just plain screwed.

I think new terrain types should stay within the limit of the old ones.

What might be so special about space cept space ponies? We do have gas clouds, asteroid belts (both true), plasma and magnetic storms (quite fantasy) and space junk (pure fantasy). So you cannot let a phase space let grass grow.

What we do not have so far: black holes (bit weird to simplify into a phase space), comets (wew! no transensia needed), double planets (think of a war within one phase space).

There is however some fantasy stuff left, which I suggest from playing EVE: evil drones reproducing themselves (think of a neutral that sends out infested drones every 5-10 minutes), space labs or factories that might be "captured" like normal neutral roids by sending out a boarding party from your colonizer cap. We also do not have gold or "credit" extractors or white dwarfs/neutrino stars slowing every ships movement due to their mass gravity.

ah, von Neumann machines gone beserk.

Very SF in nature. I like it.

Just teasing- though if LRF is indeed the only viable unit, so that losing by -25% would totally unbalance the game, then naturally my map project Ice 1.181 'No Luck Involved' which consisted entirely of ice planets would be unnecessary... perhaps a new hotfix soon?

Even if we allow that plasma storms and magnetic clouds are dubious, why is space junk pure fantasy...?  You just have to imagine a civilisation that repeatedly sends spacecraft to uninteresting rocks for no apparent reason?  Combat specials on planets could just mean that some resource on the planet has a weapon application in its own grav well, as with the examples I provided for ice desert and volcanic planets... they don't have to single out a faction.

Special planets would be good though, why not have a special per artifact present in the game, which would liven it up somewhat. It might also replace the blocking role which the pirates perform so poorly, if we get proper pirates with the nest expansion.

The machines are a good concept and an SF staple, as maxi pointed out.  Some more-

Phase/Spectral Planet- not always present, radiates anti-culture

Lair- Home of the Space Beast!  It might be even be infectious..

Harmony Planet- radiates goodwill, armistice grav well

Juggernaut- travels the phase lanes randomly, retaliating when attacked, destroy it for the artifact which is then placed on your nearest planet

Glass Planet- clones the ships that enter the grav well to defend itself

Cursed Planet- no faction can be allied with the faction that last had a ship in the grav well.... might also grant Farsight

Data planet- grants a free research at your tec level

Undead planet- avoid having ships destroyed in its gravwell, or else..

Thats nine including maxi's, one for each artifact... any other alternative contributions? Please more variation, even if just slight variations in max population on planets!