Questions

"Wormhole Interdiction - Is it possible to make an ability that works like embargo (without the money theft of course) that only affects wormhole travel?"

I would guess no, but I haven't really looked at it.

"Can a planets texture be changed depending on what race colonized it ? Figure it would be a modification of the colonize ability but I'm not if it would apply to the homeworld."

Generally only research can change mesh/textures on an entity, and I'm not sure if that applies to planets anyways.

"Can the radius from the planet resource asteroids spawn be set in the entity file ?"

Not precisely but I think there is a modifier for how scattered the resource asteroids are.

"Can resource asteroids be modded to act like planets? Mainly: planetary upgrades, colonizing, and razing ?"

Not really, but you maybe able to get something that works like that in effect with some very creative ability making.

"Can an ability require X number of ships to work ? Example: three ships dock to each other and are removed to spawn a structure"

I'll have to get back to you on this one, but you can do a lot of things with abilities.

"can an ability change a frigate to a working orbital refinery / trade port and back again when its toggled off ?"

Directly no, but there is a work around to get it to work as a trade port. There is no way to get it back to a frigate though.

Q1: You can either block all travel from the wormhole (a la Embargo) or phase out/destroy/whatever any ship travelling between any two selected planets. (you can give an ability to the wormhole so the interdictor ability only works at wormholes) This would require an "interdictor" to be present at either one of the wormholes in question: You can either apply the buff to incoming ships, or apply it upon departing and then check wether the destination is a wormhole.

I don't know when exactly the OnHyperspaceExit trigger applies, and whether it would be possible to interrupt a phase jump with it.

One problem with this method is that anyone traveling between non-linked wormholes (adjacent or via phase stabilisers) is going to get zapped despite not actually using the wormhole

Q2: You can activate/deactivate the shield mesh, which is used by the TEC shield generator. This only allows you to have two appearances though: shielded and unshielded. Other than that I know of no ability that changes textures at all, and only a few researches/SBupgrades change the meshes of units (note: not planets).

On resource asteroids (Q3):

I couldn't even find it in the gameplay.constants file. I guess it's tied to the "buildable gravity well" i.e. the yellow circle in which you can place structures. (At least I can't recall seeing any asteroids outside that circle, maybe I'm just blind)

Q4: You can "upgrade" them via resource-costing abilities you give to the extractors. You can make them "colonisable" by using the "capture neutral extractor" ability, possibly in conjunction with a custom mine phase cloaking to prevent enemies from stealing them once colonised. You can simulate "razing" by making them immune to damage and giving the siege frigates an ability that removes said immunity, though this would render capships unable to damage them

Q6: I guess so, you'll need a stackable buff to count the ships, but I can't think of a way of counting the number of stacks, let alone making that a condition for the ability/buff. You will probably end up with an ability that is used and does nothing if the requirements aren't met, instead of the game not allowing you to cast it.

For the trade ports (Q7):

Can you create planetmodules with the CreateFrigate (Sova Missile Battery) modifier? If yes that could be used to create the trade port. (Try it, and if the game minidumps, bad luck)

@GoaFan77: I'm guessing your workaround involves transforming the frigate to a starbase? That won't work, because there's a limit on the number of SBs allowed around any planet (1 per player without mods)

However, you can always transform something into a frigate: Give it an ability with a "CreateFrigate" action buff, followed by a "MakeDead" action on the "morphing" ship. It will display an explosion (enemies might be awarded XP), but you get your frigate. The only direct "morphing" actions in the game (that I know of) are DeployStarBase, which only creates SBs, and ConvertFightersToMines, used by Advent Mine Squads (works only with SC).

I am only going to answer the wormhole question, because I had a great idea for it.

Have an ability apply a buff to the planet, in this case the wormhole, that provides a pushing force, just like repulsion, away from the wormhole. Ships need to reach a certain point in the center of the wormhole to travel through it, right? So just make sure that they never get there.

You could change the explosion on the frigate to something either non-existent, or obnoxiously small. Of course this would effect the destruction sequence, but this could be fixed with an ability that only works when the frigate is destroyed by weapon damage. The ability simply makes a particle effect occur on frigate death, but is disabled when the other ability activates.

I doubt there's a way to do it but you could always "create" something that changes the wormhole into a "planet" of sorts - make a "new planet" type that's basically an enclosed wormhole. Effectively "closing" the wormhole...it'd be colonizable as an "artificial planet" of sorts...if you still wanted to be allowed to go through it you may be able to set it up so that the wormhole is "still there" but only for you - if it's possible it'd prolly be a lot of work, though. =x

I doubt it's possible, but it's an interesting idea at least imo.

Cant change planets. Can only add buffs to them.

Thank you all you have given me much to think about and quite a few starting points.

I had a feeling that'd be the case...had to be a limit somewhere, lol.