The problem:
In my current mod, each planet has a set of required planet bonuses...for example, I have made the desert planet have 3 levels of "Exploration"...as you upgrade or "explore", you predictably unlock a specific planet bonus...these bonuses are properly listed in the planet entity under the required planet bonuses, and each bonus has the proper min/maxUpgradeLevelNeeded...
Unfortunately, the Space Ponies planet bonus screws this up...when Space Ponies appear on a planet, it will always remove the "level 2" required planet bonus that I set up (this would be the planet bonus with a min/maxUpgradeLevelNeeded of 2)...
My attempt at a solution:
Setting the min/maxUpgradeLevelNeeded for the Space Pony to other numbers does not seem to fix the issue...even if I set it to 10, it will still interefere with the level 2 required planet bonus independent of what planet its on or what that planet bonus is...
Removing the Space Pony planet bonus from the entity manifest doesn't seem to work either...apparently Space Ponies is hardcoded and will occasionally appear even if you never reference it anywhere (planet entity files, GSD)...removing Space Ponies from the entity manifest actually results in a minidump if the game tries to spawn space ponies in a galaxy (including Frontend)...
So...is there any way to get rid of space ponies or at least not have it interefere with required planet bonuses? I am reporting this as a bug because while I can understand the need/desire to hardcode Space Ponies, it's appearance (wanted or unwanted) should not affect other planet bonuses...