Needed: Easy way to give away planets.

It would add the possibility for drop-joiners who are willing to give all ships to another player to give all planets also. In effect doubling the effective strength of a player as fast as he can get there to claim it. (If the planet code itself doesn't work instantaneously). 

However, one could add conditions to the Bird ability to change that code. For instance every single turn a portion of the ships crew is beamed to the planet to perform a military coup de ta by turning the civilian/native population against the owning player. In order to be more effective, there has to be a higher amount of Bird Special Forces planet-side. Which increases the chances of detecting them. In which all (or portion) of them are simply executed with a 5% reduction in colonist and native population which are also executed for being collaborators. However, with the higher amount of troops planet-side. The Bird player could then try to take over the planet. And make it take X turns to accomplish the military coup once activated (Depending on the number of troops planet-side). Each turn with a growing chance of detection. However, each turn more of the populations are subverted. So if the coup is detected a higher % of the population is killed off as collaborators and a % of happiness is lost for the shortsightedness of the current regime for not detecting it sooner. And once the Coup has rally'd the majority of the population then the Bird can activate the final stage with the FC change and attempt to conquer the planet at a 1:1 ratio killing all not subverted subjects (And 15:1 for Lizards and 10:1 for Fascists). With higher government (natives) levels showing less resistance and more surrender. While stupider governments (natives) are more blindly loyal and will fight to the death. The Happiness will be then dropped to 0. All Mines and Factories will lose 75% of their number. All Defense posts will be removed. Then control will be given to the Birds. (Perhaps 50% of all supplies/MC's will be destroyed or looted from the resulting civil war.)

(Campaign mode only obviously ;) )

However, otherwise this will be a major boon to us Bird players. Especially if I can simply capture your HW and other early SB's by simply changing the FC. The losses a Bird commander would face would be 0 compared to a devastating blow that would be very difficult, if at all possible, to recover from in the early (and maybe even mid game). I would also be able to ruin your position with only a mere Swift Heart Scout. Without needing (2-3 Deth Speculas) or (2 Resolutes) or (1 Dark Wing). 

And the ability to simply hand the planet over rather than having to get a ton of Merlins or Super Freighters in one spot and deport or slowly trade civilians via ship trading to change the ownership of the planet. Which can take a long long time depending on how many civilians are present and what ships can be spared. Would certainly make this facet much easier to accomplish.

The ability to just "Hand Over" planets would be a great tool for diplomacy. For instance, I will leave you alone and fight someone else if you surrender Planet(s) XXX through XXX to me. I will trade you Planet(s) XXX-XXX for ship(s). Or even to make borders make more sense to trade Planet(s) for Planet(s). Or even a trade of Planet(s) for X amounts of resources. It enables multi-racial alliances to be stronger by having greater fleet integration. Rather than just a strike team inside of each others realm of influence. 

However, the key fact that must remain. To enact any ability or function to the game will open up possibilities for it to be used in less than desirable methods. And all of that has to be taken into account. As the positives are certainly there, so are the negatives.  

Why not an ingame voting system where any active player can vote to end the game with player X or Team Y as the victor? Or to avoid abuse of a voting system that defers a win to who you vote for, why not just a straight up vote to end the game where those who *most meet* the win conditions win the game?

This avoids endless turns of grabbing planets, of involving Joshua, and can still provide the bonuses normally associated with winning the game or making it until the end?

With a victory vote system, if someone is in a losing position they can use their remaining clout to vote for whom they think should be the winner.  That way the underdogs can use their vote to reward the person whom they have observed playing with the most skill, or the most honorable game, or to thank a person for having helped along the way.

For this to really work, it's also important for the vote to be fully-automated and anonymous.

It is much easier and much less destructive to look for better ways to determine victory conditions before messing with the mechanics of the game.  As soon as you screw with game mechanics such as adding a give-planet friendly code, you risk opening a hornet's nest of possible tricks and exploits.  Plus there's a whole panorama of technical stuff to figure out: where it happens in the host order, on what conditions it succeeds and fails, what happens if there is an enemy there, what happens to the starbase and its orders and ... OMG like a hundred other things.

This game is confusing enough as it is.  There's a simple solution to the core problem here: offer another option for victory conditions that includes voting for a winner or winners.

On Nu, for most games, victory conditions are simple: number of planets, period.  So consider this: You're the Feds and you're ready for the game to be finished.  You hold 50 planets and you're not planning on expanding more.  The Robots and the Rebels are in an alliance and hold 180 planets between them.  If you think they deserve to win, you submit your vote for them, anonymously, and you can notify them that you've voted for them if you want or you can keep it a secret.  You can also retract your vote at any time if you change your mind and want the game to continue or if you no longer think they should win.  As soon as the Robots and Rebels get 20 more planets they get the 250 victory condition and they win because they hold 200 and you've voted them your 50.  After the game is over, everybody finds out who voted them to the win.

In other words, your standing in the game determines your weight in the vote, and no one ever has an obligation to vote for anybody.

There's honestly no possible way to abuse this system.  It's a good way to reward players who stay in the game because it gives them a raison d'être, and it's fair for all because every person's accomplishments grant that player the amount of clout they have earned.