I like ruins the way they are now. They add interest to a campaign.
I find it quite credible that facilities of one race caould be converted for use of another so I have no problem with recovering ruined facilities. There are certainly things I think are more implausible in the game if you have problems beleiving in things , Constant velocity ships, Easy to settle alien worlds (no incompatible biochemistries), multiple races within a very short time span of each other technologically. etc all of which are necessary .
As multiplayer games are going to be very difficult to run anyway I don't worry about them at all and if you want to keep them balanced that is what an SM is for
I agree with your statement about the ruins. Of the other things you said above, the one I've been pondering is the fact that currently Aurora completely ignores the planetary biosphere. We can modify atmospheric content, and temperature is modeled as is gravity, but the presence or absence of a biosphere is completely ignored. This has vaguely bothered me for a while, and I've been pondering a way to include it that would fit in with the current rules and format. Does anyone have an idea? Should biospheres be included and how?
As far as I can see, they could be included just like H2O is currently included, present or not, and they could be required to count a planet as terraformed. Perhaps if there is no biosphere the planet would be colony cost 2.0, just as if it had no oxygen. Which reminds me, shouldn't a planet be colony cost 2.0 if it has no water?
An alternative would be to have different types of biospheres. Class A, B, and C, and so on. Earth might have a Class B biosphere, other planets might have different biospheres. The farther the planet's biosphere is from your home planet's, the higher the colony cost.
What does everyone think? Unnecessary complication, or reasonable complication to remedy an oversight?
Kurt