We all (at least I do) have planets that we settled when we were new and didn't know or couldn't get what was good. Now to get rid of them we have to pay points, which some of don't want to do, or get lucky and have someone else both scan it and decide to take it.

I propose a building that helps the second possibility along by giving a planet a negative cloak bonus. That's right, a NEGATIVE bonus. On a planet without any other cloak bonuses, it would actually encourage that planet being scanned. Eventually someone will come by that will actually want it and will take it.

Justification: SETI looks for alien civilizations by looking for radio signals from aliens, so if the building was some sort of radio or other sort of signalling beacon, it could be picked up by scans.

In addition, it would mark a planet as unwanted, so a planet could be picked up without violating treaties, whether for badges or for colonization.

I like that...... yet I think it should be a trap that lasts one week : planetary enrichment trap: applies neg. cloak to a planet and disguises it's resources as higher than actual, when successfully invaded the invader will get a message saying: "your invasion was a success but you were lured by a Planetary enrichment trap........ sorry."

oooooh, I can see all kinds of fun happening with that

By "fun" do you mean people asking for their paradox generators back when they go to take an large, mega rich then find it's large, sparse?

If such an artifact was created, I'm sure it would have some kind of limitations on it, either by the size it could make a planet look like, or the richness.
maybe increase the planet by just one or two levels of richness, or one size, that way people won't get tricked too badly.

no need too trick people how about it actuly MAKES the planet better for the invaider? call it unhappy population? Think of it as a "thank you gift" for taking my crummy planet away. type thing.

don't see this one happening.... they'd have to rework the way planet scanning works...

right now when you scan, it works something like this:

• random chance roll based on # planets in database and current scan value (equation still eludes us for now)
  
  • on failure, no planet found
  • on success, a planet is chosen randomly from the (currently) 1,405,300 planets in-game, and a simple comparison is done between planet cloak and your scan
    
    • on cloak > scan, you couldn't lock on because of the cloak
    • on scan > cloak, you successfully add that planet to your database

what you're suggesting would have to toss in what i'd call "ghosted" planets, adding to the 1405300 already in the database, but basically just linking back to one of the existing 1405300... that'd be the only easy way of weighting those "negative cloak" planets greater than the regular ones... that would be the only easy way to increase the chances of that planet being found opposed to any other planet in the database

Build some nice structures on the planet, like an omnibase - someone's bound to take it then

I don't think so, if you recall we did have an artifact that disguised our ships as a different race, and it wouldn't factor into planet scans, if someone already has it in scan it's just show up as 1x larger or 1x richer or both,

the unhappy population, good idea aswell but planet traders would manipulate it , say set a trap on a nice exotic then have someone else invade it and make it better for them..

his choice of words were "I propose a building that helps the second possibility (have someone else both scan it and decide to take it) along by giving a planet a negative cloak bonus. That's right, a NEGATIVE bonus. On a planet without any other cloak bonuses, it would actually encourage that planet being scanned."
thus, it would have to manipulate the scanning algorithm one way or another to make planets with this particular building on them pop up more frequently than they currently are (in addition to having any enticing/inviting/false data effect)

I don't know about that. I read it like the mylarai strip-core that gives you negative artifact production or the XTS-10 Injector that gives you negative population. This building would give you negative cloaking. So if you put 5k cloak on your planet, this might be say -150 giving you effectively 4850 cloak.

It makes sense that if your planet was known for its famous crystal mines, it would be harder to hide them since people know about them than say something no one knows about to begin with.

It's a good idea, it just needs tweeking so it fits the game's programming and doesn't mess it up.