Good news space cadets

For everyone wanting to emigrate from dystopian Earth, I recently restarted some work on updating the mod and have uploaded a preliminary beta version 1.1 below. I would love any playtesting feedback to help expand and balance the tech tree and other new features, and especially input from modders able to edit the DLL.
INSTRUCTIONS
Delete any previous versions of this mod.
Ensure you have installed Civ4 Colonization with the
latest patch.
Download the zipfile above, then unzip inside your
civilization iv colonization/Mods folder. In your Mods folder this should create a single folder called
Colonization 2071 that contains the mod files.
Start Colonization, then select
Advanced - Load a Mod - Colonization 2071
(edit: a new updated version 1.2 has been released. Please see the link below for details.)
http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/showthread.php?2101-MOD-Colonization-2071/page2
Major new features and updates in v1.1:
* After researching the right technologies, you can assign Colonists to special Professions that extract advanced goods directly from tiles containing rare Progenitor Improvements. For example, a colonist assigned to work as a Quantum Physicist in an excavated Progenitor Reactor can create Fusion Cores without the need for manufacturing from raw Uranium inside a colony. After researching Progenitor Symbology, you can assign a colonist to work in an excavated Progenitor Databank to produce Research without having to consume resources as usual in your colony's Research Labs.
* These rare Progenitor Improvements do not begin visible on the map; but are buried beneath tiles with a Progenitor Metropolis. After researching the Planetology tech, you can send a Laborer to build an Excavation on the tile. After enough time, an Event will trigger revealing the hidden Progenitor Improvement which can be a significant source of wealth.
* The map can also contain unique alien resource sites like the Ruined Temple, Spider Lair, and Grand Ziggurat. After researching Xenoarchaeology, you can sent an Intrepid Archaeologist or Seasoned Explorer to the tile to build an Expedition. This consumes the colonist but enables the direct harvest of advanced goods from the tile such as Platinum and Progenitor Tech, especially after additional techs that boost the yield from Expeditions.
* The main planets can be orbited by various classes of planetoids (such as Volcanic Moon, Arctic Moon, Verdant Moon etc). By researching space technologies, you will be able to build a Colony Ship and send it to construct a Lunar Outpost; the moon tile can then be worked by colonists on the main planet. Founding an Outpost will consume the Colony Ship; yields will start small but the Outpost will gradually grow to a Lunar Settlement and eventually a Lunar Colony with a progressive increase in yields.
* After researching Orbital Industry, you can construct a Mining Vessel and send it into deep space to mine Asteroid Belts or salvage Space Junk; this sends the harvested goods directly to your nearest colony. If this works out I plan to add theh ability to construct Science Vessels which can absorb Plasma and Dark Matter features from deep space for fun and profit.
* I identified the error that was previously causing the Aliens to be unable to do research. (Because the Techtree modcomp code is based on BuildingTypes, all civs currently need to have the same BuildingTypes to avoid errors). I temporarily deactivated the unique Alien buildingtypes and they are now able to perform research without errors. Hopefully Kailric can soon be able to update the modcomp to use BuildingClasses instead, allowing me to re-enable all the unique Alien buildings and units.
* A number of graphical updates including the Technology interface and Board of Directors
Known issues / requests for help:
* Needs playtesting and bug reports to confirm whether all the new features work as intended. Based on playtesting the tech tree, building/unit lists and Board of Directors could all be added to and rebalanced. It is intended to be harder and more challenging than regular Col in that you start with very few colonists and techs initially available and it takes a lot of planning to found and advance functioning colonies; but the growth of the REF has been sharply reduced making it much more achievable to actually win Independence.
* I would love some help from an SDK-savvy modder to see if it's possible to switch the Native (Alien) civs to use the default AI scripts for colonial nations - this would allow Alien AI players to found new cities and trade with Earth and make the game a lot more interesting. Changing isNative tag in XML would remove everything that's unique to the natives; hopefully by searching the DLL it might be fairly easy to find places where the AI script checks for native civs, then simply change these to use the default script for colonial nations. Also if the default Sea Worker AI from Civ4 could be imported, this should make the AI able to use Mining Vessels and Colony Ships appropriately since they basically function like Civ4 Work Boats.
* Although Aliens remain playable, the unique Alien Buildings and Units are inactive until the tech modcomp can be fixed to work with them.
* There is also an occasional bug where when starting a new game, Research Labs do not automatically appear in your first colonies.
* Changing the Progenitor Improvements caused problems with python script to place Progenitor Killbots guarding those areas, so this will need to be reworked so Killbots can again guard these sites. I'd also like to develop some variant mapscripts with different planet sizes etc; if the Mining Vessels can be perfected it would be cool to include an Asteroid Belt mapscript, where there are smaller planets and a large part of the wealth comes from sending Mining Vessels out to grab needed resources while protecting them from Privateers.