This mod introduces custom colony designations that blend vanilla resource focuses into unique and efficient dual-role settlements.

• 6 Hybrid Designations:[list]
  
• Rural World – back from the dead: balanced food, minerals and energy production
  
• Fringe Planet – same thing, but for gestalt empires
  
• Planetary Archive – research with unity governance
  
• Iron Monger Enclave – industrial mining meets trade logistics
  
• Farmer’s Market Settlement – agrarian output with local traders
  
• Energy Brokerage Hub – power generation and economic synergy

More, but scaled-down, output bonuses for less-focused colony roles

Optimized district build speeds for supported industries

Localizations provided (English, Spanish, French, German, Ukrainian, Polish... more to come! Maybe!)

Works fine with a mid-game install. At least for me.

Designed for compatibility and immersion in a vanilla+ setting[/list]

In the early stages of the game, full planetary specialization isn’t always realistic. You’re often working with whatever bonuses the galaxy gives you - sometimes a mix of mineral output, trade boosts, and scattered deposits that don’t neatly align with a single designation.

Hybrid designations are made for those kinds of worlds. They support planets with multiple or mismatched bonuses, letting you take advantage of what's available without leaving potential on the table. Rather than forcing a strict economic identity, these designations provide flexibility and meaningful bonuses for mixed development.

They’re especially useful when playing tall or managing a limited number of colonies, where every planet has to pull its weight across several economic roles. They also make it easier to pivot - shifting focus depending on what your empire needs more of at any given time.

Hybrid designations won’t solve everything, but they allow you to work with what you have and still get solid results.

• AI empires won’t use these. That’s on purpose. Balancing for AI selection introduces more opportunities for unexpected consequences than something this niche could justify. That said, weighting for automated colony designation was implemented.
  
• Return of some old friends. The "Rural World" and "Fringe Planet" designations are the same, as close as I could manage, as the designations that were in the game before 4.x removed them.
  
• Access limitations are inherited. Hybrid designations honor the restrictions of their vanilla parents. For example, Farming designations are unavailable to empires that don’t consume food, so the Rural World (which combines Farming along with Mining and Energy) will be restricted accordingly.
  
• Bonuses are balanced. Each designation is tuned to roughly match an average of the bonuses from the vanilla designations it fuses. You're still better off if you specialize, in most cases.
  

• Safe to use with most mods - This mod does not overwrite any vanilla files, so conflicts are unlikely. It adds new colony designations using standalone scripted triggers.
  
• No hard dependencies - It works on its own but plays nicely alongside mods that add new buildings, districts, or empires.
  
• Load order recommendations - Place below major overhauls (like Gigastructural Engineering, ACOT, or NSC). Place above UI mods or visual tweaks - they don’t interact with designations.
  
• Mod triggered effects may skip hybrids. Traditions or events from mods that reference specific designations (like how Adaptability gives technicians a bonus on Energy Designation planets) may not affect hybrid colonies unless manually patched by you or another modder. The vanilla ones, however, are baked in.
  

If you want a bit more flexibility on your colony designations, this mod is for you. If you need even more options, well, you can drop a suggestion in the comments and we'll see what's possible.

Hybrid Colony Designations - For Planets That Multitask Better Than You Do!