This is a big compilation of all the many glitches I have encounted during my time playing Space Colony.
I have organised them into three sections:

Beneficial - this means the glitch can help you in some way, or is useful for making levels
Neutral - this glitch is neither useful nor harmful; it is just annoying
Harmful - this means the glitch can harm your experience in some way.

I do not have solutions to many of the harmful glitches. If you have any solutions, or have glitches of your own to add, please let me know!

Freed space chickens:
You can ‘free’ space chickens in the editor. To do this, place the chicken farmer. Then, place a line of small, medium or large boulders under ‘landscape’ directly across the chicken farmer. This will cause the chickens to leave the farm in order to path around it. Once the chickens are outside the farm, you can delete it, and the chickens will remain (although, they will be completely stationary).



Infinite training programmes:
After training an operative in a training pod, send them to the library.
A menu will pop up asking if you wish to continue or cancel current training.
Click 'cancel' and the game will "refund" you an extra training programme, essentially granting unlimited training programmes, assuming you have both a training pod and library at your disposal.


Hovermines and Sentinels function in the editor:
Both these buildings will target hostile enemies in the editor. You can use this to your advantage – place a building between the alien and the sentinel/hovermine post, and the weapon will hit your building instead. You can use this to have your buildings pre-damaged in the editor.
Sentinels from the competing base will target droids before buildings, meaning you can use it to destroy industrial robots, forcing you to use the industrial robotics factory in the mission.



Invasion markers activate in editor:
To activate this glitch:
1. Play on a mission which has invasions, and place a military radar.
2. Wait for an invasion to be detected by the radar, but quit to the menu before the invasion arrives.
3. Create a new map or load an existing map.
4. Aliens will appear on the map where they would have done in the mission.

The aliens that come from the marker will appear in the editor, and will behave as normal (unless they can normally be placed in the editor, in which case they will not move). This can be used to summon gremlins to pre-break base equipment, or summon normally un-place able aliens, such as Ooma or Protoraptors.

Be careful, however, since these aliens will move around and can destroy buildings.



Invisible and unkillable stationary aliens:
To achieve this, place 6 aliens on the same tile. Delete the aliens. One of the aliens will be invisible, and cannot be removed from the editor. This alien will behave like normal in-game and will become visible once it moves. To prevent this alien from moving, place canyons or rocks over the top of where it was. The alien is now invisible and unmovable; military systems will not target it, and it will behave like normal (Gorilloids will still roar, Protean Worms will still breed, etc.)

This does not work on Rockhopper Queens.

Lava beetles will only explode once after 20 in-game hours, making a timed explosive.

Placing more than 6 aliens will have one more invisible aliens. E.g., 7 will give 2 aliens, 8 will give 3, and so on.

To remove the invisible alien from the editor, kill it with force-field posts.

I have found this glitch to be very useful for having an endless stream of protean worms, since they cannot be spawned by invasion markers.




More than 12 military units:
To get more than 12 military units, simply destroy your current units (e.g by placing them on top of lava), then place 12 more military posts. The original 12 that were destroyed can be rebuilt in a robotics factory. This can be repeated endlessly.

Remove spreading vegetation:
To remove spreading vegetation from a game, completely surround the vegetation using a building, such as lights or corridors. After several seconds, the vegetation will disappear. Works on: Hydromorphus, Lupulus, Metaflaxus, Podulus Toxicaria.

Space defense shields function without power
Self-explanatory; shields can be turned off in the power subsystem, and still function. This is a pretty big oversight by the developers, since power consumption is the shields’ main drawback.

On an unrelated note, space defense shield’s hitboxes are way in the sky, which can be seen when an enemy sentinel targets the shield. This is presumably how the shield catches the meteors, by having them hit the shield before any buildings.

Venusian slugs are stuck in darkness
If left alone, Venusian slugs will not move until they are disturbed by a light source. This can be used to trap slugs, allowing them to be killed at a later date.

Mechanoid spawning
More of a quirk of behaviour than a glitch - mechanoids will only spawn in corridors that are connected to the bridge. If you delete all corridors, no mechanoids will spawn from invasions.

No tourism mood
Tourists don't have any mood or check to see if entertainment facilities are actually usable. This means you can lock tourists inside the tourist port or hotel with no loss to tourism rating.
Special thanks to EyyBee for pointing this one out.

Death Angel behaviour:
I am unsure whether or not this behaviour is intended, but it seems strange so I am including it here anyway. Death angels will seek out and destroy the closest building to them. After that, there is a chance the Angels will seize up and do nothing – they will walk up to buildings, but not attack them. Then, after several in-game hours (20?), they will die.


Fribulan root graphics:
Some fribulan root graphics are glitched, and display a horrible distorted square graphic. This unfortunately has no fix, but is quite irrelevant since roots have no function other than decoration.


Lighting glitches:
These occur in a variety of ways both in-game and in-editor. They are harmless, and can be fixed by placing a light.



Messages:
There are a multitude of glitches with the ‘messages’ tab in the editor. Many of them do not work and will play a blank sound file. All the files are also incorrectly formatted in the editor, so selecting a file will play the previous one.


Off-set graphics:
Some objects have graphics which do not correctly line up with their tile. The two most obvious ones are the fribulan eye, and the iron resource. Additionally, one of the ‘stone’ objects, found under landscape, has a slight graphical glitch, which displays a triangle when placed.


Personnel do not use exhibits
Personnel will not use tourist exhibits. They will walk up to the exhibits and stare at them, but will not experience any change in mood, even if they hate exhibits.


Robotics factory droids:
Some industrial robots can be destroyed and rebuilt in the industrial robotics factory. For example, the space bike and butcher droid can both be destroyed in the editor, and then rebuilt in the mission – both these droids cost 1 iron, but have no icon associated with the robot. Therefore, the actual image is a big glitchy mess.
Sentinels produced by the military robotics factory are also not high enough – this is purely a visual glitch.



Second briefing is non-functioning
Self-explanatory; a second briefing will occur, but there is no way to change any dialog


Show beacon is non-functioning
Self-explanatory; this event in the editor does nothing as far as I can tell – one would assume this reveals the beacon by making it glow, but it does that regardless when the beacon is discovered.


Social area non-functioning:
Sometimes, when you send two colonists to talk at the social area, nothing happens. They will sit, but will not talk and their relationship will not improve. This can be fixed by re-sending them to the social area.


Tourist port summons tourists in the editor
If a hotel is available, the port will cause tourists to appear. They will use internal facilities and will behave like normal. This glitch is annoying, but ultimately harmless. To prevent this from happening, place the tourist port in the editor last.


Unused editor buildings:
‘Alien storage facility’ and ‘human resources’ are removed buildings which do not appear in the game. Despite this, they can still be selected in the building list – doing this does nothing.


Unused ‘Change Goods’ buildings:
‘Industrial parts’ and ‘Androids’ are removed resources which do not appear in the game. Despite this, they can still have their prices tweaked in the ‘Change Goods’ price list – changing this does nothing.


Unused voicelines
There are several buildings that the announcer does not mention. They are:
Space bike post, plant, social area, zoo exhibit, art exhibit
The voice lines do exist within the game’s files, but are unused.


Competing base facilities
The game doesn't check which team owns a biodome before allowing a facility to be placed - this means that you can place facilities inside enemy biodomes, or they can place facilities inside your biodome if you place it where an enemy's biodome used to be.
Special thanks to Mickmane for finding this one out.

Animation Errors
Some animations are incorrectly called, such as the scavenger doing its walking animation when idle, or colonists sometimes facing the wrong way.
Special thanks to Crowmasterkensei for pointing this one out.

Burnfly issues
Sometimes, if you have been playing a sandbox for a long time, burnflies and their associated plant will stop functioning properly. Metaflaxus will grow as normal, but will not release any burnflies once fully grown. Another metaflaxus plant will then appear somewhere on the map, as if burnflies were released.


Competing base duplicates:
This occurs in the second half of two-part missions; if ‘competing’ is selected twice for personnel availability, there will be two copies of each personnel, only one of which will function.


Competing base non-functioning AI:
This occurs if the competing base has too many buildings (i.e, corridors). The AI will not work, and the competing operatives will not perform any jobs.
Also occurs in the second half of two-part missions – ‘auto-compete’ is supposed to be used here, but the AI will not function.

Competing base take-over glitch
Occurs when 'take competing base' is used. If the competing base has any of the following items, they will become a colonist and will majorly glitch out the game:
-DogBot
-Soldier
-Commando
-Scavenger
-Cleaning Droid
-Any Tourists

Additionally, the game will crash if the competing base lacks a bridge or shuttle pad.









Monoliths attract aliens:
Since monoliths are classed as ‘buildings’, aliens will try to attack them. Since monoliths have infinite health, the aliens will be there forever. This is frustrating if you want to make a map with both Hosts and alien invasions.



No ogres on easy:
Fribulan ogres only appear if difficulty is selected to ‘normal’ or ‘hard’, even when specifically activated in the editor – presumed to be a glitch, since nothing else behaves like this.


No repairs:
Sometimes, damaged buildings will not register as being damaged by the game, so colonist will not repair them. This is especially frustrating if the building affected is the bridge.

Additionally, military units, (such as soldiers and commandos) will only be repaired if there is also a damaged building on the map. If there are no buildings needing repair, then military units cannot be repaired.


Nuclear bomb perma-death
Colonists who try to defuse the nuclear bomb will rapidly lose health. They will continue to lose health after they have been reanimated, effectively killing them off for good.


Scrolling in editor:
Scrolling with the middle mouse button in the editor can sometimes cause you to access hidden ‘debug’ features, which will either crash your game, or cause you to enter play-mode. Either way, you will lose any un-saved work on your mission.

This occurs when the 'Monolith' under 'Aliens' is selected, then a building is selected. To activate the glitch, just scroll up or down with the middle mouse cursor. Interestingly, a new type of landscape can be found this way. It looks exactly like water's edge, but seems to have no function.





Spineweed destroys shuttle pad:
This seems to be an oversight by the developers – giant spineweed is able to destroy warehouses and the shuttle pad. If you are making a mission involving spineweed, make sure the shuttle pad is out of the way of the spineweed’s path.


Unobtainable achievement
The 'galactic overlord' mission cannot be achieved on the steam version of Space Colony; I have completed every galaxy mode mission, but it still remains locked.


Upper limits:
There is an upper limit to certain objects placed in the editor. All vegetation and ‘Stones’ under landscape will disappear if too many are placed. This was presumably to prevent maps from being too complex, causing issues back in 2003 when the game was first released; however, modern day computers are able to handle any Space Colony map, making this a pointless restriction.
This also seems to apply to corridors when in-game. This can also cause the bio-research lab to stop working when the vegetation limit is reached. (Special thanks to Crowmasterkensei for pointing this out.)


Warehouse droid glitches:
There are several glitches with the warehouse; it is not known what causes them.
Firstly, there can be inconsistencies with storage; a droid may start a new pile of resources, despite it not being necessary. This can fill the warehouse up quickly.
Secondly, warehouse droids sometimes do not collect resources, despite there being resources available to collect.
Thirdly, warehouse droids may simply glitch out completely, and be stuck permanently collecting a resource. This occurs most noticeable on the mission ‘Power failure’ on planet Batuuli – only one droid is available here, and if it glitches, a mission restart is necessary.

Upon further research, this seems to happen when collecting a resource from a building capable of storing multiple output resources (e.g., a silicon extractor). To fix it, simply delete the building causing the problem.

Operatives ignore restaurants if there's a mess hall:
Self explanatory. Special thanks to Crowmasterkensei for finding this.

Operatives ignore commands when using space bike:
Self explanatory. Special thanks to Crowmasterkensei for pointing this out.