Thanks.
There are a few techtree things that relate to lightning but I didn't see anything about unit limits and the increased gather rate. Nor did I see anything in the tech tree referring to conquest VC conditions.
These may very well be hard coded into the game engine (???) As it seems there is a global file the game must check to make those changes.
I was able to answer my other question after some digging in the database MythicFreak assembled. There is a function called vcGetGameplayMode() which returns the game play type (Sup = 0, Conquest = 1, Lightning = 2, Deathmatch = 3).
It seems you can only call this function from inside Victory Conditions. But thankfully TwentyOneScore (years ago) found a way to let us code VC directly from inside the rms. So the short of it is that using advanced triggers, you can check gameplay mode from inside an rms and then using triggers you can make adjustments.