25% bonis is one thing, but 500% is a bit ridiculous... Even on Godlike setting. THere must be something I'm missing...

Are you playing Dread Lords or Dark Avatar? If DA, if you put a spy on the planet I believe it tells you the possible production, if they had 100% spending in that area, not the actual production.

Population has nothing to do with research. Well not directly. Population pays taxes, when then can be turned into research points by labs.





I quickly played with some numbers, and here are the results. The Altarians can start the game (not including party benefits) with:
-Research 45%
-Economics 60%
-Morale 35%

So not only does the Altarians have an enormous research capacity potential, but they also have the economic capacity to support it. Add in party benefits, and you could end up with Economics of 80% (with federalists), or research 65% (with tech party). Add in the in game bonuses (+10% research from planetary improvements, +15% from two economic techs, and +30% morale with the first tech being +15%, not including trade goods), the Altarians can end up with stats of Economics 75% (or 95%), Research 55% (or 75%), and Morale 65%. The research bonuses allow for a massive increase in research efficiency, and the economic factor allows them to support so many research centers.

________________
*Steps back to be amazed by the numbers*
Note to self: next game, get economic and research treaty with Altarians.

700 Rp's are not that much considering their 200%+ bonuses they recieve at that difficulty. It can be easily matched by the player though. My current Tech capitol is pushing over 16K Rp's. Sound like you may need to specialize a few planets toward research. Use bonus tiles and look in the planet details screen for additional research bonuses.

It's a class 32. It's also the best Tech Capitol I've had before. My previous was around 13K. Too bad it will go bye bye in a few turns when I finish the tech tree in favor of econ/pop. btw The highest I've seen was Fuels Chief with a Tech Capitol over 20K. This one had the potential for that, but it's placement didn't allow enough econ SB's to boost it. I also have six or seven research resources   

I'm suprised no-one else has suggested what seems to be pretty obvious... could the Altarians have lucked into a Precursor Library? THAT would make a big difference.

I don't really want to know how this setting works!!!

Don't forget the Omega research center. You 'll end up with some thing like this.

How do you get to Omega Research Center/Facility? Does it become available with Discovery Spheres? Because I've never researched that and I've never seen ORF.

Isn't there a "hyperion computer" or "nano recorders" or something that also increases research?

How does the game handle unused military points? I know when I cursor over my social production on the planet mangement screen it says unused social is automatically transfered to military production. However, it doesn't say anything about military, so I always assumed it was wasted. Consequently, I've have developed the impression that large military production was useless after I reached 1 week construction times. Recently I discovered one of my worlds occassionally creating 2 ships and in one circumstance where I changed the production from the civ management screen it produced 3 original constructors before building one I designed, even though the build que said 1 week for the new ship. It actually buit 3 constructors - one every week - before building the new design - which although larger still showed as 1 week in the build que during all 3 turns. Is this normal or have I experienced a dual core bug?

It isn't, as far as I'm aware.



Unused production of either type is funneled into the other if there is work to be done. If nothing is being built at all on that planet, then the military/social spending for that planet is refunded.