Just a quick question here: are factories, and their abilities to produce, linked at all to population? Actually, this could go to any planetary improvement, but in my particular case, I'm in the early game, populating planets here and there, plonking down factories, but with low populations. Does it make any difference how many people are available to work in a factory (or research center, or commerce center), or are the buildings magic, working at their max (as determined by the sliders in a different part of the interface) on their own?

Whatever the answer, how could I have discovered this on my own in-game? What piece of the interface would have told me this? How could I have determined what connection my population size has to do with any planetary improvement? Are populations only really good for tax money and cannon/colony fodder?

TIA,

frog