the wiki deThanks for you help everyone!
The wiki is mildly useful, but it is still missing a lot of information. Strange for a game that has been around so long, I would expect fan-documentation of the game mechanics to be pretty much complete.
It is pretty lame that the pop growth is so non-linear,
1 for approval between 41% and 75% inclusive.
- 1.25 for approval between 76% and 99% inclusive.
- 2 for 100% approval without the Super Breeder special ability or 8 for 100% approval with Super Breeder.
this means that if you have 99% approval, you get a 25% growth bonus, but by getting just +1% more, pop growth rockets to a 100% bonus.
This means I MUST to micromanage my taxes every turn to keep my taxes as high as possible (until my planets reach the pop cap), while still keeping colonies at max growth - if one colong is off by 1%, then they miss out on a 75% pop growth bonus - lame.
So maps provide an innate speed bonnus? Wierd, if the bonus was at least one for all maps - then it would make more sense to just have the shipyard include that bonus during design - since it is constanmt. as for extra speed for larger maps, this isn't mentioned in the galaxy setup, nor the wiki - wierd.
The wiki also answers my combat question - the damage dealt is simply subtracted from the defense rolled, no conplex formula there.
As for influence, there is no formula listed in the wiki at all. If I double my influence, how does that affect the area covered? How much influence does a starbase generate? etc, the wiki has no answers.
The Galactopedia only lists the tech tree, and your custom ship designs. It doesn't mention game mechanics - like a civilopedia or datalinks would.
Looking up the wiki, it confirms that for small purchases, it is ALWAYS absolutely cheaper to use the second option to purchase your item (upgrade/ship/improvement) - seems like a bug to me, more micromanagement required.
Nobody has mentioned the shipyard build queue - I looked in the wiki, but couldn't find it there either. So it doesn't exist? Pretty lame that you can queue up ccolony improvements, but not shipyards
EDIT:
One more question: How does focusing on one area for idividual planets work? I looked in the wiki - but couldn't find any entry for the mechanics of planetary focusing (where you click on one production area to increase it's importance for an individual planet). There appears to be some inneficiency, but i'd like to know how it is calculated.