Hey, thanks for the questions! (working on an FAQ right now
Population gives increasing production bonuses as the population increases. I don't have it memorized, but I believe it's 100M=5%, 500M=10%, 1B=20%, 2B=30%, 4B=40%, 5B=50%, 6B=60%, 7B=70%, 8B=80%, and I don't know about RW and SW max population bonuses. Someone else will be able to fill in the holes, I don't have the files on this computer to answer exactly. Happiness is on a scale from Rioting (0% production), Angry (-20%), Unhappy (-10%), Indifferent (no change), Happy (+10%), and Jubilent (+20%). When you get a Jubilent Huge world with full population (8B), then you'll notice a nice improvement per facility over, say, an Angry world with 1M population. Happiness bonus, I believe, makes it easier to get happy, reproduction increases reproduction rate. Tolerance sets what kind of world your race can live on and still actually LIVE (or, at least reproduce). IE. a race with low tolerance won't grow much on a Deadly world.
Intelligence powers intelligence operations, espionage and sabotage. Once you get the higher tech levels, you get some rather nasty operations... It's done a lot like research, you select the operation, select the target (if offensive), and it's put in the limited queue of 12.
"Support pods"?
The racial tech areas are very valuable. Organic, IMO, has the best weapons, plus arguably the best armor (depends on the situation), and some useful facilities. Crystalline gives some weapons that are superior to the regular weapons, but a bit inferior to Organic when your opponent has shields, and also has very useful facilities (love the Crystalline Restructuring Plant and Energy Transmission Lens). Temporal gets you some more good weapons, mostly useful against shields, and makes this the ideal compliment to Crystalline, while also giving Events Predictor (+30% to combat) and Temporal SY (50% faster, like having emergency build on all the time). Psychic gives you some ok weapons, the Aleigence Subverter (read: boarding parties that don't need repaired, and have range), and a few useful facilities. Religious gives you Religious Talisman (weapons always hit) and some very nice facilities.
For waypoints... I would say check that your orders aren't saying drop cargo at that point, only move there.
Hope that helps...
--edit: Note on the Aliegence Subverter... did I mention that I absolutely love Religious tech and the Religious Talisman? What do you mean when it hits, it ALWAYS hits
[This message has been edited by Will (edited 21 March 2001).]