Well, I've so far managed to figure out that Soil and Habitat improvements raise the Planet Quality, so a 14 goes up to 15 and then 16. It's percentage, so a 20 would go up to a 22, then a 24. If you luck on a 26 at the beginning (i did
) it can go straight up to 31.
But hell that's like playing in paradise and you might as well not play
The strategy comes in an idiotic form. AI consistently ignores planets of PQ 14 and below, so if you find an untouched galaxy of PQ 14, you can colonize it, improve it, and use it as a base against the enemy. Or they might just take it over. That sucks.
And the research sucks, too. I was told that GC was better than SEIV, but yeah so far only the diplomatic model. Then again, would I want to see that in SEIV? In any hard mode, all you do is standard, you bribe them to fight each other, leave you alone while you grow and harvest the spoils of war. If you play easy, you simply blackmail for money right at the start and that keeps them impoverished for quite some time. I see no way of getting out of this, in any game...
Would I want such a diplomatic model in SEIV? So far, no. But hopefully someone can come up with a better idea...
Abd.
PS. Ships repair automatically. darn slow rate too. You can research Repair and Advanced Repair. Something might exist beyond that but that's as far along the tech as i got.