[Trachmyr]

I must admit my error here... Indeed I was thinking that reproduction was per turn not per year... However, my feelings that reproduction was too high was based on the growth I viewed in my games, it was my calculations that was askewed. Still, growth is too high. If say gestation & recovery takes about 1 year; with about half of the population able to reproduce (i.e, men vs. women)... and only half of those at the correct maturity to reproduce (counting improved medicine) that comes to 25% per year. But that would only happen if everyone was trying to reproduce, if conditions were excellent and there was no death rate, and there was access to good health care.
If you were to figure that happiness influences desire to reproduce, it would go something like this:

Rioting = 5% of those who can (i.e., 5% of 25%=1.25%)
Angry = 10% (10% of 25% = 2.5%)
Unhappy = 20% (5%)
Indiffrent = 40% (10%)
Happy = 50% (12.5%)
Jubiliant = 60% (15%)

Now conditions come into play:
Deadly Growth x 0.2, -8% death rate
Harsh Growth x 0.4, -6% death rate
Unpleasant Growth x 0.6, -4% death rate
Mild Growth x 0.8, -2% death rate
Good Growth x 1, -2% death rate
Optimal Growth x 1.2. -2% death rate

Medical Labs (which should be available to all, not just organic) adds about 2% to growth rate before calculations for conditions AND cuts death rate in half.

The result, on a world with happy people, Good conditions and a medical lab... the reproduction rate would be 13.5% (the best growth would be 19.4% w/o racial modifiers)
--On a world with unhappy people, unpleasant conditions and no med facility, the repro. rate would be -1%, add a med lab and it becomes 2.2% (the worst would be -7.75%)

These numbers bring about more realistic growth, and provides a reason to look for planets with better conditions (or buy up enviromental resis. trait).

Like I mentioned, pop. should be tracked in the thousands... and 1K people should weigh 100KT (assuming KT stands for metric tons not a thousand tons... could you imagine a 50 million pound fighter!)

Well, sorry for the mistake (I'm sorry because the obvious miscalculation weakened by position)... but my original stance remains the same... although I think the culprit is the bonuses given to reproduction from happiness/conditions, not the base reproduction rate itself.