Well, I'll try to help...
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1. Is there any reason to upgrade your ships engines when you advance from, say Ion engine I to Ion engine II? I can't see any benefits at all. They only cost less when built.
To my knowledge the is no overriding reason...but it will save you a little in construction and maintance. Every little bit helps.
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2. Is there any way to modify you racial traits when playing? For example increase strength by 1%.
After a game has started no. When setting up a game you can modify your characteristics. Just chose a player and press edit.
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3. I've colonized 40 or so planets, but most of them are, well... crap. I've only got about 10 that are really useful. Should I stop spending resources on colonizing tiny planets and concentrate on the good stuff?
I usually try to colonize those good planets first
(ones with my atmosphere and medium size or better), then when I have expanded into contact with other races I will go back and start to settle lesser worlds.
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4. Which rescource do you use the most? So far I've almost exclusively used minerals. Does this change later in the game?
Usually most empires do use minerals the most, the only exception I've seen is if you heavily use organic technology.
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How much storage is useful?
I usually build more mineral storage then organic or radioactive storage. By about a ratio of 3 to 2. (50% more mineral storage)
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6. Do I have time to research everything. or am I spreading myself too thin if I do that?
Different players research different things...I usually concentrate on infrastructure and a couple of weapon technologys and wait to research other things until there is time or a need for them.
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7. Are you all playing SEIV Gold? Are there a lot of changes between SEIV and SEIV Gold?
I started playing with SEIV and bought Gold later.
Some features have been added to SEIV Gold, most notably the addition of Drones.
I hope this helped.
