[PvK]

Ya, Proportions shows how you can have population have a major effect on production. In fact, if you don't want so slow a game, you could just lift the Proportions population curve and nothing else.

It won't effect things like a shrine, scanner, or robot factory, but then again, why should they? What facility actually would require even one million high-tech inhabitants to run it, short of a city...

As for planets doing NOTHING without population - not quite true. Resupply depots and component repair still take place with zero population, and I imagine everything besides construction and production do, as well.

PvK