Three questions for you pros

[bbq]

1. Is it worth it to build those Climate Control facilities to improve a planet's condition? It seems the effect on a planet's condition isn't that drastic on population growth, and those Climate Control facilties takes a LONG time to improve conditions. Do you have more net gain if you just plop down like a mineral mining facility instead of wasting years of time waiting for condition to slowly improve? Not pursuing that avenue of research represents a saving in RP too.

2. The Natural Merchants trait seems to me to not worth the 1000 points it costs. Even if it is made into 500 points only it is still easily 'fixed' by simply spending 3 turns per system to build a spaceport. What am I missing?

3. Is it just me or do other people only concentrate on researching a few 'paths' for weapons too? It seems many of the weapons aren't powerful enough or flexible enough to compete with the good old Cap Ship Missiles, Anti Proton Beams, Depleted Uranium weapon at early game, etc. This seems particularly true for me for fighters/troops weapon as 1 or 2 of those appear to be far better than the rest. (I heard Range doesn't matter for troops weapon?)

Thanks.