A newbie writes:

[raynor]

quote:

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Originally posted by Jon Brave:
OK, since you're being so helpful...

Conditions, Value, Population, Growth, Happiness, and structures which improve them --- what's the precise relationship? What do I get out of building my plebs a Climate Control or a Pacification Center? Is the maximum number of permitted facilities dependent on an unchangeable planet size?

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First, it is important to understand that you get production bonuses based on the population level. For example, I think it is 5% at 100 million on up to 40% (I think?) at 1000 million, etc. So, you want a large population so you can build ships faster.

With that in mind, the conditions on a planet seem to affect the population growth. I have never paid any attention except to note that with deadly conditions my growth is zero. I think some folks have said that deadly conditions can cause your population to drop.

If you research Planet Utilization, you get the Climate Improvement Facility which improves the climate conditions by 1, 2 or 3% per year. (A year is 10 turns) We don't know various percentages on the different descriptions of conditions so I don't know how you would know if the planet's conditions have improved much.

Your race's happiness is determined by the type of race you pick. The types equate to aggressive, neutral and passive. Aggressive races are more happy with wars, neutral are more happy with nothing (made unhappy by change?), and passive more happy with peace treaties. I don't really understand this as well as some of the smart folks who play this game. I largely ignore it.

If your population is happy, you get a production bonus. If they go so unhappy that they riot, you don't get any production at all. Newly conquered planets are more likely to be unhappy with you and move towards rioting. You can fix this by building facilities such as an Urban Pacification Center I, II or III in the system. Or, you can station troops on the planet and/or?? put a fleet in orbit. Once again, in most of my games, this doesn't impact things much, and I don't worry about it.

The maximum number of facilities is based on planet size and the atmosphere type. If your race breathes oxygen, and you build a colony on a world with an oxygen atmosphere, you get the full number of facilities for the planet type. They are:
Tiny - 5
Small - 10
Medium - 15
Large - 20
Huge - 25
If you don't breathe the atmosphere, you are stuck in domes and lose the use of 80% of th e planet. Thus, you would only get: 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 for tiny through huge planets respectively.

You can gain the full use of atmosphere types you don't breathe by either conquering a race that breathes that atmosphere. Transport, for example, hydrogen breathers to a hydrogen world and transport them to the planet. Now, transport your oxygen breathers to your transport ship. Voila! The dome is gone, and you get full use of the planet. This is far and away the quickest way to do this.

Alternatively, you can research WAY up the Planet Utilization tech tree to get Atmosphere Modification Plants I, II or III which convert the atmosphere to a breathable type over 3.0, 2.5 or 2.0 years. The facility takes about 5 turns to build, I think I recall.

In an earlier post, you saw planets that didn't have either a green plus or red plus next to them. I think maybe you were seeing oxygen atmosphered worlds that weren't rock worlds. There are three different types of worlds: rock, ice and gas giant. You start the game with only one of the three techs and have to research, trade or steal the other two. There are five atmosphere types:
Oxygen, Hydrogen, Methane, Carbon Dioxide and none.

If you are an oxygen breather and you only have rock colonization tech, you should see the following for these worlds:

Type - Atmosphere - Symbol
Gas - Oxygen - none
Rock - Oxygen - Green Plus
Rock - Methane - Red Plus
Rock - Hydrogen - Red Plus
Ice - Oxygen - none
Ice - Methane - none

Hope that helps. Ask as many questions as you like. Workin' on my Sergeant's stripes, ya know.

P.S. Did you know that you can customize the way ships look? You can make them look like Star Wars, or Babylon Five, or Star Trek, etc... (Not on this thread, but can't fail to mention my favourite feature!)