A puzzlement

[Alneyan]

Research is altered by two things early on:
- You start with some points first turn, 20,000 bonus research points by default.
- Afterwards, your homeworld will likely go back to an Indifferent mood, while you start at Happy level. Therefore you lose the 10% bonus to research if your happiness goes down back to Indifferent.

So you may see such differences in the early turns, as your research income will be lowered after the first two/three turns. (Unless you happen to have a quite high Happiness characteristic)