1) There are no diminishing returns on tradeports, so each one will increase your credit income by the same amount as the previous. In short - if you want lots of credits fast, get lots of trade ports

2) You don't need one in each. Culture spreads across multiple phase lanes for numerous jumps, but slows down after each. It's usually important for your border worlds to have their own so they fight back enemy culture better and have a higher chance to incite rebellion on the nearby enemy planets.

2b) Not really, they get more culture spread speed bonuses, so stacking them is more effective, but still don't need one on each planet

3) Purchasing upgrades is very good once your economy is rolling. When you're just starting, the money is usually better spent elsewhere (unless you have teammates feeding cash). But once you get tradeports up, getting a capital to level 4 before it jumps into battle is a big advantage over a level 1 capital.

4) You bet

5) Subjective, I like guns when playing AI and if I know where they're coming from. Cheaper, can get lots of them, and the AI just runs straight into them. Hangars are great for shooting down LRMs/Siege frigates, but bombers and fighters can get shredded if there are enough attacking flaks, so they're not always as reliable. The plus for them is you can't avoid them, since fighters/bombers cover the whole grav well.

6) There are a few known bugs with ships not auto-attacking.

7) Nope

1. They stack, you can build as many as you like. The trade ports on planets in your "optimal trade route" get bonuses though so you should build extra ports on those planets if you can. The optimal route will be displayed if you mouse-over your credits at the top right of the screen, the phase lanes of the route will become highlighted in a bold white color.


2. Culture is very very hard to use offensively but very easy and important to use defensively. The first benefit is it increases planet alliegance by 10%, meaning effectively every planet within range of your culture receives +10% credit and resource income. Note that in extreme cases where hostile culture overruns friendly culture the decreasing planet alliegance will suppress income on that planet. For some reason the way the game is coded has it so that its much easier to push hostile culture off one of your plaents than to push your culture onto an enemy planet, therefore the most efficient investment is to build culture structures sparingly. They each have a very long range (its something like 2 or maybe even 3 phase jumps away) so you only need a handful scattered through your empire to provide full coverage. Later in the game when you're empire is blanketed in your own culture the defensive benefits become very important. You can research technology to give your fleet a bonus while in culture (anti-matter regen for TEC, shield mitigation bonus for Advent, weapon damage bonus for Vasari) and your enemy cannot colonize a system blanketed in your culture, which is important because it prevents him from setting up a base within your territory.

2b. I dunno, i don't play Advent. Their culture stuff is available sooner and more cheaply, but this game is really so much about military conquest that I'm not sure i would even try for offensive culture as Advent let alone one of the other factions. Defensive culture always, offensive never, in my opinion.


3. I take it you mean experience levels for your cap ships? I use it whenever it is cost effective, even in the early game. For example you can take out the militias on 2 asteroids (which will be 2 siege frigates and 2 light frigates) with your first cap ships and get it halfway to level 2. The next planet probably has considerably more resistance so I almost always pay 650 credits to finish the level and then go attack the planet once i've reached level 2. Later in the game I won't even bother to build a new cap ship unless I can promote it up to level 3 before it sees the front lines.

5. Zero guns. Zero to 2 hangars. The best defensive structures are (in order of importance): Frigate Factories, Repair Bays, Hangar Defense. Remember to leave some fleet logistics and resources stockpiled to build your defenders when you get attacked. Turrets are useless don't ever build them anywhere. Hangars with fighters are decent at scaring off siege frigates, LRM frigates, and bomber squadrons (all 3 of which are a significant threat to your colony) so they can be worthwhile if you've got extra money to invest in defense after you've got your factories and repair bays in place.

6. Slightly buggy. Bombers and cap ships seem to figure it out but most of the frigates don't for some reason. just gotta keep a closer eye on the battle i guess.


7. In terms of drag/drop empire tree stuff? No i don't think so. You can however go into the settings and determine what gets auto-pinned and what doesn't to prevent clutter from building up there. At the moment I only keep fleets set to auto-pin and i manually pin the planets i care about.

I have used culture for the purely economic purpose of raising allegiance to its maximum. All planets start 10% lower than their maximum allegiance, so that is potential extra money and resources being squandered if you don't build any culture buildings at all.

From an offense/defense perspective, I have never used culture in that way, so I too look forward to the responses.

Edit: A couple specific questions:
Where do you find info on a planet's culture in-game?
How is culture tracked? % like allegiance, or points?
At what point do your ships receive the culture bonus for combat effectiveness?

I've only seen the Allegiance % in a planets tooltip box, so I wasn't aware if culture was a seperate item from that, and would be interested to find out, along with the OP.