Questions about the game: things that are not clear.

2. Currently I think starbases have to be at least 3 parsecs apart, so as many as you can cram in there. I think I read that they may limit this to 4 starbases per sector and that the AI currently has this limitation. Not 100% on this.

3. I think once you have built a starbase, you can select it to see the range that it is affecting. Doesn't affect the whole sector.

4. There are numerous threads on how combat works. I found this thread to be really helpful:

Link

Your other questions have also been discussed so many times over, you would probably be well served by browsing the forums and using the search option on the left.

1. Military production that is not being used goes unspent and is essentially 'free'. Thus if you are not producing any ships on any planets, dropping your military slider will increase the amount you are spending because it increases the two other productions which are always spent.

3. 8.5 squares, ish.

1. Building stuff might be more expensive than reseraching stuff as in real life. What's cheaper, figuring out a gun or putting a bunch of them on a huge hunk of metal designed to shoot around space?
2. It will eventually change to 4 per sector, because otherwise you can, as you say, become the cheesemeister and screw over the AI six ways to sunday.
3. What HEEGZ said. And if you start in the starbase range, probably yes.
4.Both attack and defence do rolls. (IE if you have a ship attack of 26, you can still theoritically hit a low number, but lowest I've seen from a Doom Ray (26) is about 8) defence rolls aswell, but with a min of one. 10v10 attack v def, you will eventually do damage when the def rolls lower than the attack, and if it's the wrong def it'll be square root anyway (about 3 in this case)
5. I think so. You have the production of an initial colony, then you build something, say a factory, to increase production by 10% (eg, 10 becomes 11) BUT I'm not sure if it's cumulative or based on the initial colony. From what I've seen it's cumulative (So base of 100+2 10% factories= 100+10=110 +11=121). I'm not sure if this is accurate, but I don't think it's that far off.
6. Resource starbases give a civilisation wide bonus that is added on at the end. (Again, this is a guess based on what I've seen)
Hope this helps somewhat

1. The spending rates change because you have different capacities for each emphasis. An example would make more sense. Say your main economy slider's at 100%, which is giving you 60bc spending. Now each planet generages its shields, hammers, and flasks, and each one used costs 1bc. So let's say your planets have a capacity of 15 shields, 25 hammers, and 20 flasks. If your emphasis sliders are all set evenly, you're allocating 20bc to each path. Since you've only got 15 shields, though, you can only spend 15bc on military, so you've got a surplus of 5bc and 5 hammers that aren't being utilized. Drop your military and raise your social, though, and you're now spending the same 15 bc for shields, but you're spending for social has gone up to 25. You're now utilizing your full social production, but it's costing you an extra 5bc to do it, so you're now breaking even with no changes to your main slider.

2. There's no limit to the number of starbases that can affect a certain bit of space, but you can't have non-mining starbases within three parsecs of each other. That'll keep you from slapping too many in one spot.

3. All starbases have an 8-parsec area of effect. You can see it on the main map when you select the starbase. As long as your ships are in this area, they receive the bonus.

4. Attack and defense values are ranges. A ship with 4 beam will do 0-4 points per attack. The attack is rolled, and then the defense is rolled the same way. So if the above ship rolls a 3 against a 4 shield ship, the defending ship then rolls. If that roll is a 3, no damage is done. If it's a 2, it takes 1 point, etc. All defenses work the same, but they only get their full rolls when attacked by the type their designed for. So again beams, the 4 shield ship gets a 0-4 defense roll; against mass drivers, it only gets a 0-2, as 2 is the square root of 4.

I hope it stays to 3 parsecs between starbases, if you want to build that many starbases each one start to cost an immense ammount of money

Of course, when you have 30 starbases giving trade bonuses to your trade routes to the same cluster of planets and bring in 6,000BCs in trade per turn, who needs to care

I was able to get a starbase production bonus of 235% on one planet. Basicaly build in ever-expanding circles around your planet. I did this to my manufacturing capital that had a 700% and a 100% production bonus square. Holy geez I was pumping battlecruisers out...
(Get this: Manufacturing sectors produce 24 production units, 24x8 + 24x2 = 240, 480 with the manufacturing capital, 1128 with the starbases. But of course I had about 7 manufacturing sectors on that planet in addition to the bonus ones...)

Who said nano rippers cost a lot?

1) The reason it changes because not all of the sectors have the same potential. Lets say you have one planet, on that planet you have 2 factories and capital and 5 labs. The factories + capital all together have a maximum of 50 production points. The lab and capital together have a maximum of 100 research points. Now we all knoweach point is wrth one BC.

You set spending to 100% and 100% to research. The 100% speandign means 100% potential of the below selected, in this case its 100% of 100% research potential. So that's 100 BCs per turn in research you are producing. Now change the bar to 50%, that's 50 BC because its half of your 100% research max, which is 100 BC worth for 100 points of research.

Now if you set it to 100% and 100% social, it would be only 50 BCs.

This is where it gets hazy. Yous et it to 100% spending at evenly between research and social production, so that means 25 bcs goes to social (50% of 50 maximum) and 50 bcs goes to research (50% of 100 maximum) for a total budget of 75 BCs!

Are you with me so far?

It gets even more confusing now, since factories share the production maximum for purpose of military and social production, but each is affected by a seperate bonus!

So you have a maximum of 50 productions, it means you have maximum of 50 into military or 50 into social. If you put 100% spending and divide it between 50% social and 50% military, you will be spending 50 BCs. BUT if you have let's say a 50% bonus to ship buildign on that planet, then Social still ahs a maximum of 50 production meaning 50 BC; however military will have a maximum of 75 production! So at 100% military you are spending 75 BC but at 100% social still only 50. And at 50% social and 50% military you are spening 25(social) plus 37.5(military) so roughly 63BC. I haven't determined if the game rounds up or down in this case.

Now if you were at 50% social and 50% military but you weren't building a ship, you would only spend 25 bcs! Because the 37.5~38 would be refunded to you.

That is why fiddling witht he bar changes your spending levels.

1) The reason it changes because not all of the sectors have the same potential. Lets say you have one planet, on that planet you have 2 factories and capital and 5 labs. The factories + capital all together have a maximum of 50 production points. The lab and capital together have a maximum of 100 research points. Now we all knoweach point is wrth one BC.

You set spending to 100% and 100% to research. The 100% speandign means 100% potential of the below selected, in this case its 100% of 100% research potential. So that's 100 BCs per turn in research you are producing. Now change the bar to 50%, that's 50 BC because its half of your 100% research max, which is 100 BC worth for 100 points of research.

Now if you set it to 100% and 100% social, it would be only 50 BCs.

This is where it gets hazy. Yous et it to 100% spending at evenly between research and social production, so that means 25 bcs goes to social (50% of 50 maximum) and 50 bcs goes to research (50% of 100 maximum) for a total budget of 75 BCs!

Are you with me so far?

It gets even more confusing now, since factories share the production maximum for purpose of military and social production, but each is affected by a seperate bonus!

So you have a maximum of 50 productions, it means you have maximum of 50 into military or 50 into social. If you put 100% spending and divide it between 50% social and 50% military, you will be spending 50 BCs. BUT if you have let's say a 50% bonus to ship buildign on that planet, then Social still ahs a maximum of 50 production meaning 50 BC; however military will have a maximum of 75 production! So at 100% military you are spending 75 BC but at 100% social still only 50. And at 50% social and 50% military you are spening 25(social) plus 37.5(military) so roughly 63BC. I haven't determined if the game rounds up or down in this case.

Now if you were at 50% social and 50% military but you weren't building a ship, you would only spend 25 bcs! Because the 37.5~38 would be refunded to you.

That is why fiddling witht he bar changes your spending levels.

SORRY TRIPPLE POST THIS FORUM BLOWS!