I think the main issue for slow games is research speed. There's a giant leap from normal to fast because research times basically get cut in half when going from normal to fast, but faster research isn't a whole lot different than fast. In my SP games, the normal-everything setting is basically bound from above by the normal research speed basically throughout the whole game. As TEC for instance, Modular Architecture (which needs to be taken early to be worthwhile) competes with research for volcanic/ice colonization on the same timer. And so do population upgrades for the homeworld/Terran. On fast research setting, I manage all of these in nearly optimal sequence. On normal research speed there's barely enough time to get the volcanic/ice research in due time usually making MA usually not worthwhile and the hw pop upgrades research then end up competing with trade on the same timer. After econ gets going well (typically after 20-30 minutes of the game), the research timer crunch gets even worse in the main departments (military/econ)... Only the defense/fortification and diplomacy research timers aren't as taxed.

The two factors that do make faster-setting games differ a bit from fast-setting games are income and build speeds, with the greatest absolute increase in these two departments occurring when changing them from fast to faster. The rest of the stuff doesn't matter that much for the overall pace of the game. I don't have enough experience to comment on the culture push speed settings.

I actually don't like ships zipping around like crazy and the nearly instant structure build times that faster movements and build times give. Those two tend to over-emphasize reflexes (and the quality of your mouse) if you play without pausing. Alas, even though this game provides a somewhat decent protocol for a limited number of pauses-as-timeouts, those are frowned upon in MP (even as courtesy for afk players), but that's a player/culture issue. When played without any pauses, this game heavily taxes multi-tasking abilities (so, as an aside I suspect women would play it better than men on average, if they could convinced to play it, LOL) and the faster settings for ship movement and building make that worse.

I suspect a reduction in multi-tasking craziness is among the reasons why the MP community prefers 5v5s with the ad-hoc roles that result because it's far too taxing on the average person to do well all the econ building and simultaneous fighting given the game's interface if no pauses are allowed. In the few "pro" games I've seen, the front-liners often make econ mistakes starting with not trying at all to take roids/moons and indestructible/capturable extractors they could easily take and continuing with botched attempts at taking such econ objectives, e.g. failure to notice when the militia Krosov actually manages to move to a safe firing position relative to the turret(s) on single-colony expansions (even the better players like sinkillr have been hit by this on occasion) which is something even noobish players would have no trouble with, assuming they could pay undivided attention to that. In single-player, with pausing to give orders, I have no trouble attacking/taking the homeworlds of two Hard AI neighbors practically simultaneously (from the game-time perspective) at about the twenty minutes to half-hour mark. There's also the fact that 5v5s provide variation in the player's experience as a limited form of role-playing/specialization and the cooperation aspect, e.g. the ganging up vs. the "suicide" positions, so there's certainly more to 5v5s than multi-tasking reduction by delegating econ, but I think it is an aspect...

So, any tuning efforts directed at long-term game pace improvements should try to avoid making the multi-tasking craziness of this game any worse than it already is. I for one doubt we'll any changes at this point...

For those who don't know how get these, below are the raw numbers for the various settings (from gameplay.constants).

[code]

buildSpeedData-Slow
shipBuildRateGameSpeedScalar 0.0
moduleBuildRateGameSpeedScalar 0.0
buildSpeedData-Normal
shipBuildRateGameSpeedScalar 0.10
moduleBuildRateGameSpeedScalar 0.10
buildSpeedData-Fast
shipBuildRateGameSpeedScalar 0.20
moduleBuildRateGameSpeedScalar 0.20
buildSpeedData-Faster
shipBuildRateGameSpeedScalar 0.40
moduleBuildRateGameSpeedScalar 0.40
cultureSpeedData-Slow
cultureConnectionReferenceLength 250000
allegianceShiftRateScalar 0.75
cultureSpeedData-Normal
cultureConnectionReferenceLength 500000
allegianceShiftRateScalar 1.0
cultureSpeedData-Fast
cultureConnectionReferenceLength 750000
allegianceShiftRateScalar 1.25
cultureSpeedData-Faster
cultureConnectionReferenceLength 850000
allegianceShiftRateScalar 1.45
researchSpeedData-Slow
researchRateGameSpeedScalar -4.75
researchSpeedData-Normal
researchRateGameSpeedScalar -1.3
researchSpeedData-Fast
researchRateGameSpeedScalar -0.15
researchSpeedData-Faster
researchRateGameSpeedScalar -0.05
incomeSpeedData-Slow
incomeRateGameSpeedScalar 0.0
incomeSpeedData-Normal
incomeRateGameSpeedScalar 0.15
incomeSpeedData-Fast
incomeRateGameSpeedScalar 0.30
incomeSpeedData-Faster
incomeRateGameSpeedScalar 0.75
fleetSupplyData-Small
fleetSupplyScalar 0.75
fleetSupplyData-Normal
fleetSupplyScalar 1.0
fleetSupplyData-Large
fleetSupplyScalar 1.25
shipPhysicsSpeedData-Slow
shipLinearMaxSpeedGameSpeedScalar 0.0
shipLinearAccelerationGameSpeedScalar 0.0
shipLinearDecelerationGameSpeedScalar 0.0
shipPhysicsSpeedData-Normal
shipLinearMaxSpeedGameSpeedScalar 0.30
shipLinearAccelerationGameSpeedScalar 0.30
shipLinearDecelerationGameSpeedScalar 0.30
shipPhysicsSpeedData-Fast
shipLinearMaxSpeedGameSpeedScalar 0.45
shipLinearAccelerationGameSpeedScalar 0.45
shipLinearDecelerationGameSpeedScalar 0.45
shipPhysicsSpeedData-Faster
shipLinearMaxSpeedGameSpeedScalar 0.6
shipLinearAccelerationGameSpeedScalar 0.6
shipLinearDecelerationGameSpeedScalar 0.6
victorySpeedData-Slow
diplomaticPointsRateSpeedScalar 0.66
occupyVictoryTimeScalar 1.5
victorySpeedData-Normal
diplomaticPointsRateSpeedScalar 1.0
occupyVictoryTimeScalar 1.0
victorySpeedData-Fast
diplomaticPointsRateSpeedScalar 1.33
occupyVictoryTimeScalar 0.75
victorySpeedData-Faster
diplomaticPointsRateSpeedScalar 2.0
occupyVictoryTimeScalar 0.5

[/code]

Here are some example how to read these:

Fast build cuts build times by 9.1% vs. normal (1.2/1.1), while faster build cuts them by 16.6% vs. fast and 27.3% vs. normal (1.4/1.1); actual times are always computed from the entity/slow BuildTime divided by (1+bonus). E.g. a Cobalt has a slow/entity BuildTime of 24, and so takes 24/1=24, 24/1.1=21.81, 24/1.2=20, and 24/1.4=17.14 seconds on the four build speed settings; these are displayed rounded in game as 24, 22, 20 and respectively 17 seconds. A PJI [one of the slowest things to build] takes 150 seconds on slow build speed and 107 on faster (150/1.4=107.14).

Fast income gives a 13% bonus vs. normal, whereas faster income gives a 34.6% bonus vs. fast so a whopping 52.2% faster vs. normal (1.75/1.15). For example, an extractor operating at 100% allegiance gives 0.4 on slow, 0.46 on normal, 0.52 on fast and 0.7 on faster. Base tax income is 1 credit per second for every 40 population at 100% allegiance, and this is also scaled by the income speed factors in the same way as the resources. But the homeworld planet resource bonus (0.4 resources of each kind) is unaffected by the income speed setting; the easiest way to see this is to use normal start (instead of quick start), which gives you zero initial extractors. Beware that on normal start the game has a weird "feature" which causes the homeworld to not give any resource bonus at all until you schedule at least one resource extractor for construction. It doesn't matter which one [crystal/metal] you schedule; as long as you schedule at least one, the homeworld resource bonus starts working immediately for both crystal and metal. The homeworld credits bonus isn't affected by this issue, i.e. it works from the get go, even on normal start. And unlike the homeworld resource bonus, the homeworld credits bonus is multiplied by the income speed setting factor. So a [quickstart] homeworld with a population of 280 thus generates 4+(280/40)=4+7=11 credits/second on the slow income setting and 1.75*(4+7)=19.25 on faster, but generates only 0.4+1.75*0.4=1.1 crystal/sec on faster. The planet underdevelopment penalty rates (which are specific to each planet type and are set in their entity files at developmentTaxPenalty) also get multiplied by the same (1+incomeRateGameSpeedScalar), so colonizing planets also costs more on the faster income settings.

A first-level research takes 230, 92, 46, and respectively 42 seconds on the four speed settings. The computation for these starts with an entity BaseUpgradeTime of 40 and applies the negative "bonuses" by multiplication with (1-bonus), i.e. with (1+absolute value of the bonus). For example, the faster-setting research time (for a 1st level research) is 40*1.05=42 seconds, while the slow-setting time is 40*5.75=230 and the normal one is 40*2.3=92 seconds.

I haven't fully worked out the culture yet; the second part (allegianceShiftRateScalar) is clear, i.e. how fast a planet changes allegiance while in culture, but the first constant (cultureConnectionReferenceLength) is less obvious; it appears to be the length that a unit of culture pushes per second, possibly scaled by a constant.