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. 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.

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!