I figured I'd post this in a separate thread so as not to interrupt that one. I'm trying to use the game to learn more about strategy and tactics so I've got a few questions.
1) As of 2370 is looks like all planets except the Rich ones are on research, but the non-rich worlds aren't yet fully industrialized. Why do this? My understanding is that the way research works the amount of research done is dependent on the prior turn, so you can do things like take one massive turn of research, then reduce your research and trickle in research spending while still benefiting from faster research performance. I'm not sure exactly how it works. But, regardless, why stop all industrialization here? Why not at least keep building some factories? I would say that I never stop building factories on any world until I have them fully maxed out. Even if I go for an early Colony Ship I'll typically at least keep building 1 or 2 factories per turn.
2) What about defenses? I see that none of the planets have any missile bases. I'm typically paranoid about missile bases and one of the first things I do is ensure that I get at least 1 missile base on every planet. Typically I will set it so that a planet will build a missile base in 5 or 6 turns once it finishes building factories. There are exceptions to this rule, but that's generally the case. And once I get that first missile base then I may back off for a while if I really need research, but generally I like to keep all my planets building missile bases every turn for the entire game. This ensures that they stay updated all the time and if any get destroyed by spies they get rebuilt. But I've never had myself in the current situation, where I've got a lot of planets and not a single missile base on any of them. Is this just because you still have no contact? Seems like at this stage things could bust open really fast, but I guess you can rush build if needed.
1) As of 2370 is looks like all planets except the Rich ones are on research, but the non-rich worlds aren't yet fully industrialized. Why do this? My understanding is that the way research works the amount of research done is dependent on the prior turn, so you can do things like take one massive turn of research, then reduce your research and trickle in research spending while still benefiting from faster research performance. I'm not sure exactly how it works. But, regardless, why stop all industrialization here? Why not at least keep building some factories? I would say that I never stop building factories on any world until I have them fully maxed out. Even if I go for an early Colony Ship I'll typically at least keep building 1 or 2 factories per turn.
2) What about defenses? I see that none of the planets have any missile bases. I'm typically paranoid about missile bases and one of the first things I do is ensure that I get at least 1 missile base on every planet. Typically I will set it so that a planet will build a missile base in 5 or 6 turns once it finishes building factories. There are exceptions to this rule, but that's generally the case. And once I get that first missile base then I may back off for a while if I really need research, but generally I like to keep all my planets building missile bases every turn for the entire game. This ensures that they stay updated all the time and if any get destroyed by spies they get rebuilt. But I've never had myself in the current situation, where I've got a lot of planets and not a single missile base on any of them. Is this just because you still have no contact? Seems like at this stage things could bust open really fast, but I guess you can rush build if needed.