Why does the BG music go down in volume on the planet screen? and other questions

from Stardock Forums
I like the BG music. Unfortunately, whenever I pull up any of the management screens (planet, domestic policy, etc) the music goes way down in volume. Does this happen to other people? I spend alot of time on these screens and would like the music to continue at normal volume. Perhaps it could be made an options.

2. Please, please, PLEASE make an option so that when you have moved your ship, the next ship IS NOT selected. I realize some people may like this, but when I am scouting, I like to see the area my ship has scouted. Currently, when I move my ship, the focus will change to the next available ship and then I have to scroll the map back to my other ship to see if it uncovered anything. I find this very painful and annoying.

3. What does planet quality do? Do your pop grow faster? Is your production faster?

4. What does population do? I assume it produces more income from taxes. Does it do anything else? Make production go faster?

5. Can you have more than 1 trade route between the same 2 planets? If I setup a trade route between Sol and the Torian homeworld, can I just setup another one the same or must it goto a different planet? Is there a reason you should not have all your trade routes come out of Sol, which is most likely to be your best planet? This is assuming that trade is better if the planets involved have better economies.

Thanks for the fun game -- I bought it after soul-searching and deciding that MOO3 was more work that fun.

~SDC~
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
"3. What does planet quality do? Do your pop grow faster? Is your production faster?"

Determines the total number of people that can live happily on the planet (i.e. before overcrowding reduces morale), as well as how fast your population grows. It doesn't affect production directly. Some planets have specials that can increase production... you'll get one of those ethical questions when you settle the colony if that's the case.

"4. What does population do? I assume it produces more income from taxes. Does it do anything else? Make production go faster?"

More people = more income, more production (both military and social, %ages determined by your settings on the domestic policy screen), and more research. You also need population to put people on colony ships or combat transports. The more people on a planet the harder it is to invade, as well, as the invader will need more troops (for the purposes of ground defence, every citizen of a planet is considered a soldier).

- Ash
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I should add... for planety quality, 15 or above are the only qualities worth having. Below that, the planets can't support enough people to be meaningful. Still, colonize below fifteen if you have the ability to raise the quality through social projects (soil enhancers, habitat improvements), or if you simply need to increase the range of your ships by having a colony in distant sectors.

- Ash
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I also have the problem on #1 that you stated. For me the volume is only effected on the Planet screens only. The music volume drops to like 50% volume on the planet view screen. Everywhere else it is fine.

Very weird thing. My soundcard is a SoundMAX card (integrated thing) im running Windows XP with DirectX 9 if that helps devs any.

Would like a fix for this.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
More...

6. Is there any way to "cancel" launching a colony ship into orbit? Sometimes I select the ship and hit launch, then it is asking me how many people to put on it. I find no way to cancel this action. If I click on the mainmap to deselect the ship, then the ship launches with whatever the slider is set to. Once it is launched, I have found no way to transfer the people back to the planet other than moving on the star and clicking on the planet. This, unfortunately, destroys my colony ship. Am I missing something or is this how it works for everyone?

7. I research Diplomacy and Trade and I believe it was Diplomacy which had "Alliances" listed as a future research topic. But I still cannot research Alliances. What do you need to research in order to get Alliances?
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I get the sound drop with my 5.1 Soundblaster card (XP) - this sounds like it likely cuts across the board. Kind of irritating; anyone NOT getting this? If so, what soundcard are you running? :notsure:
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Honor: "Is there any way to "cancel" launching a colony ship into orbit?"

Set the slider to zero people. That should abort the launch.

- Ash
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
The volume of the music lowers for me as well while in the planet screen. Could it be that this is not a bug at all, but by design?

~SDC~
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
It could be. Maybe a developer could confirm whether this is a bug or feature. If it is a feature, I'd like to make a suggestion to make this an option to disable. If it is a bug, I'd like to get it fixed :D