Newbie Questions: Weapon Abilities etc

[Aegis]

Hi,
I've been playing the game about 20 hours a week for the past three weeks. Best game I've ever played, having taken the crown from MOO2. Anyway, some questions for u guyz...
1) Weapons have a little info box on the bottom 'Weapon Abilities'. This is always blank however. Is this a feature yet to be added?
2) What's the point of the Solar facility thingy from Crystalurgy. The resources gained seem pretty piffling.
3) I've had a Ring World with some 18 Bn people, but the production bonus doesn't seem to be rising since 10Bn. Does it rise later, if so when? Seems to me that one of the main justifications of RW's and Dyson spheres would be massive boni for huge populations.
4) What exactly does Race experience modify. i.e. where do you get boni?
5) Is the AI really this stupid vs. mines, or is it something in the script?
6) Got the B5 Earth shipset. It is absolutely cool! Anyone doing a Vorlon or Shadow shipset? I'd be very interested =)
7) err... Is it possible to modify the wormhole generator so that a base can use it. I wanted to build a starbase 'Gatekeeper' class, which could open and close wormholes at it's location. Unfortunately u need movement points to be able to open the hole. I tried using emergency movement points, but that didn't work. I still want the opening to destroy the component, either that or increase the size to 1000 kT for a reusable one.
8) Why does the Last level of shipbuilding bring nothing new? Are Behemoth class ships planned for later perhaps?
9) Not a question but more of a comment. It seems to me if the resources are available it's always worthwile doing an emergency build loop. Taking a 2-year cycle, with 1 unit being the amount produced in a turn on normal, then on emergency u can produce the same in 1-year(i.e. 10 units), and in the second year u then produce another 2,5 units whils on slow, thus totalling 22,5 units instead of only 20. That's a 12,5% bonus for free.

- Aegis

[UmberGryphon]

1. I think that's where phased-polaron beams list their "skips normal shields" power, isn't it? If that's not it, I have no idea.

2. They're decent in trinary systems, although most people think they're supposed to be used in finite-resource games (which are broken, or so I'm told). They'd be the only way to get resources forever if finite-resource games worked.

3. The default 1.19 data files only give bonuses out to 10 billion people. Other people have modified the files to change that--you might try the mod forum.

4. Race experience doesn't actually do anything. The only theory I've heard that seemed reasonable to me is that race experience is supposed to be used to impress others in multiplayer.

5. The AI really is that stupid vs. mines.

6. There are people working on all sorts of shipsets, including both those.

7. I don't do mods that change the rules of the game, so I'll be no help on that one.

8. Planetary spaceyards used to be in the shipbuilding tech, not alongside the orbiting spaceyards. Shipbuilding 10 used to give planetary spaceyards 3.

9. That's exactly right. Have a cookie.