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[EnigmaticHat]

Yeah, Galactic Civs Ultimate Eddition is $6.79, pick that over this.  At least if you can tolerate TBS games.  No offense to Distant Worlds because I'm actually having a lot of fun with it.

Does anyone know if I see any benefit if my private freighters sell goods at a profit?  I know I benefit if my colonies receive goods and if private freighters are built at my spaceports.  But what if my freighters, say, sell luxury goods to another empire?  Where does that money go, my planets, the freighter, or the state?

[Retropunch]

I found Pirate Gameplay fun, but a little...weird. Either I dont fully grasp the mechanics, or the whole protection money thing is randomized. Some Empires that were on par with my military strength payed up with no big problem, other much smaller ones refused even after I blew up their entire fleet and was circling their Space Ports. I preffered Smuggling Missions for a bit of money on the side, and then stick to boarding ships (prefferably Constructors) and installing Criminal Networks on Planets.

Yeah I have to admit, it seems a bit random, which defeats the whole point of being pirates in a lot of ways. It's a really, really interesting game mode idea, and the capturing ships/criminal networks is good, but it just felt too random in terms of diplomacy/protection for me to really get into. KNOWING that someone should be paying protection (of face extinction) and them refusing just seems weird.

I really wish someone would make an updated AI mod (which probably isn't possible) - for other games it's completely rejuvenated them

[EnigmaticHat]

I wish someone would make a diplomacy mod.  Just pick either Vichy 2 or Galactic Civs 2 and copy the bare essentials of the diplomacy system, it'll be better than what we have.  At the very least add things like military refueling rights to the trade screen so we can offer exchanges for them, and maybe some long term payment options so they have an incentive to keep the relationship going.

Anyway, I THINK that both protection cost and their willingness to accept are effected by proximity and relative military strength, while protection cost is disproportionately influenced by your military presence in their systems, and their willingness to accept is disproportionately affected by the damage you've dealt to them in the immediate past.  So a reliable way to get them to accept is wipe their homeworld's defenses, raid all their planets, leave, and THEN offer protection.  I've been able to keep the third most valuable planet in the game as a single planet empire paying 1000+ credits per month, just by wiping out their shit every time they break the protection agreement.

[jhxmt]

Does anyone know if I see any benefit if my private freighters sell goods at a profit?  I know I benefit if my colonies receive goods and if private freighters are built at my spaceports.  But what if my freighters, say, sell luxury goods to another empire?  Where does that money go, my planets, the freighter, or the state?

I believe that trade profit from goods sold elsewhere goes into your private economy - increasing the amount of money your private citizens have to e.g. build ships.  Also, trade going through your space ports gets taxed, and these trade taxes go straight into your state coffers.  Obviously if the goods are being sold at another empire's space port, it'll get the taxes, but presumably the profit will still go into your private economy.  I've not done any testing of this, so a fair amount of this is based on assumption!

[Puzzlemaker]

You also get taxes from the cost to build ships at your spaceports.  Unless you are pirates, who don't have a private economy (I think?)

[Zangi]

Does anyone know if I see any benefit if my private freighters sell goods at a profit?  I know I benefit if my colonies receive goods and if private freighters are built at my spaceports.  But what if my freighters, say, sell luxury goods to another empire?  Where does that money go, my planets, the freighter, or the state?

I believe that trade profit from goods sold elsewhere goes into your private economy - increasing the amount of money your private citizens have to e.g. build ships.  Also, trade going through your space ports gets taxed, and these trade taxes go straight into your state coffers.  Obviously if the goods are being sold at another empire's space port, it'll get the taxes, but presumably the profit will still go into your private economy.  I've not done any testing of this, so a fair amount of this is based on assumption!

1. Trade = Profit for the private sector.  You tax the private sector's profits.  (More trade is good, irregardless of where it ends up... unless it is a strategic/limited resource.  But I believe there is an option/policy somewhere to clamp down on that, plus your AI always tries to hold/acquire a minimum amount of strategic resources anyways.)
2. Ports with the +income module.  That is basically a customs tax.  It gives you money for every transaction done at any port with a +income module.

At least that is how I see it.

[Jacob/Lee]

You also get taxes from the cost to build ships at your spaceports.  Unless you are pirates, who don't have a private economy (I think?)

Pirates technically have a private economy since their freighters act independently of the player when they smuggle, like a normal empire's cargo fleet. Although I think the only way of getting more freighters was to build them yourself, which obviously wouldn't provide any income from the "private" sector.

But, yeah, a normal empire's civilians will pay to use the construction yards on your ports to build their ships.

[puke]

Is there a guide somewhere to what modules stack and what don't?

how many resource or science or commerce or luxury modules on one ship or base?  which can have multiple ships or bases functional at the same time/place, which can't?

I think science and scenery modules can have any number on one ship or base at one location, but what about other types?

I feel like there is a lot to ship design that I am just guessing at, and I could do more optimal things with more information.

[Puzzlemaker]

Is there a guide somewhere to what modules stack and what don't?

how many resource or science or commerce or luxury modules on one ship or base?  which can have multiple ships or bases functional at the same time/place, which can't?

I think science and scenery modules can have any number on one ship or base at one location, but what about other types?

I feel like there is a lot to ship design that I am just guessing at, and I could do more optimal things with more information.

Honestly it's kind of confusing.  It takes a bit of googling, I don't know if there is any one source.

[Zangi]

Components that don't stack:
Medical, Recreational, Commerce and Command (Only need 1 in total of each.)
Not sure about the Stealth, Sensors, Targeting and Countermeasures systems... but... if it goes down, you have a backup.

Basically, rule of thumb, this stuff stack in one sense or another:
Weapons, Shields, Engines, Armour, Life Support, Habitation, Docking, Cargo, Fuel, Troop, Damage Control, Research, Mining, Construction and Fighters

You'd have to put up more specific question for more specific answers/clarification...

[EnigmaticHat]

Does anyone know what medical actually does?

[jhxmt]

Does anyone know what medical actually does?

I know it gives a population growth bonus if you're in orbit of a planet (some guides recommend designing a spaceport with one on just for that benefit).  Not sure if it gives anything beyond that.

[puke]

You'd have to put up more specific question for more specific answers/clarification...

Basically I was hoping that at some point across the various versions of this game, someone came up with a definitive guide as to what the rules are.

It looks like that isn't the case.

Reading through the guide-to-guides on the official forum, I see that there is an undocumented mining cap per base, and you can only see what it is via trial and error (at what point you stop getting more resources, after retrofitting on more components) -- but I'm unclear as to wither there can be multiple bases per feature all mining the same stuff.

Also, there seems to be an empire-wide science cap somehow based on how many scientists you have to share between your labs.  So having more than x number of labs is a waste.  There seems to be some contention wither it is a flat research income cap and you can have more labs with no bonus (ignoring planets or stars with research bonuses in favor of more labs at your homeworld) or wither you can run a finite number of labs and the bonuses gets applied on top of that.

I think the #1 reason I dont play this more, is that I dont have the time to spend figuring it all out.  And the information that is available, its spread between the official forums, reddit, some steam forums now... There is no consolidated documentation. 

I invested probably a decade learning all the ins and outs and undocumented tricks in SE4, and I have absolutely no desire to do that again.  I was rather hoping that I could just look at a guide or something.  But maybe not.

[Sinistar]

Does anyone know what medical actually does?

IIRC it could be also helping with rare disease outbreaks, but I'm not sure.

[Zangi]

Ah, so you are looking into optimal builds?  Not my forte.  Well, I can tell you how I do em and why...

Mining bases, 'small' and expendable, cause damned pirates and the bigger ones are more expensive and just about as vulnerable to them. 
You can only having one mining base per planet.  (Not needed over your own colonies, since they mine the resources instead.  Independent colonies, you can put a mining base over them.)
There is also the fact that even if you have super-optimal-resource-extraction per mining base... you still need to have those resources moved just as fast as you would create those resources to make it matter.  So the mining base may bloat into an astronomical size and cost if you account for all 3 aspects... mining, trade and defense. 
Of course, this may be more viable if you focus on fewer extraction bases... and can spare the costs to maintain it.  But... there is travel distance between it and your more far off colonies that also may need the resources for whatever reason. Well, technically, it goes from mine to port to other port.  Still is travel time.

Research, I don't bother limiting myself to X number of labs cause research cap.  In that respect, I just overkill it with my Large Space Ports and never look back.  The research cap is pretty much based on your total population size and it will keep growing if you keep expanding.  No sense splitting hairs trying to keep your actual research the same as your everchanging cap.

But I guess that is all up to playstyle isn't it?

Does anyone know what medical actually does?

I know it gives a population growth bonus if you're in orbit of a planet (some guides recommend designing a spaceport with one on just for that benefit).  Not sure if it gives anything beyond that.

+Development% too I believe.