Trade Stations, Development Levels, and Colonist Capacity

We have made several changes and additions to several features found in the home sector, to add more interesting development options and decisions for players with more advanced sectors.

Changes to Trade Stations

1. Trade stations are now organized into networks, and stations and starbases can only send Megacredits to others in their own network. Trade stations link to form networks with other stations that are within 200ly (the UI reflects these connections). Any stations linked this way and all of their connected planets make the network. Of course, it is possible to connect your entire sector again by building/moving trade stations.
2. Trade stations can now facilitate moving minerals. Any starbase with a direct connection (within 100ly) of a trade station can select a mission to send or receive a particular resource. It can send up to 100kt of that resource to each connected station, or receive up to 100kt from each connected station. Receive requests are processed first to make space on the trade stations for sending bases to fill. There are currently no mineral send/receive missions on the trade stations themselves.

Planet Development Levels

You can now invest Megacredits in a planet's infrastructure and interconnectedness in the sector. Raising a planet's development level has a couple benefits:

1. It can substantially raise the colonist capacity (see below) of the planet, so you can grow your population above the normal 100,000 clan limit.
2. It grants +1 colonist happiness to the planet.

Colonist Capacity

There are a number of factors that go into computing a planet's additional colonist capacity, and you can see the effects detailed on the level development screen:

• Fame - Based on your success in public multi-player games outside of the Home Sector, as reflected by your overall player level, which you can find on your home page or in the Home Sector Resources window.
• Location - The closer the planet is to other planets, the better.
• Sector Development - This reflects the development levels of planets in your Home Sector as a whole, with a regional bias. High development levels of close planets will boost this the most.
• Homeworld Distance - The closer, the better.
• Starbase - Having a starbase at the planet gives a small boost.
• Command Center - The planet with the Command Center will receive a much more substantial increase.
• Race Tech - A global factor reflecting the Race Tech gained so far by completing the missions at the Command Center.
• Natives - Based simply on their government level, though Amorphous apply a penalty.
• Defense posts - The more, the better.
• Trade Station - Based on the trade station network this planet is connected to, as a percentage of the planets in this network compared to all of the races planets.

The most important factor will still be the development level of the planet, which acts as a multiplier for all of effects above. Raising the base capacity of the planet (based on the climate) is also helpful, so don't slack on your terraforming!

Total Colonist Capacity

Aside from the effects on individual planets, the total of your colonist capacities across all your planets is used in a couple places:

1. The new Empires Leaderboard (https://planets.nu/#/leaderboard/homesectors), which shows who has the most developed Home Sectors in the Nuniverse! Total colonist capacity is the primary ranking factor here!
2. You are now limited on how many Gigacredits you can create each turn, based on your total colonist capacity. You can create 1 a turn to start, and every one million clans capacity will allow you to convert an additional 1. Note that this is a per turn limit across all of your galactic trade stations, not a per station limit.

Note that Debris Disks are not included in capacity calculations (and also cannot have their level raised), so for those that have maxed out their populations, it is possible to have a population a little above your total capacity.

So now the question is... who will build the largest empire?