What a great thread! I appreciate all the great answers on here! I've learned a whole lot!

I have two more newbie questions to add:

First: I've read here about the harvesters draining the ore from a planet faster than the planet can churn it out. Does anyone actually know the actual rate in time that these harvesters take ore from a planet (and if you do, does it differ with the different harvester ships)? Just curious.

Second: I've been working on stuff in my tech tree. What are the different ranks for for each tech? For example, if I just trained a specific tech, and it's now Rank 1/9 - if I train in again it'll be 2/9 and so on, all the way to 9/9. Does the "special ability" this tech gives me get better with each rank or something? What does the rank mean?

Thanks for the help all! And thanks to Zarksoft for a great game!