Skills modifying ore extraction:
Advanced materials collection (+3% RO production per planet per rank. 10% if you are trader specialist)
Interstellar Commerce (+10% resource production per rank on all planets with a matter transmitter)
Power Generation (+2% resource production per rank and factory efficiency per rank)
Other things modifying ore extraction
Specialty - Trader (starts out with 10% RO extraction where other races have 0)
Building - Orbital refinery (10% increase to a planet's resource production)
Ok so we now understand that each rank of advanced materials collection allows access to more of an already decided value of a planet rather than multiplying a base value. This makes the skill 10 times more efficient.
Question 1:
Question 2:
Question 3:
Question 4:
Question 5: