Culture affects productivity -- it shifts allegiance towards you, and away from the enemy (depending on if its an enemy or friendly world). Of course, the enemies culture does the same thing, in reverse.

If allegiance drops to 0, the planet is uncolonized. Any planetary income (including mines, taxes, and I believe trade) is reduced by your allegiance modifier -- e. g. 75% allegiance leaves you 75% income, 25% allegiance leaves you 25% income, and 110% allegiance gives you 110% of income.

There are also racial bonuses in areas affected by culture. The TEC regenerate antimatter faster, the Vasari get a damage bonus, and the Adept get a shield mitigation boost.

However, I'm not sure how this works in team games. For instance, if my teammate and I are both Adept, and I'm fighting in his culture, will my shield mitigation be improved? What if I'm Adept and my teammate is TEC? Will my antimatter regenerate faster in his culture?

Also, StealthCat, capital ships impede the spread of enemy culture, so that might account for why yours wasn't advancing.

-Tom

It's not? I haven't played enough to see this happen, though it seems to me that whatever planet has your capital should be immune to subversion.

Well how about we look at it this way. If you are playing and you subvert every one of your enemies planets except for their capital, and you still can't defeat them, then something is wrong. So why not, if not for balance's sake in a multiplayer game. That of course is just my opinion. Take it for what it is.

Try playing Point Blank, then. Go on, I'll wait. You won't be so condescending when you've captured every single planet except his capital and you're out of logistic slots for a broadcaster.

OOT: What does shield mitigation do?

I see the number rise significantly when the ship gets attacked, then decrease back to its original state when left alone. What does this mean?

One thing about mitigation I haven't been able to tell yet. Does the shielding damage prevention still have an effect once your ship's shields are down?

Shields recharge constantly (even when depleted), so once in a while you'll still have to do 2-3 points of damage to the shield. But otherwise, once the shields are down, shield mitigation is no longer relevant. That's when armor comes into play

Mitigation is percentage based, though, so a ship with 21% mitigation will take 79% of the 23 damage. The damage is not shared between shields and hull, it all goes to shields. Those familiar with EVE shouldn't have much trouble with it, since it's the same way resistances work there.

Say you have 50% mitigation and something shoots you for 100 damage, you take 50.
Now you increase your mitigation, say, by 6% (Advent culture bonus). So you have 56%, and you take 44 damage now. That's 6 less damage, or slightly more than 10% damage reduction (44 vs 50)

Yep, there are some abilities that bypass shields and do direct hull damage (nano disassemblers for example), and phase missiles have a chance to ignore shields and do hull damage.

RTFM Annie -- the manual says emergency shield generators keep it up even when shields are down. Dunno if thats true in game, but thats what the manual now says

What are you talking about?