Questions on the Drengin and other

Different populations affect manufacturing.

There are several things that factor into how much another faction likes you. Your primary ideology choices is just one factor. In the diplomacy sreen you can hover with the mouse over another faction an see why they like you or not.

Could be because of differences in starbase-boni, in population, in the focus of planet or if the planet is an extreme planet and you haven't yet researched the tech to counter the extreme planet production penalty. Could also be something else.

Q1:  Why do they like me?

A1:  There are a lot of things which go into whether a foreign race thinks you're good or not.  Ideology does impact it, with opposites being a -3 diplomacy modifier, but it's not the be-all-end-all of why relationships work.  Within the main diplomacy screen (the big ring with you in the center) mouse over one of the other races.  It will show you all (most) of the modifiers which are impacting things right now.

Q2:  Tourism with the Drengin?

A1:  Nobody wants to visit the Drengin worlds, it is sort of like inviting yourself over as the main course for a meal!  More seriously, I don't normally use the Drengin tech tree so I can not comment on it in detail.  However the normal pattern is you research Tourism and then begin receiving free money.  You can raise this level of income by researching further up the Tourism tree or by building buildings.  I will take advantage of special tourism bonuses on worlds, but it is very rare for me to build a tourism building without such a bonus.  The basic fact is that I am rarely hard up for money, and I would much rather use the limited amount of planetary land for research / production / food than dedicate it to tourism.  I think it's a much better return on investment.

Q3:  Why do the Altarians hate me, when I haven't even met them yet?

A3:  It was a random galactic event, and that's how it happened to pan out.

Q4:  Why do some planets grow much faster than others?

A4:  The main thing which impacts planetary capability is raw production, which is generated mostly by population.  To see the values, open up any planetary detail window and then inspect your raw production value.  It will show that you're getting X amount from the colony capital, Y from population, +/- % due to approval, losses due to coercion, etc.  Some things you want to try and do:

• Try to avoid coercion penalties.  These kick in when you are forcing a large amount of your population to focus too much on one aspect (say, Manufacturing) and not allowing them to enjoy Research and Wealth as well.  I tend to set my values in the main civilization governing tab to 44/44/12 Manufacturing/Research/Wealth and then leave it there for virtually the entire game.  This incurs 0% coercion and thus no loss of productivity.  I do not normally adjust it on a planetary level except in very rare circumstances, such as shifting to more wealth, as the coercion penalties can be severe.  I suggest you experiment a little and you'll see what I'm talking about.
• Keep your approval rating high, the +25% bonus to raw production is huge.
• Keep your population growing.  You need lots of population to generate the raw production which is then converted through buildings into Man/Res/Wealth.  Try to plan for at least two adjacent farms per planet.
• Be careful about sucking all of the population off the planet using Transports.  You might find your planet is covered in factories but has no people, thus the manufacturing capacity is low.
• Try building one or more economic staircases near your planets.  They can be a huge boost to all of the above.  I normally build one maxed out Econ starbase by each planet, with a full ring of multiple staircases around clusters of planets or major production centers (i.e. homeworld).

Q5:  Why do I suck?

A5:  Likely it's through not understanding Q4 above.  Mastering the economic capacity of your worlds and empire will greatly accelerate your growth potential.

Q6:  What should I do now?

A6:  Experiment!  Once you've tried a few things, come back and ask more questions.  Either myself or another will help out.  

Many thanks, guys, especially ManiiNames, for your detailed response.

I will take what you wrote into account.

What I don't understand, though, based on what you said on population counts affecting manufacturing/construction, is that when I colonize planets with exactly the same number of people in the colony ships (=full), so starting with the same number of ppl on a new planet, construction times can vary so widly, even taking planet bonuses etc. into account. Surely it's gonna take roughly the same amount of time to build the same buildings anywhere, given the same available manpower?

PS - it seems the Drengin are at a major disadvantage economically compared to the other races, because they can barely do tourism?

Tourism really isnt that important. There are way worse disadvantages

Yea, I'm really confused as to why you think tourism is important or vital... I never build any tourism buildings, perhaps you just need to build a few more wealth focused planets?

I've now learned through experience that raw production (= population) is more important by a long way for output than number of manufacturing buildings. Thanks ManiiNames.

Also i think how far from capital makrs a difference. 

I assume the planet quality affected production but i guess i am not certain?

i had a suspicion tile bonuses even without structures appears to increase production a bit as well?

Definitely the colonization random events often affect production.

And one thing that took me a while to spot is that some planets have general production/science/income bonus showing in its description before you have even colonized it!

Interestingly.... whenever you first start a game, on the first turn, before you build anything or change anything, make a mental note of how long it would take to build a scout ship. Now remember that for whenever you start new games.... sometimes the number of turns will be quite different!!!! That one i have not worked out yet?

So whenever i do start a new game, i always check the scout ship build time, if its longer than usual, i restart a new game!

I thought the Drengin were supposed to be hard to keep their contentment, but you just build an Entertainment Centre next to your colony capital like with all the other races and bang, 100% happiness in nearly all cases.

The Drengin start with negative morale.  Yes a building fixes the problem, at least while you continue to keep it upgraded in sync with the planet's population.  I myself view morale buildings as a tax, and try to avoid them whenever possible.  Harmony crystals, technology such as +4 to all morale, starbases with +morale modules etc are the way I deal with morale issues.