struggling with how things work

Hey, we do have an ingame wiki planned, and if everything works out, it will actually use GPT, to make the usage even more versitile!

To answer a few questions though:
pops provide boost to your economy. But we are actively looking into changing their mechanics, to make them more interesting.
When selecting a pop to man a ship, you usually just pick the "worst" one (you can check values of a pop, by hovering your mouse over him/her)

On a new coreworld, it depends a lot on the tile bonuses. If you see research bonus tiles, go for research buildings, if it's manufacturing, go for manufacturing, and so on.

Hope this helps!

What would you start with here to get things running? I just placed a capitol on a desert now.

New Core World

This is a relatively balanced planet, but still with good possibilities for manufacturing.
I would start with 2 factories, shipyard, one research building close to you capital in that bonus tile, and then continue focus on manufacturing, with a few exceptions around bonus tiles

Not that important (not to me at least). They are a resource for colony ships, constructors, and transports. You need 1 unit of population to launch any of those ships.

They can also boost the stats of the colony by % amount and what stats depend on the stats and profession of the citizen. Workers, for instance, boost manufacturing and ship construction.

1 less citizen doing a job.

Umm... Do you mean which civilization? The Terran Alliance is a good starting civ. Though you should try at least a few others once you know how to play for variety's sake.

Avoid manufacturing districts to keep pollution low. Pollution reduces population growth by a small amount. Also build hospitals.

Build housing districts for more population capacity.

Build manufacturing districts to increase manufacturing and ship construction.

You can build districts by clicking on an empty tile. Building the same type of districts adjacent to each other levels up the districts affected. This increases their bonuses. You start knowing how to build a small list of districts. New districts are unlocked by tech. On the top right is special buildings. Below that you can upgrade districts by a level.

There are other ways to level up districts and buildings. Such as tiles the tiles you build them on and special buildings giving multiple adjacency bonuses.

I usually build a balance of districts. Factories, Labs, and Economy. Looking at your inputs you will get a lot of farming output if you build some farming districts, and a significant amount of money if you build some economy districts. Mineral and technological input is low so you wouldn't expect to get much of either manufacturing or research even if you build a lot of districts.

Colonial generators and supply depots don't produce any pollution, so I would consider building those at the very least.

Before I forget, supernova is under developments and may change a lot in coming updates. The next update is expected to break saves.

Thanks for all the input. It realy helps me to get a better understanding of what's going on.

No, I ment which citizien should I choose for the new spaceship. Apparently, citizens are less important than I initially thought.

I will add some more questions. I'm mainly doing this to give feedback to the developers on the problems inexperienced players are encountering. But feel free to answer them

I build a freighter. How do I setup a trade route now?

Can I set up a trade route with planets in my own empire?

Do I need a trade agreement with other civs to setup a trade rout?

Does a trade route need escort?

Does the distance between the planets affect the outcome of the trade route?

Has diplomacy an impact on trade routes?

What I want to show with my questions is, it is not enough to explain the interface. This is mostly intuitive. There are currently many decent strategy games. Gal Civ sure has his fans. But if you want to excite more players, they shouldn't have to constantly hop on the internet for information.

I'm not an expert on trade routes. I'm a war monger so I prefer warships over trade ships. That said, I do read the forums and discord, so I should know a few things.

You can set up a trade route by sending a freighter to another planet. Kinda like colonizing a planet. Once established, a trade route will be setup between the planet that built the freighter and the planet the freighter arrived at.

Only 1 trade route can exist between 2 planets. If the planet builds another freighter, it'll have to go somewhere else.

You can't form trade routes between 2 of your own planets. The destination must be with another civilization.

Freighters can be destroyed if they haven't formed a trade route. I don't recommend sending them to hostile space. Once a trade route is formed, it can only be broken by war.

You don't need permission to set up a trade route. If the other civ is at war with you, you can't establish a trade route.

There are several things that improve the income from trade routes: the distance, age, and income of the two connected worlds.

Trade route improve relations with other civs. Trade routes are profitable for both parties.

You can get more trade route licenses if you turn citizens into traders. 1 license per trader.