Traits is what defines your race strengths and weaknesses, all built-in races are also expressed
in terms of these. I call a trait any race characteristic, here’s a rough classification:
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Biological traits, the ones that apply to citizens of your race only, like +1 Industry, the captured and assimilated population won’t have them,
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Empire traits, the ones that affect the state as a whole, like Warlord,
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Home World traits, the ones that only affect your home planet, like Rich Home World,
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Mixed traits, the ones affecting multiple aspects, e.g. Aquatic is both biological and empire, it affects farming, population cap, and your home world is Ocean instead of Terran.
Colonial Production
Population
Affects the population growth, see Growth. Synergizes with subterranean, aquatic and tolerant.
Farming
Affects the amount of food produce per farmer, see Farming. Note that farming also depends on climate and the significance of farming generally declines with time. Mutually exclusive with lithovore.
Industry
Affects the industrial produce per worker, see Industry. Synergizes with unification government.
Science
Affects the research output per scientist, see Research. Synergizes with democratic government.
Money
Affects the default tax revenue per citizen, see taxes. Synergizes with democratic government and increased population.
Combat and Espionage
Ship Defense
Adds to ship defense rating of all your ships, see Defense Rating. Applies to all kinds of carried fighters as well.
Ship Attack
Adds to ship offense rating of all your ships, see Attack Rating. Applies to beam weapons of carried fighters as well.
Ground Combat
Affects combat rating of your troops during planetary assault or boarding actions. See Ground Combat for details.
Spying
Improves success chance for all actions of your spies, see Espionage.
Government
The form of government can’t be changed, it can only be replaced by the advanced form researched in sociology. Each government has it’s own advanced form, e.g. Democracy can only be upgraded to Federation, but never to Galactic Unification.
Feudal / Confederation (-4 points)
Space barons, cheap ships, backward science and 4 points for extra war mongering.
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20% morale penalty unless barracks are built.
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8 turns to assimilate a unit of conquered population (4 turns for the advanced form).
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Your population assimilates instantly when conquered (not for the advanced form).
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Ship production costs are 2/3 of normal (1/3 for the advanced form).
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Research 1/2 of standard.
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50% morale penalty if Capitol is destroyed.
Dictatorship / Imperim (0 points)
Simple, reliable and time proven, the default productivity with somewhat increased security.
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10% defensive spy bonus (20% for the advanced form).
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20% morale penalty unless barracks are built.
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8 turns to assimilate a unit of conquered population (4 for the advanced form).
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35% morale penalty if Capitol is destroyed.
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For the advanced form your Command is increased by 50%.
Democracy / Federation (7 points)
Capitalism at its best, extra research and extra cash, lacking internal secutity.
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10% defensive spy penalty.
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+50% for both research and per capita tax revenue (+75% for the advanced form).
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4 turns to assimilate a unit of conquered population (2 for the advanced form).
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Eradicating conquered population is prohibited.
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20% morale penalty when capitol is captured.
Unification / Galactic Unification (6 points)
Increased farming and industrial productivity, unaffected by morale, extra tough on spies and migrants.
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15% defensive spy bonus.
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50% bonus to industry and farming (100% for the advanced form).
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Unaffected by morale. Can theoretically be outperformed on all fronts by Democracy if enough morale-boosting tech is employed. In practice it only happens too late in the game to matter.
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20 turns to assimilate a unit of conquered population (15 turns for the advanced form).
Special Abilities
Low-G World (-5 points)
Your home planet has low gravity. You colonists are fully productive on low-G worlds, suffer half the high-G penalty on normal worlds and full penalty on high-G worlds. Troops suffer 10% penalty. See Gravity for more info.
High-G World (6 points)
Your home planet has hight gravity. No productive penalty on normal and high-G worlds. Ground troops have +1 hit point (twice as normal for marines).
Aquatic (5 points)
Your home planet is an Ocean planet. Ocean and Terran planets are treated as Gaia by your colonists, Tundra and Swamp are treated as Terran. This increases both population cap and farming output. See Population Cap.
Subterranean (6 points)
Your race can live underground, extra 2 maximum poppulation cap per planet size class. See Population Cap.
Large Home World (1 pick)
Your home planet is Large instead of Normal, resulting in a slightly higher Population Cap.
Rich Home World (2 points)
See Industry.
Poor Home World (-1 pick)
See Industry.
Artifact Home World (3 points)
Your home planet is an Artifact world, a local 50% research bonus applies. See Research.
Cybernetic (4 points)
Your citizens are cybernetic organisms, meaning:
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They eat 1 food each eats 1/2 food and 1/2 prod.
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Your ships are repaired in combat at a rate of 10% of armor and structure and 5% of internal systems each turn.
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Your ships are fully repaired after each combat (other races require Advanced Damage Control tech for this).
Lithovore (10 points)
our citizens eat rocks! Or rather they eat nothing and no farming is needed. You also don’t get to research and build farming infrastructure.
Repulsive (-6 points)
ou are ugly, diplomatic options are severely restricted, AI is suspicious and agressive towards you. Fewer leaders come your way and even those demand higher pay.
Charismatic (4 points)
I likes your more, leaders come more often and with discount.
Uncreative (-4 points)
ou get to research only one (randomly selected) item in each tech field. Essential techs such as basic space travel are never missed this way.
Creative (8 points)
ou always get all techs in a field when researching a field. Roughly tripples the amount of tech you eventually get. Creative is almost unstoppable in the late game, but is easily outperformed early on.
Tolerant (10 points)
o industrial pollution and increased Population Cap. You also don’t get to research and build pollution control infrastructure.
Fantastic Traders (4 points)
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50% bonus to trade treaties.
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100% revenue from trade goods (normal is 50%).
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Extra money for leftover food.
Telepathic (6 points)
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+25% diplomacy bonus.
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+10% spy rating bonus.
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Can capture enemy colonies by mind control, requires dispatching defenses and having at least Cruiser class ship on orbit. Citizens are assimilated instantly.
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Can immediately control boarded enemy ships.
Lucky (3 points)
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More good events and less disasters (if random events enabled).
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Fewer Antaran raids (if Antarans enabled).
Omniscient (3 points)
You can see galaxy map and all ships regardless of stealthiness at all times.
Stealthy Ships (4 points)
Overmap movements of your ships are undetectable except by omniscient races.
Trans Dimensional (5 points) :
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Ships travel faster by 2 parsecs per turn. Ships without drive can travel at 2 parsecs per turn.
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Ships have +4 speed bonus in combat.
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Can travel during Hyperspace Fluxes.