I happen to think it's a valid question and if you are really bothered about people asking things you are not interested in then perhaps it's time you took a break from forums for a couple of days.

I get the feeling you wouldn't be bothered if they would have named the different races Race 1, Race 2 and Race 3.

As far as I'm concerned this is a slow paced game and there's more than enough time to read what the info-boxes say. To me that's all part of the game.

I'm pretty sure the dev's are correct. After looking into it, there are only two values that matter when eliminating another player's control over the planet: infrastructure (i'm guessing this cover gov't control centers etc) and allegiance. Take either of these to zero and the planet will fall. The population dropping is just an unfortunate sideffect of choosing to bomb the planet but I have seen population hold out during bombing and I was able to assume control over the planet with a decent population (so its actually better to not kill the population if you can). The dev's have also hinted at the Advent being much better at taking over planets while minimize population damage and the lore of the TEC has also suggested they were forced to use 'crude' weapons such as nukes so weren't so great about keeping the population around (I guess this explains the Heavy Fallout research upgrade they got). I can only assume the Vasari are somewhere in the middle.

When we're at it a normal earth-like planet holds about 6 billion people. Atleast that's what I remember from school, ages ago so I might be mistaken. Given it's the future, population should be even higher than that.

well also on the note of why it comes back so quick go look in the civil tree the stuff about pupulation growth? think of it as thats a top of a previus research tree so they reproduce real quick cos well theres somthin in the air

i only just realised that why IS there sound in space then again you could say its just comming over the radio and sit rep stuf the commander (YOU!) is using

\\exit

one plausable reason is because when ships blow up, all that atmosphere has to go somewhere. the air probably spreads super thin throughout the battle, and the gravity wel for that matter, so at least there is a slight amount of air for sound to travel across. but yes, the radio chatter background could work too, but only when it is being used. it could just be all that nebululae and crap thats floating around.