So I was looking over the Culture related gameplay constants hoping for some new insight on the fundamental issues with culture and a question occurred to me.  First off, the relevant section of the gameplay constants file reads:

cultureData
minPropagatedCultureRate 0.005
culturePropagationPerc .5
cultureDecayRate -0.4
neutralOrbitBodyCultureRepelRateMultiplier 0.5
enemyOrbitBodyCultureRepelRateMultiplier 0.0

Obviously cultureDecayRate is the % of culture left for each gravitywell the culture goes through.  neutralOrbitBodyCultureRepelRateMultiplier & enemyOrbitBodyCultureRepelRateMultiplier relate to the efficacy of capitalships at pushing back enemy culture in gravity wells you don't own.  And I assume minPropagatedCultureRate 0.005 merely sets the point by which any very low amount of culture is rounded to 0, stopping the effective culture push.

But what the heck does culturePropagationPerc do?  I assume it stands for culture Propagation Percent.  And whatever it is, it bears a mere .5(50%).  Culture Propagation *sounds* a lot like the sort of jargon that could be used to describe culture's ability to push out of it's starting gravity well into other gravity wells(or at least I can't think of anything else it may refer to).

If this is true this may be the source of why it's so damned hard to use culture offensively- Any culture leaving it's home gravity well gets cut in half immediately whereas the defender's culture for the purpose of defending the well it is in operates at 100% efficiency.

Well that's of course all just conjecture; Anyone played with this constant at all or have any insight as to what it actually does?

Also on a side note I've long wondered if culture decay is applied as soon as culture enters a new well or whether it is applied after opposed culture decides dominant culture.  If it is applied before dominant culture is decided, that could be another guaranteed 40% hit to only the attacker's culture.  I honestly have no real reason to believe one way or the other- but it's one more thing that *could* potentially have a role in the current inadequate state of culture.