I just realised that a few of my older planets can now send out a some arcs... So I built 28 arcs (14 fleets of 2).
From the look of my first colony, if you send 2 arcs then you'll only have to wait a few turns (maybe a week) once you reach level 85 before you have maximum population. More arcs simply reduces the turns you have to wait before maxing your population. 10 arcs and you should be maxed by level 72/3. 20 arcs and you'll be maxed by 65/66.
So really, my strategy a few weeks back of sending 5-10 arcs to each planet was a complete waste. Oh well, at least I managed to use a few of them to send out arcs (most of them have had their steel removed though).
My home planet didn't shut down any upgrades this turn, let's hope it stays like that for a bit long until I can start shifting ship production over to my colonies.
I THINK you might need it to build the upgrades themselves; like, no MS2 unless MS1, no Military Base unless MS2, no PD unless MB... But I'm not even sure about that.
I bloody hope not, that's going to really set me back quite a bit. I'll go back through this thread to see if I mentioned what level I was at when I built PD. I remember noting I was building it.
EDIT:
So I got planetary defenses available on my home planet and my society level is 61, so perhaps it shows at 60?
There we go, PD turns up at level 61. So I think Vellos might be right about needing other upgrades before being able to build a PD.
