Species...don't have racial bonuses for research. You produce some number of research points (RP) per year, per lab, according to your current research rate technology. IIRC this number is displayed on the research tab. The output of a lab is further modified by the skills of the scientist managing it.

This is untrue. Each species can have the research trait modified on species tab via SM or even when you are creating a new race. Remember to push save race after finishing to modify.

The standard value is 1.0 which is 100%, you can change to 0.5 and this will make that particular race (and species) to generate half of the RP. If you use 1.5 then it will be 50% more and so on.

With the same criteria you can modify other traits such as population growth, production efficiency, and more!

It's actually a very interesting way to play the game in a multistart.

All ranges are measured in kilometers. Passive sensor range formulas are explained here: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103085#msg103085; they are different than in VB6!

Species...don't have racial bonuses for research. You produce some number of research points (RP) per year, per lab, according to your current research rate technology. IIRC this number is displayed on the research tab. The output of a lab is further modified by the skills of the scientist managing it.

I don't know what a "basic pop list" is.

The relevant tab (production, shipyard, research) will show the total output (in Build Points, BP, for factories and shipyards or Research Points, RP, for labs) of installations on the particular population (factory, ordnance factory, fighter factory, shipyard, lab). This will include modifiers due to things like governors and labor shortages. If you want to know the base output per installation, I think some of that information is visible on the race screen (click the British flag). At a given colony (the technical term is "population" FYI, because you can have multiple populations on a single body as long as they are different species), the summary tab will show how many people are employed by each kind of installation at that colony.

Colony cost is very complicated. Roughly speaking, it's 2.0 if you can't breathe (too much/too little oxygen, too much dangerous gas like chlorine or CO2) and then further increased by extreme temperatures/pressures and lack of water. Details: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg101987#msg101987

I strongly recommend bookmarking this post: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10666.0
It has alphabetized links to the developer's (Steve) posts explaining the mechanics.