Updated July 3rd, 2001:

Jørre "Fyunchclick" Holland, Volunteer Developer

Explaining the screenshots in Dev Diary #9: >>Question: What's a DEA (in the description of Automated Mine)? <<

Dominant Economic Activity, a characteristic of an area on a planet that denotes what is it primary economic activity (military, mining, production, government etc). [Think "zoning." –AE]

>> What's with that 3 color pic in the bottom left corner of the planet screen? (the Red-Yellow-Green one)? Different levels of viewing a planet (Say "Planet-System-Imperial?") <<

I'll give you a hint: if you look up all info about terraforming you'll know exactly what it means.

>> Is it something to do with how close the planet is to your species' ideal environment? <<

<cough>correct<cough>. You might also wonder what would happen to that graphic when you start terraforming your planet around.