System manpower has no restriction on how quickly it can take from empire reserves, so an ability which increases the manpower production of the system only until its full is useless.

If I have a 300 capacity system which is empty, 300 Manpower in Empire reserves, and +20 System Manpower being produced each turn from Hissho, I'm only gonna save 20 Manpower because 280 Empire Manpower is going to flood in. Similarly, Guardian heroes reference increasing the Fleet Refill rate, but in my experience if you have the Manpower to fill a fleet, it will fill the fleet that turn.

There is no maximum "rate" at which a system or fleet refills, even though there are abilities which reference such a rate. If you have the Empire Reserves to refill something, it will be refilled. An ability which restores Manpower on a System only helps if the Empire Reserves are near empty and working at a production deficit as a result.

In order for these mechanics to make sense, Empire Manpower would need to be restricted as to how much a system or fleet can receive each turn regardless of current reserves. These traits would be useful if the game actually worked the way the traits seem to think it works.

I think perhaps a new icon for "system defenses" or "manpower" may be in order; it seems those are easily confused.  System defense is the little globe and guy next to it; actual manpower is the three guys overlapping.  The two are NOT exactly the same thing; I understood the trait to restore system defense more quickly with no actual effect on your empire manpower.  Still not the greatest of population bonuses, but it served a purpose at least.

Hello,

BadBecauseMad wrote:

But that's not how it functioned before (it added to system's max manpower capacity - and that was really good and strong trait imo). Am i understanding right that it changed (for Tikanan) with Hissho update and works differently and as intended now? Gotta say just refilling feels pretty mediocre.

I've checked the data (and the Wiki just to make sure) and it's apparently been like this from the start (the last modification I could find was a bug fix from September 2017).  

IceGremlin wrote:

In order for these mechanics to make sense, Empire Manpower would need to be restricted as to how much a system or fleet can receive each turn regardless of current reserves. These traits would be useful if the game actually worked the way the traits seem to think it works.

While weak I wouldn't say that those traits are useless since you do get some free manpower to refill your system.  The issue might be more that the amount granted isn't large enough. Anyway, we'll keep it in mind and see if we can do something about this at some point.

Schell wrote:

I've checked the data (and the Wiki just to make sure) and it's apparently been like this from the start (the last modification I could find was a bug fix from September 2017).

Looks like u're right, sir. I'm very confused right now cuz i can clearly member how it worked as i say and i even loaded previous patch to check it out absolutely confident that i'm right, but apparently i'm not (it works as you say). Thank you for your patience and answers, and sorry for any inconvenience/confusion. I must've played Horatio for too long and become delusional :D