Some questions the manual really doesn't answer

1. You dont need a majority(having more then all others
combined) to control the senate you just need a
plurority(having more then anyone else). If you have
control but graphically it appears some other group
does, then this is a minor cosmetic bug in the display.

You cant switch government types, either you are in
control and gain your prescribed bonuses or you lose
them and get some penalities as well.


2. If you lose control, improving morale will let
you regain control in the next election. Do this
by getting morale improvements or lowering taxes.

3. Find will not goto ships that are under automove
orders. They have a destination and dont need to be
found.

Find cycles through ships without orders. Not ships
with moves. Automoves occurs when you hit turn
or when you move the last ship without orders.

There is a setting you can toggle in the main menu
that will prevent a turn from ending if moves remain on
a ship that is automoving. Thus if you hit turn,
any ship that was automoving, but didnt use up all of
its moves will then await your orders to finish its
moves. I find this very handy and turned it on, it is
not on by default.

4. Yes

5. I dont know off the top of my head, but you can
goto government window, trade screen and see how many
routes you have. Each possible route number will
have a number by it, if exists it will have info about
it, if not will just be a blank line. If your out of
blank lines, then all your routes are set up.

When my freighter arrives at a planet and I have no
routes available, I just send it deeper into the
computers area until it can go no deeper or I research
a tech that lets me create the route. Then I create
it instantly. Freighters are fairly cheap I normally
have a few always sitting next to some computers planet
just incase a new one opens or an old one closes down.

6. You dont, leases come in when you buy something
using the purchase button on the main planet screen.
You can pay down less by paying more over time. These
are leases.

7. Thats what your already

8. I only use auto survey, and by its behaviour I
imagine that auto attack sends the ship to the nearest
visible enemy to attack it automatically
auto retreat probably finds the nearest enemy and does
the exact opposite, sector sweep is harder to guess
but perhaps it auto attack but it stays in the sector
and just moves about on a path within the sector until
it sees an enemy.

9. The skull and cross bones has almost nothing to do
with morale, it indicates that the system has failed a
saving throw against being converted by the computer.
If you check a little button near the top of the screen
that has 4 little colors arrainged around a cross, it
will display the sector influence by civ for that
sector. If your number is lower then someone elses,
there is a chance your system can be converted(meaning
the computer takes control) This works in reverse as
well, you can convert enemies systems. You protect
yourself by increasing influence through starbase
improvements and buildings on the actual planets(and
the global influence resource, wonders/tradegoods and
racial picks).

There are also some buildings that resist this(news
network for instance) and if you goto the details
section of the planet screen, you can increase
propganda, this might help(im not actually sure it does)
but it definetly improves moral!

10. Some catagories are weighted more heavily then
others and some of them you must be doing very badily
in.

I think military strength is rated the most heavily.

Thought being 8th overall when your worst individual
is 6th does seem impossible, but i wouldnt know why.

You're probably not looking at this anymore, but try an atheist extension.