This is a good break from Civ4.

The game is also very different.

1)  What is up with the mining.

There are "resources" out there on the map.  If you capture them you get a bonus to your entire civ, just like resources in Civ4.  You capture them by building a mining starbase on them.  You can then use additional constructors to add modules to the starbase.  This allows you to extract more of the bonus for your whole civ.  eg:  Military bonus will make you win combats more.  Put lots of mining modules on your starbase that's mining military resource and your combats will go more in your favor for your empire than without the bonus.  It's simple as that.

Custom ships will fight the same as long as they have the same EQUIPMENT.  Most of the things you can add to the ship are just for design.

Each ship has a logistics value, and your entire civ has one single logistics value.  This is the number of logistics points you can fit into one fleet.  eg:  Small ship might have 2 logistics points.  If your civ's max is 6, then you can make a fleet (stack) of up to 3 small ships.  They will fight together as a group.  Maybe a larger ship would use up 4 logistics points.  If your civ has 6 as the max, you can make a fleet of 1 small and 1 larger ship.  Get it?  More research in logistics increases your civ's max and allows bigger stacks.

Only TRANSPORTS can attack the people on the planet.  If the enemy has no transports they can't attack your planet.  You can put ships IN ORBIT of a planet.  If the ships are in orbit, any enemy transports must fight your ships before they can drop troops on the planet.  If you have lots of ships in orbit, then the enemy might send non-transport ships into your orbit.  Those ships will fight your defenders.  If they clear out your defenders, they will then send the troop transports. 

MAIN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THIS AND CIV:

1)  Money buys everything.  If you build lots of factories and labs it only lets you spend money faster.

2)  People make money just by being alive.  You can modify this income by building economics structures.  All the economics structures in a planet give you a percentage bonus to your people income, but people are the thing that makes money.  REMEMBER.  A planet with hardly any people and LOTS of economic structures will not do much good, because you need the people as the base income.  All extra money leaves the planet and goes to the CIV.  Then it gets paid back out to the planets factories and labs based on your spending level.

3)  People have nothing to do with your production or research.  A factory on an empty planet produces just as much as a factory on a planet teeming with people.  The money to power factories and labs comes from your CENTRAL TREASURY, not the planet. 

Note that this is on "resources" which are the glowing blocks of color you will find throughout the Galaxy. Mining Asteroids though is like building a production farm. The first level of mining allows an asteroid to produce 5 production points. You can then assign where these extra points go. However, the further away from the asteroid the planet is, the lower the percentage of these extra points they will get. (e.g. a planet next to an asteroid would get 5 production points, a planet 10 parsecs away might get 2 or 3 -- I'm a bit fuzzy on my exact numbers)

You build mines using the mining vessel you start the game with (you can automate this process)

Defending planets: Though you may have a tonload of ships in orbit of a planet, if/when an enemy attacks you, they will only attack one ship at a time, so they are a fleet they might crush you (you might be eat them alive depending), but your ships will not automagically fleet up, unless you have some building/superproject (aagain, I'm fuzzy sorry)

Played through a small map against the Korath and the Arceans as the Korx on simple... I feel dirty but I need to learn this game, dammit. Then some spies from a mega event came and crippled me and I had no idea how to get rid of them. Then pirates came and I was just toast...but that's not the point.

So I had 2 defenders per planet and I figured out how to upgrade all of them. So you're saying I should also take them out, fleet them, and then send them back? Isn't there some wonder that automatically does that? Orbital Defense or something? Can I send some defenders to my resources or do I have to build a ton of constructions to pimp those out?

Also, kind of dumb questions but what do econo/research treaties actually DO and how would I go about importing my own handy-dandy custom flag/avatar into the game. Yamazaki leading like an orochi mofo, yo

My computer is a quad core with 3 gigs of ram and a geforce 8800. Can I run an immense 9 civ (Are minor civs worth it?) slow tech bohweemoth of a game? That'd be... epic

And finally, what's the screenshot key so I can show all you all's what's going on?

Are they capped? Do they have the potential to become the ubermensch of civs? There's kind of no point of including them if they're getting kneecapped

Oh good! I stick to 1024x768 with low aa because with the eyes, it doesn't make a difference

I never leave ships in orbit, because mobile defenders that can fleet-up are much more useful than statci single defenders.  Guard your borders and ont let them even get near your planets.  And as Zyx suggests, kill them first!   I am always at war with someone.  As the Klingon saying goes, "Never leave the Empire without an enemy."

With research and econ treates you gain the benefit of percantage of that particular output from that Civ.  You can get treaties from everyone without giving yours away if you use trading wisely.

Minor civs are very useful because they are a source of tech, bcs, and eventually a nice homeworld that you can acquire.

To solve the broken turn button, you need to have a save from before it became broken.  If you reload it should be fine.

Sentient species taste better...