I was watching my friend play at his house and he bought Advanced Minituarization (or something) from Arcea for 645 and sold them mass driver theory for 765 bc.

This makes no sense. By the time he researched mass drivers (to trade), it only took him one week to research it. There are some serious flaws in advance-value ratios.
So, since every one else could research these little advances in a week or two themselves (most players weren't much smaller than he), he went around selling beam weapon theory, armor theory, mass driver theory, etc, and took everybody's cash. All of it. That should not be possible. Next thing you know, he's got over 10 trillion credits in his bank. Of course, these credits are then used to buy starbase modules . . . . . . .


Now, about minor races.

I can tell you for a fact that there is a serious problem with minor races. How do I know for a fact? Because I cheat. I removed the fog of war. I looked at foreign planets and who owned them. Some games had 1-3 minor races, some had none. Ended my turn. Everyone makes contact with me. No minor races, except maybe 1-3 on some games, other games, none.

I knew I should have waited another year to buy this game. It's going to take at least that long to work out the bugs. I was playing version 1.0 for weeks and that was better than 1.31 (went straight from 1.0 to 1.31)