1) Yep.
2) Inluence Starbase obviously wouldn't be of to much use since there is nothing to influence.
Military and economic could both be useful:
Military when fights may happen later in this sector, economic when traderouts may run through it.
If neither is the case, it doesn't really matter.
3.) Might make your people wary of your government and ultimatly consider defecting to the other empire if their influence is gretaer than yours.
Either build influence-stuff yourself (on the planet or influence stations) or just shoot that goddam thing down.

Don't get too fixated on the areas of influence as borders. Your enemies consider the entire galaxy their territory and don't think twice about crossing those lines of influence to smack you down.

The influence borders are important to letting you know if an alien society's influence is greater than that of your own civilization. If that happens your planet could defect.

Shooting down an offending starbase is one solution. However, your allies will sometimes build a starbase near your planets, especiallly if you have a planet in the same sector. You wouldn't go blow up an ally, would you Drengin boy? The best way for you to counter is to build a s/b of your own and load it up with pleasure palaces and frictionless underwear stores.

As for building starbases in the boondocks, I don't recommend it unless you need it there to extend your reach to some nearby stars. Your better off building those starbases in the same sector as a colony and loading the base up with benefit-providing modules. Of course, this is just one alien's humble opinion.

3.) The "Influence station" was built right next to my capital by an opposing race. What is the ramifications behind this? What can I do to counter?

that happened to me last night. Which was pretty annoying, considering I was building good relations with the race that did it.
But, one thing I did was find out who was at war with that race... then created a few small fighters next to the planet where the influence starbase was and gifted the ships to the guys that were at war with them. They immediately used the gifted ships to attack the starbase.
Of course, you should be on good terms with the race you give the ships to, or this could backfire pretty easily.

Hey fosex,

I'm going to number your questions so make this easier

1. (2 transports in a fleet): This should work. Is anyone else having a problem with this? Make sure you have over 10 logistic points (even though I know you said you had them, but just triple checking).

2. (Attack option while trading): I beleive the attack option will only appear if the race your trading with is at "less than friendly" relations with other civs.

3. (selection designs to appear in other games): No, you have to obsolete on a per-game basis.

4. (clicking on buttons for other ships): Yes, these aren't doing anything. We should probably hide them or something, so players dont feel like they're in control of alien vessels.

5. (cant get info on stacked fleets): interface issue...will put on our list

6. (haywire screens): Unfortunatly it sounds like you're playing on a card that dosent support DirectX (which is part of the GC2 requirements). These things happen when the card only supports OpenGL.  We'll try and look into a fix, but unless they have new drivers that fix the issue, it'll jsut have to be haywire for the time being

1. (2 transports in a fleet): This should work. Is anyone else having a problem with this? Make sure you have over 10 logistic points (even though I know you said you had them, but just triple checking).

Definatly had 12 Logistics. I tried over and over, tried moving the ships to other tiles, tried sending them to a Fleet rally point, tried adding a little fighter with 2 logistics into the mix (that would go with one, but not both, of them okay).

2. (Attack option while trading): I beleive the attack option will only appear if the race your trading with is at "less than friendly" relations with other civs.

That makes sense, but in this case I wanted to say, "Foslex will attack the Drengin (who were crushing the AI I was talking to), if you send me some tech." Shouldn't the player always be able to offer this?

3. (selection designs to appear in other games): No, you have to obsolete on a per-game basis.

Gah!

4. (clicking on buttons for other ships): Yes, these aren't doing anything. We should probably hide them or something, so players dont feel like they're in control of alien vessels.

That's what I figured. Reminded me of the Base screen in unpatched SMAC.

5. (cant get info on stacked fleets): interface issue...will put on our list

Nice.

6. (haywire screens): Unfortunatly it sounds like you're playing on a card that dosent support DirectX (which is part of the GC2 requirements). These things happen when the card only supports OpenGL. We'll try and look into a fix, but unless they have new drivers that fix the issue, it'll jsut have to be haywire for the time being

I am using an NVidia GForce FX 5500 with 256 MB. I have also learned that the cutscenes sometimes hang. the sound keeps going, and I can click done, but the video stops.

I'm on a P4 2.8 Ghz with 1GB RAM, by the by.

I have also had occassional trouble grouping multiple troop transports into a fleet when I had sufficient logistics. it's sporadic: sometimes it works fine, sometimes the command just refuses to take. More rarely, I've had this happen with warships as well.

One time, I attempted to fleet up two transports (logistics level was at 12). They wouldn't fleet up, but I did get a brand new fleet in the same square, which had no ships in it, and took up zero logistics. It was just an empty square in the units display panel with a little zero at the edge. I tried to fleet the two transports again, and got a *second* "empty fleet" for my trouble.

Sorry I don't have the save game, but if I see this pop up again, I'll be sure to do so. Regardless, it wouldn't hurt to take a look at the fleet creation code again.