My notes on observations.

Economy needs to be balanced better.

1) Ship maintenance is too high i think.  It is almost impossible to even have a defender on every world, let alone a warfleet.  This could be one of the BIG reasosn why the AI basically does nothing.  They defend all of their worlds and therefore have little income as a result.

2) It is difficult to stay in the green without taking economincs +30 and choosing a Federalist government...Eco + 20.  Even a master ferengi goes in the red frequently.

I have reason to believe that not all of the specials work on the planets.  At least not for all of the things that use them.  I was playing the Yor and noticed that the research specials don't seem to work with them.  Possibly it is just not showing it but when you drop down a research + 12 and it only goes up by 12 and you are putting it on a double or better then it makes you wonder.

Something else i noticed with the Yor.  You can't take advantage of resources very well without talking to other races.  You have to trade for the manufacturing techs to do this.  I think that the Yor's own manufacturing techs should work, but they don't.  So you are restricted to the first level of manipulation on economic and resource starbases until you talk to people and get the techs from them.  That means that you have to wait for somebody else to actually research it.  Pain in the butt that is.

The Yor also have a disadvantage economically.  Yes they have the ability to research economics to a high level and have the efficiency planetary improvement.  However, i found that i required to trade for economic tech so that i could build other economic structures on Yor worlds.  Unfortunately, a very strong economy is a requirement.

Note.  If you are having some serious economic problems.  Back off tech research a bit.  This is the biggest hit to cash.  For some strange reason, if all you are doing is building ships, your economy is the best.  I have seen truly sick incomes.  As the Terrans...i had a finished research tree and no need to have research stuff on planets and no need to build any structures.  The result in a massive universe....income of 70,000 a round before i won a conquest victory.  Everybody surrendered to me in one round.  It was hilarious.  I actually did that intentionally to see how long it would take for the AI to give up hope of winning.  Your military strength has to be over 6 X thiers for several rounds.  Of course, parking several fleets in their space does seem to have an effect on encouraging surrenders as well.

Shipyard notes.  Not all of the extra parts actually work.  There are still occasional crashes when using the shipyard.  This is an old bug.  On occasion the shipyard just crashes to black when you try to upgrade a ship.  I never go into the shipyard without saving first as this is one of the most unpredictable bugs i've seen.  Often reloading the game means that it will work just fine.  WIERD!!!

Sometimes when a fleet of constructors hits a starbase it doesn't activate the upgrade feature.  This also happens sometimes when a miner gets to an asteroid.  This is related to the autopilot only becaue if you move it yourself then it works.