Hi! Well lets see what you got so far...

For maximizing profits you want to make econ worlds. You can build 2-3 factories to get them started... (3 for later down the road to get them up faster cause the newer buildings take time to get up.) If you have a recruitment center tech plant those after factories cause they speed up you population growth and give a econ bonus. Now once your population is maxed out on the planet replace recruitment center with econ structure. You want to fill most of the tiles with econ structures. Econ worlds you usually want are PQ10+(more space the more MONEY!) Also you want 1 farm to on these econ worlds and say 2-4 moral structures ie it depends on how good you are to your people with taxes and the moral tech you get. For me I have a custom race with Altarians so my moral sucks but I trade alot which fixes that plus a few trade goods help out. My taxes at the end are 80+. So when you get new moral tech that gives you moral bonus raise taxes. Also try to get Star Federation some part early-middle of the game cause 30% bonus to econ is wonderful. But not all races get Star Federation sadly. I might of missed some details but others will comment.

Oh you probably want to specialize your worlds after your econ is balanced out and in the green. So for research worlds PQ9 or less(2 factories, bunch of labs, and a moral or 2, and recruitment center and replace after your pops full.), Manufacturing worlds work better with PQ10+. 3-5 factories early on then fill the planet later with factories, shipyard, farm if you want to build transports, few moral structures, and recruitment center, also if your building alot of transports which can hurt your population build structures that increase population growth. Econ worlds are PQ10+... but this can depend on bonus that you get on planets same goes for factory and lab worlds. But you usally make you Homeworld(homeworld has a moral problem once you get near 16billion pop so build a few moral if you need it and a few econ structures cause homeworld is good at making money, but if you see a sweet lab bonus plant a lab on it as an example.) a manufacturing world to push out colony ships to grab as many planets as possible. Look for high PQ value planets. Also your first few worlds should be balanced. 2 factories, 2 labs, 3-4 econ, later on farm and 1 or 2 moral. Once you get recruitment centers plant those too. Basically you want to grab as much as you can and that you can support. Always your econ bleeds red and later it shifts over. Anomalies are great way to support early econ. Oh ya Shift your slider over to 100%at the start, yes this hurts your econ but do it as long as you can cause your pushing your socal, military, and research to its limits... once you get it down you can just leave it. Over time you will get it.

Power plants... well I only use them on manufacturing worlds...

Neutral Learning center is the best. Now their are support research centers that boost say an extra 25% to your total research on a planet. Also different tech trees have different ones too. Also Omega Research center boosts only 50% to ONE PLANET! So if you have a sweet research world plant it ie on your highest output research planet. IE you can easily break 1000+ research planet with the right structures and bonuses.

You cant control what the ai researchs... Keep planets population under 20billion. Cause its not worth the moral penilities that you start to take so say 15-16billion is good enough. Delete farms you dont need and for the love of god dont put farms on farm bonus tiles its not worth it! In the end you will need 2-4 moral structures it depends on the the tech tree you get and how good the moral is. But you can always trade for other moral tech ie the bonuses!

Once you planet a trade good structure it cant be taken down. You can trade it with other races for stuff if you need to. I dont cause I think if i trade say the extreme spices or what ever its called with my neighbor and I attack him, I think it hurts your diplomacy rating... but I could be wrong on that. Trade good are good to have the bonuses they can give you are great. Yes some are better than others.

Ahhh I think you can shrink the tech screen to show only latest tech theres a button somewhere in there. I usually like to see it all. I think in trade old tech show if other race doesnt have it.

Now to be a little of a jerk is their a way for all econ structures yes... their are 3 super strategies in GalCiv2, all lab, all factories and all econ, but you just got the game now. Get the basics, increase difficulty when you get better. Also you can scan the forums too cause its all in their too.

If you got more questions just ask. Someone will answer.

Thank you both for the replies and advice!

Sole Soul, I just remembered the research numbers wrong.  When I loaded the game last night I saw that I was way off.

Hawawaa, Are you saying that there some planet types have a built in bonuses, or are you talking about bonus tiles and then total number of workable tiles per planet and how they stack together?  I did go with Federation in my game last night, and have to admit I was disapointed when the income bonus was much lower than I expected.  I thought it would be 30% overall, but it was only 30% of what, taxes?

I haven't done anything with economy building yet outside of mining resources and asteroid fields, I've been too focused on research and manufacturing, and, in my current game, influence.   I'm only on my third game, and so far I've only played the Terrans at beginner, normal, and challenging levels. I'm trying to get a solid grasp of how things work.

I've been okay by not keeping much of a standing military, building no-maintenance ships that I can upgrade when needed, but that strategy will go out the window when I decide to go militaristic.  Those maintenance costs for well outfitted attack ships are insane.  How does anyone ever do tricked out Huge ships with ultimate miniaturization?  Just one of these would break me in a few turns.  If I ever managed to get it built in the first place.

BTW: I think I remember someone posting that mining asteroids is somewhat useless.  Is this a typical point of view?

Are we supposed to lose the freighters that we built when the private company running the route decides an area is too risky? 

Seems a bit odd to me that I build a ship, let a company use it, and then they get to keep it when they get nervous and quit.  Or even when a planet flips.  Is this a bug or just a rather odd feature?  It happens often enough that I'm thinking of using really long term financing instead of building it.  Can I assume that if I finance a ship the fee will go away if the route stops, or would I have to keep paying for the ship the company stole from me?

Combat question:  Is bigger always better for ships?  I got that feeling from other posts, but I got used to swarming big ships with lots of small or even tiny, popgun ships back in the MOO days.

I promise, I have been reading the board.  I've read every thread going back to just before GC 2 was released.  I stopped there because I didn't want to get messed up with info that might not work the same way in this version.