[rdouglass]

No, you're doing it right. You're not supposed to see a system's CURRENT status unless you're there. Of course in full Version games with cloaking, sats, etc., all bets are off. (The full Version has many more cool features than the demo - well worth the money IMO).

I believe the philosophy is that if you've visited a system, you see all the planet stats. However, once you leave the system, you really don't know if the colony is still there, if there are additional colonies, or even if the planets are still there (planet manipulation in full game also).

Personally, I think it is close to the real world. If you don't have a presence (or spy-type equipment / personell) in any region / country / city, you're really not sure what's going on. In the game, it leads to some interesting strategies that are well discussed in other threads. One of the popular ones is "Cloaked Spy Sattelites". You should check the other threads for those things.