[Alneyan]

There is a list in the Newbie FAQ, obtained through empirical means. There has been no official word, to the best of my knowledge, and some cases are dubious.

Stellar Manipulation happens depending on the ship's movement (well, I'll exclude Stellar Construction here). It does not *have* to happen before other events, and can perfectly well happen near the end of the movement turn.

For example, take a couple Warp Openers and a fleet. You can open a wormhole as the first action, send in the fleet through the to-be-created wormhole, make them glass a planet or three, open another wormhole, and send the fleet to a third system. The AI pathfinding is updated at the moment the ships actually move, though it sometimes picks the wrong way when a bunch of wormholes are involved (this issue is independent from "dynamic" wormhole making, and seems connected to the presence of multiple wormholes in the same sectors).

Of course, this is the basic story, as there are other variations that may appear in the game. I know I have witnessed some Stellar Destroyers behaving oddly, though I didn't investigate the matter much (seeing as the fleet to-be-destroyed had no hope of escaping the system anyhow).