[ckotchey]

Since I had played the demo a number of times, I was looking forward to seeing the manual myself when I bought it. To be honest, I don't think it covered a whole lot more than the game's tutorial. In the end, I just had to keep playing small games over and over, simply for "experimenting", so I could learn all the little nuances of the game, like what is a drone vs. fighter, how to use them, satellites vs mines vs. weapons platforms, etc. To be honest, I know there is still a lot for me to learn about the game, which is a good thing in many respects, because it keeps the game interesting and fresh, but on the other hand, can seriously hinder a game when you make invalid or wrong assumptions about things.
I'm actually kind of amazed at the overall disorganization of the SE4 fanbase - there don't seem to be a few web sites dedicated to being the focus of a lot of information - lots of strategy guides, mods, etc., exist, but they're scattered all over the place. A good example is the "dubious strategy guide", which has a ton of text in it and a lot of useful information, but it's a ***** to get through, and still leaves a lot of open questions.
So far, this forum seems to be the best one-stop shopping place to be found - at least to find pointers to just about any other mod, strategy, whatever site you might want to find.