[Pax]

Originally posted by trooper:
2- I've cause some battles by moving a ship on an ennemy ship. Sometimes the computer warn me that, doing that, there would be a battle, sometimes not (erspecially on warp points, I think). Why ?

The computer will warn you, if you can already see the enemy ship. If you are jumping through a Warp Point, and don't have an observer already in the star system on the other side to SEE the enemy ship, you don't know they are there. Thus, no warning, they just start shooting at you when you pop out of thin air, er, vacuum, next to them.

3- I'm not an english native speaker (i thing you should already know...) and i wold like to know if an attitude "cool" for alien races is more friendly that an attitude "warm".

You greet family and good friends "warmly"; you greet your always-too-damned-noisy neighbor "coolly".

In other words, warm is better than cool.

5- What's the use of warheads designed to be used by ramming into another ship ? I tryied it on my fregate, and i bumped into an escort : result : two ships destroyed ! I thought that kamikase area was over 'til 1945...

Picture if you had an Escort with multiple Warheads, and bumped it (and a few others like it) into a VERY expensive enemy BATTLESHIP.

Rather like the US cruiser that got damaged by terrorist action in the middle east, a year or so ago. Motorboat with lots of explosives + ramming big warship = cause more damage (in terms of economic impact) than you receive.

6- Do two research centers an the same planet provide two times more research points ?

ABSOLUTELY. Research centers, intelligence centers, mineral extractors, organics farms, radioactives extractors, and monolith facilities are all "per facility" not "per planet". IOW, if one produces X ... two produce 2X ... twenty produce 20X ... and so on.

7- Last but not least. Is it possible to refit an existing ship ? (updating missiles, cannons, engines and so on...). Is it possible to change the design of a ship without creating a new design name (which would not obliged me to have an escort I, escort II, escort III design vessels in the design list)

Yes.

Go to the design panel; select the old design, click "upgrade", change the name slightly (I usually like to use the pattern " Mk1", " Mk2", and so on ... in other words, "Mark 1", "Mark 2", etc.). Then confirm the design. Mark the OLD one obsolete.

What that does is, does not change teh design at all -- except to use the most advanced VERSION of each part, that you have. So if you had a ship with two "Capital Ship Missile I" (CSM1), could build ships with "Capital Ship Missile IV" (CSM4) ... the upgraded design will have two CSM4's.

Then, you go to the ships you want to refit. Make sure they are somewhere where there are Shipyards, or at least Repair Bay components. Refit them by selectign the "recycle" triangle (the triangle, in green, made of three arrows) on the toolbar.

Select the ship(s), select "retrofit", click on the new design. VOILA, you have set orders to refit the ships.

NOTE: in simultaneous-move games, the ships will refit FOR THE NEXT TURN, not right away. Don't order them to move away!