somewhat newbie question flood.

[Jmenschenfresser]

1) Not sure about the auto combat, but the sim is identical to strategic, but you have to make sure you mirror every detail in the sim...otherwise results will vary.

2)In the unmodded game. No. Because mines have a lvl 5 cloak and sensors scan at highest for lvl 4.

8) Mine damage is spread out through a fleet, but not equally. However, I have recently been doing tests for a mod that changes mines and the highest variance in one fleet that I have seen is one ship getting almost 50% damage, while another ship goes untouched.

17) Yes, the ship will get both kinds of exp. I don't think this is a bug, just a nuance of the game.

4) Yes, someone has compiled component lists with the numbers and whatnot. Not sure, but I'd look in the mod forums. I used to have someone's spreadsheet of weapon family numbers, but deleted it.

I'll let others jump in on the rest.