SEV- Good but confusing to play at first! Help!

Research Mineral extraction this will allow you to upgrade your mineral miners and produce more minerals. it will also allow you to build planetary and later system mineral scanners which boost production further once you reach a high enough tl 10 & 20 I think in stock. Also research Cargo so you can upgrade your storage capacity and store surplus production

If you still have a treaty with him its not a real war yet the best way to avoid it until you are ready is not to defend your warp point since that can lead to border incidents which make things worse. Try to upgrade the treaty to Non aggression all systems if you can which will mean your ships wont get into fights at warp points.

The three resource extraction techs Minerals Physics TL1 for shields and meson weapons Cargo since it also increases the capacity of supply and ordinance storage pods on ships in stock, armour Intelligence and Research small ship tech and ion drive tech also help

Satellites are good but they lack staying power you need to put armour on them and give them extra supply and ordinance pods. Back them up with Ships Missile frigates and combined missile and cannon frigates mix these. Missile frigates set to engage at max rage so the run before the enemy shooting over their shoulder and mixed armed ships at optimum range to do as much damage to a target early on

Against a stock AI basically yes since having better technology is generally the human players edge. Researching applied research is the way to get this edge and keep it

5)With all the talk about weapons in the forms there appears to be little available info for what weapons you should concentrate on....I have CSM and anti proton weapons and Depleted Uranium guns....what should I be arming my frigates with? Also your abbreviations are difficult to understand sometimes...is there a reference guide which explains them?

Not yet just ask there is hope the Wicki page will soon be more than white space with a title on it. The manual can help since most of the abbreviations can be worked out from the tech list in it. There is a PDF one on this site attached to the 1.20 patch if you need it

nasty early defences troops for last ditch defence backed up by fighters, weapon platforms saterlites and more fighters for main space defence and mines to soften up his attackers and may be put them off all together.

Space stations help at major worlds but the above are cheap enough to put on all worlds and make your people happier and more productive.

Tip if you meet some one keep expanding but away from him if
you can

I/m not realy good, but i'll try help as I can.
I'll say how I play.
1) Game setup:
U prefare to play Balance Mod (from Captain Kwok), it is realy better than unmodified game, but principles stays.
I play usualy small galaxy with small amount of hard computers with max bonus (only low number of enemies, becose it will get realy slow after some turns when they start fight each other).
I play custom race (I play with 5000 points race (becose i like it)) and i design it towards research and emotionless (with emotionless you can pick unhappy, so it makes emotionless only 500 points (but em less is double edged, becose you don't have bonuses from happy population).
Other priorities for me are: propulsion expert, construction rate (builders+harly industrious) and natural merchants. Low priority is ground combat and espionage.
2) first turn:
1. Check construction rate of your homeworld.
2. Design colony ship you are able build in one turn (can be without armor, supply storage (supply is stored in engines, so aditional supply is not critical if you colonize close planets), and sensors (if possible give it sensors, then you can use colony ship for scouting neigbouring systems)

Queue multiple colony ships.
note:
!!!
if you queue multiple items, once first is finished, second is started to be build with what remains from construction rate. So if you have ship for eg. 3000 minerals (and some organics+radioactive) and construction rate of 4000, 4 ships can be build in 3 turns.
So if possible, don't do: add one item into queue, wait until finished, add another.
end of note.

Research:
My early game priorities are: Applied research (better research facilities), sensors and later engines.

During first turn, you have HUGE research bonus, so use it.

(another possibility is design scout and start building it. But if you are going to research sensors, start with colony ship)
3) second and other turns.
Colonize breathable planets (priority)
Explore surrounding systems
Colonize like mad.

What to build on planets:
I start building research centers EVERYWHERE, and once i start geting close to spending more then i mine build resource facilities.
Space port:
If you are Natural merchant, NEVER touch this building (except for scraping it), you don't need it. If you are not NM, you need to have ONE (second (on another planet) is backup, but does not add anything) in each system to recieve resources and research from this system.

Once you know what WPs you want block, you can do it by:
Ships (least effective), mines (if you have them) or satelites.
For WP defense (from your side) its best to use direct fire satelites in overwhelming numbers (enough to kill ship REALY quickly, depends on techs of you and enemies).
Problem with satelites is, that if you have satelites in some secor (hex) and add more, new will be launched without suplies and ordonance, so you need 1) launch as much as possible at once into satlite less hex (from one ship, multiple ships = multiple launches) or manualy resuply them (load ordonance (if needed) and supplyes into ship with high supply/ordonance storage and unload into sat group.

If you have resuply center/s in this system, everything will be resuplied SLOWLY.

Good weapons for early game:
CM, Messon blasters and APB (et least in balance mod, APB have better range, but worse damage). If you can, avoid using Depleted uranium cannons (they are not realy bad, but APB is better.

Your questions:
1) do you have space port in non home systems? (if not, resources from there you never get.
You can transport population to mining colonies, upgrade mining facilities (research and then upgrade), or make population happier

2) Applied science, sensors (so you can explore new sustems faster (don;t forget upgrade your ships)), engines (get faster/further) and weapons of your choice.

3) satelites with direct fire weapons

4) every turn you have 100% of research, that mean you have ALL you have. But how much it is is in top right corner of research window (or in main window if you click on place where resources are displayed in top right corner)
It IS worth

5) Cheesy tactics is Equip your frigate with 2 CSMs, get into range of enemy and run. He will follow and get torn appart by your missiles, your frigat will never get into his range (except when going through defended WP (Warp Point = worm hole).

6) Weapon platforms are worth using, but you need to keep them up to date (scrap old, build new). Another way how to defend planet are satelites (and they can be used somewhere else too), but each of them cover only side of planet.

hope these answers help

1. Just send the repair ship to the warp point once it arrives there it will repair the ships automatically...may take a few turns till all the ships are repaired though.

2. You are right bases cant be transported. You have to build them where you want them. So you will need a ship with a ship yard component...I think it takes up 400Kt so a bigish hull will be needed.
Weapon platforms are for planet defense.
In space you can use satellites like weapon platforms...they can be transported to the warp point and then launched(make sure you have a sat lauching bay)
Mines are also fun!

3. Yes keep that at 100% defence but it sounds like you dont have enough intel facilities which is why you are suffering intel attacks...build more or upgrade the ones you have by researching the up. This will also help you carry out sucessful intel attacks on the enemy.