1. How do I upgrade my Deep Space Tracking Station? I know I can research up the Planetary Sensor Strength, but how do I increase the Level of the DSTS? It's currently Level 4. The process doesn't appear to be like Spaceports, where building another one increases the Level, because I read that building another DSTS only increases the strength by 25%.
That used to be the case but now every additional DSTS increases the sensor rating by the same amount, which is your planetary sensor strength.
2. Is it important to build a Civilian Spaceport on Earth? With Cargo Handlers on ships, are they really necessary?
They are very useful. The time to load cargo is divided by the number of civilian spaceports +1. So if you have no spaceports, the load time is normal. One spaceport will halve load times, two spaceports will divide it by 3, etc.. This is cumulative with the effects of cargo handling systems.
3. I'm having trouble understanding why anyone would build Financial Centres. According to the wiki (Wealth is calculated by wealth technology x population for annual "tax". Financial centres add 1 to this total/year), they only add +1 to your wealth per year. I'm currently making over 11,000 per year. Spending 240 resources (the cost of one Financial Centre) to add 1 to that total seems like a waste of resources.
Each financial centre is equivalent to one million pop, not 1 weath, so if your wealth tech is 24 wealth per year, each financial centre will add 24 wealth, plus any bonus from your planetary governor. Just think of financial centres as extra population.
4. What's required for a Courier ship? Is it Cargo bays? Troop Transport? Luxury Passenger Accomodations? Would anyone mind showing me an example build of a Courier ship please? (BTW, I'm assuming a Courier ship is what is used to transport things like Xenologist or Espionage teams to their planets. Is that correct?)
A team can travel on any ship because they don't take up much room so your team-transporting courier ship should be jump-capable and as small and fast as possible. It doesn't require any special systems. You could just transport a team on any available warship or freighters - you don't necessarily need a specialised ship.
5. Is there a list of Wealth Requirements anywhere? I'm trying to find the expenditure calculations for things like Research or Installation construction.
Wealth translates directly to build points and research points. So if you research something for 1000 RP, it will cost 1000 wealth. A ship costing 1500 BP will cost 1500 wealth, a missile costing 3.5BP will cost 3.5 wealth, etc. Mining costs nothing, as does refining fuel. You don't pay for commander bonuses though, so if you have a commander with a 20% production bonus and your construction factories produce 1200 BP per year including the bonus, it will only cost you 1000 wealth.
Steve