Mining colonies:
You don´t want to buy the minerals _and_ you don´t want the civies to have the minerals?
Well, there realy is no third option - I don´t see your problem here, except, you want to mine yourself.
If so, place a colony on the body after surveying it and the civies will not put a civilian mining colony there.
Shipping lines:
AFAIK, the type of ship created by the shipping line is random, so you just had a series of bad-luck rolls.
While this is tough luck, it is nothing to get worked up about. Perhaps the shipping line specialized in orbital sight-seening runs or somethig like it (yes, the passengers in a cryogenic transport won´t see a whole lot).
Having been in this situation: He
can't afford to buy the minerals (no money) and
can't afford to let the civies have them (rare minerals). With a completely hosed civ economy, he's toast. The only way to avoid this is to colonize every body that has minerals as soon as it is discovered.
Ship creation is supposed to be random, but there is something wonky with it. I was on my fifth game before I saw a single civ ship, and then only freighters. I had 3 good planets with infrastructure waiting for four game years, but no civ colony ships. Subsidizing only pops more freighters.
Count me in on 'fix hyper drive'. I've had 2 games in a row with a nice colonizable planet with artifacts at Gliese 563. 2-B. 95000m km one way.
In the Task Groups screen, it would be helpful if a fleet in orbit around a body listed that as part of its location, not just the system.
On the F3 System Map screen it would be helpful to be able to highlight bodies who's planetary survey is done, but not the geological survey. It would also be helpful to show geological survey data in the F9 System Information table, perhaps as 'G' instead of 'S' in the system body survey column. At present, the only way to know if a body has had a ground survey is to have a colony on the body (cluttering colony lists with cruft) and then look in the Summary tab under F2.
Allow F2 to be sorted alphabetically. Allow group by function within systems, not just systems within functions.
Save player notes in the database, attached to various objects. Notes on a ship design, for example, could be appended to the class summary. This would be particularly helpful in the Environment/GMC tab so a player can record terraforming targets for all gasses, not just the active one.
In Class Design screen, allow Hull Types to be deleted. At present there are many listed that I will never use, and it makes finding the ones I want harder. Allow sorting the Class list by Hull Type abbreviation (and show this in the Class name). eg "TT Tanker 1" in the list instead of just "Tanker 1".
Allow non-SM player to apply starting RP. If there is not enough RP left, apply remaining points as a partially researched project. At present the remaining amount is not always visible everywhere the Instant tech button is available, and SM mode does not check. There is also no way to apply partial research to use up any remaining points without going over.
SM able to give ships to civ lines.
Iron Man start - no techs, one factory, one lab.
Allow idle population to produce a small amount of production and research.
Robotic Factories - like Automines but for production.
Hydroponic Farms - reduces amount of population needed for farming.
Cloning Centers - increases population growth rate.
Scripting support would be really nice too. And a pony.