1) Some times I notice in multi player games it will show your ranking at the very bottom - how can I bring it up when I want to check on my progress against others?
You can't really see other players ranking, you just know how well you're doing compared to everyone else, but you can't see who has the best economy or whatever (Granted I could be missing something here).
and furthermore to that question - how do I tell how everyone is doing? I prefer 1-10 rather than the graph.
Are you talking about after the game ends? I'm not sure where else in the game has graphs...
3) If I scuttle a civ lab (tec) does it work like military lab where I lose access to my buffs or abilities? ie: if I scuttle a military lab and only have 5 I will lose access to heavy cruisers.
The rule of thumb is if it unlocks a new ship or building type, if you lose the labs you can't build it. That goes for trade ports as well as heavy cruisers. If its a stat improvement, like extra hull or trade income, then you keep it even without the labs. The tech will be greyed out if you don't have the labs for it to keep on working.
4)How do you handle micro managing - do you assign all similar types of ships its own fleet number and then tie a frigate factory to that fleet leader for recruiting?
Alt + selecting a ship selects all ships of that type in the gravity well. As for building reinforcements, it depends. Sometimes I'll put the rally point on my main capital ship, but if its destroyed or it retreats remember to put it back on a planet of your choice, since that will destroy the rally point or maybe cause some ships to have outdated move orders respectively.
5) How do wormholes work? Can you choose where you end up? How does it differ from using star to star travel?
Each wormhole links to another wormhole (almost all the time). Basically consider it a warp point. You can't choose where you go, the place it takes you is determined by the map. If you've used a wormhole selecting it should show you where it links too. Wormholes can be used to link different star systems together. In this case, wormholes are better because you instantly arrive at your destination.
If you want to try it out, play the map ancient gifts. It features a ton of small star systems only linked by wormholes, and your home world starts out with an ancient artifact that lets you use wormholes right away.
