How many espionage ships can I send out? I have tried to send many out but have always been limited to 3 or 4. Why?

thanks for your help. That solves my problem.

I suspect your problem arises from how you send out your espionage ships. If you go to the planet you want to spy on and with the cursor over the planet, click 'espionage', you will automatically send out the number listed in your 'options' choice. If you want to change that default, on the left of your main screen, click 'options' under 'player menu'. Then, scroll down to 'Galaxy View Options', and the first listed is 'Number of espionage probes'. Set that to whatever number you want to be the default, and whenever you click on 'espionage' over a planet, that is the number that will be sent (if you have enough, of course; and if you have a fleet free to travel).

Now, let's say you set the default to 5, but you find a planet you want to send 200 to. You don't have to change your default option. Instead, you can click on 'fleet' (on the main screen, left side) while you are at the planet you want to send the probes *from*. Then below, select how many probes you want to send (say, 200, in this case). Then click 'continue' at the very bottom of the screen. On the next page that comes up, on the first line, right side, enter the location of the planet you want to probe (galaxy, system, planet number). Of course, you have to remember, or have written down, what the destination planet's location is. Then click 'continue' at the bottom again, and on the last screen, mark 'espionage', and send. The final screen will say 'fleet sent'. This will send the number of probes you indicated, without changing the 'default' number for when you send probes via the target planet screen.

Thanks for all the help in this topic.