Ape Apps

I have my main colony that has declared independence and became a common wealth, however since it is human there are resources that the only way to get is via trade. I am wanting to make more colonies of other types so that I can get these resources myself so I have a few questions as follows:

1) Is there any way to have more than one colony open at a time on my computer?
2) What is the best way to go about setting up colonies just for resource farming?
3) What is a good general order of resource farms I should go in? (aka what resource should I farm first, second, third, etc.)
4) What common issues will I run into that I can/should prepare for ahead of time?
5) Any other advice/pointers?

I used to play the game on my phone but that was over a year ago before people made sub-colonies for resource farming(AFAIK), so I'm still a noob when it comes to the interaction between multiple colonies. (All I've done is buy random resources on GBT and had 3 random colonies join my commonwealth)

Can we get either research that we unlock or an upgrade to the small vehicle factory that makes it so the builders and bots are faster. I hate having to have 50+ builder bots just because of how little each one actually contributes.

Add a tab to the Galactic Board of Trade's Trade interface that says "Trade History" and will have two columns; one for the history of items you have purchased, and one for the history of items you have sold. It would include the item, quantity purchased/sold, total price paid, and price per 100.

This would help with selling items so I don't have to keep recalculating how much to sell stuff for.