It will only auto-survey if there are anomalies on the map that haven't been found. If there aren't any, it will just sit there until anomalies are found (either by ships uncovering the fog of war, or through new anomalies appearing).
Be careful doing this early in the game when there are green asteroids around, or your survey ship will release space sharks near your planets and starbases before you are able to defend them...
David...If i play a huge map i like to build 3 survey
ships,'cause it seems the alien races don't build past
the one they start with,and then as i open up the fog of the map,send them on there way,really helps me at least sorta keep up with the aliens,but as Xeno...
said u gotta be careful of the green asteroids
I'm only on my 12th game,so take what i say as a
newbie advice,but it works for me....