I just made an industrial colony for playtesting.

Before I added an representative I got these stats; Complacency 5, order 3, productivity 10, piety 1.

Then I hired my cousin, rolled one to keep an eye on, and patron of the arts.

The result of this is a nice 12 in productivity but when the cousins interest in art became known to the colonist they lost all faith in the Emperor and complacency fell to 0 and order to negative 3.

Did I miss a piety somewhere or is Ecclesiastical colonies the only safe colonies?

I added all infrastructure bonuses from the start, is this correct?

Can the explorers upgrade the infrastructure any time they want or only when the colony needs it?

If the explorers upgrade the same infrastructure several times does the bonuses from that infrastructure stack?

Is the personality of an representative realy intended to be able to reduce a colony to rubble before it even starts or did I miss something?

Let's go through your questions as bes tI can!

1) Is an Ecclesiastical colony the only safe colony? - Kinda. Piety is the hardest thing to raise in a colony, and when it hits 0 it often triggers a death spiral for everyone. Since you get a bonus to Piety with Ecclesiastical, it is probably the safest colony to found.

2) I added all infrastructure bonuses from the start, is this correct? - If you mean you add in the bonuses from your structures after you choose your basic colony type, then I believe so..

3) Can the Explorers upgrade the Infrastructure whenever they want? - No. You can only add an Infrastructure upgrade when your colony grows in size. The wording here is a little vague, but I take that to mean whenever it increases in size you can buy a new Infrastructure Upgrade. Thus if it grows from Size 4, shrinks to 3, then grows to 4 again you could buy a total of two Infrastructure Upgrades during this period.

4) If the Explorers Upgrade the same infrastructure, do the bonuses stack? - I believe so, yes.

5) Can a Representative instantly destroy your colony before it starts? - I completely believe this to be the case if you get unlucky with dice rolling. Sometimes people just make a mess of things even though they have the best of intentions. Or are your feckless relatives.

There was errata changing the colony starting rules, you know. They increased order and piety and such, I believe.

All of the colonies had their starting Complacency increased by 1, but Piety remained unchanged. Ecclesiastical colonies do get the Cultural Improvement upgrade for free.

One thing to remember is that (Provided you don't just barely make the Endeavour requirements) you should have some points to allocate wherever you want. As Piety can be one of the harder to raise, my players usually assign at least one point there. You get one stat point for your colony for every 200 extra AP on the Endeavor to establish it. With a decent ship and some work, your players should be able to set up their colony as they wish.

My answers to the questions above:

1) No, but you should probably put one of your assignable stat points on Piety to buffer it. Then usually build a Support Structure to raise it early on.

2) Yes. Although you should only start with the one. You have to run endeavors (my players have the colony admin run these as background endeavors) to add additional upgrades

3) As long as you have fewer Infastructure or Support Upgrades than your size. The colony size is the limit here

4) For Infrastructure Upgrades, yes. For Support Upgrades, only when the book says they do. You can't do multiple Cultural Improvement upgrades to the same stat either. If you read the particular Support Upgrade description it will tell you if they can stack (You can stack Ecclesiatical Missions, as per the description).

5) Only if your players are going to do that to themselves... As they choose whether or not to use a particular leader, they probably shouldn't choose to suicide their colony upon founding. Remember that they assign the colony leader. If they get a leader that won't work for that colony, they can modify the colony starting stats with the extra points from founding (if they got any), or use that leader to run endeavors for them and hire a different one. My players went through 3 leaders before they finally chose one for their colony. They don't have to take the first one I roll up, but I make them interview the leaders and figure out their demeanours first. This is where roleplaying can save them huge rollplaying issues. Note that in your example, you went for the cheap leader and got burned. If you are going to do this then you really need to make sure that you don't have any 1's for stats. My players prefer to hire particular leaders for each colony based on what they think the colony needs...and none of the starting stats are 1's if they can help it.

I'm finding colonies to be pretty complicated, so some great help here.