[Wanderer]

Well, it's all down to personal preference isn't it? Even if someone sits down and works out which set of techs give the 'most powerful' ships for the smallest amount of research, everyone will handle this differently.

You have to weigh up what to research first in terms of vehicle size, speed, attack (weapons & sensors) and defence (ecm, armour & shields). As in real life, if you keep these four balanced you will probably have an advantage over someone who has concentrated too heavily on one or the other, but not necessarily.

The classic is to research very big, powerful guns only to realise you can't hit the enemy, having not yet got round to researching combat sensors.