[raynor]

Spyder,

I think you will have a lot more fun playing if you jump immediately to high difficulty with medium bonus. But you absolutely have to restrict yourself from using SM ships to open/close wormholes. Unless the 1.27 AI is smarter in its use of SM ships, you have won the game as soon as you close off all your wormholes. I personally have never seen the AI use SM ships; so, I try not to use them myself even on high bonus.