[primitive]

Much good advise here, but I got to challenge this:

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Hardy Industrialists: This is another must-have trait. It gives you a 25% bonus to all planetary Space Yards. It stacks with Construction Aptitude. So, with Hardy Industrialists and 120 Construction Aptitude, you can get a 45% bonus to all planetary Space Yards! As mentioned early, fast construction is the key to victory. Without it, you will very easily fall behind. It is of course possible to win without this trait, but it is much harder, especially if everyone else has it.

Fast construction is handy, but not a must. What you need is for the HW to be able to build a colonizer with 2 engines on EB (if you keep repair high enough for 3 units/turn) to get the 1 turn colonizer start. Using available moons and small planets for shipyards, it is no problem to get construction capacity large enough to use all your available resources.

Faster construction does not improve the performance of your empire a bit, the best result you can get is having that new design ready a few turns earlier. Put the points where they can make a differense insted; research, mining, combat bonuses or maintanance.