[dmm]

The combat value of higher level engines seems to be under-rated (at least judging by the Posts on this forum). If you research only engines, sensors, and some long-range 1/turn weapon, you may never need defensive stuff like armor, shields, ECM, PDC, etc. You just hit and run. This lets your ships pack quite a wallop! (Of course, you'd be in a heap o' trouble if you ran into a mined warp point.) And consider how valuable super-fast fighters would be, especially for planetary defense against move-shoot-move tactics.