[Fyron]

Nomads have to use diplomacy... They are not meant to expand as normal races do. They are definitely not meant for a purely competitive game. They make excellent merchant empires. Imagine the value of buying a fleet of practically maintenance-free ships... SuicideJunkie, the creator of Nomads, is fond of taking all of the racial tech traits and making ships for sale using lots of fancy gadgets...

And research, oh boy, building a research outpost takes two turns and you can't even mount an ultra-recycler node on one meaning that building a viable research program means tons of maintainence.

They aren't supposed to use research outPosts, actually... Instead, use Research Teams on ships (I forget whether they are mountable on bases or not). In future Versions, the research outpost is not available to Nomads.

Ragnarok suggested to me that I use mining satellites, well that's a good idea but not nearly enough as everybody's mining facilities are better than mining sats and far easier to setup. Nomadic race should have their own ultra-effective remote mining components to make up for this.

They do. Make mining ships or bases with an ultra recyler node... practically all profit.