[James Sterrett]

First thing you should build is a space Yard - a starbase that has the minimum required parts plus one Space construction Yard.

Now you have two ship construction facilities, though the one on your planet is faster.

Design a dedicated recon ship - smallest size, no weapons or armor, three supply crates; this is a cheapo ship to run and explore the map.

Design a colony ship; be sure to add an extra cargo crate to it so you can haul more colonists.

Design a missile boat: pack a CSM launcher onto an otherwise unremarkable small ship. Used correctly, this ship can demolish opponents in the early game (run away and pepper the enemy with missiles).

I tend to play in large galaxies, so I have time to expand before I'm in contact, so I build colony ships like mad, along with a few recce ships and missile boats.

Research Construction, then Mines. Build a mine/sat layer ship: a cargo vessel with one mine layer and one sat layer. Now you can mine your planets and warp points! 8) Large warheads (warhead tech 3) is a cheaper path to better mines than doing the mine research to get bigger mines.

Crank your CSM tech to 2 or 3 to make your missile boats good. For some reason, CSM 1 missiles don't seem to kill planetary weapons platforms, but CSM 2+ ones do.

Then work on the military science, chem, physics, and psych trees to get:

- Point Defence

- Armor

- Resource conVersion

- Applied Poli Sci (for pacification centers)

- Shields

- Phased Polaron Beams

Also crank up your ship tech for bigger hulls.

Alongside this, do applied research, then applied intelligence; alternate between these are long-term projects.

Expand like a rabbit; build mines to protect your worlds and systems.

Others will have different strategies, I'm sure. 8)

[This message has been edited by James Sterrett (edited 19 December 2000).]