Propulsion can make an excellent early research area. I like to take it up to level 4 and get the move advantage over my opponents. Combine faster ships with long-range weaponry, and you've got a killer combo!
Also, remember that those 1 facility "dot worlds" in your starting system can be used for space yards. I tend to go ahead and settle one or two and use them to build up a military while my homeworld creates colony ships. I do it that way because the new colony won't have the population capacity to successfully "seed" new colonies and it is a needless delay to route them from another yard into the homeworld. Also, colonies will be more useful early on than large fleets.
Those small worlds'll also be breeding more population, which you can always skim off to build up those juicier worlds as you find them.
