Jumping in at the deep end

[Fyron]

Zereth said:
However, everyone's making comments about spening your first-turn bonus on things like Phased Energy Weapons or Advanced Military Science. I must be missing something, since isn't it impossible to add those to the research queue until you've researched thier prequistes?

If you use Low Tech Start, yes. But if you use Medium Tech Start, which the game in question is using, you start with 1 level in most of the theoretical tech areas. AMS and PPBs are impossible to research on turn 1, since you need level 2 in the theoretical reqs. But you can get them a lot sooner than on a low tech start, as you only need to research level 2 instead of both level 1 and 2.