Jumping in at the deep end

[douglas]

Jtownsend said:
As it so happens, I accidentally loaded a testbed turn and played it instead of my normal turn.

Well in that case, add Explosive Warheads 2 to your turn one research queue before Physics.

Jtownsend said:
The actual game is in a large universe, but as my empire happened to be a bit dispersed and the geography a bit kinder, I can probably block off 6 ok systems at a cost of 7 external warp-points to guard. If I stretched, I could make it 7:7, but it would involve risk and my only breathable in the 7th system has lousy stats.

How do you know about that? Did you take Ancient Race, is the map available to everyone for viewing, or what? (Edit: never mind. I forgot that multiple planet starts also give you a few extra system maps.) And do those "lousy stats" include size? If it's medium or larger, maybe even small, it's values don't really matter as far as how valuable it is. Good values = good resource producing planet. Bad values = good research/intelligence planet. You need plenty of each. What really matters most for how valuable a planet is is how many facilities you can put on it.