Ok...

[kerensky]

Form one new player to the next... the only game I ever beat was the demo, and that was because I ran out of turns. A good tip is to start a game with everything researched to see what weapons and ship sizes you like best. Then, when you start a new game, focus on the research areas that fit your tactics best and don't worry about teh rest till later in the game.

Personally, I have never beat a full Version game, and I've been playing for slightly more than a year. The closest I ever came was a game against the Kaelons when tehy ruled two thirds of the galaxy and I had the rest. By all rights I was the winner but they would enver surrender. To actually win the game would have taken months of real playing time of just capturing worlds...

[Fyron]

Actually completing a game is very tedious and boring. I doubt that more than a handful of people regularly play their games all the way to completion...

[Col. Mustard]

I have played dozens of games. And I was only first 1 time, and it only Lasted a few turns, and was because I used cheat codes. What I do is, give myself +20% research, +5% all the resorces, +10% shipyard rate, and organics and temporal techs. All I do for the first 20 turns is research, and colonize. I am always the most advanced race there is, but I'm usually around 8th place. I never have any units, and always have very little resources compared to the AI, thats where most the score difference is. (I don't have an AI mod, its standard. Only mod I have is STM)

[Captain Kwok]

Ships and stations provide the bulk of any score so that may be why your score is lower than you expect if you're not building many of them.

[Suicide Junkie]

What about maintenance reduction?

Every +1% you put in gives you a 5% discount on your ships.

[douglas]

I haven't play STM, so I can't give you much advice on it. One thing I do know is that it reduces the power of sensors and ECM so they aren't quite so important. For the stock game, though, try this:

Start a new game with high tech start. Design your favorite ship without combat sensors and ECM. Make a copy of that design with combat sensor 3, ECM 3, stealth armor 3, and scattering armor 3, taking off whatever you consider least important to make room. You can also try it without the armors. Go into the simulator and simulate a battle between equal numbers of the two designs. Observe which side wins and by how much. Maybe then you'll see what I mean.

Edit: For maximum effect, set the second design's strategy to Maximum Weapons Range. Leave the sensorless design at Optimal Firing Range, or even change it to Point Blank (max range would be suicidal for such a poorly equipped ship).

Edit2: You're not using missiles, are you? Missiles in the stock game are quite weak past the very early game, and are very easily countered by point defense cannons. They also are unaffected by sensors, so they would render this little experiment meaningless.

[Col. Mustard]

Ok. I'll do that and se what happens.

[Col. Mustard]

Oh... I se. The ship with all the good stuff took hardly any damage, even though it had much less armor and weapons.... Ok, so what tech areas in standard game should I use? Like, organics? religous? should I give a research bonus?

[douglas]

Quite sure. Let me put it this way, which would you rather have: you hit with 20% of your shots and 80% of enemy shots hit you; or you hit with 80% of your shots and 20% of enemy shots hit you? Sensors and ECM alone can easily make the difference between those two scenarios, and training on top of that could conceivably make it 99% and 1%, especially if you get stealth and scattering armor 3 for an extra 30% defense bonus.

[Col. Mustard]

Hmm... Well, it can't hurt to try I guess. (I still think your a bit loony... lol) Oh, and can you tell me the best race/advanced traits and stuff to getin the star trek mod?