I was just reading some shit at GameFaqs on the game. It seems like you really do need a manual or a printout handy, because there's no way anyone can keep all those techs straight.
2 quick questions:
1) Are they planning another expansion?
2) Does the first expansion add new techs?
Next expansion is due out mid-December. It's main goal is to continue to diversify the different races through specific planetary improvements and tech trees with race-specific features.
Dark Avatar adds a lot of things (environmental restrictions on some planetary colonization ala MoO being a huge one), and only cleans up the tech tree so that Phasers I-VI or what not aren't all separate techs as seen from the tech tree but "segmented" techs that are individually researched as before but don't use up so much room in the tech tree screen.
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So far, my basic early game strat has been to:
1) Research universal translator, after which I focus on ship improvements, although I experiment after translator. No set research path.
2) Do some planet-level housekeeping. Mainly, handle any tiles with special bonuses and build a factory. I haven't played with taxes much because I do not know what level I should be targeting for what political affiliation and what not (If I do terrible, will people revolt?).
3)You start with the 2 ships. I immediately set my Colony Ship to head towards the nearest non-starting planetary system (the closest one on the map that looks promising). I usually send the other ship (flagship?) to auto explore, unless I see something immediately nearby that is interesting, in which case I retain manual control.
4) I purchase a scout ship. It sounded like a good thing when I purchased the game, and the habit stuck. I am fairly positive that the scout is useless. I will also purchase a second colony ship, and as soon as possible I will send it to a separate star cluster from the first, unless my first sees a couple of hot good livable planets. Usually not on the third turn, but soon after I start researching my tech, I have enough info to build a third colony ship, with a target in mind.
At that point, I usually run into money problems, and I kinda crash. What should I be doing?
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Some early pointers from a thread a long time ago:
Here's some early pointers, regardless of race:
1) Always set your flagship to autosurvey at the beginning. Anomalies can bring in good early cash. If the galaxy is big and you have time, think about building a couple of extra survey ships if you have the time.
2) Your initial colony ship is not full starting out. Land it on your homeworld, then relaunch it to full-your first colony will thank you.
3) I don't use my first colony ship on the planet near the homeworld. I generally send it to a nearby star with lots of planets around it and hope for the best.
4) A decent starting approach is to load up your homeworld with manufacturing (putting research on any research bonus tiles and maybe a couple of trade centers to help with income), your nearby world for research (building a research captial there later), and the first PQ6+ world you colonize as an economic shantytown with a factory, a farm, and rest trade centers and maybe an approval building if you absolutely need it.
5) If you go hardcore tech early, don't be afraid to start running silly deficits and sell the tech to everyone. I disable tech trading for that reason-it made the game really easy for my playstyle.
6) If you want the AI to stay out of your face, you need to start putting up a basic military once they start building ships themselves. Having a weak military compared to other races will put you in a world of hurt and at the end of constant bullying and shaking down. I generally start, if I don't want to conquer right off the bat, with small ships, no engines, and lots of guns-I generally research into the second or third tech in a line (usually missles, sometimes beamz) and build some ships to act as garrisons. They also increase your military power, at which point you'll find your diplomatic relations improve quite a bit.
Econ and production is probably the toughest thing for a new player to "get". Here's a few pointers for that:
A) Every base shield/beaker/hammer of ouput you produce costs 1 BC, assuming it is not "bonus" production (research/manufacturing capitals, etc.). The biggest trap you can fall into is building high-tech structures without the econ to support them-a research center that outputs 10 beakers/turn with 2 maintainence doesn't cost 2 BCs/turn more than a basic factory that produces 6 beakers/turn with no maintainence. It costs 6 BCs more-2 for the upkeep, 4 for the extra beakers, assuming your research is at full capacity. Now if you multiply that across seven or eight research buildings, you can see a good economy collapse pretty quickly. Manufacturing buildings work the same.
B) Building a factory doesn't add the listed amount of hammers/shields unless your military and social spending precentages sum to 100% or so. If you have military spending set to 0 or 1%, and social spending set to 50%, and build a new factory, then you'll get half the capacity that is listed. Labs work the same-a Xeno Lab with 50% research produces 4 beakers and has 1 upkeep cost, for a total of 5BCs consumed per turn. A basic lab under the same situation brings in 3 beakers at the cost of 3BCs a turn. So, newer is not always better, especially early on.
C) You can upgrade over any buildings and it drastically reduces the cost of the new buldings. You can build labs over trade centers, factories over labs, etc, without problem. It's a good way to easily repurpose planets as needed.
D) If you set miltary spending = 1% and lock it, it has the result of telling your planets to build improvements first, and if there are no improvements, to build ships. I generally do this and adjust the social and research sliders according to what I want to do.
E) Money comes from population. I find it easiest to manage my economy by just trying to keep all of my planets sort of near the same population size, since it means that approval among them works nearly the same regardless of world. If you want to make money in this game-and with money comes funding for increased production, which is what money is best used for in this game-think decently large population+numerous stackd economy buidings.
I think the important thing for you to do is ensure that you have plenty of economic planets. I usually have 1/2 or so of my planets as dedicated economy planets-two fully upgraded farms, a factory or two, and the rest trade buildings.
