share your early game tipps and tricks

[Jones 27]

the early game phase is very important. so im gonna start with what i do:

1) upgrade the hero ship with some probe launchers and additional thrusters.

2) im actually not sure!

do you immediatelly colonise the next planet in your home system (if it is good)
or do you get a few of the essential starter buildings first?

[Malkuth]

Good idea, I'm pretty sure that going to be different for each race though.

1. Get that first colony ASAP but not so fast that you settle for crap.
2. Turn 1 use all your probes, than redesign your patrol ship (change something) upgrade get all probes back turn 1.
3. Number 2 can be in other turns also.
4. As humans stick your hero as governor right off back the increase in production since he is industrialist is more important than having him in fleet.
5. Make sure the tech your currently researching is revelant to your current situation. No point in getting something you can't use cause your missing a resource. This is vital in First 30 turns.
6. If it looks like you got a crap start no colonize check again, might be a juicy planet you don't have tech for that you can grab early to get out of that bind.
7. Add an extra engine to your colony ship as empire. Again getting those planets fast is important.
8. This goes with 7 getting planets fast is important but make sure your home planet can support the food cost.
9. Always spend money or influence to get outpost turned into colonies. This frees up your home planets food, and helps your growth in early game.

[Astasia]

The initial ship designs come with an engine that's worse than the basic engine you start with, so redesign ships right away. Remove weapons and defenses from exploration ships, add more probes, very early on maybe leave one engine but a little later remove it for another probe and add booster support ships to the fleet ("protector" ships with stacked fleet move speed boosting modules). Probes on a single ship will stack sensor distance, so horatio exploration ships with 4 yellow probes will have an extremely large sensor range, this is why more probes per ship is better than just using multiple ships.

90% of games you will start in a constellation with a single minor faction system, find it as soon as possible, meaning don't waste too many turns with your starting exploration ship waiting for probes to regenerate, keep moving until you explore your constellation fully then go back and get any missed curiosities. Once you find that minor faction system start dumping all your influence into praising them at least 5 times, then save up to assimilate them ASAP to shut down pirate spawns before they become an issue.

That's really the only general stuff I can think of, too much else depends on faction and goals.

[Grug]

Playing against the AI, I actually keep the minor factions around for the pirates. I can farm them for ship experience, use them to kill off any other faction's exploration ships (i.e. guard the uncolonized planets), and use the 'win battles' for my quest objective.

Of course, if you don't have other good systems to colonize first, then I bribe them to assimilate.

[Grug]

If playing as imperials, I build up as much influence as I can, then strategically surround the AI systems while I wait to absorb their systems into mine. It's almost too easy... I usually only play on 'endless' difficulty as the AI in this game is just too easy and passive.