For me my starting strategy (generally in this order) is

1) Build Crystal harvester
2) Build Cap Ship Hanger
3) Buy 100 crystal on black market (200 if I want a non-colony cap ship)
4) Improve planet infrastucture
5) Build 2x metal harvesters
6) Build Cap Ship
7) Build scout ships (as many as is necessary to scout surrounding planets) and 3 normal frigates

These first 5 happen really fast and the 6th and 7th as fast as I can do it.


8) Send scouts out (set them to a nearby system and then set to auto explore
9) Build colony ship (if cap isn't colony ship)
10) Start assault on neighbouring planet.
11) Max out fleet logistics with more frigates (for more difficult planets)

After this I will then start investing in civic research places.

I saw three posts, and was like, woot! Alright though, thanks for the help bro.

Your first cap ship is free and can clear your starting astroid by itself, so you want to get your cap ship factory first. Thats what I do anyway, I just set it to build right next to my builder ships so it doesn't have to move very far to start it. Then I queue up the crystal extractor and the two metals, in that order because I always need crystal more. The sooner you get those up the more resources your going to be getting, in fact I don't think you start out with any metal/crystal income untill those get built. So build them quick(obviously).

After your first cap ship is done I recommend just skuttling the factory. Its taking up 4 logistics and lets be honest, your probably not going to be getting another cap ship for a while. If your rich enough to afford paying for the research, spending 3000 credits on a single ship, and losing 50(?) fleet cap, then you can probably afford to re-build a cap ship factory to. Not to mention skuttling it gets you just a little more resources, and frees up 4 more logistics for trade centers or what have you.

While all this is happening you should of course have built several scouts, 2 atleast, sometimes I'll do 3. Your cap ship is off clearing your astroid so build a colony ship after the scouts so you can go colonize it. Now you've got 3 scouts, plenty of logistics, a cap ship, and some starting income. Where you go from there is your own choice.

Remember to upgrade infrastructure on your planets as soon as possible. I'll even do it before building extractors sometimes. Sorry to the guy I played with the other day if you read this, but you make a good example here. The guy had 5 planets and was relying on a "strong economy for producing capital ships with support cruisers" for winning the game. About, I don't know, an hour in, he had maybe 20 ships making up his entire fleet. I asked him what he was doing(we were on a team ...) and thats when I heard of his plan. He'd just been building up trade centers, I asked him where all his money went(he couldn't outbid a guy on the priates, he only had to put up 1250 credits, he was TEC) and he said "research." I'm getting off track, the point is none of his planets had upgraded infrastructure(he'd forgotten that red=negative). So all of his planets were losing him money. Lets put it this way, before I got defeated by the other guy I had 3.3 income a second coming in. I was 2nd in credit income, the other guy was first, this non-infrastructure guy was last(yes, it was a 2v1. Considering my ally though, I like to think of it as a 1v1). So despite having 5 planets and trade centers, he had less than 3.3 income a second. This was his form of building a "strong economy." He hadn't even been attacked yet so it wasn't as if he was losing ships and having to rebuild a lot of them.

So upgrade infrastructure, its important. It takes 1 upgrade on astroids and 2 upgrades on everything else to bring in more income. Population is also a good mean sof making money. I think last time I did a test it was every... 30-50 population was another 1 income a second. Keep that in mind when your getting population upgrades or getting the third rank of infrastructure.

Hmm, also remember to build a fleet. If your not researching something you should be getting light frigates and long range ships(I've only ever played as the Vasari). How many of each depends on you. Remember to send your cap ship to planets first so that the militia fires on them. They are big and can take a lot more hits than the smaller ships. Just send them in, let them fly around for 30-60 seconds so that the miltia are all firing on it, then bring in your other ships. Don't worry, you cap ship probably won't even lose its shields, if it does just run it away. Also retreat wounded ships, every ship you save from the militia is a ship that you don't have to rebuild and can fight the enemy. I ussually hit retreat when they lose their shields, maybe even sooner if they are being attacked from a lot of ships(or heavy cruisers). The ships will go to follow the fleeing ship giving your ships more time to do damage without really taking any themselves(the enemy is busy shooting that ship which is going to phase jump out anyway).

Edit -- Also don't be afraid to buy crystal if you need it. Crystal income is ussually low in the begining before you get a ice planet or something, so if you need that crystal for upgrading infrastructure don't just sit there letting it trickle in at .51 a second. Spend some credits and buy it. Your probably getting around 13-15 credits a second, but only .5 crystal a second. You'll get those credits back quick enough and the time saved from waiting for crystal to build up could be very important.

1. build 2/3 scout ships (or more depending on the amount of nearby planets)
2. build 1 capital ship factory
3. build 1 metal extractor, then 1 crystal extractor then another metal extractor (in this order)
4. your scouts should be olmost ready now, que up 4, 5 or 6 frigates (4 for Vasari, 5 for TEC, 6 for Advent)
5. get a capital ship (preferably the 1 with colonize since they all give pretty good starting abilities)

6. order scouts to move to nearby planets and enable auto-explore
7. depending on play style build a civilain or war tech-center on main planet (try to build 1 only, since u'll need other slots for another frigate factory, trade port, and perhaps a refinery)
8. once your capital ship is ready build a squadron acording to your situation (fighters do lotsa damage vs long range frigates and planet bombers, while bombers do lotsa damage vs the HEAVY cruiser and buildings) (i prefer fighter's since they take down bombers (or fighters) + lrf and planet bombers (wich you'll see alot in taking over planets))
9. pick a capital ship ability, if you took the colonizing capital the first abil u pick is (ofcourse) the colonize ability since u wont get enough experience at your first planet to go to level 2

10. on the newly colonized planet INMEDIATLY upgrade its infrastructure so u wont lose credits to planet underdevelopment (and dont forget extractors)

11. continue capturing planets and be sure to leave at least 2 slots open on EVERY planet ( but your homeworld) to build atleast 2 trade ports (homeworlds gets 1)
on smaller maps u might wanna use up the slots for war tech, best rush option (but dont lose the rush since your econ wil be 2 sucky 2 rebuild fast



this is how i do it... sortoff
also noticed that while i do this im always the 1e (or 2e) to get a planet (keep an eye on credit income... as soon as u take a planet u get less credits.. so if ure number 8 on credits rly fast this means ure the first with planet underdevelopment cost = the fastest colonizer = the fastest econ)

I always buy 200 crystal. Then upgrade my planet. The added income will pay itself off pretty quick. After that, its pretty much been pointed out what you want.