I never found enough resources or way to make resource to build my first Ark. is just bad design of the game, or is me that sucks?

I really don't understand how is possible to find habitable planets if everything is mostly "not habitable" even after I research the first planets of the era. As well I couldn't ever leach enough resources, really I feel that's something very wrong with the balance of this race.

There is indeed something wrong with the balance of this race, but that's the opposite.

They expand too fast and with no penalties. Generally I can make my first Ark by turn 18, but I'm sure there are people pulling it of way earlier than that.

The Vodyanis are really powerful, it can just take a few go arounds to learn how to play them right, and figure out the little nuances involved.

One important trick is that the Arks are ships that can be remodeled and upgraded, and it's important to do so at the first opportunity. If your home system doesn't have multiple Era I habitable systems, then find one nearby and move your Ark there. The population multiplier due to how the Vodyanis populations work is huge.

Your initial build queue? Leecher x3. Your first priority is to find the nearest minor faction and set your ships to draining it. Send your new Leechers there to free up your wheel for scouting. Spend the first 250 essence to boost your home system population once and use the second to build an Ark.  If the two pirate fleets from the first quest are convienently near where you plan to colonize next, use the Ark to kill the pirates.

Just a basic outline of getting started with the Vodyanis, hopefully it'll help you get going quickly with them.

Yep. It's part of their gameplay.

And you don't lose the built improvements by doing that either. ;)

littlemad wrote:

Wait a minute, so I need to move my Ark somehwere else at the start if I have only 1 single planet?

Mate ... you are playing a race of space gypsies/religious fanatics/vampires. Of course you are ment to migrate. In fact it is your greatest strenght during a war: you move with the arks to take over rich systems you conquered from an oponent and you can do so INSTANTLY and you also bring each and every improvement you had previously built on the ark you moved. You can essentialy migrate fully developed systems. As for the start, it is mandatory that you move your first ark (and preferably every one after that) to systems with as many habitable planets possible due to the fact that for you a single unit of pop can work up to 6 planets at once.