Wow. I like this game. I've only played a bit of it at the moment, mostly in stolen moments during lunch or between weekend events. Wish I was back in school and had more time to myself to play .



One part of the game I've struggling with is the research, as in, what to research first? There are just so many options. Perhaps it is the way the research grid is laid out and I'm just not used to it.



Also, is there a way to tell when some components require other tech's? For instance I unlocked Ion missiles and went to create a new ship design with them. I noticed as I added the ion missile's that they required Titanium-70, which I did not have. I didn't attempt to build the ship because of this, assuming that I couldn't. Was this a correct assumption, and is there some sort of notice in the research screen I'm not seeing so that I can be warned about things like this?



Thanks!

It will be red in the requirements if you don't possess it.



Resources are unlocked and become visible in the right portion of the tech tree.



At first it will be a little difficult to grasp what you should research first. However, I would suggest you take some time on your first turn, and read through the tech tree. Really take a good long look at what each advance in tech will give you. Decide what kind of victory you want to pursue, and go from there.



As you play more and more, it will become easier for you.

A simple general strat:



Start with Industry and Food boosting techs, and build those improvements.

Get the appropriate planet colonization techs (Several, like Tundra, come early) and settle on those planet types.

Research to reveal strategic resources (the purple icons on the tree), they are very important.

Grab a military tech or 2 to make sure pirates are swatted like flies.

halflotus wrote:
A simple general strat:



Start with Industry and Food boosting techs, and build those improvements.

Get the appropriate planet colonization techs (Several, like Tundra, come early) and settle on those planet types.

Research to reveal strategic resources (the purple icons on the tree), they are very important.

Grab a military tech or 2 to make sure pirates are swatted like flies.

Alright, so the purple resource tech's only reveal them, and then I have to colonize a planet the resource exists on? (for instance, Titanium-70)



Thanks for the tip, that feels like a good generalized starting approach to him and is much less overwhelming.

Also if you zoom in with the mouse wheel you can mouse over the icons so you can actually see what the techs will give you. I didn't know that my first game it was painful.

Research the tech that uncovers Titanium-70 as soon as reasonably possible, or you risk not being able to expand to a system that has it which automatically means you pretty much lost the game.



I like to grab the two starting skills from the government/economy branch for the luxury goods and alien grafting right off the bat, either colonizing arid or tundra then immediatly the t-70.

It might not hurt to grab the first ship type upgrade early either. Once I unlock it, its pretty much all I build and then just retro-fit as I take the time to unlock new military tech. I do find it interesting though that the ship models are not in the military tree.

I recommend going into the left tree first. Through it and a couple points in the bottom one, you can quickly boost your populations and food production while keeping people happy. Early game this means you can expand fast, more poeple per planet means more production and all that good stuff. Make sure to keep people happy, I tend to dance bewteen making 1-6 dust per turn and losing 1-3 dust per turn for the first bit so I can keep my systems as happy as possible. It's imperative that your planets are kept happy, as a happy one can throw out well over three to four times as many FIDS as an unhappy or in some cases even content one. In my last game, at about 100 turns in, I had a system with five planets, only one moon, and it had over 1000 research per turn, 700 industry per turn, and produced a good bit of dust to boot. The system was of course ecstatic, get the colonial government (i think) upgrade as soon as you can, the +30 or so happiness is great, but having the boost to all productions that it grants when people are ecstatic makes such a big difference.



Keep in mind, the earlier you focus on this, the earlier the rewards, so you can get really far ahead real fast if your careful.