I can barely manage to tail other empires scores until 3 systems (no changes in the default new game), but then, the morale collapse and except for money, production/food/science is tanked. The first purple tech is far away in the tech tree. How can i prevent moral to suddenly dissapear around turn 35/40 ?

You may find it helpful to compare your early game result against other expert players by looking into the 30-turn UE challenge:

/#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/8206-challenge-30-turn-challenge-for-beta-0-42-0-united-empire

Once the next version is released, we will have to redo this challenge because a number of the economic equations have changed.

Some things that work for me:



I tend to lower my tax rate once I start generating more money. The only thing you really need money for early is to hire heros so setting taxes lower (but maintaining a comfy surplus) can do wonders for your empire's morale.



Make sure you're hiring (and assigning) governors asap (one trick you'll see posted here is to start with prod > dust conversion for the first few turns to hire that first governor earlier). Once a system is rolling nicely, move your governor to newer systems that need help developing faster.



Avoid planets with malus and big morale hits until you can handle them better (ie, settle the most choice worlds first). I usually just settle the best planet in a system as I expand and fill in later unless a system has multiple really juicy worlds. I'll go so far as to not settle an iffy system early if it's not at a strategic spot or at a risky spot the AIs might grab if I let it sit a while.



So many improvements in this game are +x per population so ensuring that you can provide lotsa food to new planets is something you wanna watch early on. You need your populations to grow. There are some easily built +food and +money per population improvements early on - make sure you research and build them where appropriate.