The basics of the game and some FAQ

First you should begin by making metal and crystal mines. Remember to have your solar plants some lvl's ahead. If you don't have energy your plants will not be able to work properly. Secondly, build some Robotic Factories because they will speed up your buildings build time by 10% per each lvl. (Yeah, thats a lot) At lvl two of Robo. Factry. you may build a shipyard. In Shipyard lvl 1 you may build solar satellites which will be granted to give no less than 35 energy units. In the planets from 1-6 the energy income may be higher, like 55, but the building slots will be way much lower than those farther from the sun.

After having:
Metal Mine lvl 14
Crystal Mine lvl 10-12
Deuterium Mine lvl 10
Shipyard lvl 5
Research Lab lvl 5
------------------------
Armor Tech. lvl 2
Combustion Drive Tech. lvl 2
Impulse Drive Tech. lvl 2

You may begin to build:
Small Cargo Ship
Light and Heavy Fighters

when impulse drive is lvl 4 and ion technology its lvl 2 you may build Cruisers which are the best of the small ships category. After that you should know pretty much what's to do and what's not to do.


Other info:
[Buildings]

Terraformer: Adds 4 more building slots to your planet. (5 - the one you are using = 4)

Nanite Factory: Reduces building times by 50%

Alliance Depot: Gives Deuterium to friendly units passing by.

Missile Silo: At lvl 2 you can make defensive missiles, at lvl 4 you may make interplanetary missiles to destroy defenses.

[Techs.]

Higher lvls to each tech are:
Ion - 5, after that there is no use upgrading
Laser - 12, same thing
Plasma - 7, yet again, same thing

Upgrades:

Drives:
All the drives (Hyperspace Drive, Impulse Drive and Combustion Drive)
Upgrading each one of them will make some ships faster by a certain %.
HD - 30%
ID - 20%
CD - 10%
try to upgrade them all because all the ships in the higher pases of the game use the 3 drives.

Weapons, Shields and Armor:
Each of this techs increase such thing named by 10%. There is no need to leave them at low lvl's since there will be times you encounter people with a bonus of 170% (lvl 17) of some things. So the higher they are, the more dmg you do, the more dmg you absorbs with a shield and the more durability a ship has.

Other Techs:
Pretty much of them are necessary... to know more about them go to where it says technology. If you see certain tech is not mentioned as a requirement anymore, probably it is not necessary to research it anymore.