There are 4 "resources" your civilization produces, called FIDS: Food, Industry, Dust, and Science. Food and industry apply within-system only, science and dust apply empire-wide, and dust can be saved up and spent later. The Automatons can also save up industry like dust, however I have yet to play them and can't explain this yet. Basically, dust is money.

The Harmony do not use dust, and instead take ♥♥♥ penalties from having dust on a world. This often means that worlds that would otherwise be very good to develop on may be completely unuseable for them.

FIDS comes from your population on-world. Each planet type produces a certain number of each FIDS value per person, modified by attributes such as planetary anomalies and resources. I will explain these in the Colonization section. In addition, there are planetary exploits which can be built for each world in-system, and increase one of the FIDS values for that planet. And of course there are structures, which increase the entire system's FIDS production either by a static amount or a per-person value (many are based on planet type). Though some improvements will simply add a FIDS value for the entire system, it is generally necessary to have large populations in order to make a large value of any FIDS resource (which is also greatly impacted by some planet types).

Approval rating also affects your ♥♥♥ values. There are two values: system and empire approval. Your empire approval can be viewed by the first tab to the left on the top of the screen, which also shows a breakdown of your colonies and their FIDS and production. System production can be viewed from here or simply by zooming in on-system.
System approval affects your system's food and industry output. Between 0% and 19%, you are on strike and receive -50% food and industry on that system. At 20% to 39%, you are unhappy and receive -20% food and industry. 40% to 59% is content with no penalties. Between 60% and 79%, you are happy and gain a bonus of 10% food and industry, and between 80% and 100% you are ecstatic and gain 20%.
Empire approval affects your total science output empire-wide. Between 0% and 19%, you are in rebellion and have -50% science output. Between 20% and 79%, you are content with no penalties. And between 80% and 100% you are fervent and gain a bonus of 20% science.

When you set your tax rate down, your approval rating will climb. This is the simplest way to increase approval. Otherwise, there are structures, planetary anomalies and resources, and certain technologies that will improve approval rating. I will explain these in the Expansion section.

For the Harmony, you do not have a tax rate slider, but instead switch between emphasizing food and science. The Sophons gain extra science as you lower your taxes, and the United Empire gains extra industry as you raise your taxes.

There are a large variety of different planets in Endless Space. Most can eventually be terraformed (asteroids cannot), but in early and mid game you are stuck with what you find. The majority cannot be colonized until you research the appropriate tech, found in the Expansion and Exploration tech tree (which will from now on, be noticed eloquently as the Bottom tech tree).

The 3 basic types of planets are Terran (FIDS: 4/2/4/2), Jungle (FIDS: 4/4/2/2), and Ocean (FIDS: 4/2/2/4) planets. Each can support colonies without any technology research, and support larger populations than other planet types. The size of a planet (tiny through huge) also impacts population. Each gives a food bonus if you apply a food exploit, and they are very useful for early colonies. Since industry and food are the most important early-game resources (this will be explained in the Expansion section), Jungle planets are typically the best available planet type for new colonies.

After this, the first two planets unlocked are Tundra (FIDS: 2/6/2/2) and Arid (FIDS: 2/2/6/2). Both Tundra and Arid have a -5 approval penalty for colonizing a harsh world. Tundra is unlocked by Xenobotany, Arid by Arid Epigenetics. Tundra are excellent planets in early game due to their high industry, but both Tundra and Arid have high enough food and industry output to be at least somewhat useful. The next tier of planets are Arctic (FIDS: 1/0/1/9) and Desert (FIDS: 1/1/9/0), which also have a -10 approval penalty for colonizing a harsh world. Arctic is unlocked by Compact Fusion Reactors, Desert by Sustainability.

The third tier include Lava (FIDS: 0/12/1/0) and Barren (0/1/0/12) planets, which have a -15 approval penalty for colonizing a harsh world. Lava is unlocked by Baryonic Shielding, Barren by Containment Fields. The fourth tier then finally includes Asteroids (FIDS: 0/5/5/5), as well as Methane (FIDS: 0/20/1/1), Hydrogen (FIDS: 0/1/20/1), and Helium (FIDS: 0/1/1/20) gas giants. These have a -20 approval penalty for colonizing a harsh world. Asteroids are unlocked by Atmospheric Engineering, all gas giants by Atmospheric Filtration.


When colonizing a new system, it is important that you check not only the type of planet and its size, but also the anomalies, resources, and any wonders present on-world. These will show up underneath the planet type and size; anomalies and wonders are colored text (wonders are yellow, anomalies are green, orange, and red), and resources will be either purple (strategic) or white (luxury) and have an icon for them next to the name.

Anomalies come in 3 forms, good, simple, and extreme. Good anomalies provide a variety of FIDS or approval bonuses, and will often be important in deciding if you want to colonize that planet early in the game. Simple anomalies can be good or bad but are usually both; they have a variety of FIDS, population, and approval bonuses and penalties, and although they are usually worth avoiding I have more than once colonized a planet specifically because of one. They can be "fixed" later in the game with the Adaptive Colonies tech, which is on the 4th tier of the bottom tech tree (not too far in-game). Simple anomalies typically become good anomalies once fixed. Extreme anomalies vary from somewhat bad to very bad, and can have both planetary and system-wide penalties to FIDS, approval, influence, and sensor range. They frequently have serious approval penalties, and those that do should be avoided if possible. They can be removed with the Soil Revivification tech, which is much later in-game.

Resources include luxury and strategic resources. Strategic resources are used to construct ship modules, and also apply a limited FIDS bonus to the world they are on; the more you own, the cheaper modules become that use that resource. Luxury resources apply an empire-wide bonus (i.e. 2% experience gain), and also a limited FIDS bonus to the world they are on. Most luxury resources apply an approval bonus of 10% to 40%, making them very useful (especially on harsher worlds like Lava planets or Methane gas giants). Note that your empire loses access to the resource if the planet holding the resource in question is blockaded (see the Combat section).

Wonders apply either an in-system or on-world bonus that typically needs advanced technology to be unlocked. However, many wonders such as the Tree of Worlds do not require anything to be used, and apply their bonuses immediately. Wonders that require tech to be unlocked however still usually give an approval bonus for owning them. One planet in particular has a unique color and is labeled Auriga; this planet will apply a significant science bonus in late-game, both on-world and in-system.

Expansion requires that you understand planet types, resources, anomalies, and FIDS. I will also talk about heroes to a limited degree, but those will be explained later.

When your empire begins to expand, you will notice your approval starting to fall. Mouse over the approval bar in the empire window, and you will see that you have expansion disapproval. This comes from expanding beyond the influence sphere (colored circle) generated by your established colonies. Any planet not producing an influence sphere is an outpost, and if you zoom in on it you will see the time it takes to become a colony in the upper left corner.

Expansion disapproval can be countered by improving your approval rating; the easiest ways are to lower your tax rate or construct approval structures. Alternatively you can find planets with anomalies or resources that give you approval, although this only applies on-world (except Bluecap Mold, which is revealed with Xenology on the left tech tree). Approval structures are found on the Diplomacy and Trading tech tree, which will from now on be known as the left tech tree. The first two upgrades are the infinite supermarkets structure unlocked with Botanical Scanning, and the Colonial Rights structure unlocked with Optimized Logistics. The resources with the most approval bonuses are gems and minerals, unlocked with Containment Shields on the bottom tech tree, and pharmaceuticals, unlocked with Personal Shielding on the right tech tree (also known as the Applied Sciences tech tree).

Heroes can also raise your approval. You can recruit up to 3 heroes; the first will cost 20 dust, the second 80, and the third 140 (I may be off slightly on the numbers). Late-game tech will unlock more hero slots. NOTE: In order that a hero should raise approval, he must have the Administrator class in vanilla ES, or the Adventurer class in disharmony. Heroes can also raise your FIDS scores, trade (this will be explained in the Diplomacy section), and various special bonuses. A large number of hero abilities are combat-related, but having 2 heroes as administrators (especially at your major production centers) is very helpful.

Note that heroes cannot be moved quickly from one area to another, without unlocking the Hyper-Driven ability (for the Commander class only).


Now a very, very important point: Every empire you encounter will begin at cold war with you. This means that you cannot invade each other's colonies* (any systems which generate a sphere of influence). Any ships entering the sphere of influence of an empire they are not at war with, cannot attack, although defending ships can attack you anyways or can simply trap you via blockade. However, neutral ground is entirely open to attack. Outposts can be attacked and conquered without a declaration of war, if they are not in your sphere of influence. In other words, you will want to keep a fleet together if an AI is starting to expand towards you. Frequently in early game the AI will lack the ships needed to actually conquer a world and will simply blockade it (invasion time of 999 means they can't finish it), but it can switch from secure to about to fall very quickly; the minimum time needed to conquer a system is 8 turns, so be careful. Combat will be more thoroughly explained in the Combat section.

Also note that you require technology to actually make peace with empires you are at cold war; until then you cannot communicate. You also cannot do it as soon as you make contact (the game requires that any diplomatic standing last a certain time, "on account of your reputation.") The tech needed for a peace treaty is Relativistic Economies, and the tech needed for open borders is Relativistic Markets; both are on the left tech tree.

Before I get into the combat itself, I am also going to talk about ship design, upgrading and repairing, blockades, siege mechanics, and military power versus invasion military power. Actual combat and detailed warship design is in Section 4a.

When you first build a ship, it will appear in the planetary hanger. By zooming into a planet you can select all ships in that hanger and launch them, or click on the system from the galactic view and click the small tab on the right of the system, then make a fleet out of the ships in the hangar. Ships in a hangar cannot defend a system, but will slowly repair and cannot be attacked either.

Fleets are able to be set to explore, idle, blockade, or invade a system. Ships with bombs or soldiers will have an additional option to bomb or assault pop up above the invade option. Ships also have the repair option, and if you go into the fleet menu in the upper-left corner and click on a fleet you will have the option to upgrade it or repair it. Upgrading or repairing ships requires that they are in systems that are in your sphere of influence (on established colonies), and that you have enough dust to afford it. Repairing will occur automatically otherwise by sticking ships in a system's hangar, if a hero attached to their fleet has a repair bonus, or if they or other ships in their fleet have a repair module that operates outside of combat. The Nano Repair Bots battle action will also repair ships in combat.

In order to upgrade a ship, you have to upgrade the same class of ship first. You cannot convert your scout ships into your warship class, but would have to design a variant of the scout ship that was itself a warship instead (you can always upgrade a ship class to what you want one ship to be, then upgrade it again to what you want another to be; they don't apply unless you pay for each individual ship's upgrade). Ship upgrades are done in the fleet menu in the upper right corner by modifying existing ship classes. You also design new ships from this menu.

Ship design is relatively simple. First off, you pick a ship class; you start with two, a colony ship, and a corvette (or other name for non-UE factions; I will use UE faction names for all ships however in this guide). The colony ship should only be used to support the colony module, and maybe later upgraded with an engine; you should not build them for any other role as they usually either have penalties or lack bonuses available to other ship chassis. The corvette is a 1 command point ship (your fleets can only support so many command points at once), that is small and at default has 450 HP, and costs 40 industry. It has an evasion rating as well, meaning it will reduce the accuracy of incoming fire by its evasion score of 50%. Different factions also have different bonuses to their covettes, such as smaller armor or weapons modules.

You can mount a varitey of modules on your ships, which are spread between the offense, support, and special tabs. Offense includes kinetic, beam, and missile weapons, as well as their countering defenses defectors, shields, and flak. Weapons can also be set for a particular range, and each is optimised for a particular range and less effective outside of it.

Support includes anti-personnel and anti-structure bombs, siege modules, armor (HP), engines, sensors, repair modules, and extra tonnage space. Bombs quite simply allow you to cripple planets without actually conquering them, while siege modules are used to passively conquer systems without damaging them. Power modules will increase your damage, defensive efficiency, and/or critical hit chance, either for that ship or for your entire fleet. Armor applies extra HP to your ship, and usually have a percent-increase on how much armor they add (meaning they are more effective on large ships). Repair allows you to repair both your ship and other ships in-fleet, either by a percent value or a static value. NOTE: Power, repair, and armor modules take up a percentage of your total tonnage rather than a fixed value. Finally, the extra tonnage module gives you a slightly-higher amount of space on your ship for a disproportionately-high industry cost; it is usually better to add these onto ships that you are upgrading, rather than building ships with them.

Special includes soldiers, fighters, bombers, and point-defense. Soldiers allow you to conquer planets instantly rather than sieging them, but aren't very effective on more-developed worlds. Fighters and bombers can technically be used for invasions, but I typically only use them for fleet use so I can't comment on their effectiveness in that role (supposedly its limited); fighters and bombers can also be set for invasion, battle, or balanced based on how you plan to use them. And point defense allows you to fire at fighters, and its effectiveness is based on the number of defensive modules aboard your ship. Each ship has a cap on how many special modules they can mount.

In addition to the Colony and Corvette chassis, you can unlock another 4 chassis on the bottom tech tree. These are the Destroyer (1cp, unlocked with Efficient Shielding), Cruiser (2cp, unlocked with Baryonic Shielding, Battleship (2cp, unlocked with Applied Atmospherics, and the Dreadnought (4cp, unlocked with Non-Baryonic Shielding). Corvettes can hold 1 special module, Destroyers and cruisers can hold 2, Battleships can hold 3, and Dreadnoughts can hold 4. Also, all 1cp ships have a standard 450 HP, while 2cp ships have standard 1200 HP and 4cp ships have standard 3000 HP. 1cp ships get 50% evasion, 2 cp ships get 30% evasion, and 4cp ships get 15% evasion.

Continued in the next section.

When it comes to designing warships, there are some important details to keep in mind that aren't really explained in-game:

Damage Mitigation: All ships have some damage mitigation in the form of evasion, and defenses also add a limited damage mitigation as well. A defense module can provide a certain amount of protection without actually blocking any incoming weaponsfire, because simply by being mounted a certain amount of damage can be absorbed. This is based on the defense rating, which is higher for deflectors than for flak (meaning having a lot of deflectors is less important, whereas missiles will sooner slip past flak). Of course flak itself is more effective than deflectors, so having a large number of flak modules will often completely avoid damage while having deflectors will ultimately be insufficient against large numbers of kinetic weapons.

Damage mitigation from defenses will decrease the more you mount; after 3 or 4 deflectors for instance, any new deflectors will provide only marginal damage mitigation and instead rely on their projectile deflection statistics (each defense has a chance to block a certain number of projectiles, except shields which absorbs a certain amount of damage; shields may be confusing, but just understand that damage mitigation from defense decreases exponentially while damage mitigation from actual shield modules doesn't). Because damage mitigation decreases exponentially the more you add on, it becomes important to mount armor instead on ships. Armor will increase the actual HP of a ship, and is more useful than excessive numbers of defenses. Armor modules also increase the total HP by a percent-value, so ships with higher HP gain more from armor (whether from other armor modules, or standard HP settings). On larger ships, repair modules are also very useful in order that high-HP ships can stay in the field longer (you can also equip them on supporting vessels, if you have enough; the second-level repair module is more useful for this, since it repairs a percent of your hull rather than a static value).

Sensors are completely useless. Don't use them. Technically they do apply an accuracy bonus, but in my experience its far more valuable to just mount weapons, and sensors really aren't important tactically either. Engines give a small evasion bonus, but this is a fringe benefit rather than a reason to use them. The benefit is too small to justify the high cost of engines. Only use engines for their speed bonus.

For weapons, there are 3 types with 3 ranges; that makes 9 setups. In actuality, there are 5, unless you are an artificial intelligence: Long-Ranged Kinetics, Melee Kinetics, Medium-Ranged Beams, Long-Ranged Missiles, and though they're the worst of the group, Long-Ranged Beams. Of these 5 weapon types, I almost exclusively use LR Kinetics backed by smaller numbers of MR Beams. Why?

Each weapon has a rate of fire. Kinetics fire 4 times per phase (3 phases in a battle), and hit immediately. Beams fire twice per phase, and hit after 1 round (4 rounds per phase). Missiles fire once per phase, and hit after 3 rounds. What this fundamentally means, is that beams and especially missiles are prone to overkilling targets, more than kinetics are; this problem is exacerbated when combining two different weapon types, since your ships that hit faster will continue firing at a vessel about to be destroyed anyways by missile or beam impacts. If you choose to include multiple weapon types in a fleet, I recommend mounting them on different ships for this reason. It is also important to note, that two of the battle actions (explained in Section 4b) allow you to retreat, which takes two rounds. One of those, offensive retreat, allows you to fire for one round, but only if it hits that round (no idea why, but that's the rules), meaning that only kinetic weapons work here. Note that you can't hit retreating opponents with missiles at all.

Also note that weapons do significantly more damage in their intended range than outside of it. Long-range weapons are mediocre in the medium-range and melee phases (2nd and 3rd battle phases) despite their punch in the long-range phase (1st battle phase); melee weapons by contrast, will do the opposite, but because of this you can mount more melee weapon on a ship than you can mount medium or long-range weapons.

Another weapon to consider is bombers. Bombers are mediocre, but in some situations can be very effective if the opponent has glass cannons in his fleet. Bombers will not begin firing until the medium-range phase (the second battle phase), and at that point they will start attacking the rear of the fleet. This is important, since the way combat works in this game emphasizes making the first 3 ships in a fleet tank ships, and the rest offensive ships; but bombers will hit the weaker offensive ships first rather than the ships the enemy actually wants you to hit. Also, bombers will still engage regardless of whether or not the entire fleet they were carried on was destroyed in the long-range phase (the first battle phase). Bombers can be shot down by either fighters or point defense, although neither is especially effective (higher-tech fighters become significantly better though). Bombers do much less damage to ships with high defense scores (combination of different defense types) from what I've seen. Due to the effectiveness of each defense type at mitigating damage however, bombers are a great choice for fleets built around heavily-armored ships that can't mount enough weapons to make a dent in a high-defense fleet.

Finally, when you make fleets you must consider your targeting and formation options. Targeting in this game works by either using Nosebreaker (target first ship), Guillotine (target first 3 ships), or Spread Fire (target all ships in order). Ships will only target one vessel at a time as well, so keep this in mind. The AI will only use Spread Fire if they almost outnumber you 2:1 (think 13:7 for instance); otherwise it sticks to Guillotine or Nosebreaker. This is generally a good tactic since mounting one or two deflectors or shield modules on a ship generally allows it to survive MR and Melee weapons through the long range phase with minimal damage, especially combined with the 50% evasion available to 1cp ships like Corvettes and Destroyers. However, there will come a time when you can deal enough damage to kill an enemy ship in 2 shots with one ship; that is when Spread Fire is a much better tactic (make sure your ships aren't getting too many values like -12000/450 HP if you want to decide whether to change targeting style; note that the damage inflicted past 0 is much higher since it ignores damage mitigation).

Formations can then be used to take advantage of the targeting options. The basic two formations are highest defense and highest HP (default), while others exist such as highest or lowest MP (military power is the combined value of your weapons and defenses, and does not represent any support or special values). Thus you want to design your fleet around 3 or 4 (if they are smaller) ships that boast high defense and/or armor (HP), as well as a larger array of supporting glass cannons (preferably using 1cp chassis, so they can target more ships and use the 50% evasion bonus) with high damage and minimal or no defense. You may want to consider (especially if playing Sowers) adding repair modules to your glass cannons when you get farther into the game, since having 6 ships with a 2% repair per phase bonus is effectively as good as having a repair module on the ship itself. Again, beware bombers since they will go for the rear of your ships. The AI does not use bombers on normal or below difficulty in my experience.

When combat is engaged, you are presented with a screen showing the enemy fleet, each ship's military power with regards to each weapon (including its range) and defense, each ship's total HP, if their fleet is lead by a hero, all that information for your own fleet, and a bar comparing the total military power of each fleet (signficantly increased by the presence of an upgraded hero). You are given an option to pick a targeting option, a formation, and a battle action for each battle phase.

Battle actions are cards, which each have their own effect and counter another card. Most cards have a penalty as well as a bonus, and if you counter the opponent's card then their bonus doesn't apply and yours does (other times your bonus is increased, if you have no penalty). The Retreat card cannot be countered, although Offensive Retreat can (countered by Offense cards). Each card fits under a R/P/S category: Offense, Defense, Sabotage, Engineering, or Tactics. They are typically countered in that order (i.e. offense counters tactics but is countered by defense). A handful of cards do not fit this and counter a different card type (dust actions from heroes, in particular, frequently break this pattern). The dust cost of a battle action is always 0 unless it comes from a hero, who must be in that fleet in order for you to use it (and you must be able to afford the cost).

Note that this is not an R/P/S format. If you counter an offense card Weapon Overclock by playing the defense card Magnetic Field, that works solely for your deflectors; you may easily have been better off playing Weapon Overclock yourself, or playing Short Circuit, in order to increase your own weapons effectiveness more. The AI will sometimes learn to counter your battle actions, but this is based on each different race (you will notice one race falling for you always playing Sabotage cards more if you just encountered them, even while your longer-term rivals always play engineering to counter them). They will also not adapt quickly to you changing your card choices if they start trying to counter your pattern.

You can pick everything at the start of a battle, then either automate it or play it out manually. In manual battles, you will get the option to change your actions based on the results of each battle phase; by mousing over friendly and enemy ship icons, you can see how much damage they will take by the end of that particular phase (meaning you know to run away if the enemy doesn't take much damage at long range and has medium-ranged weapons). You can also change your targeting options in each phase if you do manual battles, whereas you can only pick it for the whole battle if you do automated battles.

Four of the best battle-actions in the game to keep in mind: Offensive Retreat (retreats in 2 rounds, can fire for 1 round; this works only if you have LR kinetics and your opponent isn't spamming offense cards), Short Circuit (-15% enemy accuracy, +10% long-range weapon accuracy), Camouflage (+40% evasion, -20% melee damage), and Nano Repair Bots (10% repair, -10% damage). Offensive retreat is an amazing tool against fleets filled with missiles, and with LR kinetics you can often get at least one enemy ship destroyed simply by running away and taking minimal to no damage. Short Circuit is a great basic card with no disadvantages, greatly reducing total enemy damage (since that's 15% less fire hitting your ship, prior to all your damage mitigation concerns, plus extra LR weapon damage). Camouflage takes advantage of the excellent evasion bonus on small ships and makes it that much more important, enabling your ships to avoid a large amount of damage without having as high of defense. And of course, Nano Repair Bots are always your friend in late game when your big tough cruisers are getting beat up by repeated gun salvoes and missile volleys (especially when you get to repair your damaged ships by attacking some scout ship or lonely cruiser and not take any damage anyways).

Endless Space's technology tree can be a frightening sight for newer players, as it branches out in all directions with rather unfortunately-scientific names for various techs (non-baryonic particles isn't the most enlightening tech name I've ever seen). However, it is surprisingly simple to navigate once you get an idea of what each tier of the tree offers. Each technology is part of a particular tier of the tech tree, and each tier gets substantially more expensive to research than the previous tier (40, 130, 300, 680, 1300, etc; several techs are in-between these tiers)

The top tech tree is the Galactic Warfare tree (from now on, either the top or military tree), and governs weapons, defenses, planetary fortifications, and other military-related tech. The right tech tree is the Applied Sciences tree (from now on, either the right or industry tree), and governs industry and science improvements, tonnage (ship carrying capacity), and strategic resources (any resource required for constructing certain modules/improvements). The left tech tree is the Diplomacy and Trading tree (from now on, either the left or diplomacy tree), and governs economic, approval, farming, and diplomacy. Finally, the bottom tech tree is the Exploration and Expansion tree (from now on, either the bottom or expansion tree), and governs colonization, terraforming, new ship hulls, and population capacity improvements.

It is important to note, that each tree has military value of some sort (the left tree has several fleet size techs; the right has battle-actions aka "cards", repair modules, necessary strategic resources, and tonnage improvements; the bottom has ship hulls; and the top is almost exclusively the military tech tree). Also, each of the 4 tech trees has one technology which unlocks 4 different luxury resources (not required to build anything, but give empire-wide bonuses in addition to basic system bonuses).

In early game, one could get away with first researching every one of the first 2 techs of each tech tree, then researching Compact Fusion Reactors (bottom tech tree on second tier) before Applied Casamir Effect (bottom tech tree on third tier), if this gets to be too complicated. At any rate, Applied Casamir Effect is essential early-game tech in any map that contains any wormholes whatsoever (wormholes are contrasted with normal jump lanes in that they have a wavy, moving line rather than a static solid one), as they are required to pass through them. Other techs you should seek out is any tech with dark purple-named resources showed under them (these are strategic resources, and are critical for a large number of weapons techs), and when you begin encountering other empires, there are a series of military techs you may want. Look for the † symbol below when you want to find critical military technologies for early game below.

For the most part, the first 8 techs (2 per tree) are all cheap and relatively useful, so it makes sense to get all of them. The first two you want (not necessarily in this order) are N-Way Fusion Plants and Xenobotany. N-Way Fusion Plants unlocks Isotope Refineries and improves your infrastructure as well as revealing the strategic resource Titanium; Xenobotany unlocks Tundra planets (these provide substantial industry, making them one of the best early-game planet types). After both of these are finished, research Soil Xenobiology then Xenology (this time, in that order). Soil Xenobiology unlocks both improved farming exploits (exploits are planet-based rather than system-based, and improve the output of one FIDS resource for that planet) and the Sustainable Farms improvement, significantly improving your food output; Xenology unlocks 4 luxury resources and the Xenotourism Agencies improvement, which provides extra dust.

After this, the Isolation Shields tech (right tree) is the most useful typically, providing the science-related Public-Private Partnerships improvement. Arid Epigenetics (bottom tree) is a circumstantual tech, depending on the availability of Terran, Jungle, Ocean, and Tundra planets as opposed to Arid; however, Arid planets are far less valuable than the other 4 early-game planet types (they provide dust, useful but not very helpful for rapid-expansion). Arid planets will become far more useful after the early rush has burned out, so you want the tech even if you have an abundance of better planets. The last two techs are on the top tree and relate to beams/shields and missiles/flak, and aren't very helpful until you actually make contact with another race (exception if you leave pirates on; I do NOT recommend this). You can wait until after researching Applied Casamir Effect (bottom tree, third tier left) to get these.

After this, you probably should jump straight to Compact Fusion Reactors (bottom tree, second tier center) then Applied Casamir Effect (bottom tree, third tier left), although depending on your faction there are several other techs you may consider getting after this. Compact Fusion Reactors unlocks Arctic planets (science-intensive), as well as increasing your ships' speed. Applied Casamir Effect unlocks travel through wormholes, as well as reducing expansion disapproval (based on how fast you expand, you lose approval; this mitigates this). Once this is done, you should next research the Core Mining (right tree, second tier bottom) which reveals the strategic resource Hyperium and unlocks an improved industry exploit.

At this point, the order of techs is not as important, so I will simply list a series of techs; NOTE: This list is split in half, covering first civilian techs then military techs.
Relativistic Economies: Unlocks peace treaties (leaving you at peace, not cold-war), plus an economic structure (left tree, second tier top)
Sustainability: Unlocks Desert planets (dust-intensive; dust=money); (bottom tree, second-tier right)
Pev-Scale Accelerator: Unlocks an improved science exploit and a ship engine module (right tree, second-tier top)
High-Energy Magnetics: Unlocks an industrial improvement and reveals the strategic resource Antimatter (right tree, third-tier bottom)
Improved Thermodynamics: Unlocks a population-increasing structure (tiny and small only).

†Primary Military Techs (do these first):
Efficient Shielding: Unlocks the Destroyer or equivalent ship hull (1 CP); (bottom tree, second-tier left)
Unstable Isotope Manipulation: Unlocks missile weapons and flak (top tree, first-tier right)
HE Batteries: Unlocks beam weapons and shielding (top tree, first-tier left)
Extreme Metallurgy: Reveals the strategic resource Hexaferrum (required for the second-version of kinetic weapons) and increases ship tonnage; this tech is very expensive (right tree, fourth-tier bottom)
Specialized Isotopes: Unlocks siege modules and a fortification structure (top tree, second-tier)
Isotope Fabrication: Unlocks improved kinetic weapons and deflectors (top tree

Secondary Military Techs:
Neural Robotics: Unlocks a ship repair module and a missile-defense battle-action (right tree, second-tier middle)
Photon Distortion: Unlocks the Camouflage battle-action (increases evasion, allowing you to avoid fire) and the Offensive Retreat (you can fire once while retreating); (right tree, third-tier top)
Improved Fleet Management: Increases Fleet Command Points (CP); (left tree, second-tier bottom)

This section is too long, and will be continued later.

I am afraid to tell you that I am burned out with making this guide. I thought taking a break from it would help me to get started again, but all that did was cause me to put this off for a few more months. Any specific questions you have however, you can offer and I will answer them to the best of my ability.

At any rate, the purpose of this guide is not to explain the entire game, but to help walk through the early stages of development. In addition to the basics such as combat, expansion, and UI features, the guide is intended to give a better idea of how to design ships and fleets, expand quickly without crippling yourself, and what sort of technologies you should research in early game.