Care and Feeding of a Fledgling Empire

 Well, here you are, with your infant empire and it's one solar system
in hand and now you wonder how to properly prepare it for it's role on the
future of the galaxy. Listen closly, and I will give you some careful analysis
that will help you on your way to becoming Ruler Of The Galaxy!

 So, the first thing you need to do is an inventory of all the assets
in you system. It may turn out that the moons of your gas giants might be
quite useful. Check the mineral content and flag any Very Rich ones. As the
SM#2 starting systems contain only 1 habital planet, your Home World, these
may well be your best short term income sites. Also, do not ignor your
asteroid belt! It is your second largest population site after your HW with
80 PU per hex. If the belt is 6 hexes in size, this is 480 PU of income and
population growth potential. Also check your Ice moons. Tho less valuable
for income, these moons may be more valuable for their locations and as
sources of communication and sensor areas. Locat your WPs and see how close
they are to your Ice worlds. If they are nearby, the sensor range of an
Outpost will cover it. If not, it still covers a large sphere of area where
potential interlopers might appear. If all your WPs are outside the area of
your planets, ignore the Ice moons for now. As you have 100 PTU to locate
in system, the best places would be the VR moons, either of your HW, other
rocky planets or their moons, or the GG moons. This will yield 1.05MC per
PTU befor belt modifications kick in. Don't fill them up, tho! Leave room
to grow. No more than 20 per moon. The exact number depends on the growth
method you have chosen. Normal 10 turn wants multiples of 4 as that yields
1PU per growth turn per 4 PU there. Per turn growth has odd break points,
the minimum of which is 5. I will assume the 10 turn growth system for the
rest of this artical. If you have 5 such moons (or more!), that takes care
of the 100 PTU. If not, place the rest in your Asteroid Belt. This is seed
for long term growth and while yielding only .875MC per PU, the larger area
to grow will allow free compounding to continue much longer.

 With your 100 PTU located, the next task is calculating and designing
your Commercial Freight Network (CFN). 2000PU on Rich benign gives you 2500MC
and the 100 IU makes this 2600. TL mod yields 2860. Add to this 115.5MC from
the VR moons for 2975.5. A final adjustment for 1 belt gives you 3273.05MC
of income. This is an important number as it determines the size of your CFN
in Q and H. 327.3 or 326 Q and 652 H are what you have to use to colonize
in the early game. But, never forget your 32PTU of insystem CFN capacity.
This will allow you to move PTU at emplacement cost, not the full CFN cost.
		 So, what hulls are the most cost effective for the CFN to use? 
Let's
take a look:

Hull		 Cost		 		 Empty Spaces		 Cost/Empty Space
Ft1		 47/37		 		 7		 		 6.71/5.29
Ft2		 64/54		 		 10		 		 6.40/5.40
Ft3		 83/73		 		 12		 		 6.92/6.08
Ft3p		 88.5/78.5		 	 14		 		 6.32/5.61		 Proposed 22HS FG
Ft4		 122/112		 	 20		 		 6.10/5.61
[Ft5		 186.25/176.25		 	 31		 		 6.01/5.69		 Not available]

The 2 costs are calculate on using Qs/Q with the second type blodging off the
Q/Lh in the other spaces. While this reduces the cost, it reduces the number
of Q available to the CFN. Using this chart, we see the F1 as the cheapest
transport using Q, providing 4Q and 2H per hull for a total cost of 69MC. A
pure cargo carrier is not cost efficient, but the small hulls cannot provide
a larger number of H than Q so we turn to the F4 with it's 4Q and 15H to
provide the bulk of the H to the CFN. So, how many hulls are there? A total
of 82 will provide 328Q, more than enough. 37Ft4 and 44 Ft1 cover all but 2Q and
9H. The best way to cover this is 1Ft4. This puts us 2Q and 6H over, not bad
shooting! The Ft5 is there to show that costs of hulls increase as size
increases making these the most cost effective hulls to use.

 Now, we have the CFN in place, the next task is use of your starting
money. First to attend to is the Survey Fleet. This will be the lifeblood of
you Empire, without it you will wither and fade. So, what makes the best
starting survey fleet? To begin with, the number of hulls must be treated as
a MINIMUM to be met. With the need for 50 Survey Points per StMP, and only
60 hulls allowed, it falls to the EX explorer to provide the bulk of the
Survey Fleet. [2] HQsX(Ic) [4/4] Cost=75/11.25 While many would counsel using
(I)x2 instead of the (Ic), the cost is 16 MC and over 50 hulls, this amounts
to 800MC that could have been used for Armed Survey ships. As it is, these
bare bones hulls are 3750MC out of your 5000, leaving you with only 1250 to
build 10 more hulls. Too little. Planetary Survey ships [2](BbS)H(BbS)QsX(Ic)
[4/4] Cost 97.7/14.655 which leaves 273MC, filling the BbS with 2ct each
costs a further 160MC leaving 113MC for the missle fund or other small craft.
A bitter pill indeed. But, you have your 60 survey ships including enough
to do 2 habital world surveys in 2 StMP. You will have to send some
"gunslingers" along if you want to keep this force safe.

 The Other fund is 3000 MC for startup on HT2. Again there is some
questions about the wisdom of this rather than buying PCF and other conquest
oriented goodies, but if the SM has built a 3 transit "safe Zone" around you
it is best as you will take at least 6 turns to penetrate this zone and by
then you are nearly HT2. Early on, the limit to growth will be the CFN size
and not money so this and the maintenance it costs are good investments. As
better weapons become available and better defences as well, HT2 is a very
important stepping stone to the future. Next, protect your shipyard! Armor
it well as this will be the only time it can be armored without having to
shut down. 50-100 HS of armor is not excessive, at 4.5MC per space. Put
some Mg and R here as well. More Mg so you have a supply depot that can
rush forward replacment missles. An insystem ICN of BS0 out to each WP
is a project for the future, but to begin with, use the escorting Battleline
forces as ICN units and then send them through the best of the 3 WPs with
your survey fleets. Best is a relative term, and might vary from situation
to situation. Use remaining money to buy small craft or missles and as a
last resort, buy IU. Skywatch is a longer term project...

 The Battleline is a very personal choice and lies at the center of
the game. Build some DD's for mass and CTs for scouting, screening and to 
run down cripples. If using the FG22, it is a valuable intermediate unit.

ENJOY!

		 		 		 		 		 		 		 
Ad Astra!
		 		 		 		 		 		 		 
Stan Leghorn