This page outlines a basic, common-sense strategy to employ in a StarCluster game, and gives an overview of some strategically important aspects of the game.
Exploring the surroundings may take some time if you use only one single ship, so building more ships may be a good idea if you can afford it. Explorer ships, however, are rather expensive, but the `scout' ships offer an inexpensive alternative. The scout ships have much more limited scan ability than the explorer ships, but they can still be useful (and the scan ability can be enhanced by equipping the scout ships with `long range scanner' devices).
As soon as you can afford it without bringing your assets down too low, it might be a good idea to build a colonizer ship. These ships are slow and vulnerable, but necessary if you want to establish colonies in other systems, which is the only way of substantially increasing the resources available to your empire. (Well, some new installations on the systems you already own can also help substantially increasing your resources, but that requires investments and sufficient technological ability to build such installations.)
It is usually a good idea to make sure the local economies in your systems work well, since this is where most of your income originates. Installations such as "infrastructure" and "mining_station" directly increase production, while others, like "hydroponic_plant", increase income indirectly by raising the maximum population limit.
Some technologies are also helpful to increase income early in the game. For instance, the "cryogenics" technology allows the colonizer ships to carry more people, so that new colonies start with more people, which gives a slightly higher income immediately, and also shortens the time it takes for the new colony to reach its maximum population.
An important thing to keep in mind is fuel consumption. When a standard ship travels, it typically consumes as many fuel units as the distance (rounded up) between the starting point and the destination. (The distance is computed as usual in two-dimensional geometry: the square root of the sum of the squares of the distance along each coordinate axis.) Normal ships collect only one unit of fuel per turn in space, but refuel faster if they are in a friendly star system with fuel available. Space stations add a little extra fuel gathering capacity in a system, but to be able to store significant amounts of fuel, a system needs a fuel depot.
For explorer ships, and other ships that will fly longer distances in empty space, or in hostile areas, it is usually a good idea to equip them with fuelscoop units, so they can gather fuel a bit faster on their own, no matter whether they are in a friendly system or not.
In uninhabited systems, there is one (and only one) extra fuel unit available each turn, so one ship parked in such a system refuels slightly faster.
There are some installations that can help increase the fuel production and storage capacity in a system. These include the `space station', `fuel depot', `fuel refinery' (requires a `fuel' resource in the system), `fusion plant' (requires the `fusion' technology) and `energy crystal power plant' (requires the `energy crystal' technology and a source of energy crystals, typically a `crystal' resources and a `energy crystal extractor' installation).
There is a `research' command which can be used to bring you closer to the next techlevel, but this is mainly intended for situations where you are already close to a higher techlevel and don't want to wait an extra turn to reach it. More cost-effective research can be conducted at research facility installations, by developing specific technologies, and by receiving technologies from other empires.
Once your economy permits, it is usually a good idea to build a research facility in every other system or so. Each research facility gives a research effect equal to `spend 5 resource units on research' at a maintenance cost of only one resource unit each turn (and that one resource unit is drawn from the system's local economy, not the empire's).
Space stations also do a little research, but only equivalent to `spend 1 resource unit on research' each turn. On the other hand, they cost no regular maintenance, and provide a slight increase in their system's fuel storage/gathering capacity. They also automatically do minor repairs on damaged ships.
In addition to the explicit production orders specified with the "build" command, production can also occur at automated factories. Specialised, automated factories are available for a number of common equipment types, and these factories typically build one equipment unit per turn, provided that (1) there isn't already such a piece of equipment in the system's equipment stores, and (2) the local economy can support the production. Each system reserves a number of resource units roughly equal to the system size plus one tenth of the size of the population, and a specialised factory can only produce if it can cover its expenses without bringing the local funds below this reservation limit.
There are three main advantages of factories: they produce units at a lower cost than explicit builds, they take the resources from the local economy rather than the imperial economy, and their production is not affected by the restrictions on the general "build" command (i.e. only a limited number of builds per system each turn).
There is also a general "equipment factory" installation available to those empires that have the "robotics" technology; unlike the specialised factories, it doesn't produce anything on its own, but rather increases the number of equipment units that can be built with the "build" command by one. They also reduce the cost of building the first piece of equipment you order the system to build each turn; but not as much as a specialised factory would.
Ships can be grouped into fleets. This doesn't affect the abilities of the individual members of the ships, but it does make it easier to move a group of ships in a synchronous manner. The commands relevant for fleets are "attach SHIP to fleet N", "detach SHIP from fleet N", and "move fleet N to SECTOR", where N is the fleet number, SHIP is the name of a ship, and SECTOR is the name of a sector or a system.
Jumpgates can greatly reduce fuel consumption and increase the effective travelling speed once an empire has developed this technology. Jumpgates can transfer ships from one friendly system to another at a fuel cost of only a few fuel units for the transferred ship. One fuel unit for jumps of distances up to 5 sectors, two fuel units for 6--10 sectors, 3 fuel units for up to 11--15 sectors, and so on. The maximum jump range is determined by the technology level of the player, with bonuses for special technologies.
For a ship to be able to travel a jumpgate, there must be a "friendly" jumpgate both where the ship is and where it wants to go. "Friendly" jumpgates are those that you own, and those that your diplomatic friends and allies own. It is possible for an empire to alter the requirements for when other players may use its jumpgates; this is done through the `jumpgate policy' option.
A `jumpdrive' onboard a ship makes the ship able to jump from anywhere to any friendly jumpgate within jump range.
Ships cost a certain amount of resources to maintain. The standard maintenance cost is 1 RU if the ship moves during a turn, and another 1 RU if the ship is not in a friendly system (after moving, if it moved). Special ships may cost a few additional resource units to maintain. (Use the "describe" command and check the "Upkeep" rating to find out the precise cost.)
Since ships cost more to maintain when they move, it is usually a good idea not to move ships that have too little fuel to reach their destinations, or travel their maximum distance, in one turn. It is also a good idea to equip slow ships with warpdrives (once you learn that technology), since it makes them move faster, thus reaching their destinations faster, and thus costing less to maintain, on the average.
Sometimes, things break down and need repairs. The "repair" command can be used to repair things, but this costs money, and for ship damages (reported in percent for each ship), the normal way of repairing is to park the ship by a space station, or a repair station. A space station will repair up to about 30% worth of damages on one ship per turn, and a repair station 30% worth of damages on three ships per turn. A repair station that doesn't need to repair ships will try to repair broken equipment onboard ships, but this doesn't always succeed. Still, if you are low on resources, leaving a ship with damaged equipment in orbit in a system with a repair station may pay off.
The Krang federation have the `cloaking' technology at the start of the game. Players cannot usually develop this technology (unless they have managed to get hold of the `krang legacy' technology), but they have a chance of discovering it indirectly by analysing cloaking devices at research facilities; but this, of course, requires that the player first finds a cloaking device to analyse.
The cloaking technology is primarily a way of avoiding detection by regular scan equipment; but it will only work at a distance. Ships in the same sector as a cloaked ship are likely to detect the cloaked ship whether they have any special scan equipment or not. (And, of course, ships with cloak scanners will be able to detect cloaked ships within their cloakscan range.)
The population in the systems of your empire are your primary source of income in the game. The population relevant to this is the part organized into the service of the empire and the local administration, and this is the number reflected in the population count in the turn reports. There may live many other people in and around your systems, and their population may in some systems greatly exceed the population described in the turn reports, but they are not directly relevant to the game.
Resource management is an important part of the game, and the nicest way of getting the resources to last longer is to increase the production. There are several approaches to this, but the simplest way is to increase the population in your systems, thus raising their basic production level.
Before a system has reached its maximum population capacity, the population slowly grows larger every turn. This growth can be speeded up by some special technologies, most notably the `fastcrops' technology which increases the population growth in all (or nearly all) systems in the empire.
Once the system has reached its maximum population capacity, it might be interesting to increase this maximum capacity and make room for more people. There are several installations that contribute to raising a system's population capacity; some of these are the `infrastructure', `fusion plant', `hydroponic plant' and `orbital habitat'. A few technologies (e.g. `cold fusion' and `enhanced human metabolism') help increasing the population capacity in all systems in the empire without need for special installations.