Sure you can kill fleshlings but can you balance your budget?

I tend to leave the tax and production at the default. You can cheaply research a few of the econ techs pretty early, and if you get the military tech that gives you recruitment centers you can make out okay.

Negative: Yor economy can be very weak.

Positive: Yor economic techs (Efficiency Studies line) give automatic empire-wide improvements, without needing to build anything. Up to +45%.

It also gives an economic building for another +50% to the planet.

Research those techs early, you'll be happy you did.

works for me thanks

Recruitment center is always a must. I tend to develop it at the very beginning of new games, or research the translator just to buy it from minors when it's unreachable for my race.

Don't forget most standard economic techs can be traded. In later games, Yor can also benefit from them. Needless to say this extra economic tech tree can even help Yor become one of the richest races.

ps. What I find it weird is the Efficiency Studies II the only tradable tech in its series. Maybe it's simply a bug.