Survey ships and trading techs...

I tend to use the Survey Ship to scout until I find my first yellow star.

I have my 100 Million colony ship take that system, and once it's settled, I pump out Scouts from that system until I get Stellar Cartography.

Once you get SC, send your Scouts to the farthest reaches of space, scouring the map for AI players and minor races, and establish trade routes from there.

As to techs, I (on harder levels especially) like to try for Stellar Cartography quickly. I used to think its a useless tech, but on difficult settings (Crippling, Masochistic) it makes a big difference when you don't have to search for good systems.

Once there, you can go any way you want - my personal favourite is Industrial theory -> Propulsion theory -> Cold fusion -> Interstellar refining is good, as it kick-starts your production with the Fusion Power Plant (Cost 50, Maint 3, +25% production, +5% Economy), although the maintenance maight be too steep for you.

Or go rush weapons, (weap theory, phasers, photons, corvettes)

Or go trade, (comms theory, univ translator, diplomacy, trade) and try to establish short run routes with many starbases

Or go planetary improvement (Medical theory -> Basic env. control) for the Habitat improvement (Cost 50, Maint _0_, +10% Planet Quality) and go hunting for 14s - with +15%PQ nerfed, it makes them useful if you have cash and buy this and Soil Enhancement outright.

The beauty of the game is that you can do whatever suits your mood - it sets itself apart because this game caters to your mood - my aggressive flatmate takes war party and rushes weapons, I take a longer term approach...

Happy hunting!

~SDC~

1) I use hero to scout, but I dont mid going out of my way to pick up an atack bonus or a free ship.

2) My favorite starting tech strategy is to tech to diplomacy and then get industrial theory (AI values this tech ALOT). At that point I can useualy trade techs and can get most avalable techs. 1 thing I never bother getting Defense theory untill midgame, just trade for Weapons theory, its cheap. Then work towards getting trade goods. Once you have a trade good (get but dont trade Diplomatic Translators, the advantage pays for its self) you can easily get all the techs the races have.

1) Yes. My survey ship does both depending on my mood, the location of Sol, the number of anomalies I encounter, etc. I usually search through the nearest sectors until my second planet has built one or two scouts. Primary targets for the survey ship are anomalies that increase weapons, defense, or hit points, and anomalies that reduce your current research (+25% to database). I will also build a second, and sometimes a third, survey ship on a secondary planet (2nd planet in a multi-planet system).

2) If I recall correctly, once your espionage reaches a certain level, the stats screen will show you what a given civilization is currently researching. For reasons unknown, the AI will refuse to trade fairly with me 4 games out of 5. (Unless you call giving up a planet, 3 trade goods, and all your tech in return for a soiled pair of socks a fair trade.) When they are willing, I tend to stick to trade with the minor civs. I'm going to try the short, horizontal/vertical trade route loaded with trade star bases in my next game.
Once I've got 2 things they want and they've got 3 or 4 things I want, I'll trade 2:2 or 2:1 to get all 3 or 4 techs the minor civs have. I try to never trade diplomacy to another civ, they're miserable enough to deal with without giving them another reason to treat me like a leper.
I find it pays off to follow the occasional research path to techs the AI doesn't usually go after and trade them for the more common technologies. Be aware, however, that the AI will not trade Corvette technology for anything short of humiliating sexual favours and all of your colonized planets. It's funny that way.

End transmission.

~SDC~

On scouting, I agree pretty much with Kalon.

On tech, I think it depends significantly on your difficulty level. At masochistic, my current tech tree is all about rushing to the trade goods - I use them to get the AI players to attack each other (particularly anyone who might want to attack me if they had time on their hands), and to trade for all the other techs except for a few the AI put silly values on.

I still "sell" tech to races who are behind be in tech, but mainly to prevent the few who are keeping up (actually, usually leading me in most areas) from becoming too powerful.

So my new tech path: Basic Env Centre for Habitat; Zero Grav Res for Res Lab; Diplo Trans; Grav Accel; Tri-Stron/Fristionless; Harmony Chryst; MicroRep; Ultra Spices. Then Dreadnaught and clean the galaxy.

(On large and gigantic, I go for grav accel earlier, but the rest the same. The main difference on the small maps is that I buy colony ships, which I would never do on larger maps.)

Oh yeah, thanks Mr. Pink 7, (why do you get to be Mr. Pink 7? ).

Free ship anomalies are very important for boosting your military in the early game. If an anomaly gives you a decent military ship, you can send it to a planet that hasn't got a Defender or Star Fighter. Then you can change that planet's ship-building queue to spend a few free turns building freighters, constructors, transports, or survey ships, (ships that will contribute to economy, expansion, or research) knowing that you aren't neglecting your military at the time.

End transmission.

~SDC~