• Enemies can only see your ships when you are in free space. When you are orbiting a planet, you're invisible (except when the enemy also has a ship there). See Planet Hopping.
  • Don't fly around at high speeds with low-tech engines.
  • Don't just build the big ships. While overwhelming the enemy with pure battle-power can sometimes work, you'll usually need a mix of big, medium-size and small ships.
  • Trade ships.
  • You do not need the Colonize mission to colonize a planet. Just drop some clans.
  • Don't fill up your ships when you just want to travel small distances. Fuel has weight, and extra weight increases your fuel usage. Make sure your ships have enough to travel their way, though.
  • When traveling towards a planet, you can save fuel (and avoid minefields) by traveling to the edge of the planetary gravity only. Gravity will pull you to the planet, safe and free.
  • Sometimes it makes sense to build a ship with low-tech engines: Instead of building a huge battleship with dozens of expensive high-tech engines, build it with low-tech engines, and build a second ship to tow it. This is often cheaper. In addition, a freighter intended to patrol a small star cluster may not need fast engines as well.