I.Faction
If you start a new game you first have to choose your faction, even if it might be erased later if you play one of the independent classes.
The game give you same hints wich faction would be a good choice but most infos aren't true.
The only real difference is...if you choose the Federation it's easier for a peacefull Trader to start up because you have some coreworlds that are safe from invasions for some time.

Aside from this there only a few differences wich ships you start with, wich ships are for sale but this isn't that important because you won't stay for long with your starting ship anayway and you can either buy one from the enemy during a ceasefire or conquer one.

II. Class

-The Fleettrader
Well..you start with a Corvette but are allready 35...14 years older, not a fair deal^^(at my games i needed around 2 ingameyears to aquire a battleship with the "fighterclasses") anyway, aside from this flaw the Fleettrader is a really strong class because he has a very good skillselection at his skilltree that allows you to play either as a defensive fighter a trader or combine both without Problems.

-The Freetrader
The Freetrader starts with a fighter, is independet and 21 years old, his Skilltree has all important Traderskills, some important offensive skills and a few but Strong defensive skills. The downside is...you wan't get enough skillpoints to master all 3 direction but it allows you to start out as a trader and decide later if you wish to become a "combattrader", breaking through the enemy lines to supply your troops with a modified Cruiser ;) or...

-The Fleetofficer
Fleetofficers start with a corvette but are allready 35, their skilltree has most of the offensive skills and ECM/EMP- Resistance but, at my opinion, nothing that strong/special paying off for starting 14! years older...as i said...fighterclasses need around 2 ingameyears to aquire a battleship.

-The Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunters start with a fighter and are 21 years old, their skilltree has most offensive skills and ECM/EMP-Resistance..the difference to the FLeetofficers skilltree are minor and because of the starting age i would allways choose a Bounty Hunter over a Fleetofficer.

-The Smuggler
Smugglers start with a fighter, independent and are 21 years old, their skillstree has some defensive Skills, the basic Tradeskills, traget lock and many passive crime skills that raise the chance to be a criminal but unoticed or
at least uncatched. Playing a smuggler is a bit special...illegal goods can give you easy start but because most of your skills are crime related you are nearly forced to play as a spy and deal with secret data because aside from this the stock for illegal goods is very low most the time.

- The Pirat
Pirats start with a fighter, independent and are 21 years old, their skilltree offers a interesting mix of offensive&crimeskills and some skills related to fleeing. Pirats can try to conquer their own empire and with the right shipconfiguration&skillcombination&a bit Luck there offensive power is fearsome but if the plan goes wrong...

III.Skills
Aside from your starting skills you get 1 skillpoint for every new Rang and 1 for the last famerang where your faction will give you a planet...as least they say it's your planet now, i couldn't do anything special at the planet. Without special Events you can get 10 Skillpoints.

Here a list of the skills the classes can aquire with a personal note if i think there should be some Info added
FT=Fleettrader, FR=Freetrader, FO=Fleetofficer,BH=Bounty Hunter, SM=Smuggler,P=Pirate

-Ace(FR,FO,BH)
greatly increased hitchance, 1 AP but two of your allready activated skills are deacivated

-Ace of Aces(FR,FO,BH)
greatly increased hitchance+damagebonus, 1 AP but 4 of your
allready activated skills are deactivated

-Advanced criminalistics (FT)
passive skill that reduce the chance for random encounters by 50%

-Advanced Cargomanager (FT,FR)
passive skill, +50% cargospace at your ship

-Advanced Connections(FT, FR)
passive skills the raises the number of goods by +50%

-Advanced Rewards (FO)
+25% Rewards from missions..sounds nice..but there more important skills and
until then you will have spare mony anyway

-Advanced Streetrules (SM,P)
passive skill, 75% to be allowed to land on a planet despite being a known criminal

-Advanced Trader (FR,SM)
passive skills that allows you to see all prices

-Amnesty (SM,P)
Ask for amnesty,
didn't tried out this skill

-Boarding (FO,BH)
Allows you to board enemy ships, 5 AP

-Cargo Drop (FT,FR,SM)
Well..you drop your Cargo and try to flee with a raised chance, 5AP

-Channeling(FT)
Recharges your Shild for 5 AP

-Cargomanager(FT,FR,SM)
passive skill, 25% more cargospace at your ship

-Clean Record(SM)
passive skill, -50% that patrols notice illegal goods

-Connections(FT)
passive skill that raises the number of goods by 25%

-Criminalistics(FT,FR)
passive skill that reduce the chance of random encounters by 25%

-Cloak (P)
In combination with a cloaking device you can flee from a battle, 5 AP

-Discipline (FR,FO,BH)
increased chance to hit, 1 AP

-Disguise (SM,P)
50% that a crime you comitted isn't noticed from the goverment

-Double Speed (P)
+2 AP/Turn for you, increased chance to hit for the enemy, 1 AP

-ECM-Protection (FO,BH)
reduces the chance that your missles/Mines/Torpedos are stopped by ECM, 3 AP and
2 allready activated skills are deactivated

-EMP-Resistance (FO,BH,SM)
reduce the hitchance for enemy EMP by 75%, 2 AP very usefull for later battles
if this biig torpedeo is closing in and you're hit by EMP...

-Evading(FT,FR)
reduced chance to hit for everyone, 2 AP

-EMP (FO,BH,P)
-Disables the enemy ship, 5 AP, sounds great but some infos are missing
1.you need to hit the ship, emp works like the cannons so you better activate some usefull skills
the round before you plan to fire it.
2.you disable the enemy ship for 1-2 Turns, because you get 5 AP/Turn you trade your turn in to
block him for 1 turn, usefull if he just activated some nasty skills/specials or if you wan't to
stop him using ECM's at your mine/torpedo...but you need to plan ahead

-Evil Taunt (SM)
reduce the enemy hitchance, 1 AP

-Exploit (P)
Big damagebonus against enemys shut down by emp, 4 AP and a enemy shut down by EMP ;)

-Exploit II (P)
Huge damagebonus against enemys shut down by EMP, 4 AP and a enemy shut down by EMP ;)

-Factory Owner(FT,FR)
You can buy and upgrade factorys at the planets

-Flee (FT,FR,FO,BH,SM,P)
well..you try to flee for 5 AP, depending at the enemy sucsess during
battles the chance seem to be somewhere around 25%

-Fleetcontrol (FO,BH)
Allows you to take Fleetmissions and to make direct attacks against enemy Spacestations to speed up Invasions

-Focus Beam (FO,BH)
Big damagebonus, big malus to the hitchance..well...just using it is like playing russian roulette, using it with the right plan (Target lock, Ace of Aces,...) can turn the tide of a battle..but then you wast 2-3 Turn for 1 lucky shot

-Focus Beam II (FO)
Even bigger damagebonus..without malus this time..still...1 complete Turn for 1 lucky shot,
it's up to you...do you like roulette? ;)

-Focused Shild(FT,FR,SM)
50% damagereduction for the next hit, 2 AP

-Focused Shild II (FT)
75% damagereduction for the next hit, 2 AP

-Hacker (P)
passive skill, you will be informed if treasureships enter your system
Nice to have if you have a spare skill because boarding treasureships is good way to make credits and
you have a high chance that they have droids as cargo(not as defenders)

-Hit&Run (SM,P)
If the enemy has less then 50% shild you can try to escape with raised chances
and ignore his tractor beams for 5 AP

-Intelligence (BH)
passive skill, if you take a drink at the bars you might! get Information about you missiontarget or
treasure ships and the chance to meet your target is increased to...
well, if you get the mission to arrest someone he's rarly at the location you where told..so you have to start to fly to the other planets and scan&check the ships there until you found you target.I didn't found this skill usefull because you can earn more money anyway if you take Missions at Warzones.

-Mark (FO,BH)
allows you to attack cloaked ships, 1 AP
...well..until now i didn't had a enemy doing it

-Manouvers (FO,BH)
Damagebonus for both and a raised chance for you to avoid mines&asteroids,
be carefull with this skill..all get the same damagebonus...to activating it with the last AP before
the Enemy, with activated Miniguns, get his next turn might be a really bad idea.

-Pirate Buster (BH)
passive skills that allows you to attack/plunder/destroy piratestations
I didn't found this skill usefull because to you need to fight the station+several piratships (1-3 random ships most the time) and you need at least a cruiser, better a battleship because the piratstations i meet where the the "normal" military spacestations with 3500 Shild, 180 cannondamage and torpedos.
As a reward you get 100-300K credits, a bit fame and some victory points...for a normal(if you have allready a battleship) "direct Strike" Warmission you get 2-5 Million Credits, much more fame/victory points..
even a normal patrol or escort will have a better reward.

-Pirate Hideout (SM,P)
Passive Skill that allows you to buy,maintain and upgrade Pirateouposts and use their special options

-Ramming (FT,FR,SM,P)
You try to ramm the enemy(60%) doing damage to both ships,
maybe breaking tractorbeams and stunning them them(20%), 5 AP

-Reflection Shilds (FT,FR,SM)
12% of damage are reflected back to the enemy, 2 AP

-Reflection Shild II (FT)
25% of damage are reflected back to the enemy, 2 AP

-Recharge(FT,FR,SM)
The duration for activated skills is reset to max for 1 AP

-Rewards (FO,BH)
+10% Reward for missions..well speeds up earning money a bit..
but there are more important skills...but there's no choice anyway because it's a starting skill

-Rumors (FO,BH)
+25% Fame for battles you win...again..sounds nice but even without this skill you will reach the
max. rang very fast (around 4 ingameyears) so..it's a wasted skillpoint at my opinion, expect you
gather Fame for the highscore.

-Scattergun (FR,FO,BH)
modify you guns and highly reduce the damage, increase the hitchance and allow you to hit missles as a sideeffect
the description says you need 2 AP but it need as many AP as the cannons installed at your ship

-Shildboost (FT)
25% Shildrecharge for 3 AP

-SOS buoy(FT)
Faster reinforcements and they do 3 times the damage, 2 AP

-Syndicate (SM,P)
You know the locations of piratestations...a bit a joke because to get this info easly anyway, most the time it's
enough to talk 1-2 times with a bartender(take a drink)

-Spy (SM)
Allows you to take part at some special missions (if you're part of a faction) and you can gather secret Data for free

-Short Circuit (FO,BH)
well..the manual says..you need this skill to board enemy ships..but thats not true
you need boarding and EMP/EMP-Weapons to disable the ship, the description says...it gives you a chance that the
selfdestruction device of enemy ships doens't work...with and without this skills it was allways the same...
selfdestruction started but you stop it after you conquered the ship but the ship is damaged, his price reduced and it need to be towed. I have no Idea what this skill does :)

-Street Rules (SM,P)
passive skill, 50% to be allowed to land on a planet despite being a known criminal

-Taunt (FO,BH)
decrease the enemys hitchance, 1 AP

-Target Lock(FR,FO,BH,SM)
increased chance to hit the enemy, 1 AP

-Tractor Beam (FO,BH,P)
Enemy can't escape while active, 2 AP

-Trader (FT,FR,SM)
passiv skill that shows you the prices for several but not all systems

IV. Pathes to Play

A.The Fighter
If you decide to earn your money&fame with fighting you choosed a fast&furios path that will be boring fast if
you follow a few basic rules.
A.If you are at a location, scan before you leave..you will often find enemy ships with a bounty this way and
such a fight takes only 1 Turn where missions may force you to travel longer distances.

B.If you have a corvette or better..fly to a warzone to take your missions, missions at warzones will bring you up to 10 times the money&fame compared to the same mission taken at a peaceful system, most warmissions take part at the system you take the mission where other "highreward" missons force you to travel loong distances and every mission will raise the chance that your faction will conquer the system/force the Invader to retreat.
You read at the manual that Warzones are soo dangerous..well..thats not true..still most ships flying around will be at your shipclass..and a few your class +/-1. The only difference is..that enemys might get reinforments to but without special conditions you should be able to finish of a enemy ship of your class before reinforcements arrive.

C.Don't be to fast getting the next shipclass, if you're going to buy a new ship you should have at least Shipprice+50% to buy equipment. For a fighter...the quality of the equipment is nearly as important as the shipclass, with a equipment that fits your skills and style of play well you, can battle ships of your class +1 without fear. The new Shipclass "only" unlocks a few missions and raises the missionprofile to your new class.
Fights stay nearly the same...tactics don't change and you will allways meet enemys of your class most the time and a few ones that have your class +/-1. And yes..it's still true for the battleships because you can then meet battleshipgroups.

D.Ooo... i am a pure fighter, only playing 4-5 ingame years now but i am a admiral, have a giftplanet, my Dreamship, the best equipment, a full Droidfightingforce and battles are boring now, always the same...well the only thing left is..conquering systems for your faction, fly to a warzone where your faction is the attacker, do one mission that you're marked as a supporter and then directly attack the spacestation, repeat until your faction won the War.

B. The Trader/Manager
Well...buy where the prices are low, sell where the prices are high, improve you cargospace to max. your income, buy factorys, build up a chain for highquality goods you manage yourself and let the other factorys autorun at T2.
Buy Warfunds to support your Faction passive, use bribes and Supplyruns(Mission) to support your faction active.
Because of the Way tradelines, pricechanges and such things are calculated is really fun&interesting playing Smugglers as a low detail economy manger but you have to like making money for making money ;)

C. The Wartrader/The Blockaderunner
This Path works best for the Fleettrader and the Freetrader, start as a trader until you have a decent economy and a line of usefull skills (Focused shilds, recharge and SOS-Buoy are a good start) with the expection that you don't build up a production chain for highquality goods, for you factorys are there to generate a small and stable bonusincome.
After you have enough money you can either stay with your large freighter or buy a real cruiser, you should have more then enough spare money and now you fly to a warzone and start fighting. You will be surprised. The defensive Shildskills are really strong because they give you a big advantage, cheap to activate and without tradeoff...just think about a Avalance at the Hands of a Fleettrader...75% Damagereduction for the 1.enemy hit 50% for the 2.,the ability to recharge the shilds and every turn your reinforments do some nice damage that will allways hit...you can win a fight of attrition against a battleship without firing a shot by yourself and if you have enough of fighing...just back to buisness and politics and vice versa....

D. The Independent Trader/Fighter
The big differences playing as a Independent Trader are...you wan't get reinforcements and you can't do missions but aside from this but...you only have to fear pirates..aside from this it plays like a normal Trader.
The differences for a independent fighter are the same but hurt much more because Warmissions are a fast and great way for a fighter to make money and earn fame you can attack ships at you own plunder or conquer them but you will make money/fame at a much slower rate.

E. The Conquerer
Well this can be done only by the piratclass. You start as a independent Fighter or buy a price-algorithm-system (Targeting-Subsystem) and start as a Trader.
Making as much money as possible, after you have at least a cruiser(Better a battleship and should be the owner of the piratestation at your system and the neighbouring Systems) and the you start bribing the local govenor until you have around 80% popularity, then start talking with him and one day he might retire/follow your lead...either way make you the new ruler of the system. The Rest is explained at the manual...aside from managing your Systems and Fleets your playing like a normal Figther with the expection that you're your own faction and that there will be no ceasefire to let you take a breath.

V.The Fights
As you might imagine...to win you have to drain the enemy shilds before he drains your. Everybody has to find acombination of skills/Shiplayout that fits him but i will give a few hints what i found usefull.

The Basics...
You will allways have the first Turn in battle and without the timeshiftevent wou will allways have a base of 5 AP
You have your cannons, a missle/mine/Torpedo-launcher, a ecm and your skills
Most cannons need 2 AP to be used, there's one Battleshipcannon that need 3 AP and Turbo/Gatlinglaser need 1 AP and they do damage at the same turn if they hit
Basic missles/Torpedos need 4 or 5 AP to be fired but there more factors like reloadtime and misslespeed, Missles hit always but can be destroyed by ECM or the scattergun-skill
Torpedos always hit but can be destroyed with gatlinglasers, the scattergun-skill or ecm
normal Mines only work if the enemy activated a tractor Beam
Nuclear work like missles

Every skill need's different AP to be activated, has a different time he stays active..it's just to much to cover here so you have to try it out yourself ;)

cannons:

Turbolaser
For the lower shipclasses i prefer the Turbolasers, they do only 60% Damage and have 5% less accury compared to normal cannons but they need only 1 AP to be fired and have several advantages
(i thought about presenting you correct %-chances but i had to notice that didn't remember enough of the stochastik- event-tree-rules to calculate it for a series of 4 semi-dependent Events:)
-You have a low base-to-hit-chance (40% for turbolaser 45% for normal lasers) that means, a high luck-factor... many shoots with lower damage lower the impact luck has compared to few shoots with decent damage
-The Average damage is bit higher
-You get a Bonus for Minefield/Asteroid and closecombat condition, for the first two the Bonus is important because you can't change this condition
-The defensive shildskills last only 1 hit...so 2 weak hits are better then 1 strong
-together with shattergun it's also a good way to destroy missles
-You don't loose AP because you have no way to use this last AP
-Try it together with Energytransmitter

Disruptercannons
Good damage, normal accuracy and a small chance to shut the enemy down via EMP-Stun for 1 Turn
The chance for a EMP-Stun is very low (around 5% at my experience) and for raw damage i find the
Turbo/Gatlinglaser better but if you play a Pirate or Fleettrader the Disrupter can be your choice.
Pirates can do huge damage to "shut-down" targets and Fleettraders get stronger the more turns the battle takes
Aside from this their nice for ships with the Minigunspecial

Lasergatling
The weapon i prefer for highclassships, esp. for BH
It has the same advantages as the Turbolaser but in addtion you can hit Torpedos
Works realy nice together with the Energyshifting special,
1. Turn you activate the special, launch a 1AP Mine/Torpedo, use 2 cheap skills..the enemy use his ECM most the time and activate a minor skill
2.Turn you use Ace, Target Lock and Manouveur and shot 4 times with a high hitchance and 50% Damagebonus...the enemy activate his specials and skills if he managed to stop your torpedo or shoot a torpedo by himself
3.7 Shoots with high-to-hit chance and 50% damagebonus..66% of the fights you have allready won here

Missles/Mines and Torpedos

Arrow Dummy
The missle i prefer at low shipclasses, it cost only 1 AP to fire and has a fast reload time...yes..it does only very low damage if it hits but...the KI really hates missles and as long you had not disabled him he will do his best to destroy your missle..let me describe what happen most the time
-You use a Arrow Dummy for 1 AP...he uses his ACM 2 times at most cases until he destroyed it and used 4 AP for your 1 AP...even if he's lucky and destroy it with the 1. try..you still won 1 AP
-You use the Standardmissle for 4 AP...he uses the ACM 2 times for 4 AP but at a lucky try you loose 2 AP
-You use a ASM+AECM-Special for 7 AP...he uses the ACM 3-4 times for 6-8 AP..1 AP won or lost...and 5 at a lucky try
Just try it out, the Dummy is a easy and not to forget cheap way..to make the enemy waste his AP

Proton Torpedo
If you're a Pirat,use ECM-Prot., have a Patton..or a you're even a Pirat with a Patton, the Proton Torpedos might be your friend. Malus for the reload time, only 2 turns to close in at normal Range and together with the damage it shut downs the enemy Ships via EMP-Shock

Nuclear MIne
Cheap to use 1 AP, fast reload, can't be destroyed by a gatling and you can use it to kill enemy Crewmembers, if you fight to destroy the enemy you can use them like a a Dummy Fire&Forget and let the enemy waste AP, if you try to kill the Crewmember..well that will be a long fight :)...it worked best for me to use ECM-Prot.(if available) and disable the enemy via EMP the Turn the Mine should hit.

Destroyer
Can be used only once per battle, 1 AP to fire, 3 Turns to close in and a damageoutput that destroys a spacestation
Support it with ECM-Protection and EMP to bring it "home"...and..if the enemy uses one against you...for most Ship/Class-configurations it will kill you even if at 100% Shild...soo better stop it ;)

I didn't wrote anything about the other weapons because at my opinion their sideeffects outweight the advantage, or their special wasn't good enough to outweight the bad performance.

VI. Boarding
Before you think about boarding a enemy... take a look at his Ship after the battle started..there you can see how many and wich crewmembers he has,BUT..this number is not the number of defenders...it's the number of defenders you will met at the bridge..but there are 3 weaker defended areas of the ship you have to conquer first...the real number of defenders is 2-3 times what they show you...there can and will be more defender then max. number of allowed Cremebers so be sure that you're strong enough.

It was said..that the Idea might be that you only drive them back slowly and that they gather at the Bridge...it would double or triple the number of enemys you have to fight anyway..and your're very limited in your Options...you can use 3-4 Nuclear Mines and you can try to aquire Battledroids but you will still outnumbered if you fight a Ship that had a full Crew.

To board a other ship you first need to disable it via EMP-Skill or EMP-Weapons, remember that the EMP-Skill has a to hit chance like the cannons If the enemy is disabled you can use the boardskill if you have a corvette or boarding shuttles, remember that boarding has a to-hit chance to^^ even if the enemys ship is disabled :)

Now the Boarding starts..the enemy ship is parted to 4 sections..if you reach the 3. Section you can decide to plunder the Ship and lay a bomb to destroy it, you get a bit more money plundering but thats not worth the effort, the 4. section is the bridge..here you meet the "normal" Crew as defenders and if you win you conqured the Ship.

The conquered Ship will be always heavenly damaged and you need to tow it...even if you're at a friendly planet..there will always be a blockade that forces you to search fo another planet, so take that in mind...conquering the Ship at the only real planet and being forced to tow the conquered Ship to a different system...urghs.
Take in mind too...you should still have enough Crew to manage the Ship..Marines and Driods don't count for that.
Last think that you should remember...you can't conquer Spacestations, Sqadrons and battleshipgroups.

VII. Battledroids
As far as i noticed..they seem to have a higher offensive Power but die as easly as marines.
The best way i found to aquire some is conquering large freigther and treasure ships because they have weak Crew and a high chance to have several as cargo.
Khadgar42 wrote that it best worked for him to talk with govenors often and explore planets to get the chance to buy them ot to attack weak ship, use emp-attack to conquer 1-3 Droids and retreat then.

Puh...my Brain is drained now...i hope it will be usefull to some newcomers.
If i forget something, made a failure or if you have a special question..just leave a comment.