Get an autoscoop - it greatly increases the amount you get from a planet (esp. if it has a trade depot around it).
A good way to build lots of fighters in one go is to build up a lot of money and autoscoop a planet with a depot that supplies iron and then build lots of fighters (its possible to make hundreds at a time).
Here's what I found works quite well:
Once you get a ship upgrade, go for the 130 : 10, (or whichever has 10 cargo bays), get your tractor beam, planet locator, supercomputer, navigation system, planet scooper, statistics module (not necessarily in that order, nor are they all required, but they work quite well together, and all together only cost around 60,000 bots, so it shouldn't be a big problem getting it all at once after a little while), then get all the holds you can.
Now, every chance you get (anytime you find a planet/depot together), use the auto-scoop. Then autoland on the planet to take stuff for free, then sell-only at the depot. Repeat until it stops you because either the planet ran out of resources or the depot isn't buying anymore.
Now use your computrade until you find another planet/depot together, or you find a depot by itself. In the case of the former, repeat the above steps. For the latter, use the nudge depot, then when it asks for which sector to go to, use the locate planet and it should preload the path to that sector. Go there, and repeat the steps above.
I've been making on average, $1500/kg of fuel spent with this method.
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Starbase
To build a starbase you need to have a full hold of hardware and enough money.
It appears you can't build a SB where there are neutral fighters.
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Bunker
To build a bunker on a planet, you need to remove ALL the resources from the planet (not an easy task... I'm 'tweaking' a strategy out to make it a bit easier right now).
The initial cost, and each additional upgrade costs 10,000 bots and 10,000 grams AM
A #1 bunker has an defense ratio of 1.1 : 1
A #2 bunker is 1.2 : 1
A #3 bunker is 1.3 : 1 and so on and so on.
This means, when it is attacked (assuming the attacker doesn't have any Combat Computers), for every ~100 fighters you lose defending it, they attacker loses ~110 (in a 1.1 : 1 ratio).
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Antimatter
You only get issued a certain amount of antimatter - it is probably a good idea to spend your first go building up money and making yourself secure and then you can drop in every day or so and use that days AM allowance.
AM is issued on the hour every hour (it amounts to around 70-100k) but you need to log out and log back in again to get it.
Unless you need to get somewhere in a hurry it usually isn't worth buying extra anti-matter
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To get between sectors:
1. Use a black hole - not reliable.
2. Use a rocket booster - from Michael:
to use a rocket booster just type in the number of the sector you want to go to.....
then it'll say.... You need a rocket booster to go this far..... You have 1 rocket booster.... would you like to use it?.... and you say 'yep'.
*FYI*: If you have a rocket booster and try to warp into a sector that has someone in it, you'll be given 4 options 'Kill it' 'Damage it' 'Retreat' and 'Selfdestruct'. If you select retreat, you are put back where you started but you loose that booster rocket!
3. Create your own temporary wormhole - save up around 40k and then
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Ships
You can upgrade your ship from the basic model - this allows you to specialise your ship for your strategy. Save up enough money for the next increment and go to a trading post and click upgrade ship and you are presented with the options. They (and the money required) are:
Key: [Cargo hold bays : Equipment bays]
100k:
(1) Schooner [70:15] [efficiency: 79.3%] or a
(2) Frigate [80:10] [efficiency: 85.2%] or a
(3) Transport [90:5] [efficiency: 90.4%].
200k:
(4) Battleship [100:25] [efficiency: 85.2%] or a
(5) Destroyer [110:20] [efficiency: 89.4%] or a
(6) Cruiser [120:15] [efficiency: 93.2%] or a
(7) Liner [130:10] [efficiency: 96.7%] or a
(8) Freighter [140:5] [efficiency: 100.0%].
400k
(9) Hyper Battleship [100:25] [efficiency: 85.2%] or a
(10) Hyper Destroyer [110:20] [efficiency: 89.4%] or a
(11) Hyper Cruiser [120:15] [efficiency: 93.2%] or a
(12) Hyper Liner [130:10] [efficiency: 96.7%] or a
(13) Hyper Freighter [140:5] [efficiency: 100.0%] or a
(14) Stealth Battleship [100:25] [efficiency: 85.2%] or a
(15) Stealth Destroyer [110:20] [efficiency: 89.4%] or a
(16) Stealth Cruiser [120:15] [efficiency: 93.2%] or a
(17) Stealth Liner [130:10] [efficiency: 96.7%] or a
(18) Stealth Freighter [140:5] [efficiency: 100.0%].
(Stealth ships are not visible to other ships while logged in and playing.
Also, scout fighters cannot see Stealth ships under any conditions.)
(Hyper ships have rechargeable rocket boosters built in.
With 20,000 grams of fuel to charge them you can warp to any galaxy.)
Emperor: It doesn't seem worth doing the 400k upgrade until later in the game when those stealth and hyper abilities come into place - until then you are better off investing that slab of cash in a couple of impressive starbases.
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More??? ... No more ships... Unless they're hiding them from me
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Symbols next to sector numbers
^ neutral fighters
* trading post
~ wormhole
$ graffiti beacon
: blackhole (@ is also used)
! enemy starbase
= enemy fighters
? nebula
(lowercase) a,b,c... that sector has a depot. (The closer the letter is to 'a' the more profitable it will be for you. The letter 'z' means the depot is selling the same thing you are carrying at the moment.
(uppercase)A,B,C... same as above, except that sector also contains your forces (fighters or starbases)
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