You can view the current in progress community guide here on google drive: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pfUfEHVKXqGvrhUW44s8urShOCwUUGzQwWZBjbNaPu8/edit?usp=sharing

The author is planning to release it soon on the Steam Guides section (which is very out of date). This is a community guide that is not yet complete, the author wants me to remind you!

You can also view the new videos on Strategic Sage's channel if you are preferring things in video format.

There are also lots of in-game tips and such that will pop up as certain contexts come up. Please bear in mind a few key tips in general:

1. There are no "optimal builds." This is not like any other RTS. The tools available to you, and the tools employed by your enemies, are different every game. So part of the job is figuring out what sort of build YOU want for the current situation. Strategic Sage's video on that subject goes into it a lot, as does a recent one that I did.

2. There are no best weapon techs (or best techs in general) in a global sense. It all depends on what you find throughout the game. You can re-spec as you go (for a cost in hacking points), so having one build in the early game and another one in the mid or late game is entirely reasonable (that's how I play).

3. That said, you're almost crazy not to upgrade every planet you own by at least one mark. Go ahead and upgrade your home planet by two marks immediately. Most other fleets are not worth upgrading directly, except in certain special circumstances. This is done on the fleet details screen for each fleet, not on the tech tab.

4. Also, that said, stay away from hull techs until the late game. Late game their extreme cost is VERY worth it, because they affect many many ship lines. But in the early game, since you have fewer lines, you won't know which ones to get. So focus on weapon techs to upgrade, and later re-spec a few that turned out to be lower-value into instead being hull upgrades.

5. Along those lines: a weapon upgrade, hull upgrade, or direct fleet upgrade all does the same thing: +1 to mark level of ships in it. None of them give attack or defensive bonuses more than the other. (You get attack and defensive bonuses from al of the above). These are named with weapon and hull prefixes for thematic reasons, and organizational reasons. It helps you to remember what ships use what techs, at least somewhat. But we could have named the techs "Bob, Sue, and Curlyfries," and they would have the same effect (+1 mark per tech associated with a ship line).

6. There are, overall, no "best ships," but there are some things to really look out for if you see them.

6.a. Parasites tend to be highly desirable, as they are very fun and let you zombify enemies.

6.b. Golems can be captured, and most of the golems (if you have DLC2) can be converted to one of two alternative forms now, by hacking them in the fleet screen. You can also hack your own transports, combat factories, and so on (no DLC required). This can be very powerful.

6.c. If a golem or ark costs more AIP to capture, then it is probably more powerful. That can make it an attractive target... but the cheaper ones can also be great to pick up as part of your armada, because they are, well, cheaper.

6.d. Find the Fleet Research Stations, and get those ships. They give you fleet-wide bonuses, but only for small fleets. After you find those, make a few smaller strike-forces based on what goes the best together with each other and the FRS ship that you chose.

6.e. If you have DLC2, then find Cruisers. They are powerful and awesome. You can only have one cruiser line per fleet, as they are an Elite line type.

7. On the subject of other things to never miss: data centers and distribution nodes. Always destroy all of those, as soon as you see them (I mean, you CAN wait, but you may as well get them sooner than later). Even if you are at the AIP floor, the data center is never a waste. The value-for-AIP of the distribution nodes is always worth it in my opinion, as well.

8. If you are not already quite good at the game, you will likely find your return on effort from the superterminal to be very marginal. It's an extremely hard unit to hack in a way that benefits you, so it's probably best left until you have a win under your belt. Major Data Centers can also be kind of troublesome in terms of the risk/reward that they present, so make sure that you are prepared to defend those if you choose to capture one.

There's loads more advice all over the place, and discord is a great spot, but so are the Steam forums. The guide I linked to above is something like 50+ pages, it's really huge and in-depth, so it covers way more than these basic tips I just gave.