First off, you should eventually try to play each game start on it's own just to experience that small bit of story unique to each start. You did pay for it with the game after all.

So what is this guide really about. It's is about which game start to use for your game that you are going to be playing for a while. Which start will carry you over from early game to mid and late game?

In this guide I want to provide some information and try to reason to a conclusion that I think a lot of people will agree with.

So what factors are important to a game start?

What you can get
Sector owner ship
Missions you can do

With these points in mind several game starts seem identical.

Young Gun
Dedicated Warrior
Untested Explorer
Spear of the Patriarch
Fires of Defeat
Smuggler's Paradise

What do all these game starts have in common? You start with your starter ship and pretty much nothing else. Yes, in Fires of Defeat you technically start with no ship but you get one in pretty short order.

As far as getting the HQ and the early moves in the universe, things go as follows.

Boso Ta Mission
- one ship (because we had to blow it up)
+ one frigate
+225000 credits
-one satellite
-one resource probe
-2 nav beacons (Optional)
Opportunity to kill some Confederates (You know, because they have slaves)

Dal Busta Mission
+ One Callisto Sentinel
- some of your time as you run around allegedly helping Hatikvah (though you don't get any rep boost for it)

Research
Engine research mission (racing time trial)
Optional opportunity to buy a ship for 1.5 million. ( I don't know if that is a good deal or not but I always buy it.)
Weapon mission, blow up laser towers, collect drop boxes
Shield mission, get shot at
Ship Hull mission, just dock and talk to a guy.

What happens to the various sectors?
Getsu Fune - Antigone or Terrans will move in depending on if you have Cradle of Humanity DLC
Frontier's Edge - Antigone will try to move in but Xenon will slaughter them and take it
The Void - Xenon will take it from Antigone
Turquoise Sea - Xenon will take it
Company Regard - Xenon will kick out Teladi
Ianamus Zura - Xenon again kick out Teladi and might even be able to take Bright Promise
Hatikvah's Choice 1 - Xenon will take it (hurry up and finish Dal's story before they do)

Basically, the universe is doomed. The AI factions can not hold back the Xenon, even with the Terrans helping them. You have to save them, even though no one asked you. This means that you can not just meander around in the game learning slowly. You have to get in gear and save those sectors or the Xenon will be too strong and you'll never be doing anything other than constantly fighting the Xenon.

What to do smuggling? Can't, have to fight Xenon.
Oh, you want to board ships? Can't, you have to fight Xenon.
Trying to build a factory? CAN'T. There are TOO MANY XENON. ... CONSTANTLY!!!!!

So what about the other game starts?

Let's look at Unworthy Entrepreneur. You start with more money, two ships, and a station. Other than that, everything is the exact same and the universe is still doomed.

So how about Accomplished Scientist? With this game start you do not do the Boso Ta missions. You already have the HQ station. So you lose out on the Frigate but you also do not have to blow up a ship. You still have to do Dal from scratch and all the research. Also, the Xenon are going to take over the northern part of the ring highway if you don't move quickly to save everyone. Just a heads up while you look over that research menu.

The two new game starts added by the Boron DLC also change the HQ quest. You technically don't start the game with the HQ but the moment you fly into Heretic's End, you get the HQ so the Boso Ta missions are gone. You still have to do Dal and the research from the beginning. Also, the Xenon will still curb stomp the AI factions and take over the highway while you're trying to deal with Jump Gate reopening story. You'll come back from Kingdom End to discover that the rest of the network factions are gone and the Borons are the last holdout of biology left.

Now is a good time to talk about the Stranded Game start. In this game start you start in prison with nothing and have to break out. It is actually kind of cool. You are gifted a ship pretty soon after breaking out but only if you help the other guy also break out. If you leave him there, then you get no ship. You start with nothing but you have the opportunity to steal a ship. This is not pointed out to you. You have to figure that out on your own. You also have to figure out that you can dock at the station that you just escaped from. No one tells this to you. It is pretty nice.

So then with stranded you do have a pretty neat little story at the beginning. Once that is over though, you have to do the Boso Ta missions from the beginning and it is just like the Young Gun start. So, enjoy the universe while it last because the plague of Xenon are going to cut your life of piracy short.

How about the Cradle of Humanity DLC game starts?

These are similar and yet, not similar.

The Project Genesis start gives you the HQ pretty quickly but admittedly it is very cool to be dragged along with the station.

The Terran Cadet is the best game start as far as story. You start off by just being a maintenance guy on patrol looking for satellites to fix. Then you see something fishing happening and investigate. That leads to you eventually joining a battle.

The big battle part is something every game start could participate in, but the sequence that happens between the battle in Getsu Fune and the player getting the HQ is the Dr Feynman investigation. This mission is unique to the Terran cadet. So the Boso Ta Mission actually looks like this.

Dr Feynman Investigation
+ Gladius
+Kyd
+Free blueprint for the Argon 1m/6s dock
Really cool investigation mission

You do not get the Frigate but also you do not have to blow up a ship. As the same as the other starts, you have to do Dal from the beginning and if you are too slow then the universe will die.

So that's all the game starts. Do you see the one you want to do yet? Yeah, me neither.

There has got to be a better way.

Yep, I'm going with Budgeted. Here's why.

It gives you control. If you want to do the missions for Boso Ta, then you can. (Just make sure Kingdom End is not leaded)

If you want to have all the research done from the start of the game and just get on with playing your empire, then you can (provided you finished it at least one before)

But maybe you don't care about all of that control. You just want to start with one of the preset game starts because otherwise it would feel like cheating. Then let me let you in on the two secrets of Budgeted Game start that make it superior to the other game starts.

1: You can place stations. Yes. You can build up your money budget and you can place stations.

Want to own Getsu Fune? You can own Getsu Fune.
Want to own Saturn 2? You can own Saturn 2.
Want to keep the Xenon from getting out of their cage? You can put defense stations at the gates and set them to appear at game start. Now the AI factions have a fighting chance to hold off the Xenon and you can take your time reading the in game encyclopedia. There is no more rush. The Xenon aren't toothless by any means by they can't expand. You'll eventually have to go into the Xenon sectors to take them out but only when you want to. Or just don't bother with it.

2: Mutually exclusive blueprints.

After restarting and playing through the various stories several times I have come to notice something. There is no way to collect every blueprint in the game with one of the preset gamestarts. The paranid capital blueprint and the Prometheus blueprints are mutually exclusive. This bothers me. Of course, in game it makes sense but it still bothers me. So what can someone with my kind of mentality do? I can give myself the prometheus blueprint at game start and then just side with the peace faction so I can buy the paranid capital later. Or I can just have the peace process already finished and just hack the blueprint for the capital.

Still the point is, the only way to get EVERY blueprint AND keep the Xenon from taking over is to use budgeted game start. That is the one that pretty much every player should use. It is just too bad that the Dr Feynman investigation can't be done with this game start. But oh well. You should play Terran Cadet at least once to experience that small story and then when you are done, use Budgeted Game Start as your real game start.