Russian Spy - Not too much happens in the first three days after you join. Slow down. You are not in any danger yet. Build yourself up before you worry about other people. Here's a few comments:
Only newbies build up starbases quickly. Don't worry about them. Attacking starbases is an easy way to get experience points later in the game. They will not help with any future development. You will get lots of advance warning if someone were to foolishly launch at you now. You could get a starbase up relatively easily and defeat any hostile force launched by someone else who just started.
The country flags for new players are usually added within a few days. Then you can tell where people are from. I suggest waiting a few days before you talk to them. You don't want to NAP a weak player. If they are not building up as quickly as everyone else, they are a potential target after I get 1 or two free planets colonized.
Use the battle calculator to estimate how many ships are needed to defeat a level 2 starbase. It is located under the help tab. Assuming all things being equal (such as race), 3 destroyers has a 93% chance of defeating a level 2 starbase.
You have tons of cybernets right now. What you need are more factories and farms. Right now you are only making 1 PP/hr. That means to make those 3 destroyers (which I would not do) it will take you 90 hours (not counting two or three transports which would cost you twice as many PP's. By buying factories, you can buy everything else more quickly. By buying farms, your population will increase more quickly. With each population increase you will get 1)a point in the game 2) another PP/hr and 3) another science point/hr. You need to get farms and factories built up ASAP. Those cybernets will help you to expand more quickly. It usually takes ~24 hours to travel to a neighboring planet with an energy of 0 so plan accordingly. When your culture gets down to ~22-23 hours, I would launch 1 (or preferably 3 or 5) colony ships to get a second planet and get that planet built up quickly. This is a newbie error but you have to make these to get better. I remember I waited a day to spend any points as I didn't want to waste them. This game is a little hard to learn at first but it will captivate you soon.
Physics and math only make a difference if they are 6 levels above or below your opposition. I was originally taught to get my social level up to 10 and then study math and physics trying to get both of them up to 15. Periodically study biology (so you can see more worlds) and energy (so it won't take days to travel to the next planet or system). You will be able to colonize relatively quickly (should be a neigboring planet) because of all those cybernets you bought so quickly. Economy is the least valuable of all the sciences.
If you can read french, you are a potentially valuable NEMO. We need people who can read foreign languages. In the forums section, you can often read foreign player's plans when they are attacking alliances like the NEMOs.
Whenever you start, you are listed in a default time zone. You should adjust this based upon your time zone (e.g. central daylight time is GMT -5). This is done under the settings tab.
I hope that helps.
ffisherman - how did your battle turn out? Were we right?
Their mods leave much to be desired over there. In fact, their BB leaves much to be desired as well. I was seriously thinking of posting a Newbie Info thread over there with a link to this thread.
