Building a home base:

After you have at least 75% of the universe explored, and have 
shot off at least 50 E-Probes (100 would be better), you will 
know the location of all the deepest tunnels. A tunnel is a 
string of sectors in a row that end in a dead end. Your base 
will be in the dead end, and any invader will have to get through 
whatever defenses you can pile up in front of it, sector by 
sector. The longer the tunnel, the more stuff you can pile up to 
hide behind, and the safer you will be. I don't feel secure
unless I have at least 5-6 sectors of nasty stuff protecting me.

Even better than a tunnel, is a tunnel that spreads out in the 
back. That way you can have several sectors of defense protecting 
a larger number of sectors that you will then control.

You will want to have several players joining you in a corporation,
so that you will be able to raise enuff cash quickly...the way to 
do it requires a million or two million credits to get started 
building.

If you start building too soon (and you haven't earned enough 
credits to buy decent defenses) another player will surely come 
along and raid you, taking all your stuff nearly for free. He'll 
then enjoy the fruits of your labor because you didn't wait until 
you could defend what you built!

Start by finding a ore selling port, at or near the dead end. 
This will be your home sector.

Build a nice navigation hazard (NavHaz) at the mouth of the 
tunnel. Do this by building planets and detonating them. The 
ideal way is to build as many as 30-50 (minimum 25) planets 
all in 1 sector in your tunnel, near the mouth, and blowing 
up 5 of them once they are all built. This will give you a 50% 
navhaz, which will have a 50% chance of killing 500 fighters 
off of any ship that tries to enter, including yours. Then,
each night, during the bbs cleanup process, 2 of the planets 
will collide, and add another 20% to the haz. In a few days, 
it will approach 100%. (There is one drawback to this, in that 
the sector number of and colliding Haz Planets will be noted 
in the News Log, so everyone will know where you're located 
immediately. On the other hand, they'll find you quickly 
enough regardless.) Use your judgement on this one. Leave as 
many defensive fighters in this sector as possible at this
time, up to 2,000 or 3,000. The bad guys can still get through, 
but they will certainly think twice before trying it, and it 
will definitely discourage casual raiders from browsing your 
tunnel.

Buy all the mines you can afford, and put them in the next 
sector after the NavHaz. Any invader could easily use mine 
disrupters to kill your mines, but if they have to go into 
your NavHaz each time to bring more disrupters, they won't 
enjoy getting hit each time. It takes 4 trips into the haz 
to bring enough disrupters to kill 250 mines. Not fun! The
reason for the 2-3000 fighters(figs) in the first sector is 
so that the occasional Ferrengi doesn't blunder into your 
minefield and waste them.

Now, it's time to build your home planets.

There is more data later, but for now, it is best to build 
4 mountainous planets and 1 oceanic type. You cannot select 
which planet type to build; it is random. Once there are 5 
planets, and some of them are not the type you want, just 
blow them up and replace them, one by one.

The best port to locate at is a SBS, but a SBB will do also. 
The SBS is best, because you'll then have fuel ore there for 
twarp, and equipment available for upgrading your planets. BTW,
the only product your planets will ever produce for sale, is 
organics. More on this later.

Bring in the minimum of 400 colonists from Terra, and enough 
product to upgrade the planets, and start a citadel on the 
first planet. Then move the colonists to the next planet, and 
start citadels on each. The colonists do NOT need to remain 
on the planet while you wait for the upgrade to be finished. 
You want your upgrades started as soon as possible, as each 
level of citadel will do more for you in the way of defense.

Once you've gotten your citadels started, get back to making 
money by trading, and also continue your exploration. You will 
need every cent you can scrape up, to increase your defenses.

Be sure you have at least one player in a Tholian Sentinel 
sitting in the same sector as your planets, as this makes it 
extremely expensive for raiders to blow you away, and it won't 
cost you all that much in the first place.

Any players on your team that have under 1,000 XP points, and 
are "goodies" can park overnite safely in Fedspace. If they 
have over 100 fighters on them, they will be towed out to a 
random sector in space by the Feds during the nightly cleanup.
