MANAGING YOUR FIRST SPACE EMPIRE

INTRO
You start off with a homeworld, four shipyards (represented by a single token), three scout ships, three colony ships, and a miner ship. If you take a look at your opponents' territory, you will notice that their shipyards and scouts, and any other military ships they build, are obscured as face-down generic "ship" tokens. That'll be hidden information until you actually encounter them with your own fleets--not only the type of ship, but even how many there are. You won't know if that token represents two scouts or six battleships or even just a decoy untl you fly up close and pick a fight with it. A token representing several ships can be split up (as long as you have enough tokens of that type; components *are* limited), and several tokens representing the same type of ship with the same tech level can be combined. A single token can represent at most six ships.

X-PLORE
The basic structure of your turn is Move any or all your ships, Combat if any are in the same hex as enemy ships, and Explore any unexplored hexes. To move a ship (or group of ships represented by a single token), click on that token  and then click on any highlighted adjacent hex. Civilian vessels (colony ships & miner ships) can't move into unexplored hexes unless there's a military ship (such as your scouts) already there. During the Explore phase, any face-down terrain tokens in hexes your ships have entered will flip over, revealing either an instant effect, a claimable resource, or permanent terrain. Within your "home systems" (terrain tokens in your color), you will always find the same predictable results:
* 8 planets you can colonize to improve your income
* 1 barren planet you can colonize after researching Terraforming
* 1 black hole that has a chance of destroying ships that move into it
* 2 nebula & 2 asteroid fields that interrupt movement and affect combat
* 11 minerals you can drag home with your miners
Note that the only one of these that is *dangerous* is the black hole. Further afield in the "deep space" hexes, you will find greater dangers (some tokens just destroy the exploring ships instantly when revealed as a one-time effect) but also greater rewards (more valuable minerals, alien tech, more planets to colonize).

X-PLOIT
After every third turn there is an Economic Phase, in which you gain money--20 from your homeworld, and 1/3/5 from each colony depending on how old it is, plus 5 (or 10) from minerals you've collected and brought to your homeworld or colony. You can spend that to buy new technology, build new ships at any planet with a shipyard (and a new shipyard and/or defense base at any income-producing world), and bid to be start player next turn. And do spend it; you can only bank up to 30 unspent money from turn to turn.
Available technologies:
* Move (move further on certain turns)
* Attack & Defense (boost combat stats, but only up to the ship's hit points)
* Tactics (first strike in combat against otherwise equal ships)
* Size (build bigger stronger ship types)
* Explore (cruisers specifically can peek at an adjacent terrain)
* Terraform (can colonize barren planets)
* Shipyard (enhance shipyards' capability to build more/larger ships)
Most of these technologies have several levels; you can only purchase one level of each technology per economic phase, so plan ahead.
Also, the game keeps track of the technology levels each ship was *built* with (on pencil and paper in the physical game). If you later research better technology and want to upgrade your obsolete ships, you can do so by parking them at any shipyard for a full turn and spending money equal to their hit points.

X-PAND
Ships can be built by clicking on a planet with a shipyard. Initially, each shipyard (note that you start with four, even though they're represented by one token with a x4 modifier) can build one hit point worth of ship(s), so you could build for example four scouts or two cruisers or a battleship and a scout. Shipyard tech increases that per-shipyard limit. You can also build one shipyard (and one base) per Economic Phase at any income-producing world, though newly built shipyards won't be functional until the *next* Economic Phase.
To increase your income, you'll want to colonize more planets, starting with the 8 easy ones in your home systems (once you find them). Build colony ships and send them out to unoccupied worlds, then click on the colony ship and click the "Colonize" button. It won't produce any income during the next Economic Phase, but it'll produce 1 money the one after that, then 3, then 5 thereafter. This will be your main source of income. Barren planets (one in your home systems, possibly lots more in deep space) can also be colonized but only by colony ships equippped with Terraforming technology.
You can also use your miner ship (plus one more if you want to build it) to haul minerals to any of your planets for a one-time bonus next Economic Phase. Home systems minerals are worth 5; deep space minerals are worth 10. You might find derelict alien wreckage in deep space as well; this can be hauled back to your worlds like minerals but provide a random free tech increase instead of money.

X-TERMINATE
Of course the ultimate reason you're building all of these ships is combat, which is mandatory whenever ships of two different players occupy the same hex. All ships in the hex are revealed, any decoys are immediately destroyed, and the fight begins. Each ship token has stats on it in a format like
C 4-1 x2
The letter represents when the ships shoots; A fires first and E fires last. (If two ships have the same firing class, the one with higher Tactics shoots first; if still tied, the defender shoots first.) This ship has attack strength 4 and defense strength 1 (these are increased by Attack and Defense technology). The x2 means the ship has 2 hit points.
Firing consists of calculating the attacker's Attack (plus any Attack technology) minus the defender's Defense (plus any Defense technology) and rolling a ten-sided die; if it's that target number or less, it's a hit and does one damage.
Combat continues until one side is destroyed or fled. A ship can choose to retreat on its own turn to fire, though not during the very first round of combat.
At the beginning of a combat round, if you have more ships than your opponent, you may choose to "screen" some of them--screened ships cannot fire or be fired at. Which ships (if any) are screened can be adjusted at the beginning of each round. Also, if you outnumber your opponent by double (not counting screened ships), all of your ships get +1 to their Attack rolls. This large-fleet bonus means that it's not always a good idea to invest everything in a few giant doomships; often it's better to have one or two big ships accompanied by lots of small escorts to ensure you get that fleet bonus. Also, a roll of 1 automatically hits, so a fleet of lots of weak ships that hit on a 1 can be superior to a few medium ships that hit on a 2 or 3.
If your ships are in the same hex as an undefended enemy colony at the end of your turn (including one that has just become undefended), each can also shoot at the colony, simply rolling against their own Attack strength. A successful attack weakens the colony by one step--5 to 3, 3 to 1, 1 to destroyed. Blockaded colonies produce no income and can't build anything. Homeworlds under attack follow a similar progression, 20 to 15 to 10 to 5 to destroyed, and that's the end of that!

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ADVANCED RULES
The advanced rules add several new technologies and ship types as well as counters to them, leading to a rock-paper-scissors sort of arms race, but of course you won't know which of them (if any) your opponent is researching until you encounter them in combat. Also, planets in deep space are defended by automated alien ships, making expansion more difficult in the early game.

MERCHANT SHIPS
These civilian ships can be built from the start; no special technology required. A continuous path of merchant ships that are parked (that is, they aren't moving this turn) form a "pipeline" that allows all of your ships to go faster: any ship whose movement is *entirely* in hexes with parked merchant ships gets to move one extra hex. (In the BGA interface, you'll need to click the "use MS pipelines" button to do this.) Also, as an economic benefit, any colony that is connected to your homeworld by pipelines gets +1 income.

FIGHTERS AND CARRIERS
Researching Fighter technology allows you to build fighters, which are very cheap and have a very powerful attack but low defense and cannot move on their own, and carriers, which are weak but can bring fighters (3 each) with them when they move. During combat, carriers cannot be shot at if they are accompanied by any fighters. The Fighter technology can be researched multiple times to allow the construction of more powerful fighters. Fighters (and carriers) do benefit from Attack and Defense technology, but only one level of each due to their size.
The counter to fighters is the Point Defense technology. Scouts (and *only* scouts) that are equipped with Point Defense act like they have firing class A and much higher attack rating *if* they are shooting at fighters. A few scouts with Point Defense can destroy entire squadrons of fighters before the fighters even get a chance to fight back.

CLOAKED RAIDERS
Researching Cloaking technology allows you to build raiders, which are equivalent to a destroyer with an extra hit point but have numerous advantages from being cloaked. During movement, they can exist in (and even move through) a hex with enemy units without triggering combat--making them excellent at sneaking through defenses and hitting infrastructure behind enemy lines. If they do choose to allow/initiate combat, they may choose to retreat immediately after enemy units are revealed but before any shots are fired. If they do choose to stay in combat, they get +1 on their attack rolls during the first round, and have firing class A.
The counter to raiders is the Scanners technology. Destroyers (and *only* destroyers)that are equipped with Scanners completely negate all of the aforementioned advantages of raiders; if even a single destroyer with Scanners is present (even if it is screened!), then raiders are simply destroyers with an extra hit point (including having firing class D).
It is possible to research Cloaking 2, which is not detected by Scanners 1. It also possible to research Scanners 2, which detects Cloaking 1 and 2.

MINES AND SWEEPERS
Researching Mines technology allows you to build mines. Mines can move (with the usual hidden-information rules), but only at speed 1 regardless of your Movement technology, and they can never move into an unexplored or enemy-occupied hex, not even if accompanied by other ships. However, if enemy ships move into a hex with mines, then all those mines (up to the number of enemy ships) detonate, automatically destroying one enemy ship *each*. The owner of the mines chooses which enemy ships to destroy, with no restrictions (you can even destroy a carrier, after which any excess fighters without carriers are also lost), though of course raiders that choose to evade combat won't be targeted by mines.
The counter to mines is the Minesweeper technology, which allows you to build minesweepers, a very weak type of ship. At the beginning of combat, before mines detonate, each minesweeper can destroy one mine (or two mines, if they are equipped with Minesweeper 2 technology). If any mines remain, they detonate against enemy ships (possibly including the minesweepers themselves, but not necessarily) as usual.