Tips for a new old player?

When LAUNCHING colony ships, try only putting 150 or 200 (million?) colonists on board instead of 500.

Population is key in many ways, since that determines your income and how quickly it will grow. If you play a race with large growth bonus, and keep morale at 100% throughout the early game, you'll be better able to send out full colony ships without tanking your homeworld's population or reducing the amount you send on the colony ships.

Ive never really had this problem with population, but if thats what the problem is then maybe just give your race a population bonus in the settings at the beginning of the game? It is definately a tweak in your strategy that is needed(which was the intention of the new planetary ecosystems). Trial and error, see what works best for you in terms of balancing your spending on the research, social and military.
Personally, I almost always max out my research spending and leave the other two alone while ive got a 40-45% tax rate(depending on morale bonuses) and a overall spending rate as high as itll go while still keeping in the green. Ill go for propulsion first, up to impulse maybe(depending on placement) giving me time to explore a little and find those juicy planets and then switch to planetary techs while judging from those initial surveys which of those to rush research. Dont forget your asteroids and resources, if you cant colonize right away..build a few constructors so youre atleast getting something valuable instead of sitting waiting for research.

Heh, yeah I mostly played back in the days when population bonuses weren't just useless ,they were actually somewhat detrimental in some cases. It sounds like that's changed (which is no bad thing, really). It also sounds like taxing the crap out of people at the beginning of the game isn't going to work like it used to. OK, time to restart. Thanks all.

Something else to consider: When you colonize a new planet, you start out with a small population which will generate limited revenue. If you build improvements with a high maintenance cost too soon, your pop will not be able to cover the expenses, and the planet will run at a loss. Try building something that will make money for you, like a trade center first, until your pop has risen to the point where you can afford other things. Also, through the beginning/early part of the game, your homeworld will be your primary source of revenue. Bleeding too much pop from it in too short of a time will also tank your economy. Hope this helps. Good gaming.

Try building something that will make money for you, like a trade center first, until your pop has risen to the point where you can afford other things. Also, through the beginning/early part of the game, your homeworld will be your primary source of revenue. Bleeding too much pop from it in too short of a time will also tank your economy

I've been an advocate of your first building being an economic building for quite some time. However, without additional factory capacity they do take a long time to develop. I've tried mixing it up a bit by starting some planets with a single factory followed by like four economic buildings. This can be effective as well.

Also bleeding pop from you home planet is a concern as Mistralok points out. Initially I take off 500 per colony ship. I also build up my factories with my manufacturing capital on my home planet until I can produce a colony ship every other turn. Building a colony ship every other turn starts depleting my home planet pop pretty quickly. Once I get near a pop of 5B I only take off enough colonists to get down to 5B. I never let my pop go below the 5B level. Taking the 70% pop growth bonus is a pretty big pick but it is costly, if I can’t afford the 70% pop bonus I always take the 30% pop bonus. I also try to max my morale and economic bonus as well.

\