I've played two games now, on one of the relatively easy modes, and dominated (of course). I prefer playing an Economic/Influence/Research focused civilization and I used the Drath, tweaking the abilities a bit to maximize help for my playstyle. The first game was on a small galaxy and I used military force to win. The second game was on a medium galaxy and I managed an influence victory (despite that annoying council passing a law that I could only use TWO modules on my starbases). I really enjoyed the influence victory and I'm hoping that even as I progress in difficulty I can still utilize my starbase spamming plans.

But on to the real problem. What specifically must I research in order to make the first new wave of ships appear? It seems to take me forever to get anything better than a Defender, and once I do the attack numbers just don't seem that much better. Also, once I've researched armors and hulls and life supports, etc... do those automatically become part of future ship builds? Ship building is by far the weakest part of my game at this point and I need some solid advice/help. Anything you can tell me would be much appreciated.

And can someone tell me how to quickly (meaning early in the game) speed up my constructs?