Hi all. I'm very new to GC2, got the game only a week ago (bargain, £20). So far, I have to say, it's the most fun I've had with a stratagy game since Alpha Centuari (which is the greatest PC game ever, possibly). I'm just finishing off my first game on challanging, which is where my first question will be. The names of the difficulty ratings seem to be different than in the manual - I wanted to play the most difficult AI without having their economy boosted. Is that the right one? (1.3b version).

Something I'm just getting into is the ship building thing, which is incredibly enjoyable. I was really inspired by some of the fantastic (couldn't think of a better word) designs in the stickied thread for showing them off. I'm making a little bit of progress, but damn, I can't concieve of how they do what they do. I mean, theres some resemblance between the bits that you're given in game and what they have made, but not much. So I have lots of questions on this:

First is there some good guide on shipbuilding?
Second, do people import their own bits?
Third, is it possible to start construction on a null hull? What I mean by this is, part of my problem is building around what is alreay there. It's offputting among other things. So is there a blank hull to download or unluck or program in somehow?
Fourth, making a frame is the biggest difficulty. I use those big long, thin, "plates" and normaly a bigger center piece to start off. Is there a better way? Small girders maybe?

Somethings thats been bugging me a bit is the starting positions. I've only had one game so far where it's been too bad for me to continue, I only had 4 planets on the second biggest galaxy before running into a brick wall of opponants. Thats ok, I made mistakes anyway and ended up resigning the game as defeat was almost certain. But it's the computer I worry for more! The randomness is really great, honestly, I hate playing the same thing over and over so this is very cool - but - so often a lot of computer opponants will get trapped with not enough worlds to sustain it. And in this current game I'm playing, I only had one really competitive AI to deal with - I took care of them and am now dragging the game out. I have huge hulls, with nearly 100 damage points (psyonic laser thingys), and they can't even manage 20 damage points in a fleet!

So only 1 competitive AI out of 9, on the second biggest galaxy. I maybe got lucky being in the centre (but thats not always good as you can get attacked from enemies on all sides). So what am I doing wrong? Just rank up the difficulty, giving the AI cheating economies or is their a good way to set up a competitive endgame with the random galaxy generator? All ratings are over 400 (economy, military and research), it feels like cheating lol.

Thanks for any help, especialy with the ship building. This game is unbelievably good in so many ways, despite some obvious deficiencies. Looking forward to the expansion!