Think real quick about this. You start the game with a fresh untrained hero and your faction expects them to conquer whole worlds in their name or establish massive trade hubs. Bro y’all gave me a fancy rifle and a training manual! Now what would you do in reality? Would you throw yourself and the lives of your people into the unknowns of the galaxy risking life and limb, or do you take small baby steps to amass the skills and equipment needed to take on such a grandiose task? RP out of the way, here’s an easy way to farm up some initial levels before you get your empire up and running in earnest.

Quick facts: -empires level heroes and tech separately so it’s best to separate empire’s by race at the very least. You can mix and match but bear in mind that a hero’s tech changes their core skills. This can either create bomb ass synergy or logistical problems when outfitting.

-racial and tech xp is earned at various rates for eliminating other players and completing missions. You get more bang for your buck with murder…as in all games because that’s why we play right?

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Step 1: randomize planets and search until you find one with imaging satellites and at least one secondary objective relating to eliminating another empire before turn 20. Set the planet to small and ideally Pangea to speed things along.

Step 2: set up your hero to have data repository. Sure others allow you to specialize, but you need those two free techs. This hero is simply a taxi that will allow your dream hero to start THEIR journey with…stuff. We’re getting stuff.

Step 3: use imaging satellite map to identify the closest player and start the journey. Examine the settlement names and try to discern which one is going to be an easy match up. If you’re running syndicate, attempt to find the closest oathbound colony. Have your scout trail blaze for you and of course avoid mountains.

Step 4: get your colony devoted to research. Any mods you can get your hands on to make the upcoming fight easier you wanna grab. But don’t wait around for that one thing to unlock bc the longer you wait the stronger they get. On a small go medium sized planet you’ve usually got time to identify your 1st foe and kit out accordingly before they secure a 3rd sector. The idea is to get a visual, examine their units, and equip what little mods you have that will actually tip the scales.

Step 5: eliminate the competition. Wars are dumb in this game in that all you have to do is kill the enemy commander and take the capital colony. Enemy AI usually camp their 1st FOB and break up their starting army up in the early game so that commander may be missing 1-2 units out of its stack. Just trespass up to them, and ideally kill the commander and the capital garrison in one turn. If you don’t, don’t fret because whatever forces are left won’t be able to react assuming you didn’t lose most of your units in the senseless bloodbath you’ve just unleashed on a fresh colony just trying to establish a life for itself.

End the turn and the game will say you’ve completed a secondary objective and that you’re free to leave the planet. That’s right, you spent who knows how much money to arrive on a random planet just to slaughter a whole colony and peace out. Yes that’s right, you’re officially a space raider now. Because completing planets nets your hero an increase in starting level. Beating that faction levels your race and secret tech. Do so twice in a row and now you’ve got two tech unlocks on top of the first two from SUS. This isn’t going to max you out and diminishing returns will hit quickly, but if you’re patient enough to grind up a level 10 hero then suddenly with some skill and knowledge under your belt the prospect of conquering a planet seems a lot more doable.

There. Now anyone googling how to level up in this game is going to stumble onto something easy to find and relatively quick to read. No more searching through decrepit forums for you little gamer 🤗 come here you! 🤗

Edit: I neglected to mention that depending on your two random techs and of course matchups, this can result in a planet completion in as little as 12 turns.