One Newbie's Guide to a Conventional Start

Introduction

Aurora 4x is a complicated game that takes place in a universe where the discovery of Trans-Newtonian elements has scrapped many of the laws of Physics.
Two of those laws have kept us almost planet-bound for far too long!:

• Now faster than light travel may be possible through the wonders of Jump gates.
• Inertia, that old killer, that kept humanity from accelerating or decelerating too quickly lest we end up as jam on the bulkheads may also be overcome as well.

Game set-up

Game Details

First we must establish a new game (or wait seven days - if you believe in spontaneous generation) When one first starts the game, one is presented with the Game Details Screen.

For now we can ignore all the settings on this screen and just hit the New button.

Create New Game

(See Big Bang) I suggest we make a few changes here.

Game Name

I've named our game Sagan 6. Carl Sagan was an American astronomer[1] who (among other things assembled the first physical messages that were sent into space: the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them.
6 is just an indicator that I've created 5 other universes in order to learn enough to even begin this strategy guide.

Conventional Start

The conventional start is deemed "hard mode" by some Aurora devotees, but as a newcomer, it somehow felt more organic starting from what I know and working out from there. That said, there are some changes that can be made to acknowledge/compensate for the fact that we're basically starting out behind.

• I've set Sol jump points to 5 - Many folks suggest six to avoid isolation, but then being a bit behind I'm hoping that this may work in our favor a bit, provided it's not excessive
• Number of Starting Research Facilities - The default is 5 but we've got some catching up to do. 15 seems reasonable.
• Starting tech points - I'm gonna start at zero here but I might later wish I'd have bumped this up (Or I can rationalize using Spacemaster later to hurry research into designs when that task gets too onerous.
• Generate Sol System and create starting empire on Earth. - Sounds good. I'm lost enough as it is.
• Non-NPR Computer opponents - This just in from The Department of Redundancy Department... They are non-player too just more potentially dangerous. I disabled the Swarm. I was feeling challenged enough.
• Non Player Races - I opted for 1 race with TN tech. I wanted a challenge. Unlike the image above I set NPR's to activate non-NPR's
• Real Star Systems - I liked the idea of using existing real-world Astronomy in-game (plus the Astronomy geek in me wanted to see how well they did it!

Research

Einstein was one reported to have said "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe"[2]

Day 1

January 2025 Assumed control of the empire Began doubling the size of the military academy Began Researching Trans-newtonian Elements

  Appointed the brightest to that based on 4xpp vs other skills
  Assigned one lab to other scientist so he could start improving in his specialty and the remaining 13 to our PP Guy
  My Early Research philosophy is that I want more labs Everybody gets 1 so as to grow my talent pool ASAP. The best get the most proportionally. 

Training feels expensive now but will yield dividends when we have a lot of labs available Ordered the expansion of our Naval Yard by 1000 Tons Appointed an Earth Governor

 Chose the guy with the best mining, manufacturing and population bonuses as these can already make an impact
 Also appointed governors for Luna, Mercury, Mars, and Ganymede in order to start getting the newly appointed Civilian Admins familiar with their Jobs. 
 Just keep everyone busy at low cost
 Though it didn't matter I looked for Terraforming and Mining bonuses for the plum assignments but changes will be made based on what we find

Appointed a fleet commander

 Took the guy with the best mining and manufacturing bonus for day 1
 Noted a good survey guy for later and made sure he had a good training assignment

Even created other teams so folks could get used to their jobs and gain some skills. Better than just losing them.