I see your point, and you're probably right. I'll have to mess with it some, but this is how I see it. First, it does not require four lights to clear an asteroid. Two is enough. You could probably do it with one, but it would take stupidly long. I usually send in my col. ship before even clearing the system, after which I queue up the cap ship factory ASAP. By the time my first cap ship is out, I have a fully developed asteroid, my colony ship almost has enough antimatter to colonize again, and my first two light frigs are either already engaging militia in the next asteroid colony (which, repair or no, they can do easy enough) or waiting for the cap ship to take on a better defended planet. Also, there's plenty of early experience to go on. Two militia won't make a difference.

I'll try both builds and time them, to see how it goes.

Ok, never mind. My build is about the same speed, and you're a cap ship short. I'll back off now.

Using the black market is also very helpful at early stages of the game. Often times you might end up with some asteroids near your starting planet, so the population won't be there right away to give you a signifigant increase in credits per second. but often times, especially if say you've got a volcanic planet in your posession you'll have an abundance of metal you're never going to spend any time soon. So sell a bunch off to the market and make some easy money, since early on you're going to be burning credits far faster than you can really make them. Don't do the same with crystal though, as typically it's more rarely found that metal, unless you're really lucky and start next to 2 ice planets.