Theory Crafting: Early combat upgrades.

How big of a fleet are we talking here? You need to have a decent sized fleet before stat research really becomes half way useful, except for tier 1 upgrades.

Since most skilled players are using LF spam with corvettes anyway, I'm not sure how this is helping....

The thing is, building your economy in the early game is about having more planets, not vertical growth...you can't easily acquire more planets if you don't have offensive capabilities...

Alright, let me ask this: does anyone have an interesting, half-viable non-standard start?

KoK maybe.

Radiance lead...

Really only shines if you are frontliner against a TEC who is banking on missile barrage...halcyon or prog would be better in all other circumstances...

Grimm leads with Revelation as well.

I make double Radiance if i see too many Tec player on enemy team prior to game start.

Sova +vettes is a viable start if you can micro 3 groups of ships simultaneously and is happy to kite, while expanding and making 2nd Sova.

I also keep meaning to try Kol lead, as it becomes virtually unkillable if you get it to high levels...

All of the above require a skill level above that of KoK to execute and benefit from, otherwise its Prog / Marza / Akkan /' Egg starts for safe play.

if your going to put a marza in there then you may as well put a discord for its level 6 ability which quite frankly is a stupendous counter attack to missile barrage and any fleet.

From the experience with my smurf on ico i can conclude that Akkan, Prog and Egg are the only caps people should build in the game up to the point where they reach level 6.

That's right guys, you heard RiddleMooLight....lead with akkan, don't lead with marza....

resistance is fuitile 

MechaRiddleQuarMooLight... oh god we're... I mean, I for one welcome our omnitroll overlords.