Jumping in at the deep end

[Zereth]

Jtownsend said:
I could pick up Adv. Military Science and get training facilities, but then I'd be researching all the other early techs without my turn 1 bonus.

Make it up by capturing ships and anaylzing them for the tech.

I'm also a touch unclear - why bother with ship training facilities if I could train "ghost" stacks with single ships in orbit, then merge these with my frontline fleets? Are there potential perils or drawbacks to this method?

Because you A: need the ship training facilities to train those ships in the first place, and B: because relying on Neural Networks showing up in a ruin _And_ you getting to it quickly isn't a very good strategy?

I don't really want to waste early fleets getting blown to smithereens when I'm not even sure of basic ship design principles. Meson blasters, or energy stream weapons, or DUC? I can see on the tree that, for example, energy stream weapons have a longer tech tree, but in the meantime are they adequate weapons?

DUC cannons are the best early-game weapon, while Phased Polaron Beams are good after that, especially if your opponents aren't using phased shields yet, and Anti-Proton beams finally pay off somewhere around level 10.

I'm not exaclty a veteran, of course, so somebody who's been playing longer might have more insight.