The Druuge; the ship type is called the Mauler.
I’m OK… just started trying random worlds within my current range and found some Melnormes orbiting Alpha Aldopis. Fuel!
That’s a relief!!
You are making me want to go back and play my favorite video game again 
Glad you are enjoying it… it does require a huge level of commitment and patience.
Only 18.5 hours (that’s how long I took to beat it in one playthrough)
So I’ve made it back to Sol and Alpha Centauri, lots of new upgrades, fuel, and tech.
I’m starting to worry that I’ve spent too freely of people in the early game…
Haha… yes your starship crew are more than just numbers! They are real people with real families. Take your battles seriously and try not to lose too many 
Or else!
Yup. Decidedly NOT infinite.
Well, at least until you get them reproducing fast enough. :eek:
Well, I started over. I had proceeded enough into the game to realize that there was a lot of shit I needed to do at the beginning of the game that I didn’t bother doing until 3+ years have passed.
Apparently there’s a specific date when the Ur-Quan get wiped out by another race (who would proceed to wreck havoc throughout the galaxy) and I was approaching that date with just too much to do.
Oops.
Doing much better on the second game. 
I think that’s pretty much how everyone’s first playthrough of the game goes. 
Then they come back for round two and do something like:
#1: Harvest enough minerals in Sol and nearby systems to upgrade engines to full
#2: Get Quasispace spawner ASAP
#3: Shut down Slylandro probes.
#4: …
#5: Profit.
I don’t really think it’s possible to win doing it any other way, because you’d end up just spending too much time in transit.
I tend to go on a few long excursions in the first two years of the game. I’d load up on fuel and storage then fully raid star systems while getting as much done as I can before coming back to the base. By the time I’m done with my 2nd or 3rd long trip, I have enough to fully equip my fleet for the rest of the game.
I’ve begun arbitraging my fuel for ship improvements.
I’ve captured so many lifeforms that I’m full tech, have most information, and decided that my ship would be improved if I could take my 500+ of melnorme credits and convert it to 10,000 RU for ship improvements. Since there’s nothing that says you can’t sell fuel, I went to Alpha Centauri, loaded up on fuel (at 1 fuel per Melnorme Credit), then went to Earth and sold fuel at the exchange rate of 1 fuel for 20 RU’s. Repeat as needed.
This worked rather nicely.
How the heck did you manage to get so many life forms without also getting a metric heap ton of minerals? Did you deliberately ignore mineral rich worlds if they didn’t have life forms? Seems like a waste of flying around time to me.
I went on an “upgrade tech” trip where I hunted a bunch of lifeforms over a couple of months so I could improve my tech. Apparently I was so successful that I ran out of tech improvements, then realized that the starbase was completely screwing me on fuel, hence, arbitrage. 
Oh, and I had a bunch of minerals as well.
Too late for ETA:
I was harvesting minerals and life forms at the same time, of course. The fuel trick, plus the resources I had gathered on my trip (fully loaded three storage bays, nothing worth less than 6RU’s each), allowed me to go from four of gun type 2 to four of gun type 3, replace all my dynamos with the next level energy generator, add point defense and tracking to the ship, and a full complement of crew.
In addition I got the ShoFixTi prepared to swarm my base with cheap recruits and got the self-destruct code for all those pain-in-the-ass Sylandro: I had 10k RU before I came back to Sol.
Like I said, it was a helluva run.
I’ve almost never done that. By the time I’m full on Melnorme tech, I have no worries about money anymore. Call me crazy, but I actually like exploring worlds for minerals. I like to clean out star systems in one go for each trip, and sometimes near the endgame I go to systems I’ve never been to and clean those out just for fun
How far along in the story are you? There are some key points you have to hit, but many of them can be done in any order you want. What have you accomplished lately?
I think we x-posted, but I said:
I also have the Spathi Caster, allowing me to call the Melnorme while in hyperspace.
This is pretty close to me - I just harvest stuff as I go, and I have NO IDEA how JohnT managed to FIND enough lifeforms to max out his tech before he got enough minerals to buy everything he could want and then some. I guess it’s possible if he just went out on a five year journey of exploration and decided not to go home when his cargo bays filled up, since life form data doesn’t actually take up any space… but why would you DO that? It’s a massive waste of fuel to travel without also harvesting along the way.
But that’s not what I did. On my Shofixti/sylandro/maidens run(s) I kept on finding worlds with life forms. Yes, I picked up minerals as well, but when I had a planet full of 6RU minerals and I have a hold full of 1RU minerals… well, that’s a trade I can live with, and made a number of times.
I said a “couple of months” in an above post, but this actually took me about 8 months of game-time (I checked my saves) - and in that time I also solved three “quests” and found 2 rainbow worlds. At the end I had enough Melnorme credits to perform the above arbitrage strategy - essentially, 1 Melnorme credit = 20 RU’s, and since I had no more use for the Melnorme credits (and plenty use for the RU’s), might as well perform some currency swapping.
Just, whatever you do, don’t go dancing. It may sound frumple but I assure you, you will not be a happy camper. You may even end up squeezing the juice.