These tips I have received from ogame-tips@aweber.com on behalf of Robert.
I hope you find them to be useful:


Well, as by the nature OGame is battle game. If you are not
complete turtle (and also growing that fast) you will sure get in
situation that you will attack someone else.

If you just get your first planet in life you will live quite good
with resources your planet is giving you. Anyhow, you can't attack
if you don't have anything to fly around. So, find some tutorial on
building orders and try to develop some flight machinery as soon as
possible. There is a moment what you will be in red on energy, your
buildings will become more expensive, but they will not give you
that much back, at least not that fast as you like, and your
researches looks like black holes sucking your resources rapidly.
This is the moment of decision to start raiding around your
neighborhood. So the first attempt should be something easy. To
raid, you need a cargo ship.

When you do all necessary researches and buildings try to build a
small cargo. They are not expensive, and guess what... they can
shoot too. So just to try you can build some espionage probes, few
small cargos and start searching your first victim. Look for the
player who is inactive, having (i) mark after its name in galaxy
view. Inactive players don't fight back, so they are easy victims.
When you find them you send some probes to their coordinates just
to see if there are any resources worth to care about. If
everything is clear calculate how many cargos you need to send
(divide total amount of resources by 2, as this is all you are
allowed to take and then it will be clear how many cargos you need
carrying 5000 each). Don't send more then it you need to. Cargos
will easily deal with undefended planet and here is your first
outside income.

Some useful tips on raiding. You are allowed to attack someone 3
times during 24 hours and each attack may have 3 waves in 30
minutes timeframe. Breaking this rule will get you banned if
attacked player reports you. Inactive player will probably not
report you to game operator but it is good to practice obeying
rules from the start. Here is another tip connected to this. If
your target has for example 15000 of resources waiting for you to
pick up, you can attack him with 2 small cargos and you will get
7500 of resources in this one attack. Just to illustrate how waves
can work for you think about sending those two cargos in two waves,
one by one. First cargo will be allowed to take 7500 but it exceeds
its cargo bay so it will return full, 5000.

10000 will remain on planet when second cargo arrives. You are
allowed to take half of that which is 5000 again so this cargo will
return full as well. So attacking in one-wave gives you 7500 while
separating the fleet in two waves gives you 10000 in the same time
consumed for attack. This is simple calculation that you can
improve more with larger numbers and using maximum of 3 waves per
attack. If there is some ground defense on your target keep in mind
that it will recover for any of your waves, so you create your
attack wave carefully.

If you are still new and weak don't attack stronger players than
you because they may smash you if you start to behave like a
mosquito.

After some time your development will ask for more and more
resources (for example Armor technology level 7 cost you 64000 of
metal) so your targets will be stronger players, and raid will not
be just picking up but will involve some battle. When planning such
an attack be careful to see if it is worth. There are cases that
you may win the battle but loose all your cargos in targets orbit.
So you practically lose, and make a gift in shape of nice debris on
targets doorway.

In early game don't attack players that are members of some
alliance as you may find yourself non-existing another morning.

Tip: place a mouse over the alliance tag when browsing galaxy you
may find that some players are members of alliance with 1 member.
This is just a trick to turn you away from them, they created their
own alliance and they are all alone just as you are at the beginning.

When you start to spy stronger players keep in mind that what you
see depends on you espionage technology strength, if yours is
weaker you will see less. You can send several single probes when
browsing the galaxy (mouse over planet and 'spy') just to check for
the resources and energy level. If someone is interesting use your
fleet panel and send about 4 probes to same coordinates, you will
get more information. Unfortunately, sometimes your probes will be
lost in debris and you will get none.

Once you start the attack, be prepared to watch over it. If your
victim is undefended you may probably go to sleep, but if you
expect some troubles then send your probes once a while to check
the status of your victim. Some of your victims will do fleet and
resource save first time they spot you so it is better to return
and spare your fleet travel time. But the worse case is that player
has his fleet somewhere away from planet and he order it to return
a minute or less before your attack. So if you suspect hidden fleet
send your probes to arrive at last possible time before your fleet
arrives, but leaving you enough time to recall your attack if
strong defending fleet suddenly arrives in your targets orbit.

EDITORS NOTE: Here are several links that may help you understand
some of the terms or techniques outlined above:


Raiding Other Planets
- http://www.ogametips.com/5/raiding-other-planets

The Bashing rule (Yet Again)
- http://www.ogametips.com/41/the-bashing-rule-yet-again

Battle Simulators - SpeedSim and DragoSim
- http://www.ogametips.com/145/battle-simulators-general-overview-and-links


Want even more OGame Tips and Strategies?

Check out our exclusive OGame Tips Strategy Guide
- http://www.ogametips.com/strategy-guide/