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


When starting up, the first - and most important - thing is to
begin building up your mines. These will provide you're Base income
of resources, which are needed for anything and everything in the
game! You will also need to build up some solar plants to provide
energy for your mines to run.

In the starting game It's a good idea to start with metal mines, as
in the early stages it is the most used resource, as you advance a
little you will find that crystal is extensively used in many
researches, and deuterium also. So while they are not quite as
important in early game it is a good idea to build these up a
little as well.

When you create an account you are given 500 metal and 500 crystal,
to start up I suggest using them to build the following:

* Solar Plant Level 1
* Metal Mine Level 1
* Metal Mine Level 2
* Solar Plant Level 2
* Metal Mine Level 3
* Crystal Mine Level 1

After each building make sure you go to resources (in the
navigation on the left) and click 'calculate' which will show you
how much you are producing, and how much energy this production is
using. You will also notice some drop down menus with values from 0
to 100%. These control the power of your mines, generally you
should leave them all at 100% so that you get the maximum output.
In some cases, if you do not have enough energy to run your mines
you can lower the production of one to ensure maximum production of
another (for instance if you can not run all your mines, and you
need crystal more then metal you could lower the power of your
metal mine to optimize production of your crystals)

Once your mines have replenished some of your resources, then...
build more.
Once you get a little further into the game your main income will
be from raiding and attacking other players, but for now mines are
your only source of income, and if in the later game your fleet
happens to be destroyed they are also what you will fall back on to
help you rebuild. So the higher the better. However with that said
you don't want to spend TOO much time simply sitting around
twiddling your thumbs and waiting for your mines to produce enough
resources to spend. I would recommend building your mines up to the
following levels, or something similar:

* Metal Mine: 7-8
* Crystal Mine: 7-8
* Deuterium Synthesizer: 5-6

And in order to run all these at 100% you will also need around a
level 9 or 10 solar plant. When you amass more resources you will
build these up further still, but for now it's a good starting
point to look into starting some research, and looking towards
building a fleet. In order to start research or fleet building you
will first need a research lab, and a shipyard (which also requires
a robotic factory before you can build it), so your next step
should be to build each of these.

This is where the game starts to get a little more interesting; you
can start to research a range of technologies, and soon start to
build your fleet, and your defense.

Your main goals now should be a few small cargoes, light fighters
and espionage probes, each of which have different requirements. In
order to see what you need to build something you can click the
'Technology' link on the left. Requirements listed in green are the
ones you meet, requirements listed in red are the ones you need.

Now as I mentioned above your goal at this point should be the
following ships to allow for some nice effective raiding:

* Small cargo ships - Which each carry 5000 resources, the more
you have the faster you can raid resources from another player.

* Light fighters - To accompany the cargo and help to take care of
the opponent's defense. Although in the early stages you will be
looking to raid inactive players with little or no defense.

* Espionage probes - These are used to spy on other planets and
return information such as how many resources they have. Once you
have a few more levels of espionage tech or a few more probes you
may also be able to see information about your opponent's defenses,
fleet, buildings and technologies.

Another useful tool for your raids is SpeedSim; this is an
extremely useful little tool for starters and experienced players
alike. Simply input yours and your opponent's info and it can tell
you you're chance of victory, how much you will get if your raid
succeeds, and your likely losses. It can be downloaded from:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/speedsim/SpeedSim_v0.9.4.1b.zip?download
(Direct download link)

Once you have at least 1 of each of these ships then you can start
raiding.

First click on the 'Galaxy' link on the left and search around for
some inactive players near by (They will have a gray name followed
by (i) or (iI) if they are inactive) and send out your espionage
proves (by hovering over the planet and clicking 'spy'). Wait for
them to return with their report, and if they have enough resources
to be worthwhile, and hopefully little or no defense send out your
cargo ships and your fighters. To do this you can either follow the
same steps as above, clicking attack instead of spy, or you can Go
to 'Fleet' on the left, select the ships you want to send, click
proceed and enter in the
co-ordinates of your victim, then click proceed again and select
attack, and finally click proceed one last time to send out the
fleet.

Note that no matter how many resources a player has, and how many
ships you attack them with you can only raid a maximum of HALF of
their resources.

Now we wait, it will probably take an hour or two for your fleet to
reach your victim, depending on how far away they are. When they do
arrive you will receive a combat report telling you what happened,
and if you captured any resources.

Now simply repeat this a few times and start building up your
fleet, your technologies, your mines and your defense! (What
defense you might ask?)

To view your defenses click on 'Defense' in the navigation to your
left. This is where you can build your defenses. To start off which
you will only be able to build missile launchers, these are rather
weak, but they will still help deter other starting players from
trying to raid you and steal back your hard earned resources.

Remember your defenses are ESSENTIAL without them you are a sitting
duck for other raiders you want to take your resources.

Hopefully all that should help you get started, and give you a bit
of a handhold on the game. Below I will also explain a few tips and
tricks to keep you safe from other raiders:

* Defenses: I cannot stress this enough, if you have spare
resources and your going away, build defenses to deter would be
attackers.

* Don't look like a target: Generally speaking, if you don't look
like a profitable victim, then nobody will attack you. So don't
leave resources lying around unused if you can help it. Spend as
much as you can without being wasteful.

* Hiding resources: This ties in with the above, If you have excess
resources but nothing you WANT to spend them on you can 'hide' them
by starting any random research, then canceling it (for a full
refund) before it is finished. By doing this you look less like a
target, people are less likely to attack you. Another way to do
this is to send your fleet out to a random planet with your
resources (You can use any mission, but if you send them on a
transport mission MAKE SURE YOU RECALL THEM before they arrive.
Otherwise you just gave your resources away). This technique is
commonly known as 'fleet saving'

* Fleet save: As I just mentioned fleet saving could be used as a
way of protecting your resources, it can also be a means of
protecting your fleet. Any fleet on a mission CANNOT be attacked.
So if you're going to be away and don't want to risk losing your
fleet simply send them off on a random mission, time it so that
they arrive back at about the same time as you plan too return, and
they will be perfectly safe until you get back.

* Be nice: if you're being attacked DO NOT do something stupid like
threaten and insult the other player, this will just make them want
to attack more, and can quite easily get you banned. If you just
nicely ask a player to call off an attack then some people will be
nice back and look for another target instead, Obviously many
people won't but you have nothing to lose by trying.

A couple of rules to keep in mind:

* Bashing: bashing is a rule that prevents you from attacking the
same planet excessively. You are legally allowed to attack 3 times
per day, with 3 'waves' per attack. This can be a little confusing
but how it works is each attack can consist of up to 3 fleets,
which arrive within half an hour of each other. In this case each
fleet is referred to as 1 wave of the attack.

* Insulting: As I mentioned briefly in the tips, do NOT insult
other players. If they decide to report it you WILL BE BANNED. So
play nice, have fun, and remember... They're people too.


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

Saving your Resources
- http://www.ogametips.com/27/saving-your-resources

Defense per Mines Ratio - What works best?
- http://www.ogametips.com/93/defense-per-mines-ratio-what-works-best

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