I have found a great underdog "tactic" (well, not really a tactic, but it works.) The asteroid belt in "A rock and a Rock" is extremely useful for masking what you're doing. Just jump in there as soon as you have a fleet, preferably towards a bunker station, or to near a green asteroid. I've found that the jumping past green asteroids that works in "The Mothership Connection" can fool some computer ships. The asteroid field can actually be useful.
Aithon, I will not fall into the newbie/poor player cliche of playing auds, they can win against basically anyone with very little skill. Their cruisers are exactly the same as those of the Elejee, so you can see that they're quite powerful. I've gone away from cantharans and moved towards humans, they're much better, their advantage rating is artificially low. It's really the gunships that make the race, I beat ishimans as humans once.
BTW, I find that single player is fun, but it teaches you some of the wrong things, like actually taking over bunker stations is useful against the computer, but against people it's just dumb, because the rescources from the ATR could have been a gunship. Additionally, the computer is a moron, and most players aren't.
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Pull me out of the air crash
Pull me out of the lake.
(This message has been edited by Newt (edited 01-12-2000).)