(April 14th, 2014, 10:26)WilliamLP Wrote: Oh and if you can get Long Range Scanners, buy that up immediately.
Absolutely. I haven't played the advanced version, but in the original, Long Range Scanners was secretly the critical upgrade. You WANT to fight more enemy ships, ideally with every jump. If you know what you're doing, the average net profit per encounter is positive, so you want more encounters. (If you don't know how to make a net profit, you're not winning the game anyway.) Just 2-3 extra fights per sector thanks to Long-Range Scanners makes for a serious snowball, upgrading defenses sooner so that you take less damage and later encounters are even more profitable.
And yes, the missile defense drone is the next most important item.