ES2 How do you do: Lumeris

Sup, since I have been playing a lot of ES2 since it's (slightly premature) release I want to share my vast yet very subjective (read possibly incorrect, random blah blah blah) wisdom, of how to achieve greatness in the game.

My personal favourites as of late are the Lumeris. So we shall start it off with them. Guess I should explain why, the answer is simple, Lumeris kinda suck, and that's the point, when you rock the game, there is no excuse like "OMG [insert any other race name here] op race".
But they have good lore background and suite my style the most, and are mostly easy to manage.

Dust, powerful stuff

General stuff

Let's look at what we are talking about at their wiki page.

Yup, so basically they are a bunch of spacefishy fellows behaving like the Venetians of space.

Their racial bonus is not amazing but still strong, they also have a strong faction quest rewards and ok-ish faction specific techs to make up for it.

As for the planet broker affinity, it is not that great, in the early game, it feels really good and strong while you can just go shopping around the galaxy, but the outposts get quite expensive quite quickly (first is just 223, second up 340ish but 10th is 2K for instance). It frees up your construction queue and industry to do other things, but lategame it can tie your hands with planets being worth 4,5K, 20K and more, but you should never get there on smaller maps.
The ability to sell your planets/outposts comes in handy for diplomatic means, but it is not going to be used overly frequently unless you feel like being a nice person, it can help you combat the growing price of new planets and overcolonization on rare occasions, and get you out of trouble by simply dropping said outpost/colony for other player to leave you alone (and then to tryhard by wardecing again and killing you without said system).
As far as racial bonuses go, you have the blockade breakers, which will provide little help, by enabling you to trade at reduced efficiency even past blockades, this can come in handy in crowded galaxy in which you were forced to have indirect trade routes through other empire's planets. This bonus is far from defining your gameplay and almost irrelevant in most playthroughs, but faction wise makes sense, so you can sell off middle planets and not break your trade route setup.

They start off as a republic (best gov, if you ask me) on an Atoll planet with gnashast pop pacifist/military government (enabling you to go for lower fleet costs, if dire need arises).
Pacifism sux if your opponents are assholes, and it's efficiency scales of the number of players in the game, but as a republican, you can score stronger bonuses than other peaceful races currenly picked with ridiculous frequency (like unfallen).
Starting hero is a lumeris (duh)/seeker, Lumeris talents are not really that worthwhile with the later top tiers not being bad for planet management, but not providing much value in combat (unlike some OP races that get T2 +80% fleet energy damage (sophons, vodyani...), look out for those heroes on market, since they are currently gamebreaking). You'll have to settle for +40% dmg from seeker line, but even that is subpar, but at least early available and can turn fights in your favour if you get into them (you should not, but will have to).
Yet with the current state of the game at 1.0.52 (space combat xp sux) will have you keep him as governor for 90% of the time, so do not worry much about it.
His starting skill +10 dust per anomaly on system (fairly useless) truly encourages you to use him as a third scout ship for the first couple turns, until his first skills make a difference. (as opposed to someone getting +15 influence flat, like vodyani, not op at all...)
Dust inflation wrecks you partially, if you play with max AI count, they will flood the market and destroy your ability to buyout stuff quick (yup, inflation can be like 2.5 on turn 15), so ups and downs, but players do not have that increased income, so you should be fine.
From now on, "guide" assumes you kinda know what's up, if you don't, read wiki, pray, and ask silly questions in comments to your heart's desire.

First couple turns

Turn 1:

• Attach hero to scout(s) and investigate all anoms (this generates XP, you want xp fast)
• Enable Super Tax Act law (galaxy is not dusty enough, and you need dust to expand)
• (Situational) Create separate fleet from scout ship (deattaches hero as a solo ship), refit his ship for extra probes, and upgrade/add engine if you want to. (this does cost dust though, but that should not be a problem)
• Set queue for home to

• available planet with good stuff like luxury on it
• if, there are many starlanes and the galaxy is huge, upgrade your caravel with preffered weapon, but mainly a T2 engine and put it in queue)
• Cerebral reality, if nothing else really works for you

Turn 1+

• Look around, search for suitable planets, you want luxuries, nice anoms, fertile stuff, again, heavily situational, sometimes there is gotta be something better around, and sometimes beggars can't be choosers.
• If there is no planet type you would desperately want to rush tech for, and you have titanium/hyperium in within couple turns, start the related tech (xenolinguistics preffered) and then go on to market and buyout techs.
  This will provide you with the dust you need to go shopping for planets, of course this only works if you can score a luxury/strategic deposits, if you can't, there is no need to rush the market.
  And buyouts can speed up your game and reward you for scoring some competitive multiplayer objectives (for instance if you get 75 antimatter for having 4 systems, you can sell it for 5K at the market and dominate early game.
• Turn 1 outpost can work, but it better it be worth it.
• Try not to have two outposts up as your food output is not likely to cover it and it will result in losing pop on main planet, you can fix this by rushing the planetary landscaping, but even then you are better off not doing it too early
• Get the +indy improvement from the research to speed your further production up.
• Choose the most probable quest path, Lancelum (5 planets) is usually a safe bet and doable early.

Turn 5 (fast):

• Once the hero is (investingating anomalies does wonders for early xp) level 2 - 3+ and you don't need him around to scout anymore I suggest giving him +40 science and putting him home (that's turn 5 minimum because of the assingment duration), cause your science output sux, cause you are lumeris, and that's the way of the balanced gameplay.
• Gid gud, by now you should
• see stuff
• know which planet types to focus on in research
• spot potential threats and neighbours, minor factions, and bribe them if you want and can afford to
• know what to do with your life and this galaxy, adapt!
• have your first system upgrade resource selected from those available, if you wanna be hardcore you go with supersbuds, but they suck, inflation is going to shit on you end game no matter what you do, jadonyx is nice for production, transvine is great if you intend to expand like crazy..

Turn 20ish :

• Assimilate factions already! Good traits win games, hissho tait op, mavros trait op... "balance"
• Think about the T2 and T3 strategics, will they be relevant to you, do you own deposits?
• Getting rushed? Well kill them, you have early advantage and they are stupid not to know.
• Getting rekt by OP race anyway? Well, try for peace, give up some planets, you can make a comeback, I guess, be friendly, give up your ego and turn into full support role, might even win eco by accident anyway.
• Nothing happening? Good, keep making friends.

Turn 60 (fast):

• Things went well, you expanded, you have like 4 trading companies and more coming up, you make about 15K dust a turn have couple peaceful coplayers boosting each other, possible one nemesis you keep throwing ships at.
• counter enemy stuff, play it smart, don't be a space-retard, and watch out for mixed model fleets to confuse you
• every turn at this high income totally wrecks the inflation and your ability to buyout stuff, be prepared, your money till now is worthless, cause... "balance". But so is everyone else's, oh wait no one else buyouts so hard, haha, screw you.
• You should get enough influence to maintain fair trade law and have the main quest for indy conversion unlocked, if you enable both you should reach about 30K dust per turn, dump dust into whatever you need, upgrade the trading companies with rest, dump extra luxuries as they come, you can only have 999 after all, my precious now also becomes relevant, cause your income is high enough to scale well with the percentage, even more than super tax act.
• Use shift + click on a luxury to sell it all
• With increasing inflation, luxuries will become your main source of dust, cause they scale aswell, check victory page to see how much dust you need, but don't tell anyone it's GG in two turns, it might not even show, remember market sales do not count for your eco victory, you need to generate the dust yourself (if you have 600K dust, but you are supposed to make 300K, dump said dust into trading companies, to reach it faster)
• Alliances increase the target values of  specific victory types, does not always show in the UI, if you need to win and fulfilled your requirements, just drop alliance and win.

Turn 70+ (fast):

• Either won or getting rekt, make more dust, win sooner.

Turn 80+ (fast)

• Economy victory is off, check settings next time, time to make big fleets and win through combat

General advice:

• Since you will search lot of anoms, you should get science party coming up, try and have it, dirty hands act is strong for your early game and helps you compete on wonders
• If you feel like it, go for the competitive wonders, noobs mostly don't care enough for them, cause they are still busy making colony ships and stuff, it depends a lot on the situation, but riftborn can probably do it faster than you, cause... "balance".
• Yet might not have both mats, since the loot from anoms is random, only one to guarantee enough mats are riftborn if they get hyperium tech really early. Since lumeris get extra scout(s) you can score more strategics than they have through exploration.
• If there are pirates (or minor factions), and there should be, be battle ready, but do it smart
• not overly early, but soon enough, get a fleet of 2 brigs + 2 junks, dont forget engines on junks, but max out science on kill mods on them, then camp minor faction systems/hunt pirate fleets to supplement your science income (high minor factions difficulty will get your overwhemled eventually, get bigger fleet by then)
• Try to get strongest mods you can, titanium weapons DO matter, but if you get lucky, non-strategic high tier weapons will give you an advantage aswell, try to fight with the on CP kill dust and science law up, it rocks
• Pacifism has +15% fidsi bonus for you per peace, make friends, save up influence for peace, get more influence from said peace, repeat.
• Faction quest is good for you (+3/4 luxury deposit value on empire, 75% indy to dust conversion), try and pursue it within limits.
• Trading company income is your potential faction intended endgame, pursue the trading, spend extra dust in upgrades to companies, sell un-needed luxuries, turn on market pop ups for price watch, you should always get 2nd trading company up first, that's 1K dust for nothing.
• Remember, having luxuries beats inflation, high level companies reward tons of luxuries even though you lvl them for dust income, get appropriate techs when able and try to increase your system trade value (through said techs), build companies/subsidiaries on relevant luxury resources.
• selling stuff on market does not count toward your economic victory, but enables you to level up your companies to generate more dust.
• Try to maintain pacifism as much as possible to have fair trade bill available for endgame eco needs
• Avoid unnecesary fighting unless you know you can win and profit, in larger games it slows down both of you, usually it's better to be at peace, but explain that to balanced cravers.
• Maximize your dust/turn income, be rich, reinvest, get an advantage from being able to buyout a battleready fleet on demand
• Get tanks ASAP or as soon as needed depending on your manpower levels throughout the game and upgrade them. Noobs usually hang around with infantry, so you counter them, unless they have minor traits for op infantry, then well, you still counter them.

Lumeris main questline

Quests for lumeris consist on mostly reasonable requirements which relate to planet control and senate manipulation, active laws, etc... the important point of choice is whether to go for eco or indy branch, I suggest you evaluate your capabilities of completing either, indy law reward is nice to have, but either eco or indy senate is tough to maintain mostly (and not really intended to be maintained by design)

• Lancelum (5 planets) is usually a safe bet, don't really choose anything else
• Branch eco vs indy (save up dust for elections, do lobbying for chosen party, gg) but check ahead if you can complete the followups:
• Eco continues with task to have 3 minor/major faction systems under control - could be trouble, or even impossible
• Indy continues with task to have 3 HUGE planets (usually desert/ash/lava), again, could be trouble
• These two eventually reward you with bonus luxury deposit value of +3, up to you whether it is worth it, it should be
• Final part is choice from unique upgrades in which you can only reasonably choose the 75% indy to dust conversion (which you can research on your own later) other's are mostly shit, uselss and again, shit.

It is also worth mentioning again that lumeris don't get any relevant racial bonus to trading so with minor adjustments this should work for any peaceful eco strategy, other races might even do it better.