Common Newbie Mistakes.

Always check your fleet attitude when attack. If you`re going to spam when countering someone, do it right and save yourself the embarrassment. Hit with careful with big ship spam.

In most cases, I`d recommend stacking with 10 even stacks unless you are using careful.

Keep in mind that ship abilities can greatly affect battle outcome if used properly. Those thors won`t do you much good outside of outranging everything. If you were planning on using its no retal ability, keep in mind it also can`t defend. Chlorite ftw ^_^;

If you`re attacking a guardian that is sitting at 16k, don`t add free wins to his record. Nail that sucker with aggressive P. class.

This one is kinda like the previous one. If a terran is sitting at 47k pr with 1 planet, you have two options..
1. Avoid him.
2. Annihilate his 1 herc with aggressive queens.

Hmm... How should I say this... USE ANFIT`S MODS! There, I said it. Now go here and use them: http://mmanir.sytes.net/gc/

If someone is annoying you and you run out of borders, for the love of god, don`t come back out. That`s just what people want you to do. Giving in to the impulse will get you great marks in How To Lose Your Clusters 101, but you will fail when it comes to Retaining Your Planets 220. Gosh darn those trade offs :/

(to fed leaders) Fed war is an amazing thing. Use it to kill people, not to make a statement. Declaring war on an inactive fed with a single player who happened to tick you off isn`t quite the best judgment call.

Breaking chat rules won`t help you in any way. If a chat mod tells you not to do something, don`t do it.

Hitting on "female" players... I don`t have much to say here except don`t be THAT guy. It makes you look pathetic. (It`s even worse when the player turns out to be a guy, then I get to laugh at you.)

No there`s no best ship, learn to stack. I`m not even going there, just read my game guide.

What does a UW do? It pwns you, go fight it.

That`s all I got off the top of my

Using greenyedi and forgetting about updates/differences in the algorithm so you`ll lose anyway

Or one I`ve seen since I started playing collective at low pr on RT - building 30 turns of nirv/herc to counter, then failing from 3x or 4x pr

Not checking a targets federation before building the stack, only to find he is in your fed when the attack is launched.

-- Using, say greenyedi to work out a nice stack -- but then realising half-way through building that you don`t have the turns to complete it (again slower server)

-- Forgetting to demolish industry and mining infra, before infecting (as viral/collective)

What Uber said:
"Forgetting to plunder down to attackable colony count is a common one, very easy to do. "

This is something that hurts a lot on the slow servers.
I`ve (many times -- still) used up all bar 5 turns to get ready for a big-strike -- and then realise I`m at 13 or 14 colonies (e.g. as viral) -- which on, say the fast server, means 25 or 50 minutes!

Lucky GC isn`t so busy ...

On a related issue -- usually again with respect to slower servers, using up all your turns so you can attack, but then left with no turns to restack for defense.

Unfortunately, this isn`t so much a newbie mistake, so much as sometimes being forced upon you!

Oh idk... going comm instead of agri for terran kinda sux lol.

Forgetting to plunder down to attackable colony count is a common one, very easy to do.

Not opening multiple windows when you leave dp/not figuring out what fleet your going to use before hand. Sometimes I`m too impatient to bother, but you are pretty much a sitting duck until you figure out what you want to do.

Being an idjit and forgetting to logon and losing planets :p

rather than mistakes, i`ll give shortcut tips for income...

getting good +ve income should be the main priority first... never think to jump into battle immediately when you`re not ready...

and of course, make sure you`re under NP all the way until you`re ready to fight... use NP to produce sufficient infra levels so you can have a good income to keep the upkeep of your ships...

use market to get extra money incase you wish to fight fast... buy low, sell high... or try to sell ore or minerals or food... these 3 items can get you better money fast...

anyway, with better infras, even smaller planets are sufficient enough until you`re ready to explore for bigger planets...

i can give my own way step-by-step when i started as terran 4 years ago but mostly IF you choosed to be a long-term-self-sufficient terran as your empire... ONLY IF you`re willing to throw the book and go on your own way, PM me for details... :)

apart frm that, i`ll let the rest continue... good luck and welcome to SFGC... ;)

I didn`t make too many mistakes non-battle related as a new player. However, common mistakes I`ve seen others make are

Not paying attention to fleet upkeep

Not getting 3 border colonies before coming out of dp

HOLDING ON TO planets under 850 land to make clusters out of.(Mainly RT server)

when your a viral, you should fill your colony list up with all X. class planets! :P