Effective early military suggestions.

[spoongoon (OP)]

In my current conventional game I made the mistake of expanding too fast and using up my early resources.  What do you usually use for early navy, missiles, beams or something else.  The goal would be to have decent fighting cabability with minimal resource usage and research.

[Icecoon]

If you are low on gallicite and tritanium, you should use beam armed ships until you find a good resource for both minerals.
I always use both beams and missiles.

[spoongoon (OP)]

Out of Duranium It´s probably because the conventional start takes so long to get going and by that time you are low on everything.
I Dont even have that many ships, 8 12kton missile cruisers, 6 laser frigates and couple of point defence.  I need a stopgap so i can focus on those automines.  In hind sight i should have build a lot more mines and construction from the beginning.
I have my fingers crossed for that one little planet that solves all my problems, unfortunately i ran into some nasty aliens with speeds exceeding 10000 km/s while I´m only just researching Ion engines.  Still it will be fun to try and get myself out of this mess.

[Icecoon]

That's the worst case. Duranium is needed for everything. You should search for alternative resources.
BTW I don't even usually start to explore other star systems until I have Ion tech researched.