If you are Imperials, there are several things your starting characters may be good for. If there is one nearby rebel base, assign a quick espionage mission to Coruscant and abort to check for incoming rebel ships. If you don't detect any, assign an Admiral first off to your ISD at Coruscant, if the rebel planet is somewhere close within Swessanna sector like the Ghorman system or Corsin, then move your fleet there. If you start with more than one ship at coruscant, its usually a good idea to leave one. A dreadnought will be effective defense at coruscant, and you can send your ISD to check out Ghorman. Or if you have something faster like a carrack or vsd class ship, you may choose to assign your free command figures and bounty hunter characters to these ships and send them, as they will travel quicker and usually a carrack or vsd will be enough to fight off any small rebel fleet that would be started off in the Swessanna sector. Once in orbit of the Rebel planet, say Ghorman, first sab off any troop regiments that may be placed there. If Ghorman is the only rebel planet in Swessanna, just sab the system defenses, assign a General and take the planet by force, using your troops to destroy enemy troop regiments provides a slight bit more support and makes the planet easier to subdue. Or you may secondly choose to sab any training facilities, unless the population of Ghorman is on the verge of changing from Rebel to neutral control. Once again utilize the high leadership rating of imperial officers, and assign all command figures with high leadership together as agents on an incite uprising mission, and additionally you may to choose to put on Imperial Commandos as additional agents and decoys for the mission. Usually two incite uprising missions will have a faster effect, but both most be at least 150 combined leadership to get good results. With your good bounty hunter characters, send sabotage missions, and espionage missions to get info on rebel activity. Imperial Espionage droids are always of use. If you are successful, you will turn the rebel planet within about 15 to 20 days, if you are using 4 or more good command characters as agents on the incite uprising mission, additional Imperial Commandos will speed up the process. Usually I am not too worried about leaving my ship in orbit for too long in the early days of the game, the rebels will most likely not have any good characters on these planets to sab it, but as a rule of thumb, I rarely, if ever leave a ship of my own in orbit of an enemy system for more than two days. So choose your personnel and send out your missions and move your ship out of the way is usually your safest bet.
Chapter 3: Furthering Success
By this time you should have an idea of what you want to do, and where you want to send your characters. Choose wisely, as for small mistakes can mean winning in losing in this game. If you are rebels, you should start by trying to setup a base of operations, preferably not near an Imperial planet. Start forming up a fighter defense for you core systems and move all available fighters to your base. When choosing your base, try to find one with either construction yards, or shipyards, two shields, or a planetary battery, and some troop regiments. If the base is not too distant, move your troop regiments from Yavin to the base, troops on Yavin are about useless otherwise. The reason I say try not to locate near an Imperial planet is that the Imperial player with have best success in blockading and cutting off your incoming fighter and troop support. Frequent quick visits by Imperial Patrol fleets can detour fighters and troops back to their original location, taking away valuable time which is spent in hyperspace and you do not get the benefit of having this units. It is imperative that you move available characters such as the six you start with at Yavin to this base if its near or in the Sluis or Farfin sector. You can use your new Rebel fortification to send out recon, espionage, and sabotage missions which will have better effect if they are located within a short range from their target. Diplomacy missions can be launched to neutral planets which are close to supporting the rebels. Establishing a base of operations can give Imperials a hassle in that sector, especially if they do not have a base of their own nearby.
Imperials will further their success with diplomatic missions and recruitment of new characters to assist. After subduing any unruly Imperial planets you had to start with in the sector, start using your diplomats to immediately sway neutral planets. If you send out diplomacy missions to the neutral planets most in favor of the Empire, you will have far quicker success. Sometimes even swaying over up to five or more planets in the process of one mission. The planets that remain neutral will have a slight increase in support, some will be further in support of the Empire than others, and as before send Diplomacy missions to these first. Hopefully you will turn the system with another 20 days or so, if you don't keep trying. Sometimes Dips have some really bad ratings to start, but they will catch-up. Also it is possible that rebel and imperial dips will be fighting to get support in the same system or sector, so continuous espionage is always an asset. If you find the enemy diplomaticizing nearby, send out a mission or team to catch them. More Prisoners, and if you don't catch them, you still have thwarted their diplomacy mission and have spoiled their chances of success in the sector. Catching the enemy's diplomats will slow him considerably if not ruining him.
Furthering success also includes building proper facilities and more military units. Troops are not of importance early in the game, so use your limited number of training facilities to keep pumping out the needed spec forces. Depending on whether you are in the rim or the core sectors, Construction Yards should be built accordingly. Usually in the core I concentrate on having 3-5 yards on a base. If I'm in the core, I usually build about a 3 to a new planet, then using those 3 build more until I have anywhere from 8-12 yards, its usually a good idea to provide some moderate troop and a planetary battery for defense. The character you are using for facility research on this planet can always be aborted to use as a general if the planet is being blockaded by the enemy, or if he's Lando and the fleet isn't to big or troops and characters on enemy fleet or not to big a threat, you can try sabbing a ship or two. I only recommend that if you have a decoy to use though. When It comes to shipyards, I like to have a core system with at least 4-5 shipyards, make sure to have some espionage droids or bothans keeping watch at this facility and have moderate troops and a planetary gun. If you have enough construction yards, I like to have about 15 total within the core and a planet with 8 or more per rim sector, but I adjust and scrap most of these later on, and after the introduction of advanced construction yards and you have less planets and spots to fill. Another important thing is to always keep a balance between mines and refineries. Having one of each equals fifty maintenance points. Having an excess refineries does nothing for you, having an excess of mines will build unrefined material stockpile, but will not provide refined materials or the needed maintenance points. It is important to have as much maintenance and refined materials as possible. When you run out of refined materials, you building rate slows considerably. There is an answer to this dilemma, scrap unneeded facilities, defenses, and mines or refineries. You can always check your balance of mines and refineries by pressing alt + O on the keyboard to get the Galaxy Overview screen. This screen tells you exactly the number of facilities you have in your empire in the game. If you have 13 more refineries than mines, you may want to strip 10 of those to get refined material value, it is a good idea to leave an extra few, this will mean less rebuilding in the future, you can just build three more mines and have an extra 150 maintenance.