Fighter bays are one of most imbalanced techs in game. They are much more effective than nukes. You skip them only if you intentionally want to make your life harder, or in case you're sure what you wouldnt do any fight before time of they going obsolete (say 120 turn versus human or T200 versus AI). As i sayd - this guide have some flaws, but it generally good ofc. You have to understand, what you often can already wipe all AI's (or human) with them by the time you can research pollution processor. And you totally miss the point what rhull is useful in MP game, but nearly useless VS AI. You need rhull only when your ships GOT hit. As early-mid game is about missiles\fighters + runners - there is no rhulls. Missile boats retreat after 2 shots as they run out of ammo anyway, so they evade upcoming missiles, and runners, eh, outrun them. So rhulls are of usage only when AI start to hit you with beams, and it SO late turns, so they are dead already, even if you go with zortium\merculites. Humans are able to use beams, so yes, in a long run you will need that rhull, the longer game goes - the more its needed.
Of course you can attack with nukes. Moreother, with right race you can win huge impossible without spending anything on research during the whole game, and use only basic nukes. But it much less effective way. And the main difference between fighters and missiles - is what fighters not only absurdly cheap both in RP's and production in comparison, but they are also do more damage than nukes, and do autoupgrade with fusion beams later (unlike nukes, where your already built missile ships wouldnt get mirv modification after you got polproc tech). Problem here is - after you got fighters and deuterium - you're already have all the needed tech to win AI, so you can just build a ships without any real focusing on research (of course you still want fusion pair later). So if you chose to wait to zort and build some ships with merculite instead - its roughly the same as if you will chose to wait till doomstars with plasma torpedoes - uneffective and not worthy the time - but surely will do work VS AI.
Of course, how else? You dont need labs so much, as you have artis, so you can go straight to them. With demolith you did something wrong then, as they need factories asap to build CBases. And lab is researched only after they all are built.
Yes, so you prefer not to use ones above the 6 prod, but its also uneffective to spend pop on RP while you're at %. You need all the prod you can get to be able to launch that ~100 turn battleship + transports attack from your one planet, and not just some research for few turns earlier, what you cannot use anyway. But its only about sqandered resources time of course, if you have aplenty of - you're trying to hit equally 100% in some turns without wasting prod on pollution, and also plan to change a research field if you went on too high percentage. In general - most effective way of research is go to % as fast as you can, then leave only 1-0 researcher. But it take too much time, obviously, so its also ineffective if you skip a turns without needed tech. So its about a balance here, what make the game as it: with huge resources you oppositely - do ineffective in terms of spending, but effective in terms of time thing - do 2x of RP cost and get all in one turn ideally (wasting half RP in process, but winning a time).
