This game is a mixture of manually triggered events and "time gated" events -

1: Meeting the 9 normal League memebers is necessary to trigger the Arilou into giving you the location of Orz.

Killing ALL Daktaklak in your own solar systems is the trigger for learning their language. It also prompts a 90 day timegate for the Chmrr splitting event.

I use the flagship for all Daktaklak fights because it triggers their "close range" AI and the secondary fire point defense kills them very quickly.

Fuel management - I play on fast forward partly because of a timegate later, but mostly to make the colony rate of fuel generation better - However, the first few systems you visit I 100% recommend making adjustments (turning off drop pods and starbases)

If you are only in a colony to refuel - you can bypass talking by splitting a single ship first and then joining your main group to it - however this is finicky and I found mashing faster than mouse prececision.

2: The Trigger for the Eltanin system to collapse is to meet all Crux races - you do not need to meet non-crux races (Vyro Ingo / Equivan / Owa)

For This fight I recommend Avatars against everything EXCEPT the daktaklak and the Clair contair - The avatars will trigger their "long range/retreat AI" I find that Utwig work for the daktaklak - the claircontrair - I use Orz > Ur-quan, because they reduce the risk of them to stall out by repeatedly teleporting. Using Avatars for these two specific ships can eat Minutes - I think it's worth intentionally crashing your avatar on a planet to death and switching until all 4 (2 of each) of the "coward" ships are dealt with and then cleaning up all the "brave" ships with the avatar.

3: The Eltanin system collapse activates the Tyche system 100 day timegate, Exquivan sidequest 90+20 timegate (90 arilou telling you abou, 110 = syreen), and the Lk appearance timegate

While waiting for it, you will be able to get the spathi to defect in the meantime - this is good, because it lets you do the Doog and the Harika - Get the information from them - The K'tang will not have the dialog option for the Xchagger without it - and Zosma won't be added on the map until you talk to them.

4: The Arilou message is useless - it adds a new dialog branch to the Exquivan, but it isn't the one you need - continue to wait for the Syreen - when you get it, you want to talk to the Pfunk first - Then proceed as normal (except not needing to visit the Pfunk) - once you have the artifact you don't need to worry, until the end of the game.

5: You should have got the LK's portal to appear in the middle or slightly after doing the Exquivan. Visit them immediately, and get the sun device and info on clair contrair

6: Ally the clair contrair - then talk to them - this adds a new "got any hot tips" dialog branch to the spathi, which in turn adds the Owa "I need to rescue the mhrrm" dialog branch - if you visit Owa immediately after the Harika instead of waiting ,you will ONLY get the anti-matter scoop, when you need both it AND the anti-matter explorer

I do the rainbow worlds left to Right - I keep a notepad open with their locations in modified X : Y postions - I use fractions like so 2/5 : 4/5 - meaning Two Fifth map distance Left, 4 fifths down. Doing them left to right has the bonus advantage of letting the tech team give you the "eternal one name" dialog branch before the 7th rainbow world which is coincendatlly one of the places daktaklak voluntarily talk to you.

-If you did Alula > stall till tech team > Penates > ally K'tang through daktaklak > then you could avoid most of the fights since most of the rainbow worlds are guarded by them - unsure about the meirts of that as a time save.

I use the Ur-quan here - You take damage (since some of the ifghters physically collide with the K'tang), but it isn't enough that you'll run out if you had 2 Ur-quan to start with.

If the Ploxis talks to you , be aggressive 3 times in a row to get out of the conversation as fast as possible - I think he is an alternative source for certain dialog branches (Doog / Harika) but since we've already used the Spathi, he offers nothing.

7: Get the K'tang alliance, and the Ploxis ships and cyro.

If you kept the daktaklak in Xchagger space alive - you can use him as well - otherwise my designated locations for the two daktaklak are Penates (the 7th rainbow world) and Lachesis, which is an unimportant location right next to it

8: I go to the precursor before Ploxis but it may be interchangable, both are eventually needed (precursor is for assembly of the sentience collector).

Make sure to ask about the Mycon, then pick the bottom questsions to get him to shut up.

Ploxis fight - I don't use Chmrr, because you only have a few of them, and you want their health high for the Heralds - They will win one on win, but will be shredded for 3/4 health - Ur-quan seems fastest if you are accurate enough (fusion only, no fighters).

Orz - Chmrr will trigger them into "long range retreat AI" so I don't recommend them - Utwig kill them in 4 shots and make them use close range AI - the flagship also works well and I feel like it's safe to kill 5 in a row on full heatlh, but I wouldn't gamble the entire hour and a half on fighting the full group with it .- Doog do kill them (as we all know) but I honestly feel like while it's safe, it isn't as fast)

Heralds - Chmrr > K'tang > Ur-quan - yes a single Doog could maul them, BUT it wouldn't be as fast.

9: For the 13 homeworlds -

The LK can only be used if you asked them about the Defector BEFORE obtaining it (eg talking to the precursor)

Make sure you visit the Pfunk BEFORE the exquivan because you must clear the "pfunk are saved" dialog that we never finished from the exquivan sideqest before they'll give you sentience

You should always have Earthling/Syreen/Chmrr/Xchagg/Harika/Clair/Owa/Exquiv/Pfunk/Ur-Quan/Mycon/Doog - so it's a matter of picking either the LK or the Spathi as your 13th - Utwig/Vux are absurdly slow