Heres the part where you are going to have to think about what you want your account to do for the first little while of its existance.

Is it a farm for resources? Is it a ship building account? A staging Planet for battles? A stationary planet for holding down destinations next to Resource Bonus Planets? There are infinite possibilites and all have a different path of where to continue on. Here we will talk about the account as if it is a "Main Account". Now you have a small, but functioning base. Given a few days of not spending resources you have an option to select, build Ships to Farm for Blueprints, or save Gold and watch the Auction House for Blueprints to buy. Both ways can end up being faster than the other, and both ways can end up being more expensive than the other. It really comes down to how much time do you want to spend "In App". If you are going to be on, and around, you will probably want to spend the resources on ship building. If you dont have alot of time to babysit on an account, you will want to go to the saving gold and checking AH route. As Soon as the bottom row of the construction sciences are complete (High Yield Mining, High Yield Chemistry, High Yield Investing, and Expand Capacity) either start on the top row of Defense Sciences, or upgrade out the construction tab before moving onwards. The bonus that the sciences give you for construction are so minimal in this section of the game, especially with no corps, that it is ok to pass it up if you head down the Ship Building Route of Early Go2. Science effect all ships when finished upgrading, unless a battle is going on. If a battle with your ships is going on, the science effects wont take effect until the battle is over. Ship Defense Sciences are one of the most critical ways to improve your ships. Finish out the top row before moving onto any other science. The Shield sciences are important at the begging because as you farm for blueprints, you will be facing Pirate ships and will lean heavilly on damage negation from shields to farm untouched. You want to farm instances unharmed, because that way you can farm over and over and only lose He3 (or Gain He3 Depending on how your designs are made).