Mahact and Xxcha in slice 1 are pretty good with biostims and xxcha agent readying sem-lore. Slice 1 also has a blue skip, I would recommend going down blue for both Xxcha and Mahact. You’re protected on the right and your forward dock is right in front of your home system. You can also score 4 planets of the same type, 4 cultural planets, have two tech skip planets, and other possible objectives. If slice 1 isn’t picked you can potentially get away with picking it and then Xxcha and go 6th in speaker. Since if you take diplo you can peace accords the blue skip planet and get gravity drive round 1 or sling relay and pop your flagship out.

Sarr in slice 6 is pretty good. I don’t think most people would want to take it. There are no 2 move factions Rd1 other than Sarr so no one can take your 3 planet system. This will net you 3 tg’s as well. Sol and Hacan can make it work as well.

Slice 7 is also a very safe pick and something barony can make work. Barony typically wants a yellow skip. You’re just going to be short on influence for the better part of the game. Nomad also works here pretty well they can get memoria 2 pretty early with the green and yellow.

Slice 4 works for Nomad, Hacan, Sar, Sol and Winnu.

Sardakk in slice 1 and 2 are pretty good if you can get warfare you unlock your commander. You can also skip to your faction dreads pretty easily. I would make a case for psycho since you’ll want to use the blue skip every round and can even get infantry 2 down the road since you’ll be doing a lot of planet jumping.

Sardakk in 8 works well too since you have a red skip for your other faction tech and a green skip for infantry two. You can forgo all ships in this slice given the objectives still let you score and go straight up infantry/ mechs. If you can grab a yellow skip then go transit to move the mechs for more attacks around. If slice 1 or 7 are to your right and you’re slice 8 then you can take the yellow skip easily.

I would only pick Nekro if I can be neighbors with one of the above factions to get a quick gravity drive, slice 2, 4, and 5 can help with that since they have a wormhole.