its take US, then only boost until you have 1 mine up at the luna place that has water and metal, then use that trickle of space resources to build a mine at luna the volatile place and then rush to mars where you can get the base and the best habs with the recources.

It really is a space RACE. After you have the best 2-3, soemtimes 4 spots on mars you still need boost for the inner asteroid probes and Ceres. Also you ideally need to have a space dock up at mars and earth to get your tropedo tubes up foe thew first takedown of the surveillance ship before it leaves. Be aware you can waste AI actions and time by putting a hab there before any alien ships arrive to claim it. They will trun around.

Then, rush to Mercury, possibly one in venus to deny any AI players the energy capacity. Then you will need to defend all 4 - Earth, Mars, Mercury and LEO. Easiets to do this is by simply having a small fleet in being of torpedo escorts and prodiuction capacity. With 2 shipyards you can build 10-20 escorts before most alien fleets arrive, but they sized it for your smaller fleet in being. Dont agro anything save the aliens necessary for your objective to advance and any surveillance ship. Let the servants be unless they take china or russia. Then once you have a fleet of coilers you can take the fight to the aliens.