No offense, but I think that is terrible advice even for SP.

The first thing to do is always building a capital ship (the first one is free/costs the resources to build a capital shipyard).
It has the survivability of 10 frigates and the firepower of 4.

Defense buildings that early are a waste too.
Your empire is still small, and your fleet should never be far away.
If there is a threat that can kill your colony before your fleet arrives weak static defenses wont save it.
And the wasted resources! One Hangar costs about twice as much as a light frigate.
That early in the game the investment is simply too steep.
A repair dock is the best defense that early, cause it can repair your fleet while it defends the planet.

I would also strongly advice against researching mining techs that early.
You get a 10% increase of your VERY SMALL resource income for a huge amount of research costs. So instead of 1.5 metal you get 1.65, at the cost of what? 1000 credits, 200 metal and crystal or something?
You would be better adviced spending it on expansion/defense.

Basically for the TEC you want to grab a cap ship ASAP (the exp lost from militia is too valuable) and go straight to the Trade port and spam one per planet, then head to refinery if your early battles go well. But rember, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. After trade port it might be better to get some military technology or spend time fortifying your capital and other major planets. It might even be worth rushing your opponent a bit.

Maybe we could make this the Good Idea/ Bad Idea thread.

I just got the game yesterday. After a little random sampling, I decided to learn the game playing as TEC, because the descriptions of equipment seemed more relevant, and I decided to learn by playing Point Blank, since it seemed very simple and very combat-oriented.

The first two games were long, tedious struggles that had the enemy whittling me down as I kept expanding, buying stuff which would then get destroyed again, and falling back. At first I didn't even know how to build a capital ship. Then when I saw how tough they were, I started building ALL cap ships, trying to find the right combo to let me spread my rule with impunity. I would always spend a lot of time and resources building up more cap ships and colonizing asteriods, only to lose it all to the next wave of pirates or an enemy action my cap ships couldn't reach in time.

Then this morning, I started a new game. With my first, freebie cap ship (I made it the one with the Raze Planet ability, can't remember what it's called,) I sent it across to the enemy homeworld, did a little dammage then retreated. Cranked out about ten LRM frigates while basking in the healing glow of my repair platforms, bought a couple of levels, and went back for more.

Eventually, I seized their homeworld. Learning from something someone had said in this forum, I made it my mission to chase down the enemy, matching the jump-for-jump. It turns out I spent a lot more time developing my captured planets than I needed to. I learned that in a ring-shaped universe, it is trivially easy to wipe out the enemy once you have the upper hand in terms of fleet size. In fact, the only way to lose is to spend way too much time consolidating your forces and allowing the enemy to do the same, when the AI knows more tricks than you.

So basically, here's what I've learned so far about playing as TEC:

GOOD IDEAS:
-Building your one free Capital Ship right away, as soon as you develop your planet.
-Backing it up with some figates.
-Building a repair platform or two near your homeworld, or at any planet you hope to use as a staging area. It makes a great place for a dammaged Cap Ship to fall back to, and the AI doesn't seem to understand the tactical advantage you have there.

BAD IDEAS:
-Building tons of planetary defense early.
-Trying to go all-Caps.
-Sinking tons of money into tech wne you could just as easily go wipe them out now with brute force.
-Building on asteroids. There's just no future to it. Whatever you build will get destroyed by pirates in the next five minutes anyway. I haven't crunched the numbers and I'm not likely to, but it seems to me if you can't protect it, you shouldn't build it.

Spread yourself too thin in a game like Point Blank and you'll just make yourself crazy trying to put out all the fires. Yet, at the same time, you can't let the enemy have those planets. The most effective thing I've found so far is to protect the most valueable planets and don't build anywhere else. Drive your main armada around wiping out the enemy. If the planet's a keeper, colonize it but build defenses. And keep in mind that the defenses are really just there to buy you some time to recall your fleet. They won't actually defeat the threat for you.

That's what I think I know about playing as TEC. What areas can I still improve upon?

I must admit that from the start I was playing Vasari and I stunk. Then I moved to TEC and found it far easier. And lately I've been trying Advent and kicking butt.

For TEC getting trade stations early helped, it was all just managing production after that. I have no useful advice on Vasari though, they seem incredibly weak until you can tech up to phase gates and then build them all over the place.

WarpZone, do you really just constantly move your fleets from well to well? Aren't they always at zero antimatter after all that? I guess if you aren't teching then it doesn't matter.

Well i love TEC, the industrial juggernaut style fits me so well, I usually stick to 1v1/2v2/2v2v2 and in these map types you sometimes start relatively close to your enemy. The first thing i do is Cap ship factory>Crystal extractor>Colony frigate>2X scout frigates>the rest of your extractors in your system. The ships should be building as your finish up your extractors.

Marza dreadnought FTW, the dmg this ship can put out is simply fantastic early on. with the Marza and some frigates you should win most even engagements, If your really tricky and have good ship micro take the Sova carrier and go for Embargo, use your scout frigates to see where his cap ship is and go sit in his home planets gravity well, there seems to be an issue with embargo not wearing off though, because lvl 1 steals 40% of the planets income, however with 2 casts you can get it to 80%(but the duration should have expired... it just doesn't) This will allow you to throw down alot more cobalts early on and if things get to hairy in his System you can always run away. I'm usually teching Civic for colonization bonuses, and with embargo on someones home planet long enough i can pay for another cap ship to collect on Militia experience

So what are the different Cap ships- What do they do?

The capital ships for all factions follow the same format

The far left capital ship is your direct-combat battleship. Big guns, little support, most of its attacks are either directed at MOAR DAKKA or "tanking" (like the Vasari battleship, which has an ability to make all enemies in a radius attack it...VERY useful for pirates around terran/desert worlds who like to pick off your frigates in early-game)

The second-left capital ship is your carrier. A carrier with big guns, however, and more than capable of stomping down a pirate raid by itself.

The middle capital ship is your colonization/support cruiser. These usually have abilities that either boost the attack power/accuracy/whatever of your surrounding ships, and can also colonize planets, making them a great pick as your first capital ship.

The second to the right capital ship is your "Planet Killer" capital ship. It always has at least one ability designed to annihilate planets faster.

The far-right capital ship is your support cruiser. It has a lot of unique abilities for boosting your fleets attack power, etc.

So if there are few worlds and you want to clear out your opponents expansion, going for the Tank Capitol ship is the way to go, or the planet killing one. If there are several planets around the place, regardless of being Vasari or Advent (both are rather specialized in their need for resources) you're going to go for the colony ship, and if you really are going for something interesting, go for the cruiser. The way I see it the epic-assist one is more for later game/middle game. Am I right? Also, does anyone know who has the best of the category? Or if their all balanced so there is no "best" Capitol Cruiser/tank/assister/colonizer/planet killer, just better in different areas?

One last thing, as far as frigates go, can Vasari upgrade them early? TEC get an "upgrade", so I'm just wondering.

And before I forget. Advent T.2 Culture, TEC T.2 Trading Centers, Vasari T.2... Pirate defense? What do they get? Or is it that their T.1 is better, or their T.3 is better, or what :-/

When I play TEC (which I usually do) I always get an Akkan battlecruiser first thing and give it the colonise ability. That way I dont have to waste time or money making colony ships in the early game. Then I'll keep adding LRMs and basic frigates to that fleet until I've got several worlds (I tend to expand very rapidly).

After that any world that I deem to be 'Front line' IE: not just linked to my worlds, gets a fleet of ships within one jump of it at all times. Any world that isn't front line gets a trade center. From there I'll take 'sections' of the map, moving rapidly from one of my front line worlds annihilating everything until I reach another front line world. That makes it easier to defend my newly acquired worlds as I develop them. Rinse and repeat, make sure that your front line worlds ar always one jump away from a fleet at most, or better if you can afford it.

I'm not sure if it's the same for the other two races, but the BIG advantage to the Advent colonize cap ship is the cost reduction in planetary improvements. THIS IS HUGE.

Why spend 700+ credits on building, and even more on researching, trade stations early, for a measely +1c/s when you can just upgrade your planets for nothing, giving you... alot more than +1c/s anyway. You have to upgrade your planets anyway, since the running cost starts negative. At early in a game, you defenitely want this as cheap as possible. 40% reduction is easy to get. 60% attainable still early in the game.

Unless you are rushing the enemy I see no reason as to why you wouldn't start with a colonize cap ship (if the other two races get the bonus too).

NOTE:
Although it appears to be buggy. The first minute after a planet cap, the improvements appeared to be just as high as normal. When I checked back a minute later it was at it's proper LOW cost. Like 250 cash 20 metal 50 crystal or something for a pop upgrade, instead of 550+ etc.
Not sure if the colonize cap ship ability bonuses stacks with advent explore planet ability, but if it does you could have planets up and running in notime for a minimal investment and also have them fully explored.

Well, a lot of ideas floating around here.

I tend to play as the Vasari. My basic strategy depends on the planet configuration, but when I want to have more of a fun beginning, I create a cap ship asap along with a couple support ships for it and then I harass the crap out of the enemy.

I find it engaging and if all works out, in the long run I have a high level cap ship and the AI's economy is flagging behind mine. It's a bit risky, though and pirates can make things even more difficult. Then again, that's what I like about this game . . . so many options.

The vasari gravity bomb would be awesome if it was more than twelve seconds. The nanites ability is incredible though; -5 armor and damage over time.