I was playing Vasari Loyalist against vicious AIs and had planet eating tech in just under 14 minutes.
After sending egg to the center of galaxy to yet uncontested worlds I was able to build 14 caps + titan in just under 45 minutes mark with manually purchasing caps lvls to lvl 4. After that I am unstoppable no fleet that AI can field can contest my fleet.
Never tried this strategy on multi player but having 14 lvl4 caps + titan in 45 minutes ...... Devs might want to look into that as well.
PS if I had 2 Capital ship factories I might shave 10 minutes out of final time when I had max cap ships and titan.