Kill the other players

Nothing really special -expand, research and exterminate. I never go for dark armada - my games do not last that long , I research 4 levels of phasic missiles and go either with assailants and/or carriers. I use Skirrantra carriers as my cap ships almost exclusively .Hangar defences and repair bays only

I've really only played lets see... 1 1v1 online, 1 4v4 online, and 3 games against easy computers, so my opinions might not be worth much...

What I do though is try to get the first 4 mineral/crystal extraction upgrades as soon as possible. After that I'm raking in enough mineras and crystals to just sell the extra for credits when-ever I need them. I really like the Jarrasul Evacuator's Grav Bomb ability. The computer kept flying into my grav-well's and flying away, but a Grav bomb at just the right moment can leave nothing but his cap-ship stranded and unable to turn around fast enough to fire back. In the 4v4 game I played, one guy quit after I did that to him. All the little ships phase jumped away real quick, leaivng his capital ship alone and being wiped out, then I grav bombed again when he started to phase out...

I wanted to like the Marauder capital ship, but its abilities just don't seem... as usefull. The Desolators seige platform might be usefull since I am always slow to get Destructors(siege ships). Would allow me to fly in, set up a platform to hurt the planet, and fly away again... but I haven't really tried that yet.

Repair bays are really usefull. Two repair bays in the 1v1 I played allowed me to hold off against an entire pirate raid with 6 or so Skrimishers/Assailints(with more being produced during the battle, which might have helped some). In the 4v4 I covered the planet the two of the enemies had to go through to get to me/another teammate with repair bays and it became a fortress. In compairson one of the enemies built the maximum number of Guass turrents that he could and my ally just flew around them.

I think I'll go play another game now and see what happens.

1) Because Advent rock!
2) light combat frigate for most teams
4) Caps, frig's, trade port, culture, shields, then weapon damage is the path i take, as vasari

I play nearly only as vasari online in various 2v2/2v2v2/2v2v2v2 games. Build order would be: Capital ship factory, crystal extractor, buy 100 crystal on black market, upgrade planet to max population, get 2 scouts, get 2 metal extractors, wait a few seconds and get a colony ship, then start making 4-5 normal frigs. Use battleship to clear out the first asteroid belt and colonize it immediatly.

As for teching, I never go with civilian techs unless it's absolutely required to get ice/volcanic planets. Vasari don't need an economic advantage to win. Get 1 mil tech building asap so your able to get assailants and don't upgrade phase missiles as it's pretty useless until way later in the game. Upgrade the hull techs while getting 4 mil tech buildings to get charged missile upgrades, then aim for a nicely balanced fleet BS, 4-6 sentinels, and 15-20 assailents. which is what you'll use till getting access to Enforcers, which are surprisingly easy to tech up to. Once you do get the reintigration tech and you'll be very hard to beat

Missile frigate spam is easily countered by Volatile Nanites and only if your opponent goes cruiser heavy too you might be in for a longer fight, still one you're likely to win due to the ability to get the support cruiser, which is able to disable his entire frigate/cruiser fleet for just 100 antimatter for an amazing 30 seconds. Get 3-4 of these, micro them properly, and I would argue any fleet which doesn't depend heavily on its capitals for damage will go down.

For your economy just upgrade all planets under your control to max population asap and that will more then fund your wars.

Depending on the map, you can score alot of extra resources early with the Vasari scout capture ability. I always temporarily stop my scouts in those systems with no planet to colonize but extractors in orbit. Capture extractor, carry on exploring. Sell extra resources on the black market. Can be a nice early boost to the economy for virtually no cost.

How about computer allies? I was thinking of trying to ally myself with a neighbor to reduce the chance of combat and increase the chance of getting my tech in place. And if I am lucky, get my computer ally to do most of the fighting for me.

Has anyone tried this? How did it work out?

Which Vasari civilian tech are worth researching? I have seen some post that said no Vasari tech is worth it. Others say some Vasari tech is worth it.

So, which tech is worth researching.

Because Vasari do not get trade ports until tier 4, their early straight-up credit economy sucks. Because their navigators can capture mineral extractors and because they get access to earlier refineries (tier 3) and early resource-mining improvement techs (which are rolled into one tech), they often find themselves swimming in metal and crystal, however. Just make sure to hit up the black market to sell off excess resources and you'll do fine with your credit count.

Further, the Vasari tech that enables Vasari capital ships to harvest destroyed ships and structures (both yours and your enemies') is quite impressive. It's only tier 2 as I recall and it's worth every penny. Wiping out small neutral factions, pirates, and the like becomes even more profitable. Also try out the bounty-hunting bonus technology and put bounty out on an enemy, then go beat them up (think of it as making an investment in violence with a high interest rate...). Between the bonus money accumulated from being expert bounty-hunters and the capital ships gaining resources from destroyed enemies, you'll find you've got a lot of money.

As far as fleets go, the Vasari get early access to the Assailant and Destructor, which can give you an early edge on taking out nearby enemy planets. They're kind of expensive though, so keep an eye on your resources. The Subverter is perhaps the most useful support cruiser of the game, as it knocks down shield mitigation and reduces the chance of intercepting phase missiles early on, but can also later on temporarily knock out non-capital enemy ships. This is extremely useful. Obviously, your capital ship choice will vary depending on your tastes, but I prefer the early-game dreadnought (I think it's the desolator). The phase missile swarm is great against early-game neutral defenders, the bombardment ability matures nicely for when you're going against enemy planets, and the disintegrator ray is insanely useful against all kinds of targets.

Colonizing with Vasari is a bit different than it is for humans. They still get a good amount of use out of desert planets, but they have no techs to make them more habitable. Instead, they're much better on ice and volcanic planets than humans are. Keep this in mind for your colonizing decisions - most players ignore those types of planets until later, because developing them is expensive. It's still expensive with Vasari, but in the earlier game, planet development, especially for habitation levels, is often limited by your amount of metal and crystal. With the vasari, there's much less of a problem here, as you should have a high resource count. You can effectively colonize these sub-par types of planets earlier without hamstringing yourself compared to the human factions. Take advantage of that.

Culturally, you get extra damage bonuses in the areas under your cultural control. You're not as culture-heavy as the Advent, but you can resist it quite nicely. With Shock and Awe later on, you can effectively dispel enemy culture from just about anywhere due to your capital ships floating in orbit. This means you can pretty consistently gobble up enemy planets as you advance without needing to advance to the "cultural center" to wipe out the broadcast towers, and then backtrack to earlier planets and hope nobody has colonized them in your absence.

Finally, we get to the phase stabilizer gates. These are great, and allow rapid movement throughout your empire and effective concentrations of force. A thinly-spread border defense might seem suicidal to the TEC or Advent, but you can quickly "congeal" forces around a trouble spot while your small homeguard fleet keeps the enemy busy until the rest of your ships arrive. Returning Armada is obviously a very powerful ability here as well. To be honest, I avoid using it - it's so amazingly good that the game becomes too easy after you've researched it (and I play against Hard AIs frequently, for what it's worth), and it's almost certainly getting nerfed soon. Better not rely on a crutch if it's going to get kicked out from under you later is my opinion.

Hmmm.... I'm a SP noob, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. Here's my SP musings as Vasari. Part One: Feel free to correct me.

Mobility is key. Nearly all frigates, and the Enforcer cruiser have no antimatter (capital ships not included...) This means you wont find yourself short of antimatter for a jump, and antimatter isn't required for some skills, such as reintegration. You can go as deep into enemy territory as you can avoid the defenses, to cherry pick a targtet. If the enemy catches up with you, you can simply make a few more hops. At the very worst, any capital ships will be a hundred or more antimatter lighter and less threatening. At best they'll get left behind. Or your retreat runs afoul of hangars/inhibitors/defense picket. Reintegration is a decent thing to, if you can find an empty sector.

Tip One: The Vasari have early, easy access to repair in the form of a Regeneration Bay. On a map with tough independents, and a nearby star, make your free capital ship the Devestator with the first point in Power Surge. With rapidly regenerating shields, rapid fire weapons, and enough armor and hitpoints to let you run away from even the pirate base safely if you run as soon as the shields go down... unupgraded, mind you.... you can solo many tough desert planets, maybe even terran ones. Once the fight is over or you have to retreat, head to the nearest star for a recharge of your antimatter. FYI, it'll only autocast while you're in combat, but you can use this skill for the shield recharge manually. Combine that with a quick repair at your home planet, and this ship is back in top condition faster than anything else at that stage of the game.

Tip Two: If you go with the Devestator, since it is almost always in top condition, don't worry about buying off the pirates. If you don't pit a single credit in the bounty bidding _and_ the pirate threat is low, your Devestator can take on the entire threat. You do have Xenophobia on hand as well to weaken their attacks further.

Tip Three: If the pirates are low threat, three turrets and a regeneration bay are a great way to delay and distract the pirates, though not your real opponents. They'll last seemingly forever, and all without a tactical upgrade. You have the leisure to send over whatever capital ship you want to farm experience, all without risking or replacing your expensive Skirmishers.

The Devestator: In addition to what I mentioned above, I consider Tier 2, Improved Reactor Design key. At the second level of that, and the third level of Power Surge, you'll be able to cast Power Surge almost endlessly (barring certain skills), as long as you had a decent reserve before going into battle. You'll have gotten 50 of the 60 antimatter back by the time the cooldown expired.

The Wikia lists ship stats and the level one characteristics of the skills. It seems putting extra points in provides linear benefits. The first three skills can be picked three times, and the fourth once. So level up gains past the first point.
Power Surge: +5 cooldown +5 duration +25% Weapon Cooldown +75% Shield Restore. As I mentioned above, not only does the skill get better, but it gets much easier to keep on autocast with just a little research.
Jam Weapons: +1000 range +10 duration
It's not an exciting skill, but even at level 1, you can have it on continuously for around 45 seconds. At the second level, a minute and a quarter. So if you're facing a bomber spam advent, a total prevention of damage isn't bad. It'll prevent casulties, which is more than flak frigates alone can do against swarms. It's a bit pricy and too nondescructive for common use though... I might take one point just in case, but I often pass on this skill.
Disruptive Strike: Antimatter Removed +4, Cooldown rate +10%
A nice passive skill, it is a bit weak early on, with just one low-leveled devastator, and lots of no-anti-matter pirates. But leveled up it stacks well with other Power Surges and Devastators. Sooner or later it will be worth your points.
Volatile Nanites: It wasn't clear to me from the ingame description, but it affects a large swath of ships from the start, not only when the explosion starts. Best for clearing out the small fry, not for taking on other capital ships unless you aren't worrying about antimatter.

Like the other player, I prefer the Evacuator myself. It's a surprisingly wonderful and versatile colony ship. While it isn't meant for heavy combat, the gravity warhead is wonderful and has gotten me early kills (against the cap raiding AI...) that a Devestator wouldn't have been able to pull off - not for lack of firepower, but because I couldn't prevent their retreat. The nano disassembler is also worth a few points. If you have an opportunity to send your Evacuator raiding with some supporting skirmishers against light defenses, try Disassembling a turret, shipyard, or other structure. Its amazing how fast those 4000 hitpoint structures once they no longer have 8 armor. It works especially well since you aren't dealing with any shields. Speaking of shields, they are the reason I start every battle with autocasting of disassembly off. It's a waste to use at the start. It's much more effective to gravity warhead and nano-disassemble once the shields are down and the ship about to retreat. Beware though, the Evacuator is slower than other capital ships before the warhead and if you aren't paying attention its easy for the enemy ship to get out of range. And at level one it still has trouble keeping up. I recommend at least two points. I find this ships colonize skill the least useful, giving only a steady 20% build time bonus, only increasing the duration with further levels. I take one point simply to skip building a colony ship, but that's it. Anyone found the build speed bonus useful above and beyond simply planting a colony?

The Desolator's Siege Platform is very nice. I've often used it to attack two systems at the same time if my raiders found a nice opportunity. Either when there's a small isolated asteroid off to the side that I don't want the enemy to develop while I assault their terran planet or when given the opportunity to strike at an undefended planet while their main force contests my main force. My main force with a few siege frigates sits on their planet, and once their battle fleet warps in to counter, I send my siege frigate in before they have a chance to recharge their phase and antimatter. I drop off a siege platform or two right away and bombard the planet until their forces return. When their forces return, they may be low on antimatter from jumping around. Whereas most dreadnaught skills require your capital ships presence, the siege platforms will function even if you stop attacking and start retreating. If they go after the capital ship, then their planet continues to get hammered, possibly wiped out. If they go after the siege platforms, they aren't as likely to pin down and destroy your dreadnaught.

The Marauder is very different from the TEC and Advent ships. It is not battle support, but raider support. Phase Out Hull may have a short cooldown, but short duration and high cost make it infeasible in serious battles. I haven't fooled around with it much but I have a few ideas. 1) use it to separate a capital from a retreating fleet just like the gravity warhead 2) use it to lock down a dangerous capital ship, giving your raiding ships time to flee to safety 3) use it to temporarily negate a pesky structure like a single repair bay 4) know the timing of enemy skills and use it to prevent being doubled up on or regennign the shields just as you're about to destroy the vessel. Distort Gravity isn't that much on its own, but it is a pretty interesting skill. You can use it for insertion and extration, to get past defenses quicker, and jump out-system earlier. I've seen a ship blown up at the edge of the gravwell one time to many as TEC, that last second, 8% could be crucial, I suppose.

Well, off to sleep then gain some experience. This has been ramblings by...

I like the tech which gives you more fleet points, I think it says "better radio transmitions" or something like that. In the first upgrade it gives you 8% more fleet points and it has a second upgrade option also. In the late game, that is quite alot.