Well carriers are a bit tricky, as you have to choose between suppressing the fighters or destroying the carriers themselves. If your defending as the Vasari, you actually have the best weapon to do this, the phasic trap upgrade for your hangar defense structures. This ability will freeze any amount of strikecraft in range, making them unable to attack, essentially making his twenty carriers useless. For any other frigates/cruisers Vasari subverters are a great for crowd control, as they can disable clusters of nearby ships.

Your right to be suspicious of static defenses, but starbases can be of worth if the planet is worth defending and if you use them right. The Vasari starbase is fairly unique as far as starbases go. Its not as good of a defense as the other races but it can move. Also the vast majority of its firepower comes from the second weapon upgrade (the first one is best against structures but it adds damage to ships as well), which gives it phase missiles (by far the best weapon type in the game, provided you've done some of the research). Its defenseless against strikecraft though, another reason Vasari hangars are popular.

As for the capital ships, a large number of assailants or bombers (both with upgraded phase missiles) are most effective. Otherwise a Kortal (disruptive strikes) or Evacuator (Nano disassembler) have potent anticapitalship abilities. An upgraded Vasari turret can also stop "Passive Regeneration" on capital ships, which prevents them from automatically regenerating hull, shields and most importantly antimatter for a while.

The upgraded turrets and hangar defenses sound great.  I will definitely try these.  This sounds to good to be true.  I will be probably asking for a counter to these next week! 

I didn't realize a second weapons upgrade on the starbase would be different from the first one, so I didn't even bother getting the first one.  The second weapons upgrade sounds like it has potential as well.  Any advice on which defensive starbases upgrades are worthwhile (shields/hull/armor, frontal shield, debris repair, etc.)?  It seems like right now I am partial to the shields/hull/armor because of the synergy with repair platforms...

600 credits per second sounds incredible.  Is there a guideline for what your fleet supply should be relative to your income (i.e.- don't drop below 20 credits/5 metal/5 crystal after taking out fleet supply reduction?).  I would ask if there is a guideline for income relative to time played, but that seems like it would be affected by the size of the map and number of players more than the previous question. 

Thanks to all of the replies.

Yep, seen it happen before when I was a total newb and got roflwafflepwnd. The usual setup now for those econoboom strategies is highly noticeable at game start since you will usually have 1 TEC member (economizer) and 2 Vasari members. Best counter is a level 5+ Rapture with focus on Concentration Aura and 10+ carriers roll through the econoboomers territory and microing the bombers to attack trade ports and refineries. This is mostly a diversionary tactic since he will then call in an ally from the front line to protect their investments and you just need to kite the backup fleet as long as you can while your team focuses on trying to spread the enemies forces and take a planet or two.