To take planets there are two ships that can do it. The first is the colonizing capital ship, which for the TEC is called the Akkan. It's the capital ship in the middle of the capital ship selection boxes.

The other option is what's called the Colony Frigate. On the screen where you select scouts, light frigs, long range frigates, etc, there is the colony frigate alone on the line below. That ship has the ability to colonize planets. IT ALSO has the ability to colonize neutral mines in those gravity wells that have no planets but have mines.

Also make sure you have some carriers, without them you have no idea to chase routing forces. They enable you to catch and destroy some light ships when they flee and try to phase jump.

Relatively newbie,
Have tried building Kodiaks, have had ove 100 plus 3 Kol but get absolutely destroyed whenever come up against others with no more ships than my fleet. Why?

Whats the enemy fleet made of?

bleh I dont like your strike fleet apricot, I would rather use my forces as a scalpel then as a sledgehammer. Nothing wrong with yours but at same time what you just hit one planet at a time? seems inefficient.

Not inefficient, methodical.

I only play games with minimum phase lanes anyway, which is suited to large fleets.

I'd rather have huge battles with maximum fleets, than constant minor battles with small fleets.

And I dont bother with strikes to take out a few structures. If I need to take out structures, I take out the entire planet and hold it. If I cant hold it, I still wipe the entire gravity well clean and nuke the planet, so the enemy has to start building from scratch. If I need to kill 10 ships, I go in and kill all of them, or at least those I can before they bug out.

I'm not real interested in missions from enemies, so the only ones that get done are when I want to keep an ally, or I'm going there anyway. The majority of missions I complete are because I was going there anyway. I actually find the missions pretty ludicrous, and mostly play with this turned off, as it distracts me from methodical conquest.

I dont really see the point with surgical strikes to take out a few structures. They can be replaced pretty quickly as soon as you leave, so you dont really achieve anything except a mission. Better to take and hold the planet imo.

One thing touched upon is building a fleet that has the capability to sustain itself in the battle.

Only experimenting with TEC at the mo but:

If you can afford it build a Kol and then as your second Cap, a Dunov. The Dunov will sustain your Kol in battle by recharging your shields. Another extremely important support class is the Hoshi's the Robot Repair Cruisers. These fellows special ability is to help rebuild hulls in combat - again another thing to sustain your Caps in combat.

The Smaller ships, such as the frigate are a form of soak, e.g. the enemy attacks them (e.g. the AI), he isnt attacing your key ships such as the Dunov and Hosh's hopefuly. Agaisnt a human opponent he may be a bit more switched on an deliberately target the Dunov to take out your ability to restore shields, and increase your fleets vulnerability.

TEC is a pretty solid faction. Its lacking in special abilities like GUARDIAN or SUBVERTER but makes up with that in raw survivability and DPS. They have also the best economy in the game.

The start of a game and the overall strategy is in heavy flux, the most influencing factors being map size and how many opponents you are up against.

In a small map you probably want to focus on sheer force primarily whilst in larger maps you want to get an advantage from your economics.

So its really hard to make a statement about a general approach.

"Those are... nukes!!! Make sure not a single one reaches the colony!!!"

I found an early Marza dreadnought pretty devastating on small maps. Its raze planet ability really puts the hurt on small developing empires. You use it to conquer like two colonies and then send it way to your enemies colonies, upgrading it along the flight (buying levels that is, and increase armor tech). Its missile barrage ability gained later can eradicate whole fleets of LRF. Its a monster and noone kills colonies faster. It will not destroy an oponent singelhandly but is capable to deny expansions until it can be dealt with wich may take some time.

And whilst your one man war is fought you tech to LRF (that would be Javelis LRM swarms) and through it to hoshikos.

Usually you can send backup LRF shortly taking the war to your enemy, away from your homeworlds and later repair the Marza with Hoshikos.

You can also create a swarm of scouts and capitalize on the Arcova bomb ability for a nasty surprise.

Since you are well on your way to Kodiaks you may pull through with it.

You also can opt for a quick expansion with the Akkan Battlecruiser as your first capital ship.

With 1.09 even the Percheron seems to have some use at least. Be careful to rely on fighters early in the game, not bombers (those are for taking down heavies and structures, against LRF wich will be the brunt of the forces you face fighters are much better).

You can use a lone Cielo for enhancing focused fire.

Of course the special abilities of the other races can be your undoing. And thats where Cobalts come into the game with their sabotage reactor ability.

The style of you game is very heavily dictated by the first capital ship you choose and varies greatly with other setups, so choose wisely.