Diplomacy is the most popular from what I understand

lol well some am I, at least on the online circuit

from what I understand, a lot will be willing to help if you let them know that you are a bit noobish there aren't nearly as many griefers as most areas, though there are still some

Most people play Diplomacy, since it is the newest and has most of the content.  There are some people who play the original, but not many.  Very few people play Entrenchment, since almost everyone who bought it has also bought Diplomacy (which builds on Entrenchment).

As for multiplayer strategies, your top priority is to expand early on.  Your terran homeworld is a good planet, but one planet does not make an empire.  You'll need to get several planets under your belt to support a respectable fleet.  You need to scout your immediate surroundings, and invest in either economy or fleet depending on what you see.  If you see no nearby enemies, go for economy.  If you see nearby enemies, go for fleet.

For technology, keep it simple.  Get a few unit prototypes (since the ones you start out with are pretty weak in combat), but avoid going above 3 labs and don't buy too many techs.  Focus on expanding your empire and increasing your fleet size.  When in doubt, watch what more experienced allies do.  This should give you an idea of how to pace yourself.

I find that the biggest issues beginners have are that they expand their empire too slowly and spend too much on tech and unnecessary defenses.  Experienced players will expand voraciously and really pinch every penny along the way.  All that saved up money either goes towards boosting their military muscle (which they use to crush you with superior numbers) or towards economic muscle which just gives them even more money to crush you with. 

Oh, and one last thing: hangers and turrets are really overpriced.  They work against the AI, but they're somewhat of a joke online.  Build them only if you have a really important location you want to defend, but keep in mind an experienced player will just ignore turrets and stay out of range, and they'll bring along a couple flaks to clean up any hanger-based fighters.  Unless you really know what you're doing, these can easily become complete wastes of money.

Th

Haha Thanks, but Im wondering are starbases worth it for online matches? So can capital ships and normal frigate be enough? What if I on expanded a few planets and the enemy attacks me. Yea.. researching tech is difficult online

Starbases basically give you total control of a gravity well.  They give you a place to retreat and regroup when outmatched, and make it difficult (if not impossible) for the enemy to secure the planet while they're intact.  In fact, each faction has an upgrade that does make it impossible for the enemy to bombard out the planet while the starbase is alive.  Starbases also make it very difficult for the enemy to bypass a front-line world to attack less well-defended backwater worlds, and also punish them for retreating.  They can also buy time for your fleet to respond to trouble.

They're also used when you're facing 2v1 scenarios.  A starbase and a small defending force can hold a critical planet (like a homeworld) while your main force reclaims nearby planets.  The enemy can try to follow you, but every time they pass through your homeworld, they take damage from the starbase while you don't.  This lets you very easily run hit and run tactics against numerically superior foes.  In a multiplayer match, one player who is keeping two opponents occupied takes a lot of pressure off the rest of your team.

Starbase tactics are actually quite advanced, since poor starbasing will just deplete your fleet of necessary units and smart opponents can work around them.  So you need to place them very tactically and carefully and then use them strategically to pressure the opponent.  The enemy must constantly be inconvenienced, blocked, and penalized by your starbase.  If he's not, that starbase was a waste of money.

Normally you do want to focus on fleet and capital ships.  Mobile units can chase the enemy if they relocate, while a starbase contributes nothing to a battle if the enemy simply relocates.  This is not to say that starbases are useless, but starbases are used to support and augment your fleet, not replace it.  If you're spending so much on starbases that your fleet is crippled, a smart player will punish you for that.

This is why scouting is important.  You need to know how close the nearest enemy is so your fleet is ready in time.  To some extent, there's a bit of a gamble here since you usually have to pick your labs and capital ship before your initial scouting is done, but the map often will supply many clues (such as the position of allies) to help you make that decision.

The important thing is that you need to identify how close the nearest threat is and ensure you're ready to defend yourself when that threat arrives.  One of the nice things about colonizing planets is that this puts a buffer between your core worlds and the enemy, so even if you do lose one at the start, this gives you some breathing time.  In the early game, people can't afford siege frigates (and if they do their combat fleet is going to suffer) so bombarding is actually very time-consuming and gives you some time to counter.

Well Im not really sure at placing starbases xDD. Im not good at fleets too. I mean as in the types of ships to get and how many .

Thanks alot man but the star bases can be any where next to the planet right? What type of capital ships are the best in your opinion.

Like the guys said, most of the action, at least the PvP action, is on the Diplomacy expansion where you can find 3v3s, 4v4s, and 5v5s.  Sadly, this two-and-a-half year old game just has low player counts now.  The release of Starcraft 2 really hurt.  Things were pretty decent in Entrenchment, but the release of the Diplomacy expansion also hurt the player counts for reasons I don't fully understand.  (Perhaps no one wanted to spend another $10 on a game that never had high player counts to begin with.)  Also, this game just never had high online player counts.  The most people I ever saw online at once was about 280 people about two months after the game's release.  Sins also suffered from numerous technical problems at the beginning (which have mostly been fixed) such as minidumps, desyncs, and huge game hosting problems.  I think some people also don't like Impulse and never updated the game, which cost us more players.  It's a shame because Sins is an amazing game that deserves to have more people online.

The best time to play seems to be Sunday late afternoon and into the evening, North American time.  As a general rule, the North American evening is the best time.  There are normally a couple 4v4s and 5v5s each night on Diplomacy, but you have to patiently wait for them.

Also, expect to get totally thumped as a new player because this game has a learning curve.  You should play it for at least a month in single player until you feel comfortable with all of the game mechanics and have a knowledge of each race's ships, starbases, abilities, tech trees, strengths, and weaknesses.  Then you'll be ready to start playing against other people as an entry-level player.  When you join a large game, it's a good idea to point out that you are new and not a smurf but have played it heavily in single player for weeks and know the basics.

I also think you are better off choosing your colonizer capital ship (mothership) as your first capital ship.   At the start of a game, order it up immediately, scout and then use it to take your asteroid.  Also, don't build more than 2 caps and keep them out of combat because more experienced players will focus fire them to death and they'll die for nothing.  As a new player, your goal is to just survive and be as big of a pain-in-the-ass as possible--as large of an annoying speed bump as you can to your opponent.  Your goal is to keep a mothership or two alive so that you can always colonize something later on and to buy time for the more experienced players on your team to win their fights.

If you start out in a safe "eco" slot with allies on both flanks, then your job is to build up an economy as quickly as you can and start feeding credits and resources to your allies.  (You have to research the feed ability in Diplomacy.)  If you start out in the "suicide" spot with opponents on either flank, then you just try to survive the best you can and send one Mothership to the middle of the map to colonize stuff.

Carrier capital ships are your strongest fighting capital ships.  Because their strike craft do the fighting for them, carriers can easily stay out of harm's way and contribute to battle without putting their neck on the line.  They also hit hard with those strike craft, and generally have good abilities to support your fleet. 

Aside from that, there are some good picks across the different factions.  Advent will want a Progenitor Mothership (or two or three...) as the game goes on.  It can colonize planets more cheaply than a colony frigate, it can multiply damage dealt to enemy frigates, and it can regenerate friendly shields.  When comboed with the Iconus Guardian using shield projection, the Advent fleet can basically regenerate shields as fast as the enemy can damage them.

The TEC can get a lot of mileage out of the Akkan Battlecruiser, which also can colonize planets and gives you a free extractor and a temporary extraction income bonus.  Its ion bolt ability seems tame at first, but time it right and it's easily the most deadly capital ship killing ability in the game.  If you can get an Akkan to level 6, its Armistice ability is absolutely to die for, and used carefully a level 6+ Akkan basically will never die.

The Vasari player will definitely enjoy the Jarrasul Evacuator and the Kortul Devasator.  These guys are only held back by the fact that their close-range capital ships and can be very easy to kill if you aren't careful.  Their abilities are absolutely top-class, however.  The Jarrasul is one of the most deadly capital ship assassins out there; its nano disassemblers deals massive damage and also increases the damage the target takes from other units for the duration, while gravity bomb will slow enemies to a crawl and temporarily shut down phase jumping.  The Kortul is a monster that can drain antimatter just by attacking the enemy, shut down strike craft weapons completely, and regenerate its own shields at an alarming rate.

The other capital ships aren't useless, but only merit a footnote:

• The Radiance is a one-trick pony that's used for "detonate antimatter" to shut down enemy capital ship abilities.  It's good at what it does, but this is pretty much all it's good for.
• The Revelation is very similar, using its "reverie" ability to shut down enemy capital ships.  Again, it's good at what it does, but it has nothing else worth your time.
• The Rapture is an excellent support capital ship that can really help out your fleet.  In my opinion, Vertigo is the most underrated ability in the game and long-run all Advent fleets should have one, but the Progenitor and Halcyon are definitely better choices overall.
• The Marza is great for bombarding and great for attacking enemy frigates, but a little on the fragile side with no defensive abilities to speak of.  If you can get it to level 6, its "missile barrage" ability is quite devastating.
• The Dunov is a very mediocre capital ship; its combat stats suck and its abilities are mostly just above-average.  In my opinion, this is one of the worst capital ships in the game and I only bring them out in very long games where the versatility is worthwhile.
• The Kol is very weak at low levels, and needs to be level 5 before it starts to shine.  Its flak burst ability is top notch for controlling strike craft, but until you max it out, this ability doesn't pack enough punch and you'll run out of antimatter before you finish the job.  Definitely a top-notch capital ship if you can reach the higher levels, but that's a big "if"
• The Vulkoras Desolator is the best siege engine in the game, excellent for bombarding planets and ripping up the enemy's empire.  Really, it's nothing more than an armoured siege frigate, but it does this job so well that it's actually worth your time for that alone.
• The Antorak Marauder... basically copy/paste what I said about the Dunov.  One of the worst capital ships in the game and only worthwhile if you want the versatility it offers.

You're looking at over a hundred multiplayer matches of experience there, which teaches you things you'll never be able to learn against the inflexible challenge the AI offers.

Human opponents use far more advanced strategies and tactics than the AI.  It's far more challenging, an experience you can't get by playing only against the AI.

Oh yeah, online multiplayer against human opponents is an almost totally different game than against the AI.  If you start playing against other people you'll soon realize that the AI is a retarded opponent in comparison.  You will have to learn new strategies and tactics because you can't depend on the AI to suicide itself on your starbases or your larger fleets.  You'll also discover a brand new team-based aspect to the strategy that simply isn't present with AIs.  Welcome to our community and have fun!

A lot of those people are singleplayer gamers who use mods and rarely come online.

I remember reading years ago an estimate that 90% of strategy gamers are exclusively singleplayer, and virtually never log on to play online.  This holds true for Sins as well, but because of some demographic quirk we haven't maintained that other 10% of multiplayer gamers very well.  The people who remain are quite dedicated.