TEC is a faction that's all about getting the upper hand early with a superior economy and fleet, then pummeling its opponent into warm goo by sheer overwhelming power.  Definitely a great faction for those who like pressure games.

Early-on, TEC should lean on its economic bonuses to get some rapid expansion going.  An Akkan can colonize most planets with reasonable militia count single-handedly, though you may want half a dozen scouts escorting it to quickly clean up Krosovs and Javelis in the militia.  This frees up some population cap for a second force to go and colonize asteroids and very-low militia planets.  Remember, all you have to do is knock out the Krosovs and Javelis, then you can colonize and build a turret.  If the militia count isn't that high, then you now own the planet and only needed a handful of scouts to do it!

Using tactics like these, plus its economic advantages (that cheap metal extraction tech can be a real boon if you have a volcanic next door) you should be able to get a competitive and powerful economy running very quickly.  This should be funneled straight into a powerful military.  Have multiple frigate factories pumping away with Javelis, Gardas, and Hoshikos.  If the map is large enough, you can hop straight to Kodiaks instead of Javelis.  Attack aggressively and try to keep the enemy behind you.  The other factions do not get a support cruiser as good as the hoshiko this early in the game, but if you let up the pressure, you WILL meet guardians and subverters, which will make your job significantly more difficult.

To be honest, all the factions have some superb defensive options at their disposal. 

Cost for cost, TEC actually has the best overall firepower of any faction.  In fact, there are only two weapon types that have an advantage over TEC:  fully upgraded phase missiles, and fully upgraded plasma.  On every other count, TEC either matches or surpasses the other factions for damage. 

Ever since the Illuminator bug-fix, early-game rush forces have been dominated by TEC's brutal mix of low costs, high survivability, and brutal firepower.  Vasari can keep up with the Skirantra and assailant, but a good TEC player will push them on the defensive.  Advent... good luck buddy, you'll need it.

TEC really has three big problems in the vs Vasari matchup.  The first problem is the subverter, which will shut down a lot of your firepower.  The Cielo's buff is meaningless if your units are disabled.  The second problem you face is bomber spam, which can cause tremendous damage to your forces and knock out capital ships before you even get a chance to use their abilities.  The third issue is phasic traps, which will shut down your entire strike craft force when you go on the offensive, greatly limiting your options.  Having counter-measures in place for these tactics takes priority over unlocking the Cielo.

I'm not saying the Cielo is a bad unit, but I find it's not useful enough to justify a 5-lab cost, and it's not going to have nearly the impact of a guardian, subverter, or hoshiko.

Most people play with pirates off, especially in Diplomacy.

Be very careful of researching this ability.  The attacks it sends are quite small and easily repelled by a modicum of defense, but grant significant amounts of experience points.  You may actually end up making your opponent stronger by leveling up their capital ships, and this tech does not have an off button.  I've actually seen people lose because they research this.  This is easily the most double-edged tech in the game, and personally I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole.

It all depends on proximity.  Since you don't have time to scout before you buy your first capital ship, that can be a bit of a gamble.  If the enemy is within 4 jumps (give or take depending on the intervening militia) then a Sova start is a great lead.  Anything more and the Akkan will pay off in spades, and the Sova start only really shines for cleaning up more difficult militia.

Again, on most maps you don't actually know which will work better until you've done your scouting, so it's a bit of a gamble.  Both are very respectable openers and should serve you well.  That said, on multistar or otherwise expansive scenarios, you should always lead with the Akkan, and on sudden-death scenarios (or those that could be sudden death) you should always lead with Sova.

Marza can work if you outplay your opponent, but I'd put it behind the Kortul and Vulkoras opener in terms of viability.  A Marza opener is something you pull out when you want to handicap yourself without being completely silly about it.

I find Akkan/Marza works even better than Sova/Marza.  Having the ability to colonize the planets you bomb out on the fly is extremely advantageous, while the economic opener from the Akkan gives you the frigate-power to support the more vulnerable capital ship types and run down the carrier caps that otherwise threaten them. 

The problem here is that the Marza has to charge up to 85 antimatter to use raze planet, so if you're jumping around too much you have to wait a significant amount of time before the ability activates.  That makes fast hit-and-run exercises more difficult.  The Vulkoras doesn't have this issue, and only needs to charge up to 35 to put down a platform (and that passive boost is always in play).  So the Marza is better suited to going after high priority targets and making it stick rather than trying to play a flighty harass game.

I've tried this before just for the hell of it, but it didn't work out really well...you are right, the raze planet is AM expensive and the akkan isn't all that bad at laying siege...

I definitely will never pick a Marza as my opener on ICO, but as a 2nd ship I've had it work for me...the biggest reason why I pick the Marza is that I generally open with a Sova...at that point, getting an akkan 2nd isn't nearly as useful as opening with one and I really don't want to pick a Kol...

Kol is, in my opinion, the worst capital ship opener in the game.  I think every other capital ship has at least some redeeming quality or niche tactic, but the Kol has nothing.  It really needs to be brought up to the level of the Kortul.

It does become highly competitive when you're up against strike craft heavy opponents if you can put a few levels on it, but that's really situational.

Except for the advent battleship.  That ship is truly terrible.  At least the Kol has flak and can slow a ships speed to zero.  I would say a Kol is a good opener for a lrm spam, as flak will thin the fighters and the slowing the enemy down with the kols special attack is good to get those extra few seconds of dps to take out a capital ship.

Plus a Kol is great against the vasari.  Its hilarious when they try to SB your planet and the kol just snipes it dead in one hit.

lol @ musical smack down ^

nuuuu... you!

Like I said.

:'( The Kol really needs some lovin'.

aww, come on. you got to admit it was a good troll.

but seriously.  Ima numbers kinda guy.  I play with numbers.

once you run the numbers... you find that at low levels, the kol has only marginally more not-dieing power than the radiance, and at higher levels, the radiance beats the kol... by like a factor of 2 thanks to advent shield mitigation and its passive armor. 

radiance doesnt have AM problems.   Kols will have am problems even if they have culture bonuses and a lv 6 donov near by.

GRG is a JOKE.   the speed decrease is pathetic.  the damage is pathetic.  1050 damage?  more like... 1050*.35*.75*1/(1+.05*armor)   

Detonate am, removes am, does damage directly to hull (skipping shield mitigation, armor bonuses, and armor), and acts as a disable. 

as long as the enemy ship still has AM left... detonate AM ends up doing more damage per second than GRG, even if the kol had unlimited am.  and it doesnt.

7 lv3 flack bursts to kill a max research vas bbr iirc.

anyone that builds a radiance for cleansing brilliance is prolly a nutjob.  maybe if you stack it with malice.  maybe.  less damage than a missle barrage, and very tricky to aim.  Radiance  is MUCH more usefull as a cap disabler with its detonate am, than as a ultimate ability user.

Radiance's speed is 525.  carriers speed is 450.   do the catching math.

I honestly havent played much with taunt since the patch, so i cant comment on it.

but kol<radiace<almosteverythingelse

The Radiance can shut down enemy capital ship abilities while dealing damage that's comparable to GRG, and it has a passive defensive ability that's comparable to adaptive shields.  Not defending the Radiance as an opener, but it's still worlds ahead of the Kol.

Anyone who starts construction of a starbase when your units are sitting right there is being extraordinarily careless.  Heck, just shadow the constructor with a squad of bombers and you'll get the same effect.

Flak burst works wonders against large forces of strike craft (like 30+ squads), but you won't see that until significantly later in the game.  Against smaller forces, you won't get your value out of this ability compared to basic attack damage from an equivalent expenditure of gardas.

Sareth, in your scenario you're talking about the power of the LRM, not the power of the Kol.  The Kol simply doesn't bring anything to the fight except a good chunk of HP, so a good opponent will ignore it, clean up your LRM, and then finish the Kol off afterwards.  You'd have gotten way better value out of anything else, particularly if you were smart about it.