Trying to crack this game :)

You build a fleet so that you can take more planets faster. Early game expansion is critical because it determines your future economic potential. Developing them with defenses and trade ports should come later, after you've taken all the neutral planets possible, since these repay themselves very quickly and give you more logistical slots to develop later.

As for fleet builds it really depends on your style and your race. I like corvettes because they can take out LRFs and siege frigates quickly, but they don't do well against much else, and as Vasari you should probably avoid them entirely as they are a tier 2 tech. Just go strait for assailants, and I wouldn't build much else early on besides sentinels if your opponent tries to counter them with corvettes.

A couple of the first tier upgrades are alright if you have a bit of extra cash and don't want to increase your fleet supply yet (and thus permanently hurt your economy). Anything higher level and isn't a prerequisite for something else good should wait, 5% bonus to anything isn't much early on, but once you have several hundred fleet supply of ships it makes much more of a difference.

One big exception to this is phase missiles. I wouldn't build military labs just for them, but as you build them for new ship types max these out ASAP. Once upgraded they are by far the most deadly weapons in the game, and your most important damage dealers like assailants and bombers use them.

The phase missiles as mentioned. Phase stabalizers are also a god send later in the game, but if you're Vasari loyalists your titan can deploy them so you don't even need to research them in this case. Your starting cap should probably either be a Jarrasul evacuator for faster expansion and cap killing power later, or a Skirantra carrier with for raw combat power and dealing with the militia faster. Once you start running into titans the Kortul battleship is amazing, and it was my favorite capitalship back in Diplomacy. Overseers are your repair cruiser, and no matter what race you play as you should get some ships of this type. And if you really want to get into their more elaborate tactics, subverters and mine layers can do some mean things.

That said, much of what you should focus on as Vasari depends on your subfaction. Loyalists for example will mostly be building civic labs trying to get stripped to the core, while rebels will mostly build military labs at first trying to get to Starbase Mobilization.

Here's some more questions that might be useful for someone coming from SC2 (that I'm coincidentally not 100% confident in the answers to):

Bonus 1: How many colonizing fleets should you use?

Bonus 2: When should I start thinking about harassing enemy planets?

Bonus 3: What are the most cost effective ways to hurt my enemy's economy?

Bonus 4: In online play, what kind of micro is useful? (ex. building placement since "auto-place" is a thing, ship micro, etc)

At least 2 I think, unless the map screws you over so bad you only have a linear path to go in.

As soon as you're able to.

Early on raiding their constructor ships with corvettes can be a good option (they aren't as good against structures now). Otherwise LRF probably does the most damage to structures early on. If you're TEC Sova rushing and as Vasari building a starbase on the enemy homeworld can be game winners if you pull it off (which usually means getting close undetected and doing it fast enough for them not to have a very big fleet to repulse you with).

Any micro is good micro. You don't need to do a lot of it to play Sins, even against harder AIs, but in competitive games its huge.

That said, you should certainly be manually placing everything, and almost all of your capitalships abilities (some like power surge are simple enough to leave on though).

What GoaFan77 said is correct. Depending on the map size and number of opponents (or allies) it can effect your overall strategy somewhat but essentially the core tactics as described above are a very rock solid set of advice.

I agree with most that Goafan77 said except to wait to start building trade ports when there is no more planets free to colonize.

At this time you need to invest resources in military labs military research and start upgrading logistic slots and build fleet.

I usually at least as tec start building trade ports when i have first 2 asteroids upgraded to fill up logistic slots. I fill available logistic slots with trade as I colonize and if I have spare cash upgrade them on roids first fill them up with trade then planets. In 1v1 matches most of the time when I start clashing with opponent I get around 50 cred per second. I usually expand in 2 to 3 ways upgrade planets population and build trade simultaneously. 

As vasari early on scouting a map very fast and taking neutral extractors and keeping them is significant boost to their economy. Early game their economy is resource (metal crystal) oriented, When playing them I usually research up to tier 3     extractors boost before I research and build first trade port....

Most important thing of all is to get a feel when you should upgrade your fleet supply.....

Too early and your economy will be under more pressure as enemies.

Too late and you might never catch up military even if you have better economy.

This is sole reason why especially with corvettes in game fleeting from planet with 3-4 factories present is almost a must and much more beneficial than having 3 factories on 3 different planets and fleet this way. 

Greg, if you don't mind, would you mind sharing a record of you playing a game like that?

I had posted a lot of them already.

But once i get one against decent player sure.....

Never use auto place - best to place your labs apart from each other so they have to be attacked one at a time and can't both be hit by wide spread fire. You'll also want to place your starbases, repair bays, turrets, hangers, etc. strategically.

For ship micro I usually hot key my capital ships and Titan (Ctrl + 1,2,3. etc) to select them quickly, keep most abilities off autocast so you can use them optimally. In battles, use Alt + select one of the ship type (either in the gravity well or on your empire tree) to select them all to move your flak, carriers, corvettes, etc. all to where you want them. It's not really that micro intensive a game. You can mouse over a ship at the start of the battle and it'll tell you what target it is planning on engaging - a lot of times capital ships and titans will auto target enemy capital ships, but you might often want to take out their supporting fleet first instead. There's also other micro you can use that is ship specific, like putting illuminators in the thick of battle to use all their weapon banks, placing guardians where you want their shield to be or where to use their repulse, or which ship(s) you specifically want healed, or moving flak behind long range frigates to force them to have to turn 180 while flak fire 360 the whole time, etc.

The frustrating part of this game is that no matter how much you work on improving your play, your chance of winning the game is still entirely dependent on your teammates (assuming you are not playing 1v1) and then luck factors of your starting position (whether you got good planets or not). Even if you have your most flawless game, if your teammate is letting you down or your opponent is getting fed resources and you are not, chances are you will lose. I know I'm stating the obvious but I'd say it even breaks down to personal skill is worth about 25%, teammate good play 60%, and starting position 15%. Threads like this are still good of course, because the more people try to improve, the more that 60% will kick in! (can you tell I wasted 4 hours last night playing with terrible teammates? The more I play, the less I want to invest time playing with random people I don't know...).

Thanks for answering my bonus questions. If this info is useful for someone like me who's played sins since vanilla I'm sure it well help the OP.

That's the nature of the beast, unfortunately. I feel where you're coming from there... a certain type of person will try to give you a hard time if they won while you were playing your best (regardless of confounding factors). All I can suggest is playing by your own rules: I'm going to keep my n00b teammate alive for X minutes even though he's not building anything, I'm going to harass the heck out of someone while they're busy steamrolling, I'm going to micro like a boss while fighting 1vX so the next time I go 1v1 it'll be no contest.

Basically, if the rules aren't letting you have any fun, the rules suck. Change the rules!:)

This is why i still advocate playing balanced pre-made maps instead of random. 

Moving past this i agree with a lot said, but i think Gregs point about going eco early is purely game dependant and i know from when i've played him he hasn't been doing it. I think that's fine if you're in an eco spot or not being pressured. But on the wing or suicide your style of play can't be too eco orientated. But that's my opinion.. generally my wing play is an all in style play where i asses what the enemy is building, looking at labs, checking planets for eco and colonising and then building to suit the needs, generally fleeting at 6-8minutes into the game, i think the longest i've waited is 12 minutes to fleet... which is a hell of a long time.. but it makes a difference if you do minimal eco and sit with 4-5 worlds just scouting and expanding, without gimping your economy with fleeting, researching or ecoing.

oooooooo...  I hate that.

by the way, this may sound obvious but your strategy really depends on your race.  

TEC have amazing economy and rushing strategies.  They are at their best in the early game since their ships can slaughter militia fleets and expand with ease.  When using the tec you should try to end things as quickly as possible or go for an all out economic boom.  Rebels are better for rushing, Loyalists are unstoppable economically.

Advent do not have nearly as effective of a economy.  Their greatest strength lies in their fleets and culture.  In the midgame, their fleets cream everything because of their incredible buff and debuff abilities.  The advent's support ships as a whole are second to none and cleansing brilliance slaughters frigates with abandon.  (If you ever play as advent first learn how to make a battle ball)  the only downside is that their titans are not nearly as effective as others.  Use culture prodigiously because the Advent have massive upgrades to it.  Culture can be used as a huge resource boost, buffs your fleets, and can even be used as a form of attack.

The Vasari start off slow, with expensive ships and slow resource gain.  Their strength lies in the late game.  Kortul battleships are the only true damage dealing capital ships and are tough to kill thanks to power surge.  Skitankra carriers have the amazing ability to bomber spam to obscene levels.  Desolators have heavy phase missile firepower and are amazing with their final ability.  (You only really need one marauder, even late game). Evacuators have a great final as well.  Vasari titans are second to none.  Subverters are critical to any fleet, get them.  Their minefields are punishing as they can put them anywhere.  The vasari rebels have the amazing ability to phase jump their star base to other gravity wells, this is amazing. Their titan also slaughters everything in sight.  Vasari loyalists are better economically as they can consume planets with their titan.  Upgrade phase missles as much as possible.

Surely I wont be building trade ports if I have enemy 2-3 phase jumps away. But if they are 6-7 jumps away for instance in gimped map with no early rush option I will go few trade ports before I fleet. As I said in my previous post sometimes even with stronger eco you just cannot catch up in military if you are to far behind.

But yes everything is game and map dependant and that is best about this game since no 2 games are the same... 

Which is the point i was trying to make.. it is map dependant. Calm down darling

Yeah I like this perspective - part of the strategy is making hard choices of which to commit to in these instances. In the noob ally case, I pray for a highly selective mini-dump...

On pre made map it comes down to who knows map best. On random maps while definitely not perfect skill not plain repetition has bigger role 

Since there are alot of premades you can cycle through them and it wouldnt take you long to learn the maps.. the map i played you on and rushed the roid was my second time on it.. i just memorised majority of it.. you can too.

LOL Readhead ????

Thing with premade maps is that you can memorize and automate orders and if not succeed tweak for next match.

Do you remember that 5v5 map we played when I crashed in the end. I played completely automatically and I knew what I'm gona build in first 20 minutes before game even started.....  While map is alright it is made for tec rebels and TAR rush. 

Exactly why it allows for streamlining of gameplay and then enhancement to the T on strategies and refining things. 

And yes it's me... they won't allow any of my pictures on the Avatars.. >.> haha

But i know what i'm going to do in most cases, but on whirlwind i think you're gimping yourself with TAR since you could use the neutrals as good feed for a titan or marza. Brilliant expanding though.. tbh i played like a tit that game, i knew what i was going to do.. build a titan and LOOOOOOL

LOOL yes you were dead or at least near to it. If I only haven't crashed ....

As for that game when you were rushing  me with 2 star bases. I played exactly as I described it above. True I died but only because you knew the map and knew what you are going to do before game started. Heck you didn't even go to colonize asteroid near your HW before you had 2 star bases planted 4 and 6 jumps away wrom your HW. If I took that first roid 2 minutes before you came with SB things would be different.

I only had 2 planets throughout the entire game.. i never built a fleet, i just ate one.. in the end i had - 800 fleet supply ;D

Well yea that's true.. and the first roid i did take, MY planet order on whirlwind is normally roid,roid,ice,terran, des/roid