From Endless Space no, because thats turn based and Sins not..

Tutorials are extremely lame indeed, but after some tries against easy AI you should at least get the basics of the game. And most things are logical like upgrading your planets population to not lose credits to underdevelopment, always build extractors to gain their income, build ships to win battles etc.

Oh, and you can pause the game by pressing the pause key, the default key to pause the game, so you have time to read, think etc, just dont ever do it online.

I suggest getting familiar with the other two first. VR is not an easy faction to master, but if you insist.. Colony capital ship (Jarrasul, the egg) + some light frigates will do in the beginning, expand fast, upgarde new world population to get rid of negative income, and ONLY build starbases if you must, say, when you reach your opponent and he has a stronger fleet. Or if you attack him try to build one at his gravity well, it can cripple the AI if you manage to finish and upgrade it.

General tips for every faction:

0. Start with quick start enabled. Trust me, it helps. And pirates off, they have a strange armor type that makes cheaper units bad against them, and can wreck your game early.

1. expand fast with two colony fleet (a colony capital ship and some light frigates, the second fleet is a colony frigate and some light frigates), upgrade the newly acquired planets to nullify uunderdevelopment tax and build extractors. You should own a big as possible territory, turtleing in this game is the worst idea. In 1v1 agaist AI you should own at least half of the map.

2. Max out your initial fleet supply but don't upgrade fleet capacity too much as it destroys your economy. Only upgrade it if you feel your fleet is not big enough (so you have 8 frigates and a capital ship while the AI has 12 light frigates and a capital ship).

3. If you colonized many worlds and upgraded them, you may start building a fleet. Light frigates, Corvettes, Long range frigates are all good for this purpose. If your opponent has too many fighters, then build some flak as well but don't build too much, their damage modifiers are poor against almost anything, I was fooled in the very beginning thinking this ship is better than the other because it attacks more. NO IT DOES NOT.

Oh btw there is someone on this forum who may say build only flak, this is his fetish. But just don't do it unless you feel like experimenting.

4. Ignore unnecessary research. Skilled players are divided on what research is useful to get early on. For me the early metal and crystal income increase ones, the terran population increase researches are always good, unlocking necessary ship types are awesome as well. If you have an Ice OR a Volcanic planet next to you, get the research that enables you to get it, but you may just ignore these and get easier planets instead. But don't get the Ice planet research if you don't have any nearby.

Culture platform is good as well just don't build too many, instead try to focus on trade, that is more efficient.

If you have many ships and lots of money, you should put money in hull, shield, weapon damage, armor increase. These are all good, but shields are the least effective in this game.

5. If you can manage it, so don't have to put every coin into ship building, try to make planets always grow population. So if you see a terran planet get near 100 population, upgrade it further to grow bigger.

6. Scouting. You should always know where the enemy fleet is. Just send some scouts towards the enemy territory, to monitor his actions. It requires attention not to let fog of war reach 1000s of seconds (last intel from X planet). If you see the AI has dozens of ONE ship type, say, light frigates, your best bet is to build many long range frigates as these counter LF very well. When you want to build a ship, it's info card says what it is good against, or you may just search for the weapon type tables somewhere on these forums.

7. Don't build many capital ships. In this game until level4 or 5 they are worse than 50 fleet supply of frigates. Only build new ones if you lost your original free one, or your first one reaches level6. But it's better to have only one capital ship, and your second should be the titan.

I hope I wrote everything I wanted.

Armor: Reduces incoming damage, higher armor has diminishing returns.

Capital Ships and Titans:

Capital ships: As totalbiscuit put it, pretty much your heros in SC.


Titans: Protoss motherships for everyone! *some assembly required*


Orbital Structures:

Logistical:

Metal and Crystal Extractors: Minerals and gas that don't need SCVs? Brilliant!
Civilian Labs: Each lab allows you access to one tier of civilian and diplomatic research; each additional lab adds one tier
Military Labs: each lab built allows you access to one tier of military and defensive research; each additional lab adds one tier
Trade Port: Plays a larger part in sins, but identical to ES.
Culture Generator: ESs system influence. Friendly ships get a buff, and if it overlaps a enemy planet, it lowers its approval and income. but in sins you can use it to take over other planets! That's a really good idea, ES needs this because it would make the "Peaceful" factions so much more interesting and provide an alternative method of invasion! 

Orbital Refinery: Maximizes output of metha and crystal for that planet? 
Frigate Factory: Barracks
Capital Ship factory: Starport

TEC:

Planetary Shield Generator: Reduces bombardment damage


Tactical:

Defense Platform: Turret with a faction unique gizmo attached to it.

Repair Bay: Medic

Hangar Bay: Immobile protoss carrier with a faction gizmo on it.

Phase-Jump Inhibitor: "You will not evade me"

Titan Foundry: Mothership core

Faction-Specific Utility Structures:

Advent:

Antimatter Restorer:Self explanatory.

Vasari:

Phase Stabilizer Node: The archetype of an ES faction: "The Vaulters are able to instantly teleport a Fleet from one system to another under their influence, if both systems have a “Portal” built on them."

Nano-Weapon Jammer: with this it more like damage per minute! Zing!

Superweapons:

TEC: Novalith Cannon -- Terran nuke
Advent: Deliverance Engine -- spreads culture from the target planet for two minutes and buffs friendly units in orbit around the target planet for two minutes
Vasari: Kostura Cannon -- stuns orbital structures and opens a Phase Stabilizer Node to the planet, allowing Vasari forces to phase jump there from any other planet with a Phase Stabilizer Node



Planetary Upgrades:

Specializations: ESs planetary exploitation, except it's a trade off and you can't change it once picked.

Industrial: Dust (ESs currency) an industry exploitations rolled into one.
Social: Population capacity and influence as an exploitation. Best away from the front lines I'm guessing.


Shield Mitigation: Counter to focus fire.

Hydraling, before responding to your comment let me say this. My suggestions are for someone who is new and will be trying to play against easy or normal AI, even hard. You must admit, you don't need to play perfectly to defeat any of these.

By turtleing I meant colonizing a few planets (by no means grabbing half map) and maxing out everything there before colonizing new unowned worlds. Many newplayers do this, and this is highly inefficient.

And honestly, you don't need starbases or defenses against an easy or a normal AI, I assume Foxfire421 will be playing against these in his first games when he tries to get the feeling of the game.

Doing this will cause economical damage, but you may be right, I only add he should only research it when he reached his first fleet cap.

This is not a valid strategy, if he does this he will get banned most likely from every game online.

I thought this wasn't an intense training on how to be the next Doci. Stat researches are not that bad as many say, having a stronger capital ship is something even in a skilled game, I suggest he try it out for himself, after some time he may be able to decide whether it is worth to get it. If you have the money for it, and constantly building ships (so a longer queue means no instant advantage), why not research these btw?

Against AI it is a viable strategy to ignore trade and focus heavily on population (trust me, nowadays I usually defeat Unfair like this), this yields similar values of income after some minutes, coupled with trade ports you can imagine (speaking only about maps where you have more than 2 planets, like the medium large one). I know it would not be working online, but not upgrading the planet population when you have the money for it is an economical waste. I know it is not the highest priority, but still a useful addition to your income.

NONE. The AI is dumb as a rock, no human player plays like this. I suggest you improve to be able to defeat Unfair most of the times on a medium (medium large) map, thats the skill level required to enter the multiplayer scene without much trouble, BUT BE AWARE, strategies against AI and strategies against humans WIDELY DIFFER. Noone would sacrifice whole fleets on a starbase or on a high level titan, they would just ignore those, bypass them, etc.

On the subject of flak...

I don't wish to start a flame war, but from my perspective, there is an extent to which both Turchany and Hydraling are correct.

There is some evidence suggesting that properly microed flak frigates hard-counter light frigates on a per-supply basis by exploiting the 360-degree-fire-on-the-move qualities of flak frigates in concert with a flaw in the light frigate AI (sometimes called the "confused sperm" phenomenon). That said:

1. It remains to be seen whether or not this is worth the trade off in versatility -- regardless of whether or not flak frigates counter light frigates, flak frigates do significantly reduced damage to many other units, whereas light frigates do well against these same units (for cost)
2. Other units can exploit the "confused sperm" phenomenon without sacrificing versatility
3. Flak frigates require research and are built much more slowly than light frigates, necessitating both military labs and additional factories for comparable output

Ultimately, Foxfire, it is your choice. There is some evidence to suggest that flak spam works, but it is somewhat micro-intensive and has other consequences.

As for comparing things in Sins to things in Endless Space and other real-time strategy games: if it helps Foxfire understand Sins, who cares? Over time, Foxfire will be familiar enough with Sins that he will not need comparisons; until then, more power to him!

On the subject of trade versus population upgrades...

There is an extent to which Hydraling is correct: trade centers do pay for themselves much faster than planet upgrades. Consequently, if forced to choose between one or the other, pick trade.

On the other hand, population upgrades negate the Underdevelopment Tax (which can hurt your economy if you have too many underdeveloped planets), and they are available without research -- you do not need to research trade centers to get full planet upgrades. In addition, population upgrades combine with Social Specialization -- I'm not sure of the math, but I seem to recall one denizen of the forum indicating that beefy planets with maxed out Social Specialization was a viable source of income (someone please check me on that).

On the subject of weapon and armor research, I tend to do research when the cost of doing the research adds more firepower or hit points to my fleet than the equivalent number of ships.

If, for example, I have a fleet of 10 Ravastra Skirmishers, I have about 120 DPS.

The first rank of pulse gun research provides 5% more damage to my fleet and costs 400 credits and 25 crystal; assuming a 4x conversion from crystal to credits, that's roughly 500 credits -- less than the cost of one Skirmisher if you account for the 70-metal price tag.

120 x 1.05 = 126 -- meaning that researching the first rank of pulse gun research provides half a frigate's worth of damage.

What if I have 20 Ravastra Skirmishers?

240 x 1.05 = 252 -- exactly 12 more DPS, which is roughly the equivalent of one Ravastra Skirmisher.

By the above rule, 20 Ravastra Skirmishers is a good time to research the first rank of pulse gun damage.

Just remember: if you tech-switch from Skirmishers to Kanrak Assailants, that research you just did is suddenly less useful.

Thanks Seleuciea, both for breaking it down and for keeping it simple. I don't think I've ever simplified anything in my life.

So to recap, there are no tall empires in this game so expanding as fast as you can afford to get a foothold on the map before all the empty systems are gobbled up in the rush. Because later they will be difficult to contest, and your built up systems can't make up for the lack of numbers. 

Starbases are a last means of defense and should only be built as needed. Or going for something daring like building one in an enemy's gravity well.

Actually sounds like a FOO strategy which actually is a bad habit to get into. 

Due to the complexity of a RTS and the high skill ceiling of a strategy game the AI is either braindead in comparison to a human player or just braindead, so yeah I'd figured most strategies for an AI would not work or have to be modified for a human player. 

Micro is not my strong point.

Thank you. There are things that are intrinsic to anything any game calling itself a 4X. Yes, ES has nothing on combat, but it does have the empire management skills that crossover.

So in short stat upgrades are only cost efficient if you already have a large number of ships. So focus on building/rebuilding your fleets before upgrades.

Oh that reminds me of what I was going to ask, should I get the DLC? 

In what fashion? Do the DLCs anomalies affect the pre-built maps?

Does stellar phenomena have positive anomalies?

Are they on the scale of the shenanigans like the other 4X I played? 

Global events (affect all players)

Subterranean Endless Treasures Discovered: +20% approval (loyalty) +10% FIDS -Food/population growth, Industry, Dust/money, and science/research- There is also a negative version of this that's quite the spanner in the works.

Hulk Discovered with Endless Tech: +50% movement speed on all ships 

Single events (one player only)

Unexpected Experimental Results: Instantly researches the best technology currently available. 

Legendary Wreck Analyzed: Gives quite a bit of XP to your ships.

Fanatic Rebels Suicide Bomb Navy: (that one is every bit as terrible as it sounds) All ships lose 1/4 of their max HP in damage.

EDIT: I got forbidden worlds, I was wondering if I should get stellar phenomena at half off? ($2.49)

Thanks! Hopefully in a couple days I'll get better and share a replay that isn't too cringe worthy. Is it better to learn on small maps?

A minor quibble, WJC -- the Kostura Cannon does NOT disable starbases. They are apparently a separate class of orbital structure and so are unaffected by the Kostura Cannon.

On the subject of bombers as an anti-starbase unit...

The metagame used to be focused extensively on bombers, but with the inclusion of corvettes, the meta has shifted away from bomber spam, primarily because fighters and flak are useful for softening up corvettes and therefore tend to be present on the field by the time bombers come out. As a result, there is a bit of a paper-rock-scissors thing going on between light frigates, long-range frigates, and corvettes, but this also means that bombers are less common.

I mention this because it influences the manner in which you will take out starbases. Bombers, as WJC indicated, can work, but given the shift in metagame to favor fighters and flak as a response to corvettes, going bombers might be unwise.

As WJC indicated, Advent and TEC have anti-structure cruisers; the Vasari don't have them. Instead, they have starbases.

Vasari starbases, as you know, can move, so you can construct them out of range of the enemy starbase, upgrade them, and then move them into range when you're good and ready (Vasari Rebels don't even have to do this -- with maxed out civilian and military research, they can construct a starbase behind friendly lines and then jump the entire thing into an enemy gravity well by means of the Kostura Cannon.

In addition: the first weapon upgrade you can purchase for the Vasari starbase unlocks a disintegrator weapon that is close-range but very good against structures.

As an alternative, I have also found that Vasari heavy cruisers are surprisingly effective in an anti-starbase role due to their favorable damage multiplier against structures and their durability.

Vasari heavy cruisers are durable because of Reintegration, an ability common to both Vasari light frigates and heavy cruisers that shuts down the ship and rapidly regenerates its hull. Though using this ability takes a ship out of the fight, individual cruisers that are under fire are able to spend longer periods of time soaking damage (which increases their shield mitigation, which allows them to spend even longer under fire). To add to the fun, you can generally throw in a few Jarun Overseers to heal the cruisers even further. I've found that with enough heavy cruisers, you can generally slug it out with a well-upgraded starbase and win.

That said, there is one situation in which sending heavy cruisers (or any ships, for that matter) against a starbase is very unwise, and that is against the TEC.

TEC starbases can be upgraded to explode in a wide radius for massive damage. Anything with range will be devastated.

Consequently, you should approach TEC starbases with extreme caution and, if possible, pick them off at a distance.

Thanks for all the info! But yeah I will be playing mostly SP in the mean time.