Hmmm.... I'm a SP noob, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. Here's my SP musings as Vasari. Part One: Feel free to correct me.
Mobility is key. Nearly all frigates, and the Enforcer cruiser have no antimatter (capital ships not included...) This means you wont find yourself short of antimatter for a jump, and antimatter isn't required for some skills, such as reintegration. You can go as deep into enemy territory as you can avoid the defenses, to cherry pick a targtet. If the enemy catches up with you, you can simply make a few more hops. At the very worst, any capital ships will be a hundred or more antimatter lighter and less threatening. At best they'll get left behind. Or your retreat runs afoul of hangars/inhibitors/defense picket. Reintegration is a decent thing to, if you can find an empty sector.
Tip One: The Vasari have early, easy access to repair in the form of a Regeneration Bay. On a map with tough independents, and a nearby star, make your free capital ship the Devestator with the first point in Power Surge. With rapidly regenerating shields, rapid fire weapons, and enough armor and hitpoints to let you run away from even the pirate base safely if you run as soon as the shields go down... unupgraded, mind you.... you can solo many tough desert planets, maybe even terran ones. Once the fight is over or you have to retreat, head to the nearest star for a recharge of your antimatter. FYI, it'll only autocast while you're in combat, but you can use this skill for the shield recharge manually. Combine that with a quick repair at your home planet, and this ship is back in top condition faster than anything else at that stage of the game.
Tip Two: If you go with the Devestator, since it is almost always in top condition, don't worry about buying off the pirates. If you don't pit a single credit in the bounty bidding _and_ the pirate threat is low, your Devestator can take on the entire threat. You do have Xenophobia on hand as well to weaken their attacks further.
Tip Three: If the pirates are low threat, three turrets and a regeneration bay are a great way to delay and distract the pirates, though not your real opponents. They'll last seemingly forever, and all without a tactical upgrade. You have the leisure to send over whatever capital ship you want to farm experience, all without risking or replacing your expensive Skirmishers.
The Devestator: In addition to what I mentioned above, I consider Tier 2, Improved Reactor Design key. At the second level of that, and the third level of Power Surge, you'll be able to cast Power Surge almost endlessly (barring certain skills), as long as you had a decent reserve before going into battle. You'll have gotten 50 of the 60 antimatter back by the time the cooldown expired.
The Wikia lists ship stats and the level one characteristics of the skills. It seems putting extra points in provides linear benefits. The first three skills can be picked three times, and the fourth once. So level up gains past the first point.
Power Surge: +5 cooldown +5 duration +25% Weapon Cooldown +75% Shield Restore. As I mentioned above, not only does the skill get better, but it gets much easier to keep on autocast with just a little research.
Jam Weapons: +1000 range +10 duration
It's not an exciting skill, but even at level 1, you can have it on continuously for around 45 seconds. At the second level, a minute and a quarter. So if you're facing a bomber spam advent, a total prevention of damage isn't bad. It'll prevent casulties, which is more than flak frigates alone can do against swarms. It's a bit pricy and too nondescructive for common use though... I might take one point just in case, but I often pass on this skill.
Disruptive Strike: Antimatter Removed +4, Cooldown rate +10%
A nice passive skill, it is a bit weak early on, with just one low-leveled devastator, and lots of no-anti-matter pirates. But leveled up it stacks well with other Power Surges and Devastators. Sooner or later it will be worth your points.
Volatile Nanites: It wasn't clear to me from the ingame description, but it affects a large swath of ships from the start, not only when the explosion starts. Best for clearing out the small fry, not for taking on other capital ships unless you aren't worrying about antimatter.
Like the other player, I prefer the Evacuator myself. It's a surprisingly wonderful and versatile colony ship. While it isn't meant for heavy combat, the gravity warhead is wonderful and has gotten me early kills (against the cap raiding AI...) that a Devestator wouldn't have been able to pull off - not for lack of firepower, but because I couldn't prevent their retreat. The nano disassembler is also worth a few points. If you have an opportunity to send your Evacuator raiding with some supporting skirmishers against light defenses, try Disassembling a turret, shipyard, or other structure. Its amazing how fast those 4000 hitpoint structures once they no longer have 8 armor. It works especially well since you aren't dealing with any shields. Speaking of shields, they are the reason I start every battle with autocasting of disassembly off. It's a waste to use at the start. It's much more effective to gravity warhead and nano-disassemble once the shields are down and the ship about to retreat. Beware though, the Evacuator is slower than other capital ships before the warhead and if you aren't paying attention its easy for the enemy ship to get out of range. And at level one it still has trouble keeping up. I recommend at least two points. I find this ships colonize skill the least useful, giving only a steady 20% build time bonus, only increasing the duration with further levels. I take one point simply to skip building a colony ship, but that's it. Anyone found the build speed bonus useful above and beyond simply planting a colony?
The Desolator's Siege Platform is very nice. I've often used it to attack two systems at the same time if my raiders found a nice opportunity. Either when there's a small isolated asteroid off to the side that I don't want the enemy to develop while I assault their terran planet or when given the opportunity to strike at an undefended planet while their main force contests my main force. My main force with a few siege frigates sits on their planet, and once their battle fleet warps in to counter, I send my siege frigate in before they have a chance to recharge their phase and antimatter. I drop off a siege platform or two right away and bombard the planet until their forces return. When their forces return, they may be low on antimatter from jumping around. Whereas most dreadnaught skills require your capital ships presence, the siege platforms will function even if you stop attacking and start retreating. If they go after the capital ship, then their planet continues to get hammered, possibly wiped out. If they go after the siege platforms, they aren't as likely to pin down and destroy your dreadnaught.
The Marauder is very different from the TEC and Advent ships. It is not battle support, but raider support. Phase Out Hull may have a short cooldown, but short duration and high cost make it infeasible in serious battles. I haven't fooled around with it much but I have a few ideas. 1) use it to separate a capital from a retreating fleet just like the gravity warhead 2) use it to lock down a dangerous capital ship, giving your raiding ships time to flee to safety 3) use it to temporarily negate a pesky structure like a single repair bay 4) know the timing of enemy skills and use it to prevent being doubled up on or regennign the shields just as you're about to destroy the vessel. Distort Gravity isn't that much on its own, but it is a pretty interesting skill. You can use it for insertion and extration, to get past defenses quicker, and jump out-system earlier. I've seen a ship blown up at the edge of the gravwell one time to many as TEC, that last second, 8% could be crucial, I suppose.
Well, off to sleep then gain some experience. This has been ramblings by...
Sins Forums
I haven't lost a game I teched to Dark Armada in.