I haven't really used Destra Cruisers, Defense Vessels or Dominas a lot, I think all ships probably have their purpose in this game, but I'm not entirely sure how to use these in particular. I also keep seeing people who say they're not worth it to build those ships.
Destra's are pretty good heavy cruisers. Basically they are a jack of all trades ship that is good but not great against all the other combat frigates in the game, and are extremely durable to everything except bombers. However, other combat frigates are more efficient for raw DPS, though the Advent's plasma upgrades make the Destra a bit more competitive. If your opponent doesn't have a lot of bombers, they are a good general purpose ship to add to your fleet when you don't need to counter anything specific.
Defense vessel are "flak" frigates, and are a key part of the main combat "square" of Light Frigates > Flak Frigates > Corvettes > Long Range Frigates > Light Frigates etc. Basically build them when you're enemy has a lot of corvettes or strikecraft (especially fighters). They're also extremely durable for how cheap they are, but they struggle to damage anything larger than a Long Range Frigate.
Dominas are a support cruiser, and they are much better in E4X than they are in Vanilla, so some things you may read about them may not apply. They are used for both healing your ships and for disabling enemy frigates. As the Advent Rebels (Ascended Advent) in the mod, you do not have to research these ships, which gives them some interesting uses. For example, they are a huge help when taking Terran, Desert etc. planets that have a few heavy cruisers, since they can just disable the heavy cruisers while the rest of your fleet kills the weaker ships, then fight them alone. I typically build one for each capitalship/titan I have, since the healing ability you research both helps you keep them alive and prevents abilities like Ion Bolt from disabling your key ships.
Fighting the Vasari was another story though, especially when they showed up with their titans, I still haven't quite figured out how to fight them properly, as Advent or TEC. Usually I just stuck to my Star Base, and let them destroy themselves, but whenever I tried to get them on the offensive it was really difficult, especially with their moving star bases. From what I found out the best way to deal with star bases is to use bomber spam, however, my issue occurs when it takes too long and the enemy shows up with one of their huge fleets.
The Vasari have an inherit advantage against the advent thanks to their phase missiles, which bypass shields, one of the Advent's great technological strong points. Some research, pacts and hero units can help with this weakness a little bit, but its definitely an uphill fight.
The good thing about the Vasari starbases is that they will move out of range of repair bays and other defensive structures, allowing you to engage them alone. Of course taking out an enemy fleet WITH a starbase is a much more difficult proposition. You either need to provoke the AI into attacking you (retreat your fleet from the front line, wait for them to attack your now vulnerable planet, warp right back in) so you can destroy the fleet, or simply greatly outgun the enemy.
I'm still playing with normal AI, I do use the Enhanced AI module from the mod though.
If you're struggling on normal AI, you're probably making to fairly big beginner mistakes. First, you're probably not expanding fast enough early game. Taking planets from the militia is much easier than from other players, so early on invest only in the basic research infrastructure and build up your fleet to take as many easy planets as possible (minimum you should max out your starting fleet supply quite quickly). Strongly tied to this is the strategy of double colonization - that is, building a colony capitalship to expand in one direction, while frigates and a colony frigates expand in another.
The other mistake many beginning players make is either not building a big enough fleet or building two many heavy cruisers. A few dozen frigates is not a big fleet in Sins. While one must be careful to not expand their fleet size too quickly do to the permanent economic cost, at the same time when you max out your existing fleet and you're still struggling, never be afraid to expand it. A good economy is no good to you if you let your enemy destroy it.
Alternatively, a fleet ratio of 50% capitalships to 50% frigates is only acceptable at the beginning of the game. For their fleet supply, capitalships must be very high level to match the efficiency of frigates in basic stats. The main reason you should build them is for their special abilities, not to increase your fleets damage output etc. Further, the more capitalships you have, the slower they and your titan will level up, since all experience earned is split. While it doesn't sound like you're doing this, if you have multiple Radiance's etc. per fleet, just keep in mind that capitalship quality is usually better than quantity. Level 10 capitalships do not suffer from any of these issues, so feel free to build more once some of them start hitting lvl 10 as well.
For instance in one game I took a choke point which blocked two AIs from getting any further, they teamed up on me, and even then they couldn't get past my star base, but then the Advent AI started upgrading its culture and then I started to lose allegiance little by little, so I was forced to attack its planets, to destroy their culture centers, it took too much time, and even with all the upgrades for TEC culture I still couldn't push back their culture. How would I go about stopping that?
Culture is more powerful in E4X, especially for the Advent Loyalists (Orthodox). Occasionally I'll see the AI build 5 or more culture centers on one world, in this case the usual 1 culture center for every few planets won't be good enough. You either have to destroy them quickly, build more culture centers yourself, or both. Also capitalships and titans can repel enemy culture in friendly territory, so if you have some to spare station them on the culture front lines.
I also use the module that disables super weapons, I thought using them wouldn't be as fun so I don't have novaliths, or deliverance engines.
Well, playing as TEC Loyalists without superweapons is going to be an immensely harder task. So much of their strategy relies on it that I would recommend playing the TEC Rebels (HTS in the mod) instead.
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