I don't get the military

[Ghost Matter]

I don't get the military in this game, I build lots of stuff and get owned all the time. Either I can't defeat the ground defences or they attack me by surprise and BAM I'm dead. Maybe I'm too spread out...? I can't even finish the tutorial before it crashes or I get tired, I send all of my ships and get owned anyway...

Any tips? The manuals are barebones.

[Apheirox]

Use Marines to take out ground targets. 5 marines can take out 50 missile turrets in those 4 minutes you're given no problem. Don't use ships against turrets.

To defend, simply build a few missile turrets of your own on your colonies. I've yet to see the AI succesfully take over a colony that had defenses.

[Ghost Matter]

So I get marines inside Assault ships? How do I deploy them?

So just having a few missiles on a new colony should help? The compute always takes over when I begin making colonies too close to his territory...

[Ghost Matter]

Ok... So I managed to infect and conquer a planet using the Gray Order [:'(]. It might not be up my alley just yet though as, now that I understand victory points, it requires me to be more militaristic. I tried to conquer a second planet but got owned by satellites.

Any tip for good mid-game attack fleet? What's a good starter race?