Glad you're loving the game. 
The Vassari are being chased by My Little Pony.
Yup, space pony/sheep/carebear/nanite cloud things. We decided to quit arguing about what we think it is an combine them all together. 
Ankylon Titan is lame (and as Titans seem to make a huge impact mid-game and almost decide end-game having the weakest titan seems like kind of a bummer)... Even if you are fighting in your own gravity well the best option is to just ignore the stupid thing until you blow up the fleet, then the planet, then the Titan - this works on hard AI. Also, since it doesn't do any damage it is hella-hard to lvl up.
Yeah, it got a bit better in the last patch now that Disruption Matrix is the only ability in the game (besides magnetic clouds) that can disable other titan's abilities. It's still probably safer to rely on Dunov's with EMPs to counter titans though.
So... All that said. About the Advent. Since their economy is kinda weak it is best to not lose ships (I mean, this of course applies to everyone, but particularly the Advent). Would this be a situation where you want to try to go for the heavier ships, possibly capital ships in stead of smaller vessels that do (as a total) more damage than 1 capital ship? It is easier to keep a capital ship alive than keeping 30 corvettes alive.
This is true, and fortunately the Advent have the easiest time keeping their ships alive. Guardians with Repulse/Shield projection, Mothership's with Shield Restore, Rapture's with Vertigo, Domina with Perseverance, AL Titan with Suppression Aura, AR shield regeneration bonuses, and high shield mitigation with research and culture means a late game Advent "battleball" has ridiculous tanking power. Using as many of these as possible together in "synergy" is what the Advent is all about.
Unfortunately, with Rebellion the giant battle ball tactic with as many ships close together as possible supporting each other with abilities isn't as good as it was. This is mainly due to titan's powerful AoE attacks. Keeping your ships close together when fighting most titans but especially the Ragnarov, Eradica or unity help you a level 6 Vorastra is not a good idea. If you have vastly superior forces you might be able to take it out before it overwhelms your defensive buffs, but it's a lot harder now than it used to be.
Also if you're going against the Vasari, phase missiles has always screwed the Advent over. It is difficult to keep your loses low against a large number of fully upgraded phase missile units.
I can beat vicious computers with VL... But that is just ridiculously easy-mode. I have trouble on hard with everyone else.
Any and all help/tips would be appreciated. I plan on terrorizing multiplayer sooner rather than later
First of all, playing against the Vicious AI and playing multiplayer require two totally different sets of skills. Cruel and Vicious AI cheat A LOT. They have substantially better income than a human would have, plus other bonuses like being able to buy more capitalship levels and some sort of research advantages. You need to exploit situations the AI can't handle well to win, like Vasari Loyalist planet eating or more likely a long war of attrition with starbases (which the AI can't assault very well).
Human players have neither those advantages or weaknesses. In competitive games, you tend to start fighting with your neighbors earlier, and human players will go for the kill ASAP. They'll often ignore your frontline planets and go straight for your homeworld. If you're next to an enemy Vasari player, you might see tactics like them sneaking a starbase on your homeworld while you're still in the expansion phase. Also since for some reason the accepted competitive game format is large team games, usually 4v4 or 5v5. This helps reduce the overall impact of the random maps on the team as a whole, but it leads to quirks like "suicide spot", where you're stuck between two enemy players (who will likely both rush you), and "feed", where players might give resources to another teammate so he can jump start his fleet and hit you with vastly superior forces early. And I won't even go into the finesse of battle tactics and general execution (mainly because most would say I suck at it 
).
In short, you just can't get that kind of practice against the AI. I think if you can beat unfair AI regularly with most factions (or at least the ones you intend to play that aren't VL), you're probably as prepared as you can get, short of watching some online replays and other pro tips here on the forums.
