For me thus far, it's got to be the Vasari. I love the way the tech tree is set up and the weapons available to them, much more powerful and useful in my opinion then those used by the TEC, who tend to be too economy based for my like.

The ability to build in with these guys is great, as is their phase jump abilities -- no one has any idea how happy I was the first time I crossed a system with over fifty planets in a fraction of the time it would normally have taken me thanks to their advanced Phasing technology, especially useful for the larger empires.

Yeah they are pretty cool. They can take quite a bit of a beating, move around like all buggery, and they know how to dish out pain...and get rich off it (go Drain Planet).

I can't really decide who I like more, the TEC, Advent and Vasari all play a bit differently and excel more in certain areas over the other two. I usually just stick with random, I don't care what I get, as long as I get a good game!

i prefer the TEC for 2 reasons.

1. they have the ability to procure mass amounts of tech and resources very quickly.

2. i like the way their ships and buildings look compared to the other races lol.

I always thought that the TEC ships seemed sort of boxy and awkward compared to the Vasari or Advent ships. =D

Personally I like the Advent look, their ships are very sleek and cool, plus I just generally like their weapon visuals as well.

A while back, when I was playing as the Vasari I noticed how awesome their capital ship weapons looked. Outside of that, the Advent definitely have some amazing ship designs, although personally I find the Vasari ship designs equally as interesting.