Noob mistakes

I am 4days into playing PA. I just wish I knew what I was doing. What are some effective hotkeys and mods? Also any up to date beta tutorials I should watch?

Its sota ok to run metal negative, but never run power negative. You need power for stuff to run right.

http://pamatches.com/tutorials/

Has a collection of up to date tutorials to watch.

PA Matches also has a bunch of gameplay videos for you to watch and learn from.

From the FAQ
What are the Keyboard Shortcuts?Here's a full list of Planetary Annihilation Keyboard Shortcuts. The shortcuts can be configured in settings > keyboard.

MODS
Yes, there are some MODs. No really huge once but they do improve gamplay. Click.

Tutorials
As fas as I know there are no real tutorial video's yet. You could check out some gameplay video's here. Or just look on youtube.

Also, you should check out ZaphodX's youtube videos on PA, especially the earlier ones (he's past 100). He does an excellent job of explaining the rationale behind both strong and weak tactics, build orders, etc, whether he's spectating or actually playing a game. Learn loads.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ZaphodX1/videos

Having never played SupCom or any of PA's predecessors, I know what you mean about feeling totally dwarfed by the scale and demands of the game, but check out some of those videos, practice against the AI a bit, and your picture of the game will become a lot more clear. Noobs gotta' be have each other's back, yo.

Just avoid the most typical noob mistake:
Building air fabs.

Build order:
Commander: Mex (Metal extractor), Power, Mex, Power, Bot Factory, Mex(if close by), Power(25x)

Bot factory: (Fabricators first of a few bots for an early harras. Bots are the most efficient builders.)
Fabber 1 Expanding (Never stop expanding,)
Fabber 2 Factories (Don't build build just 1, build 4. In late game it is normal to have 20+ factories.)
You can choose air that way you can scout. Or vehicle because tanks have a range advantage over bots.
Fabber 3 Help Command with building power.
Fabber 4-15 Spread them out helping the other fabbers.

Tactics:
Air: T1 Bomber are nice, T2 Bombers are awesome. Don't forget fighters.
Bot: Mostly usefull in early harras. (Still T2 bots are strong.)
Vehicle: Prefered my most players. T1 ant (tank) are you primary attack unit, for good reason. 6 T2 tanks can take out a commander, T2 tanks recommanded.
Naval: Build Bluebottles also build sonar with some torpedolaunchers in front of it as defence. (Navel fabbers drain 2x that of a bot builder, watch your eco.)
Rush T2: T2 Eco is 5x that of T1. Better eco is usually victory. Getting T2 up is a big drain on you eco make sure your not helpless.
Orbital: Orbital is Expensive. Use Astayaus(transport) to get to other planets, eco on other planets can't get harrased. Never build basic orbital radar, alway build advanced orbital radar. Orbital laser can snipe a commander. You need an Deep space radar to see what is happing in the orbital an interplanetary layer.
Pelter creep: Using T1 Arty to slowy destroy a base.

Catapult is better than Holkins(T2 arty), but Holkins has a bigger range.
Always keep scouting!!!!
Nukes can hit planets obiting each other. No auto-build.
Anti-nuke half price as a nuke building comes with one anti-nuke. No auto-build.
Asteroids: Ingame when you zoom out, under that planet name of small planet/moon. Their might be gray squars this in the number of Halleys(Planet moving building) it is either 3 or 25 Halleys. Asteroids kill everything on a planet.

That's all I can think of, now back to work.

You guys are so awesome! Thanks for helping a noob out. Also ashamed to say I was using air fabs for a bit. Until I read that and watched some Zaphod videos.

Yeah, now *you* can be the guy shaking your head when you see someone's slow, expensive, outrageously delicate swarm of air fabbers! Right before you send in three fighters and watch all the poor bastard's build power go "pop".

Oh, I use air fabs from time to time, in limited expendable waves to quickly build up my naval metal.
If you manage to take them out, no problem.
By that time I already have 16 factories to replace them and build waves upon waves of fighters to take out yours.

My usual noob mistake is to get too excited towards expanding and neglecting my en.

The most common noob mistake I see is building tons of defenses while neglecting expansion.

Yeah, always funny to just steamroll into one of those micro bases.
Best part is right when they're bragging about beating your first wave when the next one enters their radar range.

What is so bad bout airfabs ? Dont they make sense to rush up proxyfactories or firebases?

They are bad to build at the start of the game, but like you say, they do move pretty quick so could be useful for proxie bases (something i have been trying out too)

They have their place, but I believe its about using them when bots would do the same jobs more efficient.

I would think that since area commands are a thing now small groups of airfabs would be ideal to rush mexexpansion ... right i too wouldnt use them out of the bat but once i have a baseeconomy established at minimum ...

Going all out interplanetary nuke spam, when none of the other planets are within range.

Just huddling up into a tiny defensive base in the fetal position when your teammates are actually trying to do it right.

air fabbers build 60% as fast as a bot/vehicle fabber and drain 2x as much energy per metal

air 6/1200
bot, vehicle 10/1000

I pop out a single air fabber after some scouts as part of my standard build order. It's very useful for a bit of early expansion or putting up some mexes in small lakes