Converting from StarCraft

Quigibo had it right. Before I started in on the alpha and beta for PA, I re-installed TA and put myself back in the mindset of that game (after years of regrettably not having it installed, and then SC2 came along). There's a reason why you can quickly build fast exploratory units very early on; the best way to win is to explore, nab resources, and maybe even pin down the enemy in the process. TA was the first RTS where I began to really excel at winning "early" by managing the map.

That being said, I'm STILL learning my way around PA, memorizing shortkeys and the such. I think I actually had a keyboard cover for TA back in the day which helped immensely for that kind of thing. Maybe it was RA or Dune, who knows; I'm sure I still have it in a box somewhere though.

Making the transition from TA/SupCom to PA is challenging enough, coming from starcraft would be a nightmare.

I played SupCom before StarCraft 2 (I never played original starcraft) and I found SC2 to be downright weird, rigid and shallow. Excellent for competitive play, but that is about it.

PA goes a whole new step beyond SupCom on this, forcing the mind to expand to encompass huge amounts of detail. Once you get past the learning curve imposed by the current UI, the challenges in this game are extensive and very enjoyable.

The first PC games I had ever played where the original warcraft and startcraft games. Naturally I liked the other games like age of empires 2 that followed a similar gameplay.
When I tried Supcom 1 for the first time I was very confused on how the income system worked, but I have never really fallen back to the others. I like the occasional SC2 game, got hooked on the tournament stuff when it came out (ignored the campaign halfway through despite the effect blizzard cinematics have had on my future). Once the economy system made sense it was clear that this style of game is designed to keep the battles massive.
I am glad that PA is a new take on this, I am also glad that it is not just SupCom3, and is doing some things differently. The round planets, asymetrical random creation, and the need to really look for your enemy adds a whole new level to strategy. Trickery is far more effective in PA than games with pre-created maps that we learn all the tricks and shortcuts of.

This is why we have Spring Engine...

Yes, as far as map coverage being important. In TA, the easy difficulty AI only beat you if they outgrew the map. In PA, the entire purpose is to outgrow the map and grow right over top of your enemy as fast as possible. It is like multiple planetary plagues, trying to consume more of the planet and in fact trying to consume right over top of one another.

I recommend you go and play Forged Alliance for a bit, do your best to improve and get annihilated over and over again. Then you'll find PA a walk in the park.

Especially the balancing the eco bit, in FA if you run out of energy your mexes stop producing, you can't imagine how much that screws you over until you've done it.

i HATE WHEN THAT HAPPONS >.< and you need energy for Artilery and Missiles to fire ( i forget if you need energy for thoes in PA :/)

Yes. And Yes. That is a bitch when it happens in FA. Other than to put that massive stair step up for Elites and Pubs, why do the mexes completely shut down without power? If you mess up once, you become half the size of the enemy.

There was a bug that was never fixed in any official version of FA that meant that if you bottomed out whilst a mex was upgrading, that mex would stop producing until its upgrade was complete.

It was fixed a long time ago in FAF though.

In addition

Make sure your income is 31 metal before you go building that factory, then work on power and get fabs to build more metal. Speaking from experience, the stall of getting too much build power out too quickly is more expensive than the lost time delaying your expanding fabs. And the mex, power, storage build is pretty popular too.

Edit: disregard emboldened paragraph. That is not how the economy works. @thetrophysystem - What on Earth?

But in general, the best advice is simply to play as if you are playing Rise of Nations with 95% territory victory condition.

Realise there is no unit cap so spam everything until the world runs out of ham.