Ok...

[Fyron]

douglas said:
Combat sensors and ECM are CRITICALLY IMPORTANT techs. NEVER neglect them (unless you have the talisman; then you can ignore sensors, but ECM is still a must-have). Training facilities aren't as important, but they're still very powerful.

Wrong. Training facilities are just as critical. You can get a maximum of 60% from CS and ECM. You can get a maximum of 40% bonus to both from training facilities. If both races have CS III and ECM III, and only one race trained their ships and fleets, the fleets with the training will generally decimate the untrained enemy fleets, with nary a scratch (assuming other factors are relatively equal).

You can even use training to fill a gap in CS and ECM techs, assuming the enemy is not more advanced in both CS/ECM and training techs...