Need help with quick expanding

I read the manual but I am still can't get fully how do I properly expand the map and stop the enemy from expanding. Should I build small defenses on each mex or just naked expand?

very hard to tell after one game

What do you play. Against bots? Human? 1 vs 1 or bigger?
You could join mumble for a while and listen, usually a lot of experienced players are around -> mumble.springrts.com https://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Installing_Mumble

Best time is between 6 pm to midnight or just step on at night. :-)

Also it's important to have vision of your enemy's movements, through scouts or radar towers, and your own raiders, so that you can spot his raiders and intercept them. The lotuses won't stop a larger raid by themselves.

The fastest way to improve at this game is watch some high-level 1v1 and look at the commands each player gives to their units. Here's a good list.

I may need to know when it's a good time to build other than raider class

I don't think there is a single answer to this question.

The only thing you can really do consistently is figure out where your opponent is and what they're building.

The speed of the dot on radar should indicate which unit it is (or at least which type AKA raider if fast). A few raiders of your own walking along the edge of the range of enemy turrets should get vision on units being built and if there is an army massing somewhere.

With experience you can tell if you can repel what your opponent is building and can afford to take more risk expanding without protection, or if you need to stick with what you have and put up a few turrets.

Without that knowledge, you're flipping a coin. If you're expanding slowly and putting down turrets deep into your territory while your opponent is expanding naked, they're likely to out eco you and drown you in units. Then you'll watch the replay and hate yourself for not raiding and building too much static defense.

If you're expanding naked and your opponent is making a good amount of units, all the metal you spend in mex will get lost before they make cost. You'll watch the replay and tell yourself you were far too reckless.

But if you see what they do, you can use that information to your advantage.

Make a factory that fits the map, scout/(s) or straight constructor/($) if you made scouts, scout imidiatly dont die and raid/disrupt.
Make mexes with commander in the same time and use 1 or 2 constructors usually to make also mexes and solars or wind/tidal id possible (makesure wind is above 0.4 in the infobox when placing), energy should be built to fit the growing metal income and other energy recquiring things.
At first you have 4 metal income and 6 enrg inc plus storage of 300 (?)
Note that you will have trouble with air start unless you are coordinating with a teammate.
If you have more build power than income you made too much , if you dont have energy you made too little, if you had more metal than you could spend then its gone.

well, cloaky is just my favorite factory :)

you can also do it with other raiders. the important thing is not to suicide them into your enemies defenses but to contain your enemy. the commander can push out, but builders generally can`t because they get picked up. When the ai made reaver, i build a few ronins as counters.

it is definitely possible with other factories, just not with spiders i think because they have no raider.