funny i found my opponents need at least 4 lv 6+ caps that can repel my tec culture with critical mass on

Capital ship repelling culture is very much akin to bailing water.  It's a very temporary solution, and at the end of the day a waste of your valuable capital ship's time and talents.

Of course. I just meant if your opponent doesn't want to lose a planet to your culture, it's very easy for him to make it so and with enough caps in orbit it'll be impossible. I'm assuming the OP was talking about culture in single player context, since I don't imagine very many people try to overthrow planets with culture in MP, and in SP the AI often ends up with caps where your culture is hitting.

You make it sound like that's a difficult thing to accomplish - it isn't.

No, it was indeed a multiplayer game.  Players trying to overthrow planets with culture does happen with some frequency online in my experience, though its more generally the one versus none scenario- thats why I wondered whether the game would be more diverse if it was extended on to two versus one.  Advent especially seems to have been originally intended to fight in that manner, advancing with their culture. 

Of course in theory this might be unproductive, but the great beauty of culture is that you can set it up and then leave it, it doesn't take player time or awareness...

So how does the culture mechanic work when a player can hold one planet with a single culture centre but despite that the next one goes down...?  I suspected at the time that it was something to do with persistence, so that one jump on my rate was down.. but the maths seems odd? 

Having four level six capitals would be a different matter online, of course...

The next time that I test a game style- possibly tonight if anyone's up for it- I'd like to have another go at the multiplayer relations victory.  The impression I have of it is that there is a huge advantage if you have several factions of your type in the game.  This would just be wrong, if it was indeed like that.

Also, it seems odd that the relations victory should be intended to shorten singleplayer games.. which often don't need shortening, its the multiplayer battles where it would be handy to have a game-shortening mechanic.  There are vast singleplayer maps out there, those players don't want shorter games!  However, if an FFA multiplayer comes down to 1v1 the relations victory might not shorten the game at all even when switched on, if the AIs are already out.

The basic principle of 'storing' your relations with other empires so that they contribute to a win even if they are defeated, seems very dubious.  If one Advent has to face four TEC players and defeats two of them, one of the remaining two could win based on three reseaches and cheap points stacked up with factions the Advent has struggled hard to eliminate...?  I consider that problems with this are so basic that the solution is to scrap the relations victory altogether, which would leave us a spare screen in the GUI.

What I'd replace the relations win with is some sort of research achievement victory- the Dimensional Cascades!-, so that the points showed how close each faction was.  That would prevent stalemates and put some kind of time limit on the game.

What could contribute to the points total?  Here are some options:

- Ownership of an artefact

- Less obviously, how about each level of exploration researched on each planet?  That would remove an element of the randomness of artefact discovery.  On the other hand it might make for better gameplay to have planets that become as central to victory as the home?

- Top-level research. TEC perhaps the 3 levels of planetary shield, Vasari the top level of sensors and the returning fleets, Advent Allure and Deliverance?

- A bonus for each superweapon owned?

Any other suggestions?  My preference would be for artefacts plus the top-level research, as a method of ending games where there were no artefacts.

It might take some testing to get the rate of points accumulation right, however what is being replaced is possibly the most broken part of the game, worse even than the pirates or Scramble Bombers.  Players just keep the relations victory switched off, yet it could have a very useful purpose recast in another form.  All the interface is already in place.  My scientists working on the Dimensional Cascades feel that they are close to triumph!  

Such powerful high level research would be interesting.  I have always been one for a larger tech tree.  I know it won't happen in Sins I, but I'm hoping for it in Sins II.

There'd be no expansion of the tech tree required, once researched the top techs mentioned would accrue victory points, in the same manner as relations points are accrued in the current version.  I would have a small amount of points for them and a larger one for artefects.  The interface would display the rate at which points were being gained and the number of total points for each faction, as presently.  As soon as one of those techs were discovered or an artefact found there would effectively be a timer for the end of the game- though theoretically the artefact could be lost...

I would just call it a Dimensional Cascades victory.. the victory screen might have to be changed to 'Research Victory',  it would be a surrender in the face of utterly superior technology.

That concept would likely work, but only if one side had this vastly superior tech while another did not.  If you too had expanded to T8, then I don't think that there should be any reason for an enemy to defeat you with research.

Hey Volt, what's been happening with your Fleet Diversification mod?  Last post was back in January.

What about having LRF to use antimatter or ammo to gain the high damage they are known for? It would make LRF damage drop a lot in longer fights, giving other units a more long term tactical role.

If an enemy had got to the last tier of research first, there should be a consequent advantage- its only a tiebreak method anyway, in the absence of ownership of artefacts.  The concept is of a weapon that will win the entire war as soon as it is developed, like a time or dimensional device, so being first is the only consideration.  It just seems to have a far better rationale than the existing form of the diplomatic victory, which would still exist together with other conditions to shorten single player games, but which fails to work for mutiplayer.

Another method of explaining my issue with LRF is to consider two fleets consisting of equal supply of flak, LRF and LF.  When they meet, the LRF will quickly destroy the LF, while the LF will somewhat less quickly destroy the flak, so that both sides will be left with flak and LRF.  This is why players often omit LF and just rely on LRF against carriers and even flak... when you can specialise your research on LRF the disadvantage isn't that much. 

As some senior players have pointed out, the problem with continually improving LF is that if LRF don't have enough advantage there is no reason to build them and you end up with LF spam.  Perhaps there is a sweet spot for all factions achievable with the current mechanic, and the trick might indeed be to make flak just slightly more effective against LRF, however I've suggested that an alternative route might exist, if LRF got the anti-flak role instead.   

Earlier in this thread, I suggested a series of five or six lines of code that should be edited to increase the damage done by Flak to LRF and Bombers.  This would help quite a bit late game.  If nothing else, it would make Flak dominant which is fine since Flak sucks against heavier targets.  This would in turn cause HC's to become more valued as LRF are fewer.  Honestly, I have always been in favor of the following late game combat triangle:

LRF<Flak<HC's<LRF

Yes, it would mean buffing LRF a bit against heavy armor, but if you buffed flak against them, you could keep them in check.  LRF usage will be a slow decline even if they were made obsolete, so it should work.  Even if you don't buff them against heavies, the system should still arise, but in a different form:

LRF<Flak<HC's=LRF

LRF would be for countering LF and dealing damage earlier, but once Flak and HC's came around, LRF would become less useful and would be replaced by HC's.  It is for this reason, that I also suggest buffing Antimedium against veryheavy by 10%-15%.  But this buff mind you should only come with the buff mentioned earlier to flak against LRF.  LRF should be held in check by Flak.  If anyone can come up with a better solution, I would love to hear it.

EDIT: Last night I was tired and wanted to hurry up and finish, so my argument was rather lacking.  Simply put, there is an easy way to change the damage done by Flak to LRF (and potentially bombers if you want to).

In the current version of the game, LRF can easily counter their own counter due to their sheer numbers and cost efficiency.  While they do deal slightly less damage (unless counting Assailants and Phase Missiles), they are only about half the cost, meaning that they are incredibly easy to replace.  This means that they can counter HC's with little difficulty.

That said, I do still think a small buff would be in order.  If you made Flak deal more damage to LRF, you would have a proper counter to it aside from fighters and LRF dominance would go out the window.  After all, it is pretty hard to spam an easily countered unit.

Also, I would like to say that I am not against amendments to my idea, but this template at least IMO is our best option for settling the problem with late game LRF (and Bombers if you guys want) once and for all.

Along with the adjustment to flak making them more deadly to LRF I would make them more deadly to bombers than fighters.  This would make them escorts to capital ships, rather than to LRF.  Also, I doubt that LRF need a buff against heavies.

Is there a bug with the Deliverance Engine?  It doesn't seem to have much effect on a target planet.  If a planet was at 60% and losing allegiance, what should a Deliverance Engine strike take it to?  This may be part of a wider issue with culture.  I'm not sure why, if a planet beyond one with a culture centre starts to lose allegiance, the one with a culture centre wouldn't be affected.. surely if culture is getting past a planet it should be affecting the planet too? 

The only exception I could imagine would be due to a great disparity in sustain rates, but even then one culture push would be going two jumps and another only one..?  If you're winning at the planet, when both rates are halved in theory you could have a situation on where you have 8 against 7, then on the next planet 4 (halved) against 5.25 (halved but with 50% decrease in culture loss).  However this requires high civics technology that isn't often researched, I'm not sure that it could be the explanation.  Am I missing something? 

As it is, a Deliverance Engine strike seems to do nothing, not even to increase the rate of allegiance loss.  Perhaps I am using the weapon poorly, I'm not very familiar with Advent.  Any suggestions or replays? There should really be a thread explaining Culture, and it obviously won't be me doing the explaining...

I play advent in SP quite a bit, and I've found the Deliverance Engine to be a bit useless if you aren't using it to boost a combat fleet.  Even with two entire galaxies packed full of DEs (I know I know, not going to happen in MP, bear with me) bombarding an enemy's planets, it results in nothing more than a slow decline in allegiance.

The issue with DE is that its effectiveness is capped, hard, by the same mechanic as culture centers.  This means that it has a more impressive effect in places with lots of culture centers, but not by much.  I don't know if anyone has experiment with modding the culture cap, but my guess is that DEs would be significantly more impressive if their effect wasn't capped.

The DE takes the "super" out of super-weapon.  Imagine the situation described above with Kosturas or Novaliths.  No empire would be long for this world under sustained bombardment from 30+ of those things.

What if the Deliverance Engine reduced allegiance equal to the amount the target planet would need  to reach 100% and say 50% against 100% or greater plus a lingering effect that prevents colonization for a few minutes.

That would give it a `one shot rebellion` effect on low allegiance planets and make it effective in numbers against high allegiance planets.

I think this idea would make it as worthwhile as the other superweapons.

so it would be r=0.8(1.00-a)+.30 if you wanted it to work properly.  That way, it doesn't get ridiculous and is still reasonably powerful.  For instance, versus a 120%, it would reduce allegiance by 14%.  To a 100%, it would deal 30%; 75%, 50%; 50%, it would instantly kill.  Actually, that is probably too powerful.  How about a change to .75(1.00-a)+.20

That ought to be more reasonable...  50% planets should not be instagibbed by this thing...

That said, it needs to go through the typical channels.  Currently, I believe it reduces culture by an amount per second for a duration.  Change that overtimeaction to an instantaction and that way it could still be neutralized by capitals, though culture centers would do nothing to stop it at the time, though if you think about it, they raise the planet's allegiance, so I suppose it is a bit like buying the emergency facilities.

Idk...  It seems to make sense to me...

Upon more thought I realized the original theory had holes Volt seems to have fixed them.

Thanks Volt.

Sometimes I wonder whether the game would have been better if the resources had been limited, as in most RTS games.  That is, there would be a limited amount of resources that could be obtained without the need for a refinery.  The economic system still seems to show the effects of the game having been designed for limited resources, I doubt that any of the patches have taken this properly into account.

If resources were limited another change that would be necessary would be to make the upgrades stronger.  Again, the level of upgrade that you get for your investment is very poor compared with most RTS, they need long times and large fleets to pay off.  A good question is whether research beyond a limited number of ship types is valuable at all.

This thread was based on the assumption that the developers would be working to make this game a finished product, however, and it seems that we can't expect that.  The second expansion has hardly been developed at all, with most of the features added at the last minute without any beta, and crass elements like vastly ramped AIs (a pity as the AIs were also the only area of genuine improvement), an untested relationship system and unusable pirates.

The game is fairly easy to modify in many elements.  However it seems to have accreted, rather than having been refined by the developers.  There was a good relationship between the players and the developers until about 18 months ago, when they seem to have begun to become to busy to have anything to do with the game.  We are urged to hang on, and hope for a last update, without any clue as to what it might contain.  Why?  It'll only be rubbish, because the process of creating it will have been rubbish.  All the discussion on balance patches before the second expansion was limited by not knowing how the expansion would alter balance.  It appeared, it had hardly beeen tested, and needed several patches and a concerted effort to sort out, which it won't get.

This game has a strong and innovative engine, but has been hindered badly by the gameplay detail and lack of balance.  There seem to be many options, but too few of the possible strategies can be remotely successful  The best option at this point might be if Ironclad set some future date at which they'd consider the contents of a community mod for inclusion as a final patch, rather than attempting one themselves.  However, without that sort of commitment, I don't find the game as it is to be good enough to play, or even redeemably close.  There were many months of the Illuminator Bug, and they have been followed by apparently endless months of the Scramble Bombers Strategy.  I've done enough hanging on already. 

Indifference Engine Play Example:

TEC have four planets left: their homeworld, a roid connected to their home and no other planet, a volcanic connected to their home and an ice, and an ice connected to their home, the volcanic and two Advent frontline ice planets.  One of the Advent ice planets has five phase lanes going from it, the other has three.

TEC has four broadcast centres- one on the roid and ice, and two on the volcanic.  Advent have four temples on each frontline ice, for a total of eight to four.  The also have an Indifference Engine.

The homeworld has 110% allegiance, the ice 90%, the other two 100%.

So where to fire the Indifference Engine for maximum effect?

The answer I discovered was that you could fire it anywhere, as it will have no effect.  The best result was to fire it at the roid, furthest from the temples.  A hit dropped allegiance from 100% to 90%.  For a while.  Hits on the volcanic and ice were less effective.  Three Indifference Engine hits on the ice at the same time dropped its allegiance to... 75%.

Culture seems to me to be a broken part of the game, and all the Indifference Engine does is to make this more evident.  Broadcast centres just prevent it from having any effect.  Planetary shields, much more expensive to research, only protect 30% against a Novalith- though the planet can be saved with low-level star base research.  Is it possible to defend against the Kostura at all?  However perhaps an extra culture centre in every group of four planets might defeat three Advent superweapons plus twice the number of temples...

To start to fix this, it seems odd to have the culture rate divided by the phase lanes out of a planet.  I suggest that each phase lane should get the full rate, affected by decay.  Then after testing the change, we could recalibrate the Indifference Engine. 

Culture is not as broken as relationship points, though...

Relationship Victory Play Example:

I played Advent in a four-way game with 2 TEC and one Vasari hard AIs.

As soon as I fulfilled one mission from one of the TEC AIs, and with the first level of influence researched, I obtained a ceasefire.  The single mission was more than enough to wipe out the centuries of enmity between TEC and Advent.... I then began to win the game, as the positive points I had from my truce outweighed the negative points from the other factions.  Though without researching the next two levels of relationship it would have taken a long time to win, no other faction had any points, not even the two TEC factions from their relations together.

This is incredibly easy to accomplish, even when you play a faction hated by 2/3 of the other factions.  Why should I get relationship victory points for one cease fire?  What's more, even should my new found partners in truce be vanquished, their charred embers will still add to my victory points total to the end of the game. The system seems silly.

This is from the play example, after I have the ceasefire and the second level of research.

'Diplomatic inclination':  2.00 Not sure what this is.  I am getting too many points from it at this stage.

Faction inclination: -2.00  Seems absurdly low.  It doesn't seem unfair to have hatred as requiring four-five missions to get over plus low level research and envoys.  How about -20.00, if the missions are to stay at 3.00 points?  Even the factions that are the same should have more suspicion of each other.. Even the very top-tier research shouldn't wipe all hatred away...

Adjacent: 0.00: The TEC faction was on my flank at the start, though a long way off, then expanded right up to me, by this time.  The other TEC faction was opposite, the Vasari on the other flank.  It seems very few points for a flank faction.  I'd either ramp up the points on this so that it could cover fairly distant flank factions (if it is home to home), or if it is well to well as it should be, then we have adjacent planets separated by an asteroid belt, which should be a hefty penalty, not 0.00.  Is it bugged?  

Mission: 3.00: I had to destroy two Vasari extractors, wow.  How that profited the TEC who were on the other side of the system I'm not sure.   Is this bugged?  I had no research to increase the points total.  Even with two levels of research 3.00 seems extremely high.

Mission rejections: 0.00  None, so dunno what the penalty is.

Fleet strength: 0.00 I complained about this early, and its still wrong.  The fleet strength should penalise strong fleets to permit a different style of victory.  Otherwise games can just become too easy.  If the relations victory just involves having the normal number of civic labs, plus a couple of researches and the biggest fleet, why have a relations victory at all?

Military Actions: 0.05 Maybe I destroyed a colony frigate? 

Diplomatic Actions: 0.00 Not sure what these are.

Resources: 0.00

Envoy Bonus: 1.50 Placed on a just colonised empty planet to avoid being attacked.  At least these are vulnerable and cost supply.

Research bonus: 2.00 Two civic labs will also wipe out centuries of hate... easier than getting trade up.

AI Relations Bonus: 0.00

Relationship Victory Points- 'Mankind consists of more dead than living persons'- Comte

I just cannot understand the concept behind these at all.  Why should goodwill pile up over time until you have won?  You can have many relations points from a faction that dies and the points aren't lost.  Also, it doesn't seem to matter how weak a faction is either?

Yet there is a method of modifying this system so that it makes sense- the 'Dimensional Cascades'.  The concept is that over time your scientists will develop a weapon so powerful so as to ensure automatic victory.  Scientific input from other factions might help greatly, as would discovered artefacts.  Unlike goodwill, the amount of time a scientific pact was in force would help toward victory even should that faction die out.  This would make victory points depend on pacts, which are currently much harder to get than.. victory.

So.. possessed artefacts would give a large number of points, each pact a smaller, and you would get some points for having eight military labs and for eight civic labs, to break a 1v1 where there were no artefacts.  That could put a sensible time limit on games.

Lastly... one of the most useless upgrades in the game is the culture upgrade.  5% a time- you have to have ten culture centres to even get the first level.  That's if 5% culture will get you anything at all, anyway- and it won't.  I'm not even sure what sort of level it would have to be at to be valuable, culture is broken in this version and the only functioning part is that you need to have yourr empire covered by your own culture.

A further Relations Victory play example:

I am again Advent (as I need the practice, not having played any during their long spell as top cat).  The opposition are four TEC unfair AIs and a Vasari unfair AI.

This proved as straightforward as the first game.  There was one TEC AI separating me from the Vasari on my right, and they proved pathetically easy to convince into ceasefires, treaties and pacts.  I may have accomplished one of their missions but I wouldn't know how, as I did nothing against the Vasari all game.

The TEC on the other side at least launched a full-scale attack, but they were also at war with the TEC on their flank and I just conquered all the way to their home.  I couldn't get anything going with their TEC enemies, however they didn't attack either.  After I'd beaten the first TEC faction and and another one had been taken out, there were only the Vasari, my pet TEC faction and the faction that had been at war with the TEC I'd defeated left.  I then began to feed my pet TEC and destroyed the others.   The last ten minutes or so I spent elsewhere, as I was sure my ceasefire with the Vasari, gained from doing exactly as I pleased, would hold, and it was just a question of letting the points mount up.  The Vasari continued to fight my pet TEC.

It would have taken longer to defeat the remaining factions, so the points victory did shorten the game this time.

So what went wrong, why is the relations game so dire?  It wasn't finalised until very late in the beta and never seems to have been adjusted, so we shouldn't really expect much.  The game with the unfair AIs did reveal the purpose of the AI Relationship bonus.  Apparently this is a 'quick fix' so that the pacts feature appears in the game for the player- the bonus allows the AI to offer pacts despite its relations policy being non-existent.  It also allows it to score points for nothing, but they will never be as many as the player at this level.

The basic problem is that the AI does not seem to be able to avoid conflict even between splinter groups of the same faction.  This means that the AI fights on every flank- the player can make one flank safe using envoys and research then attack on the other.  Game over.

As I mentioned last time the negative adjustment for factional hatred is impossibly weak, two stages of civics research and it is gone. 

After this game I'm even more convinced that the relations between factions are simply broken.  What seems to be complex has not been calibrated at all, and the 'quick AI bonus fix' is simply there to ensure that the AI can offer pacts to the player, and also begin to tot up points once a few factions are out and the extra AI points for relations with the player start to yield a positive total. 

The second expansion does not have even the limited features that it is supposed to have, it is just a simulation of an expansion, with ridiculously unusable pirates.  So do we wait for some rubbish patch that isn't under development and will simply correct the last absurd balance change that was put in, seemingly just so it can after several months be removed- to everyone's relief and approval?

If we reshaped the relations victory into a research victory heavily dependent on the discovery and possession of artefacts it would put an effective time limit on the game, it would allow the AI to compete sensibly and force the player to hurry and it would add to the exploration element of the game, which is sadly lacking apart from the mysterious invisible gas giants.  It would work for multiplayer as well.

Also the relations between the AI factions need to be reworked by someone who will do a proper job, not just a player-centred simulation of one.  Ironclad have been very resistant to contributions from players, but the system is simply broken as it is.  Perhaps time to allow the players to beta the system that they never got to beta before release?

So, clearly LRF spam can be beaten--the fact that there are so many complaints about the tactic suggests to me that lots of people in here are really terrible at this game.

I've been lurking in here for a long time, and read tons of arguments about LRF spam, and there's one thing about LRF's that has never been mentioned once. LRF's are slow. They're slower than flak frigates, slower than heavy cruisers, slower than the incredibly pokey siege frigate. Hell, LRF's are slower than some capital ships, which frankly doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I've played lots of strategy games, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've stung an opponent by using units that were faster than his--but I'd need to take a pen and write "437,825" on my hand in order to do it. Speed is deadly. It gives you the choice of where to go and what to hit. Facing lots of LRF's? Go somewhere else. Send a bunch of cobalts and flaks (to defend against hangar defenses) to his homeworld and blow up a few trade ports. When the LRF's arrive to defend, run away and hit something else.

This is a strategy game. There's more to it than just building two great big armies and bashing them against each other. If that's what you want, tune in ESPN and watch boxing.

This was a foolish player.  LRF are a great damage spiking unit, and he could take out structures, capital ships, and any other preferential target with ease.  He could get in there, take out his target, and be gone before the flaks could deal serious damage.  The problem when trying to beat out a flak fleet is that they have exceptional in-combat mobility and durability, and LRF will lose to that.  However, the weakness of flak is low overall damage output, so you have no excuse for actually losing your fleet to them when you can simply back off. 

If you want to beat a mass-flak fleet in battle, you need either HC or LF as damage dealers to support your LRF.  The HC is preferable, but if you don't have the labs then they're not an option.  Mixing in hoshikos is a great choice against a flak-based fleet, so much so that you're being masochistic if you're not building them in this situation.  Flaks will predictably do two things: they will move in close to get all their weapons banks firing, and they will try to whittle you down by simply absorbing your damage.  If you allow them to do this, and you have only LRF to begin with, you're falling into an obvious trap. 

The key is to first get rid of any support units behind the flak.  This is what your LRF are meant to do with that massive damage and long range.  Capital ships and enemy LRF are your top priority.  You can do this relatively quickly with a fair number of LRF, and with mostly flak the enemy can't retaliate very quickly.  When the enemy tries to move into your formation with their flaks, move past them in order to force them to do a 180 to return to full firing arc range.  If you maneuver smartly, you can buy a lot of extra time to whittle away the enemy's other units. 

Once the enemy LRF portion is suppressed, bring in your light frigates (if he's very flak heavy, you don't even need to wait).  Heavy cruisers can simply join the fray at any time.  The light frigates are pretty well impervious to any type of damage other than LRF, so if you knocked them out early you're in good shape.  Now the goal is to keep your LRF moving and avoid allowing the enemy flak frigates to simply get inside your formations to use all their firing banks.  This is actually not very difficult since flaks have fairly low damage, and by keeping your hoshikos and flaks nearby LRF they will absorb some of that damage.  At this point, the smart flak player gets the hell out of there and starts making LRF of his own.

This is just one way of beating a flak-heavy fleet.  The big problem with flak is that their damage output is crap and they rely on their durability and multiple weapon banks to succeed.  A good player won't let them use their multiple weapon banks with impunity, and that durability counts for jack if the LRF are attacking something else.  So what units do you build to compensate your flak and round out your army?  No surprise, it's your own LRF.  At the end of the day, it still comes down to rock vs rock if both players are good.

In theory, yes.  In practice, their long attack range compensates for their slow speed.  Only light frigates and scouts (the fastest frigates in the game) are speedy enough to actually break out of the LRF's threat range.  Every other unit will have to jump out of the gravity well to escape pursuing LRF.  They're slow, but just fast enough to pursue across the length of a gravity well, which is all that really matters at the end of the day.

Now, in a retreat situation they're not quite so hot since that range is of no benefit, but good players are very proactive and will retreat before things turn sour in order to minimize their losses.

If you want to do this, there are two units you can use: bombers or LRF.  Light frigates and flaks are definitely the wrong unit type for this job.  First of all, smart players scout, so it's going to be very hard to catch them with their pants down.  It's entirely possible you'll find his fleet is right behind you, so it's unlikely you'll get to actually kill an expensive structure.  Worse, he might simply counter-attack once your defenders move out of position and blast your repair bays and frigate factories.  This is what LRF excel at; very fast precision damage.  Worst, against a flak/lf fleet I'd be tempted to set up an offensive starbase, since those units suck against starbases.  If I get it up to 25% before you get back, the planet's mine.

If you want to take pot shots at the enemy, you need high firepower units, and carriers with bombers are your best solution, followed by LRF.  Although slower, these units hit a lot harder.  You compensate for their slower move speed by scouting.  You know when the enemy defenders are closing in, and you start moving away before they've jumped into the gravity well.  Good scouting is critical in this game, and against an experienced player it's very difficult to take him by surprise.

Heheh. In practice, lots of things find ways to go wrong, don't they? I'm just--

BRAINSTORM! I've got it!! THE sure-fire way to beat LRF spam:

Just wait for the LRF spammer to screw up.

Okay, in all seriousness: I'm just telling you what works in the Sins games I've actually played--when I'm managing light frigates and I see a pile of LRF's warp in, I can almost always get away without a scratch unless the LRF's warp in right on top of me. On the flip side, I sometimes use mobs of LRF's myself, and my LRF mobs do get raped every now and then. If they get jumped, they can't outrun whatever jumped them, and they get toasted. Hell, sometimes I do see incoming well in advance, but my LRF's can't get away fast enough because they're so damn slow.

For behind-the-lines raiding, cobalts and flaks may seem like the wrong units for the job, but if your target is a planet with lots of laboratories and bad turret coverage, cobalts and flaks are the right unis for the job. Depends on the situation. My favorite is when a defending fleet comes along, and my piddly little wrong-ships-for-the-job keep a vastly superior fleet busy for half an hour running around in a three-planet phase-lane circle!

First of all, no one builds turrets on their backwater planets.  It's a waste of money.  Second of all, let's crunch some damage numbers (for TEC, for sake of argument) specifically for attacking structures.

A Cobalt Light Frigate deals 9.5 dps, reduced by 50% damage modifier and running 5 fleet command.  That comes out to 0.95 damage per second per command of cobalts.

A Javelis LRM deals 11 dps, reduced by 25% damage modifier and running 4 fleet command.  That comes out to 2.06 damage per second per command of Javelis.  In other words, the same sized fleet of Javelis LRM hit twice as hard as your Cobalt fleet against structures.

Then we have gardas... let's presume half of their weapons banks can fire for 7.5 dps, reduced by 75% damage modifier and running 4 command.  That comes out to 0.47 damage per second per command of flaks, half of what the Cobalts do, and a quarter of what LRMs hit for.

Finally we have the kings, bombers.  These guys deal 3.3 damage and come in squads of 5, and you get two squads per carrier.  Conveniently, 33 damage per second per carrier.  They deal 100% normal damage to structures and one carrier runs you 14 command.  This works out to 2.35 damage per second per command.

As I said, the best unit by a landslide for this purpose is the carrier, and it's not just because their damage by cost is the highest.  For one thing, carriers can stay near the edge of the gravity well and be ready to jump on a moment's notice, and their bombers are free to attack anything they want.  You never need to really put them into harm's way, so there simply is no reason to use any other units for this purpose if you have the choice.  They also are your best damage dealer (Ogrovs notwithstanding) against structures, and with good kiting and scouting, a harassing carrier force is very hard to pin down, and usually requires a dedicated force of light frigates to chase after them.  As I've said time and time again, one of the few roles light frigates excel at is chasing down unescourted carriers.

Long range frigates come in second.  Yes, they're slower and less maneuverable, but the bottom line is that you get twice as much firepower against structures by sending LRF as you do if you send light frigates.  This means they get the job done twice as quickly and can move on to the next target sooner.  The way to use them is to keep scouts in all adjacent wells to watch for encroaching defenders (particularly carriers).  If the defenders are within a 1 jump distance, you begin your retreat.  The idea is that you're already jumping out by the time they're jumping in. 

So, to put it bluntly, let's pretend there are 2 minutes (120 seconds) before the enemy fleet arrives.  The Javelis can shoot for 90 seconds, giving them enough time to destroy three labs and still leaving a comfortable 30 second period for their retreat.  The Cobalts instead stay and fire for the full two minutes... and destroy two labs just as the enemy arrives.

You see the issue?  The Cobalts stayed till the last second to destroy two labs, whereas the Javelis left long before the enemy actually got there and still managed to destroy three labs.  The damage difference here is just so phenomenal that the additional speed really doesn't matter... and at the end of the day the carriers are your best bet on that front anyways.

All he needs to do is put up one PJI or split his forces appropriately (LRF will easily beat LF at a 2:1 ratio) to pincer you.  Or he can keep you busy with a smaller force and have his main force do something else.  Getting distracted by a few harassing enemies isn't good no matter what kind of units you or your opponent has.