Your favoirte race

Heh heh.  That's kind of funny.  Years ago when I still played against AI (my first two weeks of Sinning) I had concluded that the Advent AI was the weakest.  That's probably because the computer just spits out ships without much of a plan, but to play Advent properly you need to key in on the synergies between the different types of ships and build a "battle ball", which the AI has no idea how to do.

Basically, it comes down to this--the AI just isn't a very good opponent.  It has no idea how to play Vasari or Advent properly and probably not TEC either.  If you have the Diplomacy expansion and you want to try the game with opponents capable of strategic thought, you really need to log onto Ironclad Online and play it against other people.  It's almost a completely different game and you'll quickly gain a new-found respect for Vasari.

I like the Vasari due to their multitude of nasty tricks and late-game superiority. Seriously: Phase missiles? Detect any phase jump? Jump to any planet? Build moving, offensive SBs? Instant-healing to units in need of it (instead of repair-over-time)? Strong, repairable strikecraft?

Given the current faction balance, I don't see why anyone would want to be anything other than Vasari in the late game, unless of course they're focusing completely on income (eco slot).

Then again, I'm a complete noob at multiplayer, what do I know.

Try them out: you won't regret it.

If you are trying to analyze which on is the best to play as, I'm sorry but you still have a lot to learn. The cheap and sturdy TEC ships easily crumple to mid-late game Advent and Vasari fleets, not because of their ship stats but because of their abilities. And in that regard the TEC falls flat on its face, only the Akkan and Marza have abilities that are truly useful late game, and while the hoshiko is a great healer it can't match the AoE capacities of the Subverter or Guardian.

If this is just personal favorites, mine has always been advent. I love their ship designs and weapon effects, and what's not to like about psychic, spice addicted amazons with an undying thirst for revenge?

And don't forget the harmonic pew-pew-pew of their lasers!

I like Advent best...I like their ships the best, I like a techno-religious faction, I like energy weapons, and all female voices is nice (half of TEC sound like choir boys and Vasari sounds like a bunch of grumpy old men)...

I also like relying more on abilities than economics or individual ship quality...

Suppose to be more of just personal favorites.

I have played against people, some of them playing the game a lot longer then I have and while they put up a fight I usually win, true I take losses, sometime a lot more then I want but my TEC/Advent come out on top, I guess I just get lucky

Wow I am amazed how many post I have made on this topic or a variation. What is your favorite race? What is your favorite cap ships?

TBH, I only like TEC, I am an economy kind a guy, desert planet will only have 1 ship yard, 1 cap ship yard, 1 combat and civ research, 1 refinery and culture center, and the rest of the slots will be filled with trade post.

My friend and I put our heads together and discovered one or two things about Advent/Vasari. (We haven't worked everything out yet so there are a few holes in our theories that need filling.)

From what we can understand Advent abilities need to be timed and chained to be massively effective. Their massive amounts of fighters/bombers, combined with the Carrier's abilities, make short work of most frigates.

Vasari, on the other hand, make the most of their research. Advent (without their Gurdians) are suceptible to Phase Miniturisation and hull affecting abilities (i.e: Nano Disassembler). However the Vasari are at a disadvantage of being slow starters (or at least; for me they are). The cost of the ships and the slow economy make it difficult to rush.

Like I said earlier, these are theories and many haven't been proven. As for TEC? Well, the only one of us who play's TEC keeps his stratergies secret.

Personally I like the Vasari for the Phase Mastery. I mean seriously; the ability to watch any phase jump anywhere?! And the Phase Stabalizers... Don't even get me started on how useful those are. Shame Dark Armada now costs resources...

If I've missed anything, or I've said something that's incorrect, hole filling would be welcomed

I'm always a sucker for the underdogs.  In the current version, that's Advent. 

I've always loved the Advent.   Simply amazing abilities

TEC

eco for the win.

Personally there's 2 best races in-game: Vasari and Advent.  They can both fight the tec and win. Its why tec got such a massive economic buff to be able to deal with the 2. 

A.Economics aside.. its means nothing if planets are culture locked early game and the enemy has cheap frigates and a effective weapon type (beams) and abilities. 

B.Economics aside it means nothing if you rely on armor and hull repair for protection against phase missile fleets instead of abilities aswell. Va-sari can hull repair ships/strike craft from tier 0 with caps. By tier 2 resource eco gets a boost.

I always play vasari when i want to win. I play advent for a enjoyable experience and variety. Most creative race is advent which is why people love them. 

u nid super skill to win with advent during multiplayer.. there the under-dogs-weak eco. win and u can boost about it as much as u like...

Advent are certainly not the one of the two "best". They are horribly weak against Vasari due to phase missiles, and don't have very good military units at the beginning of the game - a good TEC player should be able to out-spam them.

If the TEC player is incompetent enough to let the Advent player survive towards the middle game or late game though, the Advent'll have advantage.

>if planets are culture locked early game

If the enemy has been given enough time to develop the planet, research culture, build a culture station there, and for the culture line to reach past that next planet which still hasn't been colonized... the opposing TEC probably wouldn't be taking that planet anyway - if the Advent player has any sense they'd keep advancing forward until they collide with the TEC enemy. It'd also be easy enough for the TEC player to bring their flagship cap along, to push the enemy culture back and then to colonize that planet.

In the hands of an expert on a reasonably balanced map, TEC is definitely the strongest faction in the current version.  The reason is their wicked rush-game that builds into a solid economic mid-game.  Most TEC players will never allow you to reach your late-game, and if you do make it to the mid-game you're probably at a significant economic disadvantage.

Advent suck against vasari.. not so much against tec. Always a good idea to play the best advent players around to see how tec do. 

Just expect alot of scouts and desciples early on which means u have to use javelis and fighters. 100 scouts, 100 desciples by late mid game while illums rolling out of a production planet. He just hides behind repair platforms and wait it our while culture bombing with u starbases. What u gonna do, send your 100 javelis against is 240 units or so with malice?

Late game:culture boosted and starbases make up for the economy with allegiance upgrades and trade support at his hw system planets. 

Good tec players win, pro tec player stomb advent, average players suffer. Advent aint bad.. They need a buff

Buufff plz?

If the TEC player has only 100 Javelis to your 240 seeker/disciples, then he's not very good.  Javelis are very cost-effective units, and a good TEC player will have no difficulty keeping up with your fleet size.  If this is a close-range battle, he'll have the Sova which will add considerable combat value, and if it's a long-range scenario he should be able to capitalize on the Akkan and be able to outnumber you.  Not only that, but fleets of this magnitude should be diversified, which means hoshikos and gardas for the TEC (if not Kodiaks).  If you're still doing nothing but seeker/disciple at this point then you're in serious trouble. 

Malice is overrated; it has a fairly tight target cap and since it's a form of diffused damage hoshikos will negate most of it. IMO, shield regeneration is far better than malice unless you're fighting Vasari.

The allegiance upgrade kinda sucks.  You need to max out your resource income techs and place it on a 4-rock planet for it to be worth its cost.  If resource focus were any good, the synergy there would make induced reverence quite useful, but as it stands resource focus is absolute crap and becomes passable with this upgrade... really not worth your time and effort.

The transcencia culture bomb isn't something you can bring out early, and a good TEC player will bring on the pain before you can get it operational.  If he brings along Ogrovs, he can make you regret putting a significant investment in a starbase.  This isn't something you want to pursue until your fleet is relatively mature, and a good TEC player will make it a challenge to get that far.

My current point being advent aren't a race to win games. Just a creative 1. Im all for vasari. tec will win either way or another but the two best races are advent and vasari. Not because advent is strong but because people like there style and creativity. The 2 strongest races remain an vasari and tec. As u once told me vertigo, guardian, mother-ship shield regen etc should be rolling out by the time a tec fleet is maturing, and this advent fleet should hide behind repair platforms at first until its mature. It should take a pounding , survive and level up. Even u have to admit darvin once u survive and mature an advent fleet it becomes really fun to play. 

I usually play small maps (favorite Storm front) which is why my strategy involves tec players being forced to attack or face loosing worlds to culture. 

Conclusion should have been: the 2 strongest races are vasari and tec, but the best races are vasari and advent for me. Once u win advent games it tells u really do know how to play this game. Its the final test of skill. Wins vs Ai's dont count. 

I'm with you in that the optimal TEC strategy is basically to get trade ports and then to spam as many (proper countering) units as possible... which doesn't "feel" as nice as gaining the advantage through using the special abilities of Advent and Vasari.

No doubt, but in a competitive match the "once you survive" part is the tricky bit. 

Indeed; it felt like much more of an achievement back in 1.18 when you had to fight tooth and nail to stand up in a straight fight against illuminators.  Winning as TEC back then required careful preservation of assets to come out ahead and make your kill before Advent reached full maturity and beat the shit out of you.  Now it feels like you're just crushing them under your sheer weight.

Ok so yes advent r cool and collected but suffer. Its ok.. no pain no gain. 

Ok so if u r facing javelis and hoshiko spam do the following:

>>>Current Rescue Button <<<<

Make lots of scouts, desciples and then lots of defense vessels. This is easy early game:

Defense vessel is one of those tip of the spear thing because where javelis gets almost 200% dps against light frigates at around 24dp-well the advent defense vessel hits javelis at 24 ish dps at close range when lasers upgraded by tier 2. gets to 25dps with a cool down boost from halcyon. Anyway so u get my point? Only limiting factor has to be the advent econ. shield regen and guardians will save u at this point but should the enemy switch to light frigates <less likely if unskilled> then make illums. Make illums anyway when things are looking good. 

The only thing that pisses me off about the advent is they make my comp lag so i never finish games even when i have hundreds of units in 1 fleet. 

Someone come up with another Rescue Button so i can kindly send a sincere letter with reference to all of u kind and collected advent players how your lives need medical attention ? im sirious    e.g better trade port? More planetary allegiance from the start, better level 1 vertigo? etc,

Once its done i'll never whisper about advent again and i wud have played my part to buffing them.

The 24 DPS on the Advent's flak is only if all banks (front, back, sides) hit the enemy, and even then, they're diffused over 4 enemies - they aren't quite as effective as you might think, especially given enemy Hoshiko's repairing, although they're certainly a good choice against LRF.

You could try focusing more on Crusaders mid-late game, which isn't a horrible idea given Advent's somewhat mediocre power elsewhere - fewer ships means less lag. But if the enemy counters with bombers...

This is still much better than the problems that LRF pose to early Advent.  Use TK push to cover your approach to the enemy fleet, use the destras to clean up LRF, and swamp the carriers with disciples.  Throw in guardians with repulsion to cut off retreats and some other capital ship abilities tailored to the enemy fleet composition and you're in a good position to duke it out on even grounds. 

Certainly not perfect, but far better than your early-game scenario.

Well yeah. The was because of the lag that strikecraft spam would create. On my computer at least, if there are more than something like 50 squadrons in a gravity well, there's a 0.5 to 1 second delay every time they re-target.