Plenty I lost 100 kodiaks to an advent fleet. Support cruisers owned the hell out of me, along with the capital ship abilities. I got totally hosed. Spam anything = bad D:

hmm for vasari they are nearly free (you can get 3-4 phase stabilizers within 35 minutes and dark armada within 45-55 with only 4-5 planets).

I think you need to play more MP games. Bombers and LRMs will absolutely destroy that fleet.

If he has so many Cap Ships, I think you can afford something like that

The heavy cruiser is different than the other cruisers... It's rather brutally effective at direct combat.

Spamming frigates is well and good, but researching the supply techs will cut into your economy. More frigates gives you a temporary advantage, but you have to make a pretty big dent to prevent your opponent from replacing losses faster than you.

Yeah, lets wait until tier 4 before you can colonize planets.

Um... what? WTF are you talking about?

I'm not talking about a change in roles, only in naming / construction positioning.

I don't see where your coming from -- hence the WTF.

Think of it this way: just as you automatically took my statement one way, not even seeing the other way, I automatically saw it that other way, never seeing the way you see it... not even now, I'm blind that way.

As others have said, tons of bomber squadrons even by themselves would pwn your fleet. With 30 bomber squadrons I can take down a level 5 capital ship in roughly 20 seconds or less. In that time, you could take down 1 of my carrier cruisers, maybe 2 if you are focus firing (due to mitigation). After the caps are all dead, short work can be made of your cruisers too. Combine that with splash damage missile frigates and you'd be in big trouble.

He means that the colony ship is more like a cruiser while the Heavy cruiser is more like a frigate. As in this game they clearly state in the tutorial, that cruisers are more advanced ships ment for supporting other ships and generaly for purposes other than strait foward combat. The heavy cruiser defies that role and functions directly as a heavy attack ship, assumeing more of a a frigates role.

Now back to the main point. Diversed fleets function alot better than spamming. Frigate spamming on small maps can be deadly, but if you fail to defeat your enemy, you will suffer from a major resorce handicap, and the enemy may have already obtained a capital ship, and leveled it several times while you suffered heavy casualties.

Heavy Cruisers function best when supported by support ships. The Tec Heavy cruisers are ment to take a beating, and they can take even more of a beating when they have command ships boosting their sheild restore rates, and increaseing their attack damage. Pluss comand ships help to focus your units attacks while you are busy manageing resorces. (Their skill which directs nearby ships to attack the target of the skill)

Though I don't have that much experience multiplayer, I imagine that ditching the railgun ability for the flak ability on the Kol battleships would be a good idea to protect against fighters, since honestly even more up close single target firepower would be overkill. Lockdown tactics, though, I expect would still be devastatingly effective.

As for antimatter draining, those abilities are on the mainline battleships anyway aren't they? Though I honestly think for the Vasari, the desolator is better for sheer firepower due to its phase missile swarm ability.

"As in this game they clearly state in the tutorial, that cruisers are more advanced ships ment for supporting other ships and generaly for purposes other than strait foward combat."

Heavy Cruisers are advanced ships. They and only they have exclusive rights over armor-penetrating Composite weaponry, even though this means short range. They also have special combat abilities designed to help themselves(but no one else) out in battle(Intercept, Reintegration, Inertial Field and Ruthlessness). In case of the Vasari and Advent HCs, they also use non-mainstream expensive weapons that no other frigate, cruiser, fighter or bomber uses - Wave Cannons for the Enforcer and Plasma for the Crusader. Those weapons are capital-only until HCs are unlocked.

Heavies are indeed helped the most by support cruisers. The TEC Kodiak can have it's target paralyzed by a Robotics Cruiser and itself repaired whenever necessary. The Vasari Subverter can give nearby Enforcers a 25% chance to shoot through their targets' shields and reduce those targets' shield mitigation by 10%. And the Iconus Guardian of course can take 33% of the damage off of a Crusader and repel the enemy if they have to retreat.

But heavy cruisers alone will get smashed. Bombers do their maximum possible damage against the VeryHeavy armor used by HCs and orbital structures. And short range means LRMs can shoot and run before HCs can even enter range. Even turret defenses can put up a fight if engaged by heavies alone.

Ironically, it's Light Frigates which take up support roles in the later game after they gain their antimatter-stealing/disabling/sabotaging abilities. With those abilities, their speed, and anti-heavy weapons, they become dedicated support-ship destroyers.

In the case of TEC, I think Kodiak spam works well if you also split your time with Flak Frigates(added bonus of sharing weapon tree). Otherwise if someone were to have a carrier fleet with lots of heavy bombers your Kols and Kodiaks will get trashed. Although from what i have seen not too many people make carrier fleets.