Well, the AI's been demolishing me with a fleet of carriers and defenders, throwing up huge amounts of shielding I have to get through and destroying me with the greater numbers of fighters and bombers.  The illuminators, crusaders, and capital ships do the rest.

i play Advent most of the time and one tactic i like alot is waht i call "hammer and anvil".

these reflect what i call a normal fleet number but earlier in the game you have to use less ships until you can build up a sufficient economic base.

Hammer is; 1 Radience and 20 each destras and illuminators, focus fire is key most ships including caps in my experience can not stand to long against this barrage

Anvil is; 1 Rapture (bonus for stike craft upgrade selected) and 20 drones the key to this is that i assign 2 numbers to anvils for example the ships might be keyed to number 4 but the strike craft are keyed to number 5.

the tactic i use is to split the phase lane, i will jump from the left side of the phase lane with the hammer and jump the anvil from the right.  enter the gravity well with the Hammer first to attract all the enemy ships to one side of the phase lane, then once i have pulled all the ships to one side i enter with my anvil. This effectivly places the enemy fleet into the middle of the 2 fleets hence hammer and anvil. most important once all the enemy ships are dead i select auto attack off for the hammer and then select the strikecraft and holding shift down que up the targets. this way my ships take less damage but still get the xp for killing the planet defenses while not taking anymore damage or repairing. If for some reason the enemy tries to attack my anvil i just jump out, but this allows the hammer to fire un contested on the enemy as they try to manouvre into position to attack the anvil. this tactic works VERY WELL against planet defenses as the strike craft cost nothing but time to rebuild.

One of the nice things about this game is the number of ways to play this game and playing the same race over again and having the ability to try different combos of ships and tactics keeps this game fresh. I am not trying to say that this way is the best way it is just another way to play, so please dont flame me to bad.   

Asai

@Hack78:  This is a fairly general strategy that can be seen in all kinds of Wargames (I first learned of it playing TableTop Warhammer).  It will DEFINETLY work agains the AI and it will be effective against Human Opponants as well.  Human Opponants, can adjust but it will force them to make some tough decisions.

@Asai:  Just a nitpick...  I think you have your names backwards.  Typical strategy convention, the Hammer is usually the fast moving strike force.  The Anvil is usually a tougher and slower moving group.  The Anvil is usually engaged first and the Force Composition is usually Hard To Kill Units.  Once your enemy is "on your Anvil" you bring the Hammer in.

@Nobody in particular:

For my Hammer and Anvil usage, the Anvil is usually composed of Cruisers and Capitals...  hard to kill units with buffs to make them harder to kill.  The Hammer is Carriers, Carrier Cruisers and LRM Frigates.  Jump in the Anvil.  Once the enemy is on top of the Anvil, jump in the hammer.  They now have an unenviable decision!

1) Disengage grom the Anvil and get chewed up by the Anvil as the move to engage the LRMs and Carriers
2) Stickon the Anvil and get chewed to pieces by the Bombers and LRMs
3) Seperate their fleet and try to tackle both.
*  If they look to be beating the Anvil you can retreat that fleet and they now have to move across half the Gravity Well to engage the second fleet while taking fire from it.  Let them take damage until they get colse to firing range then pull the hammer out as well. 

snazzed

Even better. That way they would have to move through your anvil to get to your hammer causing more damage to them.

You get to pick what side are on as well because you control your jump points.