Ehhh I'm not an authority on the matter, but Advent typicaly have the best fleets by late game so if your playing TEC vs Advent your going to have to win early in order to win easily.

If your getting late game as TEC your going to have to shift stratagies away from just trying to match him ship for ship, fleet for fleet, you simply can't do it.

With him taking the time to FF down your whole fleet you may want to reposition your stratagey by queing up replacement ships before the battle is even halfway through. You can set up 2-3 friggate factories on 2-3 "support" worlds and set a shared rally point for them and have another fleet ready in no time provided you have the credits.

-Assuming- this is late game you should be fully researched for construction as TEC so 100 TEC ships lost isn't as big as a deal vs 100 Advent ships lost.

So you may want to try to wear him out over the course of repeat engagements. 

150 squadrons means your opponent is using 50 carriers, or roughly 1000 fleet supply invested in carriers. That costs 64K credits, 11500 metal, and 11000 crystal.

80 Flak frigates means you invested 320 fleet supply. Would you send 32 heavy cruisers against 250 disciples? Probably not.

Try 200 flak. Seriously. That's 800 fleet supply, which is still less than your opponent is pumping into carriers. This will cost you 75K credits(as tec this isn't a problem), 8000 metal, and 5000 crystal. That's a good deal cheaper than the carrier fleet, especially where it counts.

The main problem people have using flak frigates is that flak can't fight carriers in a 1:1 ratio. This ends up confusing people into thinking that flak is ineffective, when really they're being used in insufficient numbers. Fleet costs mean you can afford to have a flak frigate for every squadron on the field, which is more than capable of laying the hurt down. Very few special abilities will spare the lives of the shieldless, typically unhealable strike craft, they rely sheerly on pure numbers.  As soon as you can start killing craft faster than they get replaced, carriers have no chance of recovering from it, and you'll have them on the run.

Take note that this kind of combat will REALLY stress your computer resources. Hundreds of frigates, with many independent guns, against over a thousand potential targets will do that.

Flak frigates seem to annihilate fighter craft first (which will deal with those 100 pesky fighter squadrons no problem), but have a tougher time killing bombers(which fighter squadrons are FAR better at). Don't forget to upgrade your flak weapons for the best effect!

To be honest, I’ve never found flak frigates on their own to be particularly great - they’ll ‘win’ against carriers eventually, but by time they really start to take affect, half your fleet is already dead. Admittedly trying to beat the Advent strike craft spam is always going to be an uphill struggle, but I have found there are a few things that can help (disclaimer: this is just personal experience, not bona fide best practice).

Personally, I prefer to skip the flak frigates at first and build some carriers (cruisers, not cap ship) of your own, and churn out some fighters. You’re never, ever, ever going to be able to beat Advent at strike craft spamming, especially given how mediocre Tec strikers are, but I’ve found a solid chunk of fighters (20-30) can at least bog the enemy down long enough to deal some real damage with your main fleet.

Second is cap ship selection. Kol battleships are always a good choice for any situation, but flak burst is particularly effective against advent’s strike craft (which, for those who didn’t know, have the most units per squadron, but are also the most fragile per ship). Believe it or not, the Dunov is also a good choice later on – EMP depletes shields and antimatter, and magnetise stop abilities and kills / stuns strike craft, so that’s ticking all the boxes… though I’d probably go one or the other, as it’s nice to have shield recharge.

Finally, there’s the bulk of you fleet. I’ve got no idea what the optimal mix is, but I’ve found spamming LRMs with a few Hoshikos and carriers early works well, and then just dilute it down with ceilos and flak frigates if you can spare some research later on. Yes, I said I didn’t think flak were great on their own, but their 360 degree fire arc mean they’re good at finishing off damage squadrons. Besides, Bobucles makes a good point – they’re cheap.

Again, this isn't necessarily the best strategy, but an alternative one to the above posts.

Carrier swarms have MASSIVE antimatter reserves, which are easily good for rebuilding strike fleets several times over. The WORST case scenario is that he can rebuild strike craft as fast as you can kill them, which keeps his fleet strength at full and wastes your forces battling a renewable resource. This is usually why players try a bit of flak and then get discouraged. If you're going to counter strike craft, you have to do it completely and make the kill quickly, or you'll end up getting attritioned down.

Tech light frigates can do additional damage to a carrier's antimatter reserve. They also outrun carriers by a ton, making them a decent choice to give chase.

Long range frigates could possibly be your WORST choice against carriers, as they both have very similar mobility. The carriers can evade LRMs for a long time, ruining most of the LRM's damage. Carriers also typically have a high number of fighters as default, which rape LRMs.

Sixteen Progenitors? One thing your opponent is definitely missing is ship-to-ship firepower (although you can be relieved that those 800 fleet points are not spent on even more Aeria Drone Hosts).

Worst case scenario, your opponent has 800 points in capitals, 210 points worth of Guardians, and therefore, on normal fleet settings up to 990 points of Drone Hosts (in version 1.1, that amounts to maximum 49 Drone Hosts, with 10 leftover points)

With the 1.1+ updates, though, the Aerias actually are physically harder to kill and carry more strike craft squadrons (3 versus 1). Like a lot have suggested, use Kols with Flak Burst, since at max level, strike craft suffer 60 damage, which is enough to instantly kill any Advent Fighter caught inside the radius (maximum hull their fighters can have is 52), barring maximum research in hull points and armor. Just don't leave it on autocast, or the AI will waste your battleship's antimatter, which is a very limited resource for them (this becomes less of a problem with a Dunov and Flux Field).

If your friend lumps all these ships into one fleet, make a second fleet to attack an exposed planet of his. Either the attacks go ignored and you can raid deeper into their empire, or their fleet is split up and one part goes off to respond, making each portion easier to handle. Having 2000 fleet supply and 16 capitals is expensive, requiring all of Fleet Logistics to be researched, and taking out sources of income will definitely hurt when 75% of income is lost to fleet upkeep.

Flak and and fighters, those are your two best options. And as TEC, that also means massive numbers. At least one flak per carrier, and half again as many carriers of your own running pure fighters. Once you have the strike craft gone, he has a bunch of very expensive and defenseless cargo ships. The real trick is, once the SC are gone, you have to kill the majority of the carriers or they'll be back later. You could use the flaks for that, maybe, in a huge group FF'ing but it would be slow. Let more than half escape and you can't claim victory.

While the Kol seems like a good idea, with that many strike craft any high priority/value target will get inst-gig'd. Even if you had a pair of Kol's with max'd flak burst, you'd still loose one on the first pass. Later in the battle with most of the strike craft gone a Kol would be good to stomp clumps of new strike craft, but initially, no. But by this time, the battle should be going your way regardless. The possibility of some cheap shots might be cool, like having two level 6 marzas waiting at his jump point in your system for two instant missile barrages, the chances of pulling them off are slim.

Another option might be going around his fleet. Jump past with three marzas with Raze Planet max'd. You could nuke planets almost as fast as a bunch of novaliths. He'd have to pull back to defend.

Personally, i'd split my fleets. have a huge pack of flaks follow his carriers, and ravage his systems with smaller groups if he's stupid enough to group everything into one spam Uber-fleet. Kill his supply chains, and sooner or later he'll run out of steam.

Wow, thanks everyone!

@Jedmonds24;

I do queue additional ships from any supporting planets, but he doesn't really fight fair, he'll jump in, blow something expensive up and jump out. Occasionally it will be half his force he does this with and while im getting ready to defend the grav well, a second craft only fleet comes at my flank and ruins me.

@Archon143;

I haven't tried that. He just switched from Vasari to Advent so I havent had much practice with their anti-strike craft abilities.

@Bobucles;

Wow, i didnt even think of that! I assumed since flak frigs are the hard counter to strike craft i wouldnt need to match his fleet supply, but you have a valid point - I just hate flak because, as you mention, they dont "feel" strong for people who are just starting to use them. I wont have issues with my PC's resources. I have a self built $7,000.00 hardcore gaming PC and since im on the topic i play on a 52 inch 1080p sony hdtv .

I'll scale up my flak appropriately and see how that  works.

@Hack78;

I've tried that fleet style, but he doesn't stay and fight. He'll jump in blow up some caps , and jump out. he wont fight fleet to fleet. it's all very guerilla tactics. He can destroy stuff quicker than i can rebuild my fleet so after a few jumps in and out I cant match him.

@frozen_chips;

I'll Try this after i try the 200+ flak and let you know how it turns out.

@eoncommander;

Another great idea i'll try, third in the queue.

@psyco567;

He uses colony caps because of their shielding ability and the way the fleet forms on "stand your ground" or what every its called. At any given time, no ship of his is not within the range of 6 capital ships that will help regen shields. Very good idea with the KOL where he jumps in, but he usually send in a scout to see which side of the grav well he should jump in from. I'll include this into my first attempt and see how it goes.

@InfiniteVoid;

Another great analysis of the situation using the ingame numbers. We generally do large fleet sizes and i agree, without strike craft he has very low DPS.I'll be sure not to leave the flak burst on autocast.

@General_Harada;

As i mentioned earlier in this post. He wont fight head to head, his fleet stays at the endge of the grav well and the first thing they do is turn around to face the "run away" direction. Once i start killing his strike craft he just jumps away. I will definately try the split fleets. I would usually try to stop his uber fleet with a TEC quazi uber fleet but it doesnt work. I havent had a single cap that survived for more than 15 seconds after he jumps in. So three marze if they ever are in the same grav well will get wiped in 2 strike craft passes. He hates Marza and always targets them first if nothing is close to his drone hosts.

@everyone;

Thanks you all for the strategies. I will incorporate a little of it all into a few tests and then see how it plays out in actual gameplay. Sins is an amazing game, Third Best of all time.

Disclaimer; I dont care about spelling, grammar or punctuation.

Nope.  The cooldown is 900 seconds. Thats 15 minutes! (To wait in between uses).

that is utterly brilliant! here we have a master tactician. and so detailed a description too. can i hire you as my general? i am a decent tactician, but i have always been much better at the strategic, big picture stuff

yes, exactly