Any ideas on a good build order for TEC or Advent to counter the Assailant rush? It seems that every MP game I play, the Vasari players go for Assailant spam (I have had one occasion of Vasari Carrier-Bomber rush...but that didn't work out too well for them). This is mainly geared towards random maps with all player slots filled.
Starting with the TEC, it seems you are the worst off. Your first cap ship will most likely not be the colonizer one since it isn't that great. This leaves you at a disadvantage for the planet grabs to begin with. If you rush to carriers, you probably will only get 3-4 planets. This will leave you at a severe economic disadvantage. Going for your own LRF spam might work, but you will be starting behind the Vasari player. Flak may work...but they don't do much damage to anything else. When in actual battle, you can almost guarantee your Capital Ship will be focus fired by the Assailants and Nano-Dissassembler. This means you will have to run your Cap from the planet and lose dps and valuable exp. You could build repair bays at the planet you are defending...but that isn't going to stop focus fire from killing your ships. With all this time devoted to military building...the TEC mid-game econ advantage just doesn't exist.
Seems to me the build order for TEC would be to probably pick the Kol (Adaptive Forcefield) as your cap. Build a colony frigate. Go take the roid. During this time, research the terran planet pop upgrade. Take your scout and find where your opponent is fast. When you have taken the roid, build another military lab. If you have only ice and volcanic planets next, you probably want to build a civ lab instead. If you are lucky enough to have a second roid near you, go take that.
Now I'm conflicted here. I want to say to research sensor probes and scout out your enemy. However, that leaves you very short on crystal (75 for double upgrade) for colonizing the next planet. Also at this point, you have to wait for your colony frigate to regain antimatter. When the next planet is also a roid, it seems painstakingly slow before you can colonize it. If that is the case, I suppose it would be best to build up a fleet while you wait and also move onto taking your next planet (which may or may not be an ice or volcanic--if so, you will need another civ lab at your second roid).
Anyways, once you have taken your fleet building planet (ice, volcanic, terran, desert). Build up two frigate factories there. You will probably be rushed very soon. Research the LRM and build them. Research repair bays as well . In the two roid scenario, go attack another planet. This is probably where you want to hold your ground. In the other scenario, go take the next planet if you can.
Now this is where things can go wrong. At the next planet, you may take it and find that you get attacked shortly afterwards. If you are just starting to build your fleet now, you are very much screwed--this is what the scouts are for, I guess). Sometimes you are about to take the planet but just don't have enough antimatter and the Death Egg shows up and swoops the planet from you. I suppose if you saw this coming, you can build up a fleet at the previous planet and go attack them as soon as they take it if not before they take it. Sadly, unless are able to starting pushing them back at this point, you probably will lose in the long run cuz your econ is not as strong. On the bright side, you didn't die from an Assailant rush.
An alternative strategy would be to start by building trade ports asap. Doing so probably means you probably won't get that fourth or fifth planet without getting attacked with your pants down.
Now about building your fleet. When spamming carriers, they build rather slowly and become useless once your opponent starts building flak. At this point, you still have nothing better to build than carriers since your lrfs will get chewed up regardless. Just chew up their lrfs with fighters and then start building some bombers. If you built lrfs...you would need to out spam the assailents. If you were building flak, stick them in the middle of the assailents. Once the assailent rush is over, tech up to Hoshikos and HC's. From there, well, good luck. At least you haven't been killed in the first 30 minutes of the game.
Anyone want to share their ideas for TEC? Suggestions/corrections?
I don't really play Advent that much so I hope someone will fill in a good advent counter-measure. Luckily, Advent aren't as bad off as TEC in the early game. Illum rush and carrier rush should work out alright.