worked my way up to hard random ai, and couldnt win. id throw huge fleets at the AI only to be beaten back by his fleet and a starbase, every time.
Vasari starbase, I presume? Those can be a little bit challenging since you really don't have an easy way to avoid them. Against the other starbases, just don't bother getting in weapons range. Set your units to "hold ground" behavior and then bombard the starbases from a distance. Given enough time, even 6 or 7 squads of bombers will take down a fully upgraded starbase.
what a HUGE difference between the factions! is there some trick with advent im just not using?
Advent is currently the weakest faction of the three. Their only strong rush-game opener is multiple Halcyon-class capital ships, their economy isn't as strong as the other factions, and they have to put together elaborate combos to be competitive. On the bright side, once Advent does get a mature fleet operational, they leave TEC in their dust and become the second-strongest faction overall.
Advent does have some very powerful combos you can employ, and in fact you need to employ if you want to match the other factions. The most potent against TEC is the "battleball". Use the Iconus Guardian with its shield projection ability and combine it with your Progenitor Mothership's shield regeneration ability. This vastly increases your ability to absorb damage, and it's not unheardof for Advent to fight equally-sized TEC fleets and win without taking a single casualty. You can further improve on this by using the Halcyon Carrier's energy amplification to boost damage and its telekinetic push to keep strike craft out of striking range. You can also use the Rapture Battlecruiser's vertigo ability to further reduce enemy damage. Unfortuantely, the battleball stops working well once Vasari have maxed out their phase missile upgrades, since at this point 30% of their damage passes through your shields anyways.
Vasari, as you have discovered, is the strongest faction overall. Powerful from the moment you research Assailants to when you're annihilating your enemies with Kostura cannons. TEC is arguably more powerful on an early-game rush, and can get a strong economy rolling faster as well, but they cap out in power at about the 3-lab level and the other factions just keep getting stronger and stronger past that point. The most brutal part about Vasari is their phase missiles. Even ignoring the prospect of killing an enemy unit without having to clear its shields first, phase missiles essentially work out to a 60% damage bonus due to ignoring normal damage mitigation. On top of this, their 20% damage boost upgrade brings the total benefit to 90%. I needn't say that this is obscene; Vasari deal ridiculous sums of damage in the late-game, and most of the units that matter use phase missiles.
