TEC diplomacy ultimate achievement (uprising) seems very powerful

Oh the superweapons are good but they're so expensive and fragile it really is better to go the other routes.

The military tree (beyond getting to repair bays) is really not a tech tree you need to fool around in right off the bat... not against computers or on larger maps anyway. Go with the civ tree until mid/late game.

Well Rebels are... Rebels. Doesn't mean they like you, just that they want to break away from them, its strong enough as is, and its not too strong. A prepared player can laugh off rebels... if they have culture rebels practically don't spawn at all.

Good point Martyr about the rebels. This was not a criticism of the game, only a thought.

It does seem very effective though.

I hate to say it but I have really just focused on TEC because it takes more time than I have had to invest to learn them all well.

I dont share that impression.
Insurgency is practically useless in my eyes.
(Very) few ships on a random planet wont bother a well managed empire.

How exactly does it work? How often does it spawn troops and how are the planets the troops spawn on chosen?

Seems to be mostly/entirely? over enemy planets not within culture. The groups I have seen are around 6 units, using TEC rebel ships. A couple of Kodiaks plus LRM and siege frigates.

x2

The spawn of rebels is slowed (to the point where it might as well not happen but still, technically slowed) around enemy planets under the influence of their culture.

Rebels spawn normally at planets w/o their own culture or under the influence of your culture AND their culture.

Although there is a limit on the # of rebels and # of systems at a time they'll spawn in too.

Also, insurgency stacks and ignores allied players.

While the TEC tech is extremely powerful, so are the max Vasari and Advent. The Vasari's "Returning Armada" lets them flood the world with ships, and the Advent's... sounds sort of weak in comparison- it makes Capital ships level up faster (exp bonus) and automatically get to level 4 (so you don't need to spend credits). On the other hand, level ten Advent worships are nothing to sneer at...

Rebels aren't overwhelming if you have defenses in every system. It is expensive and if there is an enemy incursion can fall apart, but it works reasonably well. Not sure how the AI responds.

The real advantage of TEC late game is the powerhouse economy they can churn out with refinery and trade ship cargo hold increases.

Vasari RA is probably still the best as it allows you to flood the game with mostly heavy cruisers and carriers.

Advent late game is ridiculously weak in comparison imo, but they are probably the strongest race early on if used properly due to their early carriers and early-game squadron dominance.

I've found uprising to be very effective. Though this comes with a few clarifications ...

I've only done it on large or very large maps, where I've been in a good diplomatic situation (peaceful relations with at least a few people near me). What I do is a fast tech up to it immediately. Almost all of my resources go into getting to it asap. While research is going on I'm taking over planets (with my mothership) and pumping out light cruisers (the most basic variety). If you play smart you can easily take over every planet around you without taking a single loss. By the time you get up to the the tech (maybe ~30 minutes in) you'll have a sizable enough fleet to hold your own, and your economy will be big enough to go in whatever direction you want.

While its true late game it might not be a big deal, early game its very likely that your opponents won't have base defenses and won't have much culture. In that scenario the rebels are fairly devastating as they focus your opponents to devote precious resources to keeping their planets safe - base defenses or keeping fleets at each planet or close enough to reach their planets or whatnot. This more than makes up for the time and research you "wasted" to get there.

The bigger the map the more effective this is (as there are more possible planets/opponents). I've had opponents who have been almost totally shut down by this and a combination of pirates (easy to arrange with economic powerhouse TEC - their other non-military ult power, for example, gives near-unlimited money on big enough maps).

Just my two cents.

The Vasari, Advent, and TEC all have 2 Level 8 super-abilities and 1 Level 8 superweapon. The Vasari have Returning Armada and Highly Attuned Sensors(allows you to see every ship passing through phase space, anywhere on the map. The TEC have Insurgency and Pervasive Economy. The Advent have Mass Transcendence(cap-ships to L4) and "Allure of the Unity"(+10% Allegiance). And their superweapons are the well known Kostura Cannon, Deliverance Engine and Novalith Cannon.

I may not be understanding this correctly, but it sounds to me that a TEC/Advent alliance could cause a whole lot of mayhem by combining the worker uprising with the deliverance engine.

Remove the target's culture and a rebel uprising occurs. Start enough small fires and the target's defense may be pushed off balance enough to break a stalemate.

If you do it right you can start brushfires in his empire and annoy him, if you do it to late he'll have culture and turrets all over the place from simple natural inclinations.

Advent ultimate abilities are quite frankly fairly lame in comparison. Capital ship abilities like Malice can get really mean though.

In my last game, I was seeing plenty of rebel attacks on planets that had no outside culture affecting them:

Basically, I had 2 of the 3 solar systems completely owned and was working on coquering the last. I was playing with a mod that made orbital improvements cheap slot-wise, so each of my planets had several media/comm things, and every phase lane in my owned star systems was my color. I also had all the culture-techs reserached (playing Vasari)

And yet, I was still regularly getting attacked by rebels. It didn't seem to be culture-related at all, just random.

I find that it really speeds things up when you are ready to go onto the offensive if you have researched revolts x 2 and let it work for you. It is not going to take over the enemy's planets by itself; it just keeps his resources and attention tied up to the point that you can walk through.