what are the strengths' of each faction?

Keep in mind that I've only been playing two weeks, so my perceptions might be a bit off.

TEC is strong in the early game. They're good if you like to rush. Their ships also seem to have fairly heavy armor and have strong staying power in combat, especially after you research up their armor. Adding repair cruisers to your fleet further bolsters this staying power.

Advent is kind of weak early, but have many positively lethal capital ship abilities. Animosity combined with Vengeance is potent, as is Malice combined with their big carrier's weapon rate of fire increase aura.

Vasari ships armed with phase missiles are less affected by enemy ship's shield mitigation. The Vasari also, to me, seem to be good at generating a lot of credits as compared to the other two factions. Vasari bombers also seem to me to be particularly effective, again probably due to the use of phase missiles.

Uh huh.

The TEC has the most hitpoints and armor of any of the two factions. The Strongest economy of any other faction, make it easy for the TEC to win thougth the use of pirates. More then any other faction, the capital ships of the TEC seem to me, more able to support each other.

The Advent has the most shields points of any of the faction. On top of that, they also have a tech called Raised Shield Harmonics, that increases the maximum pssoble damag mitigation provided by shields. On top of that they the strongest culture powers of any of the three factions(which include there super weapon). This is alls with the best antimatter system(culture increase antimatter regeneration rate, as well as having the able to steal antimatter thougth the disciple)

The Vasari are best when using there fleets. Most of there upgrades are tied to there fleet and most ships have two special abilities, while the other factions have only one. This is good, as they are also master of the cat and mouse game. They can even see all phase jumps at level 8 and can get RA.

TEC = Bullets and armor + Credits.

Advent = Shields and Culture

Vasari = Phase Missiles and "DEAR LORD HOW BIG IS THAT FLEET?" (They get bonuses to supply points along with Returning Armada)

Antimatter regeneration is the TEC's culture bonus. The Advent get a bonus to shield mitigation.

So the Vasari get damage, the TEc get antimatter, and Advent get shield mitigation, right?

Vasari ships are individually much tougher and deal more damage than other factions' ships though they cost more resources and fleet logistics to compensate. This has a couple of different effects.

First of all it makes it possible for the Vasari to muster a powerful fleet faster with the same number of shipyards, because you're building fewer ships to achieve the same results.

Second, it significantly reduces vulnerability to focus firing. During focus fire only one ship is being damage at a time so a tougher ship will last longer, particularly it will have more shield+hull remaining once it has reached the 60% mitigation cap which gives the already durable vasari ships that much more effective durability.

Third, because there are about 33% fewer ships in the typical vasari fleet, they tend to be considerably less impacted by AoE attacks such as the missile upgrade that TEC Javelis LRMs and Vasari Assailant LRMs have access to.

Its a very big military advantage, and generally speaking the main advantages the Vasari enjoy are military in nature. TEC outperforms them economically and Advent have better culture and more powerful ship special abilities. But in terms of raw toughness, firepower, and mobility nothing beats Vasari fleets.

so true but TEC all so has som tughf ships

Militarily:

TEC : Armor/HP
Advent: Shields/Antimatter
Vasari : Good at everything really but best at offense.

Civilian benefits:

TEC: Ridiculous economy and build rates
Advent: Ridiculous defenses and culture powers (Everything from spying to shield mitigation)
Vasari: Best resource generation (metal and crystal), most mobile (phase stabilizers).

End-game researchs

TEC: Even MORE ridiculous economy, superweapon nukes planets.
Advent: Little god's in a box (AKA their capital ships get free experience) Superweapon spreads culture a LOT. A few together and you can capture flip (capture) enemy world from a light system away - or at least make it rebel.
Vasari: Free non-capital ships. Superweapon disables buildings, defenses and ships in the targeted system for a short period of time (also does damage but not a huge amount - works great against masses of weak ships though).

Manual has a lot to say i'm sure jsut i was too lazy to read and experienced the gamea in person and came up with this little guide:
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/post.aspx?postid=302738

The special abilities of Advent ships combine with unparalleled synergy, making a well-built fleet nearly unstoppable. As long as you can actually micromanage your fleet when it matters, that is. An AI controlled fleet can still get decimated by a lesser, but more skillfully played, enemy fleet. TBH no race is really better than any other, they just play to very different styles.

No. Fewer ships per DPS means Focus Fire works better against Vasari, not worse. Imagine the opposite case: Hundreds of tiny-DPS units. At some point focus fire becomes worthless because of turning-times / retargeting. So with few, large ships, Focus Fire is tastier and more effective.

While its true that there will be more hits after hitting the shield mitigation cap on a larger ship, this point is reached so quickly on any ship that it would only be extremely weak ships that would significantly avoid the high end of mitigation, focus fire or no.



True.

geez you guys have this down to a science

[quote=smacksim]No. Fewer ships per DPS means Focus Fire works better against Vasari, not worse. Imagine the opposite case: Hundreds of tiny-DPS units. At some point focus fire becomes worthless because of turning-times / retargeting. So with few, large ships, Focus Fire is tastier and more effective. While its true that there will be more hits after hitting the shield mitigation cap on a larger ship, this point is reached so quickly on any ship that it would only be extremely weak ships that would significantly avoid the high end of mitigation, focus fire or no.Third, because there are about 33% fewer ships in the typical vasari fleet, they tend to be considerably less impacted by AoE attacks such as the missile upgrade that TEC Javelis LRMs and Vasari Assailant LRMs have access to. True.[/quote]

i believe you are incorrect about how this works.

imagine two ships, the first has 50 health (where health is combined shields+hull) and the second has 75 health. this is a typical ratio of a vasari ship vs. a similar non-vasari ship. given that each ship is receiving DPS at the same rate they will each achieve shield mitigation cap at the same time. lets run some numbers and see which ship has more effective health.

assume that each ship will recieve 10 DPS and that this DPS is sufficient to increase mitigation by 15% per second until the cap is reached. starting mitigation is 15% and the cap is 60%.

time mitigation damage this second total damage received
0 15% 8.5 8.5
1 30% 7 15.5
2 45% 5.5 21
3 60% 4 25
4 60% 4 29
5 60% 4 33
6 60% 4 37
7 60% 4 41
8 60% 4 44
9 60% 4 48
10 60% 4 52

at this point the non-vasari ship is dead, lets see how much longer until the vasari ship dies.

11 60% 4 56
12 60% 4 60
13 60% 4 64
14 60% 4 68
15 60% 4 72
16 60% 4 76

at this point the vasari ship is also dead.

the non-vasari ship dies 10 seconds after first damage but the vasari ship dies 16 seconds after, thats 1 second longer than would be suggested by the starting health ratio.

compare the survivability statistics with and without shield mitigation.

50 health ship dies in 5 seconds to 10 DPS, 75 health ship dies in 7.5 seconds to to 10 DPS. The ratio is 1:1.5

50 health ship dies in 10 seconds to 10 mitigated DPS, 75 health ship dies in 16 seconds to 10 mitigated dps. The ratio is 1:1.6

the effect is subtle but its there. it gets amplified more heavily for lower health ships, such as the particularly fragile LRM frigates.

is this effect a decisive advantage? no, definitely not, its not even as good as a single shield or hull or armor tech upgrade. but its there and it does indeed contribute to vasari ship durability.

how does this compare to other combat factors like time lost in re-targetting and damage "overkill"? I don't know, thats hard to quantify.

Time lost to re-targetting and maneuvering to acquire the new target is a minimal factor in most battles where the ships are more or less stationary within each others firing arcs the entire time. They can usually begin firing on a new target as soon as their weapon cooldown has finished. A skilled player can try to split his forces and micromanage them to surround his enemy, this tactic would certainly favor a larger fleet of weaker ships. I don't see this occuring very often though so I have discounted it. You can't discount the Vasari shield mitigation advantage factor though because it is entirely passive and always occurs.

Damage lost to "overkill" (shots still in the air after the targetted ship dies) is another important factor. I'm not sure how best to analyze this one but my intuition tells me that larger fleets produce more overkill shots than smaller fleets. This is something that could also favor the Vasari.

Hmm, good reply Transitive.

But I do understand how this works, though I'm sure your explanation will help others. I should have written in more detail to demonstrate what I mean, as you did with your example.

If overkill was unmanaged by the AI targeting systems, it would play a significant factor in how ship-size affects the effectiveness of focus firing, but thankfully, a large part of overkill is anticipated and handled by the AI if not force-re-targeted on the FF-target ship.

IE, if you select your LRM blob and tell it to Focus Fire on that Cobalt Light Frigate, your LRMs will start targeting other ships while the killing volley is in the air, unless you reselect the LRMs and target the Cobalt again. Call that "Force Retargeting of FF Target", or just "Force Retargeting".

There are quite a few difficulties in trying to generalize about the effectiveness of Focus Firing because many aspects of its effectiveness change situationally. It may be that our mini-debate here over target size isn't generally resolvable, but at least we can list the factors that we can determine.

As you point out in your example (and as I had noted, but too briefly, above), larger ships will enjoy a longer period under their highest shield mitigation, proportionally. And you correctly determine that this is a clear and constant ++ for larger ships. However, it is generally a tiny difference.

Recalculate your example for other more typical DPS vs. Hull situations. Try 500 hull vs. 750 hull @ 10, 50, 100 DPS.

Now, its true that we can come up with even more generous examples than yours, but these involve TINY ships, or very damaged ones. But as I noted, flocks of tiny ships (far smaller than we have in game) would break the effectiveness of Focus Fire anyways, for many reasons.

The debate is really whether the tiny bonus enjoyed by larger ships due to shield mitigation giving them a (very slightly) longer window of damage absorption offsets any weaknesses larger ships have to focus fire. I don't think it does. You do. I'll try to come up with an example....

Proposition: Larger Ships are better than smaller for surviving Focus Fire.

Negatives

Less Attacker Retargeting
Less Attacker Turning Time
DoT cruiser skills more useful
Less Attacker Overkill

Positives
~.01% - 1.00% more damage done while fully mitigated
Longer time to enjoy any recharge/repair

........

So maybe its debatable, but I really don't think its any benefit to have few+large ships in a Focus Fire situation, where I do think the benefits of many+small ships are clear.

when only direct firing of attacks is considered i think you're right that the turning/re-targetting gap can be exploited to a winning advantage by a skilled player. this is a big factor in favor of small ships when the conditions are exclusively direct fired attacks and the player is effective at micromanaging their position.

it doesn't always work though. for example, if your ships are nearer the planet and your opponents are further away he will benefit from a movement bonus and you will suffer a movement penalty (into vs. away from the center of the grav well). you'll effectively be running up hill and will not be able to reposition effectively. on the other hand you can cleverly exploit this by positioning your ships towards the perimeter of a grav well and then enveloping them as your enemy moves toward the center to attack your planet and platforms.

additionally some ships have abilities that restrict movement and keep your opponents ships tightly packed together. Vasari ships in particular have alot of these kind of abilities so it seems like their own forces are well equipped to counteract one of their potential weaknesses.

finally, the increased exposure to AoE attacks is SO significant a problem for the LRM blob that is common to TEC fleets that it makes me laugh. A couple of Radiation Bombs from a Marza or a shot of Reactive Nanites from a Kortul can just blow a fleet like that to tiny bits in no time at all.

If you're Advent, Malice followed up by massed interceptor strikes is pretty potent against LRMs as well.