Trying to beat TEC at their own game (Advent "rush" oh my!)

from Sins Forums
So yeah advent on a small map vs TEC is HARD. I think for most people that in and of itself is old news. Especially if you're only a couple jumps from the enemy successfully countering an LRM rush is very dicey.

But, thanks to some excellent advice from Ragarth online, I've gotten to the point where not only do I feel comfortable countering a TEC rush, but even more have been able to RUSH TEC who were going to rush me.

Now, like everything, there is a (in my opinion) serious tradeoff, and I'm wondering if this tradeoff makes an advent "rush" really worth it...

So how does it work? Well nothing too complicated, basically I spam disciples from the get go and, as I'm cranking out disciples, I send my colony cap ship to capture a roid (the mothership by itself can easily capture and secure an asteroid). I also have 3 scout ships out searching for the enemy and, once i've found him, I usually 'waypoint' a scout to keep phasing through his planet(s) so i can know exactly his disposition.

In very short order I can get up to the (initial) cap of 11 disciples, by which time I'm usually already building (or waiting for enough resources to build) 2 military labs and research addition fleet logistics.

If the TEC player decided to go the eco boom route (a 50/50 chance of which there is in an FFA), well great, usually that means my 11 disciples far outnumber the frigs (if any) he has, so I will send the initial mothership/disciples to 'harry the enemy' as it were.

Now unfortunately pound per pound (ton for ton?) a cobalt beats a disciple hands down, so it usually requires a slightly larger fleet of disciples to overwhelm any cobalts the TEC player has.

If the TEC player went the LRM rush route, I will usually hold off until I can get defense vessels (which, frankly, kick the $#!% out of LRMs) researched and crank out 8-10 of those. I am also trying to crank out more disciples. Ideally I'd like something in the range of 20 disciples and 10 defense, and then sending in reinforcement waves on the order of 5 units each wave. If possible, 4 or 5 drone hosts with bombers are fantastic as they make eliminating structures much easier... but to do this means research and time at the expense of more units.

Now this strategy has proven quite effective at keeping the pressure on, and ensuring the battle stays on his doorstep. Yet I would not say it's a "knock out" strategy. Especially if he has gone sova (likely in the case of a rush) "overwhelming" his forces is suprising hard. In addition, it's critical to watch for hangars/ turrets under construction, as they can bring the whole advent rush machine to a grinding halt. I usually try to eliminate his construction drones ASAP, but it's not always easy, especially if he already has a decent number of units.

Overall though, having tried this several times, I've been surprisingly pleased with its effectiveness. Throughout the early game I've been able to stay at #1 military, and keep the bloody TEC out of my bloody planets.

But, here's the tradeoff. My...econ...SUCKS. To accomplish this strat I am literally queuing a unit (and/or doing essential research, ie defense vessel), as soon as I have the resources for one. And even cranking out units as fast as I possibly can, especially against a player that has a good opening, I feel like I am just barely staying ahead of the curve. Keep in mind that once I get my initial roid, unless I am close to a terran planet, I only have one (maybe two) roids for econ since I do not want to spend on the two research labs + research + time it takes to conquer a volcanic or ice planet. And desert planets usually have too many bandits to make it worth the cost.  I need all of that time and money for more units!

And so while the advent rush does definitely have its upsides (keeping TEC on their heels), it really is a race against the clock. I am relying on the fact that having #1 Military and keeping the pressure on will eventually collapse my opponent. HOWEVER if he does throw back my attack, I am now basically screwed because I have no expansion and no econ to speak of. Hell I usually don't even have civic labs or planet research done. This leaves me very far behind in economy, and now I'm the one up against the clock to make up lost time on expansion before he can build a large enough fleet to overwhelm ME.


So the question stands, is the tradeoff worth it?
strategy
10,955 views 18 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Depends,if the TEC is smart he'l send the sova to your homeworld,and destroy what little economy you do have,at which point it's game over.

I play advent alot,and to be honest,i go econ and rush, typically i'l build 2 harmony labs,scuttle cap ship yard,get about 10 disciples and a missionary evssel,along with a mothership....send mothership to a planet(ice is best) and disciples to a roid, after you got the roid,i usually have 10 more disciples,and send them out to meet the TEC, if done right,you should have both the ice,and the roid within 10 minutes,have a ok fleet rushing,and a half decent economy.

People say Advent suck, it's not the way i see it.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
People say Advent suck, it's not the way i see it.
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I enjoy playing Advent as well, but they have real problems surviving the early game. The 1.04 patch which will make the Illuminator behave more similarly to LRM on its damage curve will help immensely.

Personally, I'd like to some minor to moderate buffs for strikecraft and carriers such that a light carrier actually becomes a cost effective weapon. This would give the Advent an avenue that would allow them to complement the admittedly crappy disciples.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Disciples are decent when you get steal antimatter, but thats tier 3 so if you are being rushed chances are you won't ever get it. Advent doesn't suck, but I think they are one dimensional during the beginning of the match. Like the strategy the OP has the major flaw of having no economy. But if he was to try to buff his economy then at the beginning his military would be garbage. Seems its all about trying to guess what your opponent is going to do with Advent. Not sure if its a good thing, its like playing Russian Roulette.

I dunno in my experiences I don't see a lot of Advent players online. Only one here and there. Most players seem to play TEC and Vasari. And I can see why, its they are a lot easier to play.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I know you said you go with the colony capital, I used to do that too but switched to using radiant + colony frig. You mentioned trouble taking desert worlds early on, I'm pretty sure I've been taking desert worlds with only my radiant and sending my disciples to capture the astroid. As a bonus one desert world can push a new radiant to lvl 3 or 4 from clearing all the militia. I don't have to worry about leaving my cap at a planet to get enough antimatter to take it then, can just move the radiant to the front and leave your colony ship sitting there. When you do get your progenitor you dont have to spend early skill points on colonization either, and when you do get to that point you can scuttle your colony frig.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I know you said you go with the colony capital, I used to do that too but switched to using radiant + colony frig. You mentioned trouble taking desert worlds early on, I'm pretty sure I've been taking desert worlds with only my radiant and sending my disciples to capture the astroid. As a bonus one desert world can push a new radiant to lvl 3 or 4 from clearing all the militia. I don't have to worry about leaving my cap at a planet to get enough antimatter to take it then, can just move the radiant to the front and leave your colony ship sitting there. When you do get your progenitor you dont have to spend early skill points on colonization either, and when you do get to that point you can scuttle your colony frig.
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Interesting laviking, will have to try that. Is this including desert worlds where there are 2, sometimes 3 kodiaks? Also what did you mean at the end when you said

When you do get your progenitor you dont have to spend early skill points on colonization either, and when you do get to that point you can scuttle your colony frig.
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Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Interesting laviking, will have to try that. Is this including desert worlds where there are 2, sometimes 3 kodiaks? Also what did you mean at the end when you said
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The second quote means when you get your progenitor, you dont have to spend points from your first few lvls on the colony ability.

And yah I'll try it again to make sure, but I'm pretty sure you can take a desert world with a lone lvl 1 radiant. I want to say I put the first point in detonate antimatter and the second in the shield/antimatter regen ability after the first few militia ships are dead.

I think a big part of the reason your able to do it is the way militias are spread out, you can usually take out a couple cobalts or lrm's near your jump in point before the big slow kodiaks even get to your position.



Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
I'm pretty sure you can take a desert world with a lone lvl 1 radiant. I want to say I put the first point in detonate antimatter and the second in the shield/antimatter regen ability after the first few militia ships are dead.I think a big part of the reason your able to do it is the way militias are spread out, you can usually take out a couple cobalts or lrm's near your jump in point before the big slow kodiaks even get to your position.
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laviking i tested this and there is just no way a lvl 1 radiance can handle a sizable native fleet on its own. I think the x factor is the number of kodiaks, for example if there are no kodiaks but 3 cobalts, 3 lrms, 3 flak then i don't think it's a problem. but thrown in 3 kodiaks and the radiance gets its ass handed to it.

Even putting my first skill into detonate anti-matter, i had to retreat multiple times, and eventually just had to build 10 disciples to help take down the planet (terran one.. forgot terrans could have big militas). One of the abilities the mothership has that makes it really nice for taking down militias is malice. Spreading out the damage of one ship to all the local ships helps a LOT.

However vs a TEC cap ship (even a sova) the mothership tends to get beat, so I may just try a variation of what you said, and include disciples with the radiance + colony ship.

Oh and keeping the colony of to the side doesn't work as the AI always retargets any colony ship as priority...

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Oh and keeping the colony of to the side doesn't work as the AI always retargets any colony ship as priority......
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You keep your Colony ship back. Once the Planet you're about to take only has a couple enemy left, you phase jump the Colony ship. Sure, it will get instant aggro and take a couple of hits but ignore it and just colonize.

I don't think he meant to bring in the Colony ship along with the rest of your fleet when capturing the planet/asteroid. You keep it back, safe but in position to phase jump until most of the neutrals are cleared.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
but for gauss turrents, are the damage inflicted per hit the same for both advent compare with TEC. I think TEC is slower, because it fires bullet like salvos compare with Advent where it is more beam weapon hence more continuous.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Yall should read the post on "the unbeatable cobalt light frigate vs. advent rush"


My full opinion can be found below:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/305880/page/3

In any event, going mass disciples is a bad plan because lrms pwn disciples. Just about any "rush" will work against a player going for an "econo-boom", but against a tec player massing cobalts and lrms, advent will get pwned if all they have are defense vessels and disciples.

Rushing is not the answer for the advent because as mentioned it is destined to fail later on. Disciples can't stand up to lrms and defense vessels are raped by cobalt light frigates.

No: The real answer is to tech to drone hosts whose anima can be swapped to bombers versus light frigates and fighters versus lrms. Going drone hosts and illuminators is a much more effective strategy versus tec; but again, if you want to get a bunch of disiples that's not a terrible plan, but only if you are absolutely sure your opponent has absolutely no javelis lrms.

I tested this strategy out yesterday when I was cobalt light frigate rushed. It worked like a charm.

I swapped my fighters for bombers/ got some more illums, and pwned the cobalts. When the player started getting nothing but lrms I swapped all my fighters for bombers and BAM.. he had no chance. Drone hosts are the way to go.


Italia
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
Ugh. Where to begin.

Before I go any further, I would like to direct the players to at least glance over my build order and strategy guide, to get a feel for the game.

Let's start on Advent Econ and Rushing.

Advent is a weird race. Their primary advantage is high quality units with synergy. Their disadvantage is a lower eco than Tec, problems with Capital survivability, problems with FFing enemy capitals, and problems with surviving early game.

Clarification #1: Light frigates beat the crap out of drone carriers, with no support. That is saying, light frigates will completely win without flak support against carriers, and of course WITH flaks the matchup becomes completely ridiculous. Reason: bombers do reduced damage (50%) to light frigates, and lights do 125% to carriers. So Italia, you are 100% wrong. If you don't believe me, we can do another little test. I already tested out the Advent "seekers own" strat, which lasted about 10 minutes. This should be similar, but shorter since you won't even get to drone carriers before you die.

Clarification #2: There are 3 reasons that Advent can stand toe to toe with other factions mid/late game, and as of 1.03, ONE reason they can survive early game. The superiority of the crusader, Malice and Shield Regen (mainly malice) of the Mothership, and the Guardian. These 3 units are the core of the Advent fleet later and can take almost any opposing fleet down with minimal losses. The primary unit of the early Advent fleet is none other than the extremely overpowered defense vessel with its insane dps and massive shielding/hull at 3 pop. It is by far the most powerful unit per cost/supply etc. in the game.

Final notes:
The reason Advent have so much trouble in 1.03 is the following:
No counter to light frigates as they have no anti-medium source of damage
No way to keep Mothership alive from concentrated LRM fire, and since Mothership is so vital to the fleet, this presents a huge problem.
No great support for their Crusaders (basically, no subverters).

I appreciate the fact that a discussion is going on here, but most of these points are either wrong or misleading. You guys are playing Sins vs a very limited (and very low-skill) group of public players. Before you announce your strats, you should test them vs the higher end players. I'm always happy to show you why your strat sucks. :)

Cheers
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
I appreciate the fact that a discussion is going on here, but most of these points are either wrong or misleading. You guys are playing Sins vs a very limited (and very low-skill) group of public players. Before you announce your strats, you should test them vs the higher end players. I'm always happy to show you why your strat sucks. Cheers
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HuntingX while I agree with your post (especially your points about italia's comments), I am somewhat confused as you basically reiterated my original post but then (I am assuming based on your post's general tone) claim to disagree with it...
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
Advent doesn't have an economy per se. When you say that you're "saccing" economy, you're assuming that Advent needs a high economy.

The truth is, Advent needs high TECH. As long as Advent has a high tech level, they can do some serious damage.

Further, Advent cannot really "keep Tec on their heels." The best you can hope for is a stalemate where you're slowly losing but teching up toward better units. Even if you go defense vessels, you can only force the Tec player to run away, but you can't deal damage to him. Further, you have no way to hurt capital ships.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
Advent needs a diverse fleet, they arent good massing one type of unit their strength lies in other units to survive and win the battle!

I'm 100% advent player and they are good if you know how to use them right.
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
I just tried to test the lvl 1 radiant versus desert planet militia setup but for some reason the desert planet had a weak militia on this map.

1 kodiak
1 lrm
1 cobalt
1 garza
1 siege

It's normally like double that =O

anyways, setup;
first point in detonate antimatter
had to jump 4 planets to get there so only had 30-40 antimatter when I arrived. full shields though.

The ships had just chased another factions scout through the gravity well and they were all stacked up near my jump in point instead of spread out like normal.

Kill order was lrm, then cobalt, then the garza/siege died about the same time, then the kodiak, had about 300shield at the end, they didnt touch my hull.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
To clerify, I agree with you HuntingX. In fact, when I use drone hosts I ALWAYS support them with a 2:1 ratio of illuminators to carriers.

Mind you, getting to illuminators is arduous and it is certainly the case that a cobalt rusher would immediately catch me off guard. The thing is though, that in the general case most players rush lrms without proper scouting, and so therefore drone host fighters would be very effective. Now, certainly its also true that defense vessels are better versus long range frigates than carriers with fighters, but here I argue that cobalt light frigates dominate defense vessels just like they dominate carriers. The thing is, cobalt light frigates are worse against carriers than defense vessels, because bombers can still hurt them; whereas, defense vessels cannot even do that. With a 2:1 ratio of illuminators and proper fleet micro it is entirely possible to lead the cobalts running all over the system after the carriers while the illuminators obliterate them, and this strategy leads into a more effective mid-late game advent dominance than going for mass defense vessels, especially if anyone get heavy cruisers.

Please read my posts at the link I supplied before commenting on how wrong I am.

I will not "diss" your post however, because again, I agree with it for the most part.

If you'd like to try out a match with me, you're more than welcome to. I have an open mind, but, mind you, I am primarily a vasari player.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
Currently, illuminators counter nothing. Not cobalts, not anything. Their anti-cap damage has no bonus vs anything at all. They're also tier 3, incredibly expensive, etc. etc.

I'm not trying to diss you, but you really don't have a clue what you're talking about.

If you think Vasari somehow do better in 1.03 than Advent, you're also not correct due to the lack of defense vessels. Right now, Tec LRM spam is the dominant strategy.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
That may be the case, but I have not experienced it in any of the 1v1 games I have played. Assailants spam very early game is greater than or equal to lrm spam.

I look forward to 1.04 when they will supposedly improve illuminators. Illuminators still have superior damage dealing ability due to their multiple arc firing and are not weak against anything like the defense vessels are weak against cobalts.

But, flak frigates counter both illuminators and to a degree fighters/bombers, and so that is the biggest weakness of the illum/drone host fleet.