TEC Capital Ship Ability Strategy Guide/FAQ
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I saw someone asked for an ability guide, and seeing as I'm in class and bored as hell, I figured I'd answer the request. I'll start with TEC.
I have gone back in and edited this thread.
Clarification for Autocast: When I say leave something on autocast or not, I mean right click on the ability to turn it on so the computer automatically uses the ability when the ship has antimatter, or turn it off where you use the ability manually.
Passive Ability: You don't have to do anything. The ability doesn't require antimatter.
Kol Battleship
Abilities:
Gauss Rail Gun: Pretty straight forward. It's a cannon that does damage. The problem is it's a very high antimatter cost and the damage has to go through mitigation shields, meaning the 800 damage level 3 gun really does about 400 damage, maybe 300 if the ship is damaged enough.
I think this is a waste of antimatter, but still, use this ability at lower levels. The ship's already a beast. This cannon's a nice plus.
Flak Burst: Again, pretty straight forward. It's a flak burst fired and it does damage to fighters/bombers. It's an area of effect weapon. It's a nice case-specific ability, but I don't use it often. It doesn't kill fighters in one shot, but 3 or 4 shots from this will do it. Up the level and it'll take few shots It's a nice counter to someone who's spamming fighters/bombers.
This should on be on autocast only if you're up against a lot of fighters/bombers and you don't want to pay attention. If you can manually press this when the kol has a ton of fighters around, then you're golden. Other than that, I don't find this ability useful.
Adaptive Force Field: This ability is nice. This is where my level ups go. It blocks phase missles, and is actually a very good shield.
Leave this on autocast until level 6. Then turn it off.
Level 6: Finest Hour
Yessir, this is a nice ability. The battle bonuses the Kol recieves from this ability basically means you have a ship that isn't going to die. Basically, the Kol which was already a beast gets insane bonuses to make it more of a beast. It's so tough by level 6. This ship is a rock by this point.
Leave this ability on autocast once you get it.
Sova Carrier
Abilities:
Missle Batteries: This ability is a nice support, but don't rely on it. Sure it makes a nice missle battery, but the battery isn't amazingally good. It's a good suport ability for your fleet. That's about it.
Turn this ability off unless you have the antimatter to spare on the ship.
Embargo: Ah, the selling point of the Sova. This ability is just ungodly good for rushing. You leech off your opponents planet (preferably his homeworld as that has the best income). You get 40%, 70%, and 100%, in that order for the levels of this ability. You also slow his construction times. I'm not going to explain the Sova rush, but that's what this ability is good for.
Leave this ability on. It's a beauty.
Heavy Fighters: Not really useful. If your opponent has flak you're still gonna lose your fighters anyway. Don't tech up this ability until you have the other abilities first. I recieved some criticism for my view. I do not find this useless, but you shouldn't pick this until the carrier has 4 or 5 fighter/bomber groups. The upgrade doesn't effect too many ships at lower levels so it's really a level up that goes to waste.
Passive Ability
Level 6: Rapid Manufactoring
The felt effect of this ability isn't really that much. You make your fighters quicker, the planet the Sova is on will construct shit faster. I don't care for it, and you shouldn't expect much from it. You get a much better pay off having this ship harassing your enemy with embargo. I will say, if you have a planet with 4 factories, however, this ship can make you churn out other ships like mad. With a massive Eco, this is just amazingally good.
Leave this ability turned off, unless you have mentioned planet, then leave it on for use at that planet.
Akkan Battlecuiser
Abilities:
Colonize: This ability is absolutely invaluable. It makes the colonizer, not just for TEC, the first choice for your cap and the first choice for ability. Ironically, once you have level one with this ship, don't bother with upgrading it. Level 2 and 3 just give free extractors. A lot of good that does. Saves you a whopping 250 cred per mine and the minute or so of resources that mine would have produced.
Still, the strategic option this ability offers is immense. When you're expanding early, going straight from homeworld, to the local asteroid, and then to an ice or lava is a BAD choice. If you can get to an asteroid 3 jumps or less away, however, then that's a good choice. Asteroids and lightly defended terrans and deserts give the best payoff for economy and overall speed of development in the early game.
Colony frigates tend to die before they get to said planets and take forever to build up antimatter stores, but colony caps don't. Not only do you get an econ bonus from getting a planet without having to tech up to get it, you also get a new strategic position to build a frigate factory at and harass your opponent.
Being able to seige and then colonize a planet is just invaluable.
Leave ability on autocast, it doens't matter if you leave it on because it will only activate next to abandoned planets.
Ion Bolt: Another ability with bad payoff for the antimatter you pay to use it, but then again, until you have armistice there's nothing else that you're really going to be using antimatter for on this ship.
Ion bolt is useful for a few things. When your opponent attempts to flee, you can target his capital ship with this ability. It doesn't last long, but you can just fire it again once it wears off. What is key though is the ship has to reaccelerate, meaning it's never going to get away.
It also can stop a ship from turning so it can use its ability. This is a bit more of a stalling move, but still effective. Still, I consider this at best a stall, but then again, in this game stalling is quite valuable as a strategy.
While it's difficult, you really should manually go in and use this ability. If you leave it automatic it'll hit frigates instead of opposing caps.
Targeting Uplink: An ability that people quesiton the applicability of, this ability is an aura that raises the hit % and range of the ships around it. Hit % means nothing really, except against Vertigo, an Advent ability that reduces a ship's hit % on enemy frigates, and against enemy fleets in asteroid belts. In there, your hit % goes down. This brings it back up. Flak also get better hit % against fighters and bombers. Still, the ability is rather limited, but having longer range for ships is still a nice plus.
Passive ability
Level 6: Armistice
What a nice underappreciated ability. This ability allows you to buy 60 seconds of peace on a planet. This may sound like an ability for when you're losing, but let me explain. Sometimes, you need to buy time. This is a perfect stall. Other times, and this what I use the ability for, you need to have two fleets. Give this ship to the smaller fleet, the one that will raid your opponent. Fly in, and once he responds with a larger fleet, just Armistice your way out, and hit him with your other fleet someone else in his territory.
You really can use this ability to your advangtage, you just need to be creative.
Don't leave this on autocast. You should manually trigger it yourself.
Dunov Battlecruiser
Shield Restore: This ability raises a very large amount of shields, larger than most frigates or curisers offer, so while this ability can be used on smaller ships, it's really designed for other caps. With this ability, your other caps aren't going to die, but t his requires proper monitoring and microing.
Don't leave this on autocast. To get the right use out of this, you need to use it on your other caps.
Destabilizer Charge: I love this ability. It does some damage, sure, but the antimatter removing ability is what sells me. You can remove antimatter from your enemy's cap, so useful in early game. I'm also told this has an area of effect, makes it even better.
Leave this on autocasts.
Magnetize: One of the more comic abilities. You target a ship, or a building, and it's abillities are disabled, but that's not all. Your opponents fighters will crash into this affected target. Just so funny to watch.
Leave this one off, but manually use it or turn it on when up against a fleet of fighers. This ability is good, I just prefer the others.
Level 6: Flux Field
This ability is why I pick the Dunov as my second and sometimes first cap. It reduces your antimatter costs 300%,. I think this really means your new antimatter costs are 1/4 of their original costs, but I dont know, I just know the antimatter costs are reduced. Combine this with say 3 kols all using gauss cannon and flak burst, or combine it with an allied Advent fleet and it's a huge boost to a fleet.
Manually turn this on in battle.
Marza Dreadnought
Abilities:
Radiation Bomb: I've changed my opinion on the radiation bomb. My problem with it before was that I didn't think it did enough damage. Then I leveled it up past level 1. Man I was wrong. This is effective, but again, it has to be up past level 1. Still, very useful.
Try not to leave this on autocast. Find the grouped up parts of the enemy fleet and manually target that.
Raze Planet: The selling point and best ability of the Marza, and thankfully you don't need to level it up much. Just level 1 levels planets. My personal favorite thing to do is to send a diverstionary fleet to an enemy planet, and then send the Marza to another. The Marza will level the planet before he can get to it. You can put your level ups into radiation bomb and the others into this.
Leave this on autocast.
Incendiary Shells: A damage boost to the Marza's already heafty damage output. A good passive ability. Still, the pay off is better for the other abilities, I generally don't bother with this too much.
Passive Ability
Level 6: Missle Barrage
I've heard mixed answers to how this works. It says it does 150 damage. Well that's specific. I've heard it does 150 damage to 20 targets in the AoE, then I've heard it does damage to every target in the AoE, and fires 20 volleys of 150 at everything. I really don't know what this does or how it works.
Personally, I think it does 20 missile barages on every target, because this ability lasts for about 25 seconds. Either way, it dishes out a good bit of punishment, makes a great support ability. (Credit to Mongoose on this one, I wasn't sure how this worked)
Leave it on autocast unless it's seiging. If you're only going to seige with the Marza, turn this off.
I have gone back in and edited this thread.
Clarification for Autocast: When I say leave something on autocast or not, I mean right click on the ability to turn it on so the computer automatically uses the ability when the ship has antimatter, or turn it off where you use the ability manually.
Passive Ability: You don't have to do anything. The ability doesn't require antimatter.
Kol Battleship
Abilities:
Gauss Rail Gun: Pretty straight forward. It's a cannon that does damage. The problem is it's a very high antimatter cost and the damage has to go through mitigation shields, meaning the 800 damage level 3 gun really does about 400 damage, maybe 300 if the ship is damaged enough.
I think this is a waste of antimatter, but still, use this ability at lower levels. The ship's already a beast. This cannon's a nice plus.
Flak Burst: Again, pretty straight forward. It's a flak burst fired and it does damage to fighters/bombers. It's an area of effect weapon. It's a nice case-specific ability, but I don't use it often. It doesn't kill fighters in one shot, but 3 or 4 shots from this will do it. Up the level and it'll take few shots It's a nice counter to someone who's spamming fighters/bombers.
This should on be on autocast only if you're up against a lot of fighters/bombers and you don't want to pay attention. If you can manually press this when the kol has a ton of fighters around, then you're golden. Other than that, I don't find this ability useful.
Adaptive Force Field: This ability is nice. This is where my level ups go. It blocks phase missles, and is actually a very good shield.
Leave this on autocast until level 6. Then turn it off.
Level 6: Finest Hour
Yessir, this is a nice ability. The battle bonuses the Kol recieves from this ability basically means you have a ship that isn't going to die. Basically, the Kol which was already a beast gets insane bonuses to make it more of a beast. It's so tough by level 6. This ship is a rock by this point.
Leave this ability on autocast once you get it.
Sova Carrier
Abilities:
Missle Batteries: This ability is a nice support, but don't rely on it. Sure it makes a nice missle battery, but the battery isn't amazingally good. It's a good suport ability for your fleet. That's about it.
Turn this ability off unless you have the antimatter to spare on the ship.
Embargo: Ah, the selling point of the Sova. This ability is just ungodly good for rushing. You leech off your opponents planet (preferably his homeworld as that has the best income). You get 40%, 70%, and 100%, in that order for the levels of this ability. You also slow his construction times. I'm not going to explain the Sova rush, but that's what this ability is good for.
Leave this ability on. It's a beauty.
Heavy Fighters: Not really useful. If your opponent has flak you're still gonna lose your fighters anyway. Don't tech up this ability until you have the other abilities first. I recieved some criticism for my view. I do not find this useless, but you shouldn't pick this until the carrier has 4 or 5 fighter/bomber groups. The upgrade doesn't effect too many ships at lower levels so it's really a level up that goes to waste.
Passive Ability
Level 6: Rapid Manufactoring
The felt effect of this ability isn't really that much. You make your fighters quicker, the planet the Sova is on will construct shit faster. I don't care for it, and you shouldn't expect much from it. You get a much better pay off having this ship harassing your enemy with embargo. I will say, if you have a planet with 4 factories, however, this ship can make you churn out other ships like mad. With a massive Eco, this is just amazingally good.
Leave this ability turned off, unless you have mentioned planet, then leave it on for use at that planet.
Akkan Battlecuiser
Abilities:
Colonize: This ability is absolutely invaluable. It makes the colonizer, not just for TEC, the first choice for your cap and the first choice for ability. Ironically, once you have level one with this ship, don't bother with upgrading it. Level 2 and 3 just give free extractors. A lot of good that does. Saves you a whopping 250 cred per mine and the minute or so of resources that mine would have produced.
Still, the strategic option this ability offers is immense. When you're expanding early, going straight from homeworld, to the local asteroid, and then to an ice or lava is a BAD choice. If you can get to an asteroid 3 jumps or less away, however, then that's a good choice. Asteroids and lightly defended terrans and deserts give the best payoff for economy and overall speed of development in the early game.
Colony frigates tend to die before they get to said planets and take forever to build up antimatter stores, but colony caps don't. Not only do you get an econ bonus from getting a planet without having to tech up to get it, you also get a new strategic position to build a frigate factory at and harass your opponent.
Being able to seige and then colonize a planet is just invaluable.
Leave ability on autocast, it doens't matter if you leave it on because it will only activate next to abandoned planets.
Ion Bolt: Another ability with bad payoff for the antimatter you pay to use it, but then again, until you have armistice there's nothing else that you're really going to be using antimatter for on this ship.
Ion bolt is useful for a few things. When your opponent attempts to flee, you can target his capital ship with this ability. It doesn't last long, but you can just fire it again once it wears off. What is key though is the ship has to reaccelerate, meaning it's never going to get away.
It also can stop a ship from turning so it can use its ability. This is a bit more of a stalling move, but still effective. Still, I consider this at best a stall, but then again, in this game stalling is quite valuable as a strategy.
While it's difficult, you really should manually go in and use this ability. If you leave it automatic it'll hit frigates instead of opposing caps.
Targeting Uplink: An ability that people quesiton the applicability of, this ability is an aura that raises the hit % and range of the ships around it. Hit % means nothing really, except against Vertigo, an Advent ability that reduces a ship's hit % on enemy frigates, and against enemy fleets in asteroid belts. In there, your hit % goes down. This brings it back up. Flak also get better hit % against fighters and bombers. Still, the ability is rather limited, but having longer range for ships is still a nice plus.
Passive ability
Level 6: Armistice
What a nice underappreciated ability. This ability allows you to buy 60 seconds of peace on a planet. This may sound like an ability for when you're losing, but let me explain. Sometimes, you need to buy time. This is a perfect stall. Other times, and this what I use the ability for, you need to have two fleets. Give this ship to the smaller fleet, the one that will raid your opponent. Fly in, and once he responds with a larger fleet, just Armistice your way out, and hit him with your other fleet someone else in his territory.
You really can use this ability to your advangtage, you just need to be creative.
Don't leave this on autocast. You should manually trigger it yourself.
Dunov Battlecruiser
Shield Restore: This ability raises a very large amount of shields, larger than most frigates or curisers offer, so while this ability can be used on smaller ships, it's really designed for other caps. With this ability, your other caps aren't going to die, but t his requires proper monitoring and microing.
Don't leave this on autocast. To get the right use out of this, you need to use it on your other caps.
Destabilizer Charge: I love this ability. It does some damage, sure, but the antimatter removing ability is what sells me. You can remove antimatter from your enemy's cap, so useful in early game. I'm also told this has an area of effect, makes it even better.
Leave this on autocasts.
Magnetize: One of the more comic abilities. You target a ship, or a building, and it's abillities are disabled, but that's not all. Your opponents fighters will crash into this affected target. Just so funny to watch.
Leave this one off, but manually use it or turn it on when up against a fleet of fighers. This ability is good, I just prefer the others.
Level 6: Flux Field
This ability is why I pick the Dunov as my second and sometimes first cap. It reduces your antimatter costs 300%,. I think this really means your new antimatter costs are 1/4 of their original costs, but I dont know, I just know the antimatter costs are reduced. Combine this with say 3 kols all using gauss cannon and flak burst, or combine it with an allied Advent fleet and it's a huge boost to a fleet.
Manually turn this on in battle.
Marza Dreadnought
Abilities:
Radiation Bomb: I've changed my opinion on the radiation bomb. My problem with it before was that I didn't think it did enough damage. Then I leveled it up past level 1. Man I was wrong. This is effective, but again, it has to be up past level 1. Still, very useful.
Try not to leave this on autocast. Find the grouped up parts of the enemy fleet and manually target that.
Raze Planet: The selling point and best ability of the Marza, and thankfully you don't need to level it up much. Just level 1 levels planets. My personal favorite thing to do is to send a diverstionary fleet to an enemy planet, and then send the Marza to another. The Marza will level the planet before he can get to it. You can put your level ups into radiation bomb and the others into this.
Leave this on autocast.
Incendiary Shells: A damage boost to the Marza's already heafty damage output. A good passive ability. Still, the pay off is better for the other abilities, I generally don't bother with this too much.
Passive Ability
Level 6: Missle Barrage
I've heard mixed answers to how this works. It says it does 150 damage. Well that's specific. I've heard it does 150 damage to 20 targets in the AoE, then I've heard it does damage to every target in the AoE, and fires 20 volleys of 150 at everything. I really don't know what this does or how it works.
Personally, I think it does 20 missile barages on every target, because this ability lasts for about 25 seconds. Either way, it dishes out a good bit of punishment, makes a great support ability. (Credit to Mongoose on this one, I wasn't sure how this worked)
Leave it on autocast unless it's seiging. If you're only going to seige with the Marza, turn this off.
Antimatter stores can rejuvenate in less then a minute. So the colonizing ability is not a good reason to buy the Akkan.