TEC Ships?

Kodiaks and Javelis LRMs are your primary damage dealers so they should make up the bulk of your fleet. Throw in a handful of support cruisers like the Robotics and Command Cruiser. Lead it with a cap ship or two and make sure you have a way to do planetary bombardment (caps can do it, but you need at least 3 to get it done in a decent timeframe or you can use siege frigates) and a way to colonize (either through the Akkan Battlecruiser or a colony frigate). Don't forget the flaks if you expect strike craft.

Also, it might help if you specify what period of the game you are talking about, early? mid? late?

To take planets there are two ships that can do it. The first is the colonizing capital ship, which for the TEC is called the Akkan. It's the capital ship in the middle of the capital ship selection boxes.

The other option is what's called the Colony Frigate. On the screen where you select scouts, light frigs, long range frigates, etc, there is the colony frigate alone on the line below. That ship has the ability to colonize planets. IT ALSO has the ability to colonize neutral mines in those gravity wells that have no planets but have mines.

mid and late

Also make sure you have some carriers, without them you have no idea to chase routing forces. They enable you to catch and destroy some light ships when they flee and try to phase jump.

I use 2 to 3 capital ships namely Kol and/or Marva + Kodiak cruisers and Cobalt frigates. I found the Javelis to be very vulnerbale to enemy fire and had to replenish quite often.

Relatively newbie,
Have tried building Kodiaks, have had ove 100 plus 3 Kol but get absolutely destroyed whenever come up against others with no more ships than my fleet. Why?

What's that fleet of yours made of?

Whats the enemy fleet made of?

My strike fleets tend to be made up of :

2 of each Capital ship
40 Kodiaks
40 carriers
20 flaks
10 command
10 robotic

There might also be some frigates left over from early game fleets, but mid to late game, frigates get trashed the quickest. Only the flaks are really necessary.

Siege frigates speed up taking down planets, but they are vulnerable and tend to be the first to be trashed in a big battle. So you can take 20 in with you and find when you get to take on the planet, you only have 3 left. Javalins in a 300+ ship battle are just cannon fodder. Forget cobolts mid to late game unless you build a serious lot of them.

If the enemy fleet is larger, then I'll up the numbers of each proportionally.

If you really like frigates, then build a lot of them. 50 minimum of each. And expect to lose some.

bleh I dont like your strike fleet apricot, I would rather use my forces as a scalpel then as a sledgehammer. Nothing wrong with yours but at same time what you just hit one planet at a time? seems inefficient.

Are you using carriers? This is something that is only going to get bigger once we hit 1.1 but if your fleet doesn't have control of the strike fighter battle then it is typically a bad sign especially because it means that if you have to withdraw you will take heavy losses on the way. Typically using the Akkan's Armistice ability typically makes withdraws easier especially if you were attacking to only knock out a couple of structures or important units.

Frigates do have roles in major battles. I like to use them either to flank in the Z axis or simply by having them use other phase lanes to appear behind an enemy fleet. cobalts typically make up for their fragility with their ability to remove antimatter and their strength against support cruisers.

In the end you are going to lose ships no matter what unless you are using a fleet entirely made of Dunov's and even then you will get overwhelmed.

My biggest suggestion though is to try and play as other races first and find their strengths and weaknesses. That could be another part of what is hurting you.

Not inefficient, methodical.

I only play games with minimum phase lanes anyway, which is suited to large fleets.

I'd rather have huge battles with maximum fleets, than constant minor battles with small fleets.

And I dont bother with strikes to take out a few structures. If I need to take out structures, I take out the entire planet and hold it. If I cant hold it, I still wipe the entire gravity well clean and nuke the planet, so the enemy has to start building from scratch. If I need to kill 10 ships, I go in and kill all of them, or at least those I can before they bug out.

I'm not real interested in missions from enemies, so the only ones that get done are when I want to keep an ally, or I'm going there anyway. The majority of missions I complete are because I was going there anyway. I actually find the missions pretty ludicrous, and mostly play with this turned off, as it distracts me from methodical conquest.

I dont really see the point with surgical strikes to take out a few structures. They can be replaced pretty quickly as soon as you leave, so you dont really achieve anything except a mission. Better to take and hold the planet imo.

Well for me a surgical strike is more one force comes in on one side of an empire, kills some structures, kill the Cap ships that come to defend then if they can take the force they will. If they cant take the force and planet then they bug out.

Once a fleet shows up where the diversionary/raiding fleet is. Usually I will hit another planet with a larger planetary assualt fleet. Depending on map size I might have several fleets doing these kinda tactics at once, while also maintaining my 1-2 defensive fleets. And also managing further tech, planetary upgrading, etc etc.

One thing touched upon is building a fleet that has the capability to sustain itself in the battle.

Only experimenting with TEC at the mo but:

If you can afford it build a Kol and then as your second Cap, a Dunov. The Dunov will sustain your Kol in battle by recharging your shields. Another extremely important support class is the Hoshi's the Robot Repair Cruisers. These fellows special ability is to help rebuild hulls in combat - again another thing to sustain your Caps in combat.

The Smaller ships, such as the frigate are a form of soak, e.g. the enemy attacks them (e.g. the AI), he isnt attacing your key ships such as the Dunov and Hosh's hopefuly. Agaisnt a human opponent he may be a bit more switched on an deliberately target the Dunov to take out your ability to restore shields, and increase your fleets vulnerability.

Really, there should be at least a dozen or so ships in this fleet. These are what should be included:

1 Akkan battlecruiser

1 Sova Carrier

8-12 Cobalt Frigates

4 Javelis Frigates

2-6 Kodiak Cruisers

 

I prefer the Colonizing Capital Ship. They have defense unlike the frigate, and have other special abilities.

 

But keep the Sova and Akkan far back, using them as support ships while the bulk of your fleet deals with the enemy empire/militia/pirates. Then, move the Akkan in to raid the planet.

But make sure you always keep a ship or two close to her. Just before I took a planet over I learned the hard way because an empire had a huge fleet and destroyed my Akkan.

TEC is a pretty solid faction. Its lacking in special abilities like GUARDIAN or SUBVERTER but makes up with that in raw survivability and DPS. They have also the best economy in the game.

The start of a game and the overall strategy is in heavy flux, the most influencing factors being map size and how many opponents you are up against.

In a small map you probably want to focus on sheer force primarily whilst in larger maps you want to get an advantage from your economics.

So its really hard to make a statement about a general approach.

"Those are... nukes!!! Make sure not a single one reaches the colony!!!"

I found an early Marza dreadnought pretty devastating on small maps. Its raze planet ability really puts the hurt on small developing empires. You use it to conquer like two colonies and then send it way to your enemies colonies, upgrading it along the flight (buying levels that is, and increase armor tech). Its missile barrage ability gained later can eradicate whole fleets of LRF. Its a monster and noone kills colonies faster. It will not destroy an oponent singelhandly but is capable to deny expansions until it can be dealt with wich may take some time.

And whilst your one man war is fought you tech to LRF (that would be Javelis LRM swarms) and through it to hoshikos.

Usually you can send backup LRF shortly taking the war to your enemy, away from your homeworlds and later repair the Marza with Hoshikos.

You can also create a swarm of scouts and capitalize on the Arcova bomb ability for a nasty surprise.

Since you are well on your way to Kodiaks you may pull through with it.

You also can opt for a quick expansion with the Akkan Battlecruiser as your first capital ship.

With 1.09 even the Percheron seems to have some use at least. Be careful to rely on fighters early in the game, not bombers (those are for taking down heavies and structures, against LRF wich will be the brunt of the forces you face fighters are much better).

You can use a lone Cielo for enhancing focused fire.

Of course the special abilities of the other races can be your undoing. And thats where Cobalts come into the game with their sabotage reactor ability.

The style of you game is very heavily dictated by the first capital ship you choose and varies greatly with other setups, so choose wisely.

Fail

1-2 caps (Kol or Marza)

Lots of hoshikos and carriers (slight bias to fighters), and a few some ceilos

and some LRM and kodiaks and maybe a few garda

= winning fleet

If you have enough hoshikos (esp with the tech upgrade) you can hold your own against illum spam. The fighters and kodiak help chew them up.