Well it realy depends on your oppenents and if you get tehre before them or not. Soemtime just 20 fighters will do but otehr times you need to ahve only that and rely on your combabt ships to kill the enemy fleet. Also gettign a few flaks is always good 10 to 20 is what you want no mroe then that or it is just wasted supply. Unless your vasari, then you can spam flak frigs like mad.  Untill your opent out spams you with light frigates.

Try and figute it out for your self. But like i said its conterable.

The scenario I'm envisioning is one where everyone goes carriers.  In that scenario I can't see TEC having enough superiority to build bombers early against one of the other races.  

Right now I'm not building 10-20 flak, as opposed to more carriers with fighters....The fighters will be useful against strikecraft, scouts, LRM, and trade ships.  Later I can convert them to bombers if I want to, which takes care of everything else...   1.1 Flak are useful against strikecraft only, AFAIK

DID YOU SAY MARZA? CAUSE I THINK YOU SAID MARZA!

This is not really an iteresting topic, it's apples an oranges, why does TEC win if they just *spam* MARZA'S and the other races spam their dreadnaught or that Vasari wins a LRM spam due to AoE Phaazeeee misiles ... diffrent races have diffrent powerlvls on their ships or there would only be (get ready for it) ONE race...

Furthermore the 1.1 patch was about making balanced fleets and your saying QQ if i make an unbalanced fleet i loose

Now if you want to talk about the total powerlevel of TEC vs the other 2 races im game, as TEC does seem to be a little to reliant on MARZA'S to maintain a decent dmg output. But just comparing 2 ships in this limeted manner is not really constructiv but just comes of as QQ im bad and can't facerollwin NERF111!!!oneleven!12

Ahh mybad

/apologizes

Well atm, it does seem like tec's offenciv power does indeed mostly originate from highlvl marzas unless you are ready for an insane amount of microing your comand cruisers ( 10% extra dps from a 1800 supply fleet hurts)

and in multiplayer against ppl with a clue you wont have 3 lvl 6 marzas -- atlleast not without them countering it)

But should tec's dps be equal to the other 2, im not so sure. afaik TEC has (or is atleast supossed to have) the strongest economy vs ship prices --- that would equal -> loosing most(all) battles but winning the war and though the gameplay of that may not suit everyone is none the less valid! the question is where the balance should be

and is it there and to be fair, it looks like tec is the most played race atm and i'm interpreting that as a fact that suports that the balance required is atleast not that far off.

but atm in an optimal designed 2000supply fleet without lvl6 cap ships, tec seems to be looking the weakest, again, that seems to be overcome by their ecnomic power idk

no worries at all

Interesting perspective - TEC should lose the battle, all things being equal, because it can afford to replace its ships where the other races can't.  This might need a buff then, because when I play as Vasari TEC is usually spending all that money to buy my crystal

I have TWO WORDS for you!  HOSHIKO's .....and......HOSHIKO's!

so how many Hoshinkos are we talking?  50% of your fleet?

Alright, well regardless of what the ppl say here, MARZA's aren't the only powerhouse of the TEC, but Missile Barage is one of it's most powerful abilities... Anyway if you're a Carrier buff, having 1-2 hoshiko's for every 1 Percheron can work, but that's why Garda's and Capital Ships exist.  Capital ships draw fire, and have the sheer capacity to hold them off while awaiting for support, especially if you have a Dunov with shield restore or a group of Hoshiko's nearby.  Garda's, while not the best flak frigate in the game, are still Flak frigates and still do their job, especially if you have a Kol Battleship naerby with it's Flak burst ability, it can take out a decent amount of Advent squadrons, especially if it's being focused on.  Rarely, against Ai that is, do they ever bother to hunt down and kill your carrieris to clear the air.  That being said, I, personnaly find the strong vs. bla bla thing at the bottom a load.  A bomber can kill a siege frigate way easier than a fighter can, all it's there for is to show what the AI will attack first.  Same thing with Cobalts.  LRM's, especially with their special ability(forget what it's called) can take out a clustered group of carriers before even the enemy Illums or Kanraks can move into range. 

If ya don't feel like reading all that above, here's a summary!

1.  Use Hoshiko's with Dunovs and Kols

2. Use LRM's... Alot

3. I don't think an AI enemy will care about you're Percherons if there's a Capitol Ship(or 3) in their midst.

4. Losses WILL be taken, but only the TEC has the capacity to recover that fast.(KAMIKAZEE!!! )

5. DONT ONLY USE PERCHERONS , TEC fleets are like a puzzle, they work(look-puzzle) better with diversity, whether in small numbers or large.

Koda0-Hope it helps

P.S.  I would do use bombers, becuz they both kill stuff faster, I have at least 20-15 Garda's and if a single enemy squadron is re-generated, ALL of your fighters chase it down.

Or a decrease supply demand on ships. Like a skill that would reduce supply needed for a ship by 10% per lvl. So a tec cap at lvl2 suppy would use only 40 supply instead of 50.

Or a lower % or prodution going to supply so gettign mroe suppyl doesnt hurt the econ to much because to get more ship you need the more supply you need, which hurts your econ. That is why I always wait till my supply is maxedout before buying the next one. And since TEC need more supply it's hurting it econ, other races that don't need the extra supply endup doing better econ wise.

Oh...I don't think you even need that many, per se....try 25% of your fleet to start with.  It IS pretty funny when you make tons though...until the opponent starts spamming counters.  And enough bombers will still kill any ship in one pass, so you still need enough carriers to do the same back.

Vasari needs that supply increase because their ships take up so much supply.  TEC gets to buy a discount on the cost of higher supply caps.  They don't suffer as much of a penalty for maintaining higher supply levels with that technology (can't remember what it is called, and not near an install to check.)  Also, when you combine that with Industrial Juggernaught and Pervasive Economy, and cheap rapidly build frigate factories, you can rapidly set up border worlds with factories and spam ships VERY rapidly.

TEC are just too weak and again weak. The end Vasari rule. Kostura Cannon KABBOOOMMM   I win the game.