Is it worth playing as tec

TEC are economically the best faction, able to get trade ports early on and the late-game tech Pervasive Economy is awesome. However, they have a weak military, relying more on numbers and attrition to win. Early on, they are competitive, but later in the game, Advent and Vasari militaries far surpass them. They do have some great units like the Hoshiko that excel in small fleets, but TEC doesn't have many abilities that scale to larger fleets you see later on. Currently, the economic advantage isn't enough to make up for the later disadvantages.

However, against the AI, it's mostly knowing how to counter what it builds as it's not nearly as tough as a actual player. With their economic advantage, TEC is also the easiest faction to learn once you know how to get a good economy.

Tec also have the 'biggest bang' abilities in missile barrage, red button, level 3 embargo, rapid manufacturing...

Novalith spam is also easier than most would think think

The TEC is very much a brute force faction.  They have a very potent economy, a brutal rush-game, very economicall frigates and cruisers, and their capital ships are great in frigate-to-frigate combat.

Their weaknesses, on the other hand, are a lack of good late-game fleet support abilities, most of their capital ships require many levels before they start to perform adequately, and the only capital ship that performs well at level 1 (the Sova) isn't very good in the late-game.  This defines TEC as a very strong early-mid game faction that fizzles out in the late game by comparison to other factions.

Against the AI, though, you'll be just fine with TEC.  The AI doesn't know how to use the more brutal Vasari and Advent combos anyways, and you can usually level up your capital ships enough that you can access your best abilities.

Well, this topic really depends if its Single Player or Multiplayer because you can use a unlimited amount of stratagys in Single Player but in Multiplayer, normaly TEC is forced to be the Economic Dude for your team...

"FEED ME!"

"Ok Ok, heres your credits you ass"

I love successfully playing front-line TEC into the late-game.  It's about constant pressure while maintaining both an economic and military edge enabling you to continually bully and thwart your opponent's attempts to grow to match you.  Very tough to play, though, since one bad military defeat in the late-game is usually the end for TEC.

Definitely TEC's best strengths are as rushers and economic moguls.

If you have a level 6 sova with rapid manufacturing, it is possible to recover...but you'd have to have a lot of factories on a single planet (probably SB factory too), all levels of industrial juggernaut, and a ton of excess resources...I've done it once (actually, I fed my ally so he could do it), and that was in 2v2 with competent but not veteran players...

Not capital ship levels, though.  High level caps are the linch-pin that holds together the late-game TEC forces.  If you lose one or two, you should be okay so long as you're raising new ones to replace them.  If your top-level caps get wiped out, it's pretty much over.  Advent and Vasari can recover from this since their caps shine even at low-levels, but TEC need those level 6 abilities just to be competitive.

Generally speaking if you have enough economic power to do what you describe, you should heavily out-fleet the enemy and crush them with overwhelming numbers.

I agree completely...it was a very unique game though, I was doing extremely well while my ally was doing terrible...the other team had very large fleets and doubled up their SBs on most frontline planets...we figured the only shot we had at winning was for him to fleet up to 2000...maintenance is normally a problem at that level except he had so few planets it didn't matter anyway...I on the other hand had a relatively small fleet and low maintenance...

We had already lost...just not "officially"...anyway, they were sure surprised when the weakest player suddenly hit them with 2000 FS of TEC frigates...I'm pretty sure that battle is the most convincing evidence I've seen that TEC fleet SUCKS late game...

No, you're right...if you are sitting on 2000 FS worth of resources, something is probably wrong with that game...and that game was definitely messed up....

Tec from a economical stand point are pretty good. Its just in late game they dont have the lackluster they once had in the early game. Not to say they are worst of the three factions it just that they taper down as soon as the other factions reach mid to late game.

Tec can replace ships with the respective research. They can annoy the hell out of your opponent with insurgency. And speaking of late game, credits is non issue when trade ports and research are up. I think with these make up for what the tec lack when the game hits 5+ hours.