Advent really doesn't have any special economic tricks, and more or less play as an inferior version of TEC in terms of early-game eco build-up.  The Progenitor Mothership offers you a wonderful colonization discount while doubling as one of your best combat capital ships, which is pretty much your only advantage over the Akkan (which offers a better colonization bonus but isn't so hot in battle).  The Advent do have an easier time clearing militia due to their stronger starter units, but suffer from having to plot down 2 hostility labs to access repair platforms.  You can put up culture a little earlier, which can be nice if your start location is good for it, but otherwise you'll be moving to 3-labs pretty quickly anyways for trade ports if you're doing a economic opener.

Really, Advent's economic game is by far the most one-dimension of the three factions.  Colonize quickly in the early-game to acquire many planets, which will provide you tax/extractor income in the short term and plentiful logistics space in the long-term.  Build up a chain of trade ports to gain a large trade route bonus, then spam trade ports across your empire to take advantage of this bonus.  That's really all there is to Advent economic booming.  The only decent economic tech Advent gets is Allure of the Unity, which comes so late you'll almost never get it anyways, so for the most part you can stop at three harmony labs and never look back once you've done the necessary researches.

Advent is a militant faction, through and through.  Don't look for much in the way of economic gameplay from them aside from the bare basics.

well ive been doing farily well in the start of the game then for econ i just build up enough trade ports and stop shipment production to do focus on mining (i guess its the advents version of the refineries for teh tec.) im not sure why but i rarly use the progenitor as my first cap. I normaly use it as my 2nd a few times i use my radience as my first wich plows through any militia easly.

Don't do resource focus, because as Darvin said, it is horrible.

Did you make sure to have the Progenitor jump in first? If the seekers arrive first, the militia will target them instead of the tougher capital ship. The only militia unit that prioritizes seekers is the Kodiak, but these are only found on desert and terran planets, and seldom in significant numbers. Seekers are extremely tough for their cost, so they should be able to survive one or two kodiaks long enough to clean up the more fragile Javelis and Krosov unit types. The Progenitor is your standard economic opener as Advent, while the Halcyon is your standard military opener. Generally speaking, this colony/carrier duality exists for every faction. The Kortul, Vulkoras, and Marza are pretty much the only widely accepted alternatives to the colony or carrier caps as openers.

Also if someone else has a ship in the system when your progen jumps in and its leaves or is destroyed the militia may target your seekers.

well id like to use the progenitor to colonize due to the bouns it gets (cheaper planet upgrades)

i know the hycolne (i know i spelled that wrong) is also a great starter ship me and my roommate play on maps that we have our own star to get established then we go for other systems. before i jump to the next star i get my next capital ship so ive been normaly picking the progen.

The approach that I found most helpful for an early start that gives you a very good eco and a very decent fleet to defend with and continue expanding with is the following:

 

- Build mining stations, produce 2 or 3 Seeker Vessels (depending on map size) on auto-explore, and 1 Missionary Vessel;

 

- Build a Capital Ship factory and produce a Halcyon Carrier. Upgrade the Adept Drone Anima. Produce 4 fighter squadrons;

 

- Drain your population count by building as many Disciple Vessels as possible;

 

- Begin colonizing in all directions 2 jumps away from your home planet. Colonize using your entire fleet and do only one jump at a time with the entire fleet. Don't divide your fleet;

 

- Once colonized, upgrade infrastructure to max;

 

- In the meantime when the above colonization process is under way, whenever your resources permit, build 2 Temples of Harmony, upgrade fleet capacity and number of capital ships. Research planet types as necessary and research eco improvement rates for mining;

 

- As soon as you can afford it, build a second Halcyon Carrier, this time upgrading it with only bomber squadrons, and attach it to your main fleet;

 

- Upgrade Capital Ships again and build a Radiance Battleship and attach it to your main fleet;

 

- Build frigate factories and defenses on the periphery colonies and trade ports on the inner colonies.

 

- Continue expanding slowly, but also heavily fortifying your periphery.

 

For the Halcyon Carriers, when you have the chance, just upgrade the Adept Drone Anima. This is more important for early game. At this point you'll want to start building cruisers instead of upgrading to better frigates.

 

If no enemies are forthcoming, then it's at this point that I slow the pace significantly down and focus heavily on research and fortifying while slowly continuing to expand. My first upgrades tend to be towards improving mining and tradeports.

 

You don't want to stress just eco because then you'll get wiped out if anyone invades. In early game, it is much more powerful to defend your colonies with a well-armed fleet than with purely static defenses, even if you have to jump your fleet around. Initially, static defenses are just a drain on your economy. If you're playing against harder AI, if they invade early game, it will usually be with at least 2 Capital Ships and a sizeable fleet, hence the second Halcyon Carrier with bombers (supplemented with Aeria Drone Hosts).

 

Think of it this way: if you set an aggressive AI, then they will concentrate more on building fleets than defences. There is no way that you can outmatch an aggressive AI fleet with purely defensive upgrades this early on in the game. You just don't have the eco to support this. So your best bet is to outmatch them offensively. Even though the AI may have a better fleet than you, it will suffer a lot of damage. You'll definitely be able to take out their capital ships, in which case the remaining fleet will most likely retreat. On the other hand, if you have a defensive AI, then they wont be attacking you early on. Therefore, you don't have to worry about building defences early on. The better the offensive fleet, the quicker you can colonize and getting a good eco start.

@master1a

 

You can't just expand quickly for the sake of expanding quickly. What you are proposing leaves you completely vulnerable. By your strategy you will get slaughtered by a tougher AI. You have no army, and any stationary defences you build can be taken out easily.

 

About upgrading planets to max, I was unclear and actually mixed two things together inadvertently. Upgrade your planet's health (Emergency Facilities) to max to withstand any early bombardment and, as you rightly suggest, infrastructure should only be upgraded such as to remove the negative taxation rate. By upgrading the planets health to max, you have enough time to reach it within a couple of jumps to protect with your fleet.

 

Also, when you have a strong army from the outset as I propose, it doesn't really matter which direction you colonize. You jump in, and with a fleet of 16 Disciple Vessels and a Halcyon Carrier with 4 fighter squadrons, you take out defences very quickly and just jump on to the next target while your Missionary Vessel comes in behind you and colonizes.

 

As far fighters/bombers. Most of the ships you're attacking are frigates, so fighters are much better suited for this. Also, if you get ambushed by the AI, then it will be with a fleet of frigates. But this is a moot point.

 

Using my approach, by the end of colonizing 2 jumps away (all containing tradeports), you have: an eco rate of ~25 / sec and growing, 3 capital ships (1 Halcyon decked out with 6 fleets of fighters, 1 Halcyon with 4 fleets of bombers, and a Radiance Battleship), and about 30-40 disciple vessels. You can practically fight off any incoming threat. NOW you spend time to fortify your periphery bases and start building cruisers (and perhaps some higher-end frigates) and doing more research, while slowly starting to expand again.

@ Kefra 

First of all I wanted to post something similar to master1a post. I completely agree with him.

2nd  

You need to get balance when to stop expanding and building trade ports which you didn't mention at all and start building fleet. But for the sake of pure expansion and developing economy what master1a suggests its fastest way to expand. Also your direction of expansion needs to be in direction that gives you longest trade route. If that means leaving some planets behind its wiser to come back to colonize them later than to waste time..... 

3rd

Master1a is one of the best players on ICO and I'm sure he have no problems in 1v1 with vicious AI.

I would listen to his advice. And in MP games as in eco position (role in which you develop economy and don't fleet at all - means you are feeding your money and resources to your ally) I regularly see him getting over 150 cred ps in 30-35 min. Even when he needs to fight he gets economy of 60 cred ps going in about same time. 

4th

Upgrade health of planet only on border worlds.

Again good scouting will give you information which planets will be planets on which fight will go on. And usually 1 planet health upgrade is enough to slow enemy until you bring fleet that can either focus fire and kill siege or caps or drive him away. Rather tank money in fleet than static defenses.

5th

When playing against AI skip planets and colonize choke points and fortify them with SB. AI doesn't know how to bypass colonized planet so it will attack and die on SB that you build. You might want to keep 1 cap ship near SB to get cheap experience and LVL it up....

I mostly play 10-player multiplayer free-for-all or 2vs2vs2vs2vs2 and usually get harassed by pirates and enemy ambushes and gang ups. So, I've taken a heavily fleet oriented approach that has served me well. Otherwise I kept getting massacred. If I did what master1a outlined, then I would get creamed. There's no way I can expand without having a fleet.

 

Also, the comment about Star Bases. I do play S+E+D, and agree with you on that point, but you also have to consider people who play only S.

One of the reasons to use scouts to expand is so that your fleet can be fighting your enemies instead of clearing militia.

The primary reason bombers are better then fighters at clearing militia is because flak will kill the fighters.

Also most people in multiplayer never last long enough to get this far with advent economy..but I'll discuss this anyways.

The secret to an amazing advent economy in the late game is:

1. Have culture at every world.

2. Have a starbase at every world.

3. Upgrade that starbase with two upgrades increasing your planetary happiness at this location, and upgrade the trade ports.

4. Get the two upgrades at tech level 8 in the diplomacy screen that increases planetary allegiance by 5% each.

5. Don't get resource focus.

6. Move your HW to a location that maximizes resource gain.  For longer games you would want to move it closer to the star since most of the good planets are there.

The reason why this works is:

Your income increases proportionally to the happiness of your planet.  if your planet it at 25% loyalty, you will only get 25% of the income in taxes, metal, and crystal (It doesn't affect  trade income to my knowledge).

If your planet is at 140% allegiance you will likewise get incredible resources from this planet.

This strategy also makes your empire incredibly strong, and takes a long long time. 

Recommended seriously for only single player, or a really epically long game of multiplayer.

In this way advent do have a very strong economy in the late game.