I prefer Guardians, Progenitors, Halcyons, and Destras myself. Late game, obviously. Maybe toss a Radiance in there for Cap vs. Cap with some Disciples.

You are aware that Telekinetic Push is by popular opinion the best anti-SC ability in the game? 2 halcyons with level 3 push can destroy huge swaths of even the vaunted Vas Bomber in 2 shots each. If you have 3 halcyons (which is not that uncommon in an Advent assault fleet) with lvl 3 push, you have air superiority in no time at all.

I, for one, think this is a net positive trait of the Advent. Although there are more squads per carrier to support, the carrier also has a significantly larger AM pool. So I see no downside.

Also, since there are more squads for a single carrier to support, this also means that the use of a carrier's AM can be more spread out across squads. To clarify how this is an advantage: to neuter a regular 2-squad carrier, the enemy fleet has to focus on attacking both of the carrier's squads for a time, so that the squads are decimated, and then so that when a single strike ship is regenerated, it's very quickly shot down. Assuming the carrier started from close to full AM, after a few rounds of this (1 ship is regenerated -> shot down), it'll probably be out of AM and will be virtually useless for the rest of the battle. Say this is situation A.

However, if the enemy fleet attacks only 1 of the carrier's squadrons, the carrier will continue to have AM for a significantly longer period of time because it's continually regenerating only 1 squad. This is situation B.

Now consider the same thing when the carrier has 3 squads instead of 2 (and when the carrier has 1.5x the normal antimatter instead of 1x). To neuter the carrier here will take more effort/luck/time. If the enemy focuses on only 1 squad, it'll take a very very long time to neuter the carrier, because of the carrier's huge amount of reserves (which are designed for supporting 3 squads). Here, it'll take longer than situation B to destroy the carrier's power.

If the enemy focuses on 2 of the carrier's squads instead of 1, the carrier's AM will deplete more rapidly, but it'll still be able to support the squads for a significant amount of time. The enemy would have to focus on all 3 of the carrier's squads to destroy the carrier's firepower as quickly as in situation A.

See how having more squads with a larger AM pool is an advantage? It's a little more difficult for the enemy to drain your carriers of AM and make them useless. Having 4 squads and a 2x larger AM pool would be even better than 3 squads / 1.5x AM pool. Etc.

Advent also can support a squad for 6.667 supply: the other factions need 7 supply to support a squadron via carrier cruisers. Then again, this slight advantage is probably far outweighed by the flimsyness of Advent's individual SC. Advent SC are definitely worse than the SC of other factions, but it's not due to the larger shared AM pool of Advent's carriers.

FrigatePsiCarrier.entity.txt
MaxAntiMatter 600.000000
AntiMatterRestoreRate 0.600000

FrigatePhaseCarrier.entity.txt
MaxAntiMatter 400.000000
AntiMatterRestoreRate 0.400000

They do of course have to regenerate 3 squads instead of 2, but they also have a similar advantage in total antimatter points and AM regeneration, so the time needed would be comparable - they have the same amount of antimatter regenerated per second per squad. 2 Advent carriers will together regenerate 480 AM in 400 seconds, which will be used for 6 squads: 3 non-Advent carriers will together regenerate 480 AM in 400 seconds, which will also be used for 6 squads.

There's no disadvantage for the Advent there.

Wow.....CptSiddy is really adversarial. And likes to think he is right alot. Im done trying to change his mind on his infamous "My Kols will own your SC theory". You can't fix trolling.

After you claiming that 2 halcyons, even with lvl 3 push can kill even moderately armor and health upgraded vas bombers, i stopped taking you seriously.

You cant stack push, like you can stack burst. And both push and burst need micro to be defective against someone who micro his bombers.

150 bombers can one or two pass almost any cap ship in game. Unless you had crazy armor upgrades, lvl 8+ caps, guardians, repair platforms, dominas and sizable force of own fighter escorts i dont see how 150 bombers cant focus your caps out of the action. 

I uses cap fleets of 14+ caps with 8 halcyons and full fleet to back them on in some of my biggest multi player matches back in old days of DT. Only thing that i was able to penetrate my defenses of fuckton of guardians + 4 progenitor shield spam was vasari bombers.

I want to see your face when your lvl 9 capital ship goes down while it has 70% of it shields left. 70% SHIELDS LEFT WHEN IT DIED. That is the fagotory that makes late game vasari totally in its own class.

It is micro nightmare to keep well microed bombers away with 8 halcyons, i cant see you holding against 150 bombers with 2 halcyons.

Why kol heavy fleet is better in this situation is because they kill bombers dead, no pushing. Stacking push is next to impossible, leaving push on autorepeat is stupid. Kols have ability to drawn the SC in fleet and kill them there. Kols dont forgive enemy of his mistake, push just slaps your enemy on the wrist and make him micro better.

Also, kol is only cap ship in game that has chance to survive a big bomber wave. The adaptive shields are wonderful.

Alas, it is true that there is rarely situations in multi player when you end up with more than 3-4 caps. The games are usual over and enemy give up far earlier than that. But in event that it becomes one of the carrier megafest, where anything gets one passed by vasari bombers, kols are only real answer to push against that problem.

PS: tech fleet could not ever beat advent battle ball, no phase weapons means infinite advent shield + endless repulse trolololooo.

Oi Vey- where do I start...

Yes Halc's kill Vas Bombers, Do it all the time in Private Lan Games not "Comp Stomp" as you so eloquently put it in another thread. The point is not that the Lvl 3 Push kill's them by itself. Lvl 3 Push hurts them and drastically reduces bomber effectiveness through slower max speed & acceleration and then the full contingent of Fighters spewing out of my Halc's mop them up. After TK Push, bombers have nothing to shoot at and move at half speed and half acceleration. So they have no targets, take 2x as long to change targets and 2x as long to arrive at targets. Also as you pointed out, Bombers are often microed but after being hit by TK Push, micro strategies are much less effective as the SC are out of alignment.  TK outranges SC so there is no loss of Cap ship in that "Opening Bombing Run" of SC. With 2-3 Halc's providing SC cover from TK push, I chew through bombers needing only 1 fighter squad for every 2 bomber squads I face.

You're right, I can't stack push but the point is I DON"T WANT TO. I want to be able to continually make enemy bombers a complete non issue BEFORE I lose a Cap ship in an initial bombing run. Flak Burst means you ALWAYS take losses because it can't out range huge fighter swarms and it doesn't provide cover.

I will grant you one thing, if the scenario plays out EXACTLY as you have stated, then sure Kol can be HIGHLY effective at killing tons of SC. But only if you have 3 Kols together and those Kols hit a large majority of bombers with Flak at the same time and if you are willing to accept the loss of 1 of those Kols.

The problem is if you really are playing a skilled player they will see the kol and micro their Bomber's away until Kol has been neutralized. I keep an Antorak in my Carrier spam fleets for the specific purpose of taking out anti-SC abilities, 1 Shot of Phase Hull and you break the necessary chain of multiple flak bursts to insta-kill bombers. By Then, I have used my first run to another Kol and can Micro the bombers back to my fleet for a quick hit of Repair Cloud. By the time they turn around to attack the now Unphased Kol, they have recovered the majority of HP lost from the non phased kols Flak Burst in the first run and can survive a single burst from the 2nd Kol and kill it.

And before you say, BUT I WILL HAVE 5-6 KOLS TO OWN YOU WITH  LVL 3 FLAK BURST!

If you have 5-6 Kols with lvl 3 Flak Burst, then knowing my play style, I will have at least 3 Kortuls in this size of a fleet with Lvl 3 Disruptive strikes along with Power Surge, Flak Burst will be shut down very quickly.

Ok, Im sick of arguing over this. This will be my last post on the subject. Point is, Yes- I will concede that in a perfect world, perfect scenario environment, Flak Burst COULD be very effective. If this has happened for you, congrats, you have successfully pwned against players who can't micro their bombers.

However, there are simply TOO many variables that can go wrong and make flak burst shall we say impotent.

For an overall anti-SC utility my money will be on TK push EVERY time. It damages, provides cover and greatly nullifies effectiveness creating bait fish for my fighter sharks.

Put another way, TK Push is to Bombers what Repulse is to HC's. If you haven't seen the utter devastation that effective Repulse Micro can be against a large HC fleet, then you won't understand the effectiveness that is TK Push vs Bombers.

If you can't see it after the above explanations and analysis, then you have I suppose won the discussion by attrition.

PS- I love the Kol, usually have 2-3 in big TEC fleets. But as Tanks, not SC killers.

You are living proof of my point. If I am fighting multiple waves from diff directions, TK Push will be so much more effective at breaking up and countering your attack runs that it would be laughable to try and compare it to Flak Burst which will probably kill some bombers but will get your key fleet ships killed as well. TK Push provides much greater overall anti-SC utility.