My advent Military is now kind of ok.

An enemy who knows what they're doing facing you as Advent would probably be well aware of this and consequently focus much more on LRF and strikecraft... and to counter them with close-combat units of your own would make using Repulsion counterproductive, I would think.

While fighters are certainly nice, in my experience the only task they should be used for is for taking down enemy bombers - it's ridiculously easy to negate fighters with flak. If you're building carriers just so they can have fighters to attack anything other than bombers, it'd probably be better to have units which can have more long-lasting firepower (like HC or Illuminators).

If you're playing a competitive game, it's probably generally better to invest in a fleet than in that sort of research, except for the first one or two tiers of the military tree (and of course for the new ship designs that need to be researched).

I personally rarely research anything that isn't dirt cheap unless I have tons and tons of extra funds (mid-game and later).

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

What makes advent weak is late game.

Advents eco is too weak, and they have shittiest anti fighter capability on capital ships, shit armor and hull HP and no proper hull repair units or insta heal ability.Tec got dunnovs, that can insta heal, not perfect but good enought to give hoshiko heal to sink in. Vasari overseers however are without peer, they can heal half dead ship to full health in instant.

kol flak burst ability is arguably the best late game ability, this thing wins the fights by obliterating enemy fighters. Thats right, not pushing, not disabling - shooting them down from the skies and raking in XP at the same time. Marza is good ship early to mid game, but when people are all carrier, marza becomes one pass "shoot me" target. Having many kols will win you air superiority in gravity well and help to keep it.

All that made advent strong has been nerfed, malice and radiances lvl 6 ability is now useless combo.

They cruiser carriers are most annoying to use, 3 squads means 3 squads drawing from one AM pool opposite from 2 squads drawing from one pool.

And advent battleball, once feared formation is now only viable if you have air superiority. Something advent will never achieve due to lackluster fighters. Its irony, how supposed carrier race of this game has the shittiest strike craft in late game.

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.

no, it worst, cause you cant stack it like you can do for flak bust.

It also disperses enemy SC making them even harder to counter and they will have time to repair.

Ive played advent long enough to curse this ability and its shortcomings. And while telekinetic bitch-slap might damage the advent and even TEC SC, it is completely infective against vasari, especially bombers.

Kol can kill most advent SC in one lvl 3 flack. 3 Kols can kill ANY SC in game with simultaneous burst.

The main disadvantage of telekinetic is that it pushes the crafts, meaning you cant stack, your interceptors will have to chaise bombers and they will regenerate on the way back. This is not a problem for Kol, or kortul. Kortul is bit different, as it is as good as your own SC/flack is. You can disable enemy SC and your own AA can take care of them but... it wont clear the skies like Kol do, nothing clear skies like kol does.

This said, both of anti SC abilities are better than telekinetick. Be it that the kortuls jamming is situational and requires own airforce/flak fleet to mop up.

The reason telekinetic is "popular" is because the halcyon is popular. If you move the telekinetic push to a, say halopeno, i doubt it would be as popular while halcyon would still remain popular. Kol, however is worth to get just because of the flak, and by it to lvl 2. The shield it gets to strop it from dying to phase missiles is good second bonus.

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.

Consider when you have AM pool empty after long battle and you need to replenish 3 squads instead of two.

Thats when advent carriers start to suck, they lose air superiority easier.

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.

let me put this crystal clear for you

when i have 60 carriers non advent

and you have 40 carriers advent

you can regenerate 40 cs at time (only one squad get am if am pool is empty) and i can regenerate 60.

This mean at any given time from this point, i will have 60 squads flying and you will have 40.

This phenomena is easily observed in fights against or as advent that take long enough for both carriers to run out of am. Which happen quite often because of star base faggottory.

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.

That's funny (keep in mind I've never come across CptSiddy before), cause I find that Push puts off my SC long enough to make their effectiveness a non-issue, as they can no longer counteract bombers coming at me and the Advent can regenerate enough AM to pull it off again more than soon enough.

As for Kols owning SC, I find that it only works out at all if you micro all their bursts, otherwise they potentially go off just behind the thickest section of the wave and pull AM from more valuable abilities. Really, I've started using Sovas more to deal with the bomber threat, using the gunships in the Distant Stars mod as a happy alternative to conventional fighters. That all aside, SC are easy to spam, so it takes little to build up an overwhelming number.

Whatever. Riddleking, experiment, play and continue to learn whatever makes you happy.

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.

Halcyons can take on vas bombers, but it takes a while.  I've killed 150 vasari bomber spam with 2 halcyons and a progenitor with decent flak.  You position the flak so that the incoming bombers take a lot of damage and then TK push.  I've been finding that as advent having your flak in small groups around your fleet is more effective at taking out incoming bombers then having them IN your fleet.  Over time, this strategy will kill ANY air superiority micro or no.  Also, I had 30 fighters to take the waves as well, I used them to chase micro'd bombers and had them focus down bomber groups that were incoming. 

He tried like hell to take out one of my halcyons but couldn't quite do it.  If i'd had guardians it wouldn't have even been close, his bombers wouldn't have done much at all to me.

Perhaps the new rebellion halcyon ability upgrade will be to reduce fighter armor when it uses TK push, making it more effective against vasari bomber spam.  Can't wait to see what these new game changing abilities will be!!

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.

It can be done with a sufficient numerical advantage.  The Dunov's EMP is a real help here, and takes a lot of the pain out of guardians by sapping both their shields and antimatter.  The Advent either has to spread out, giving you more opportunities to micro and reducing the effectiveness of their battleball, or take the full brunt of repeated EMP blasts.  The hoshiko demo-bot buff also helps enormously. 

Still, late-game TEC vs Advent is not a position you want to find yourself in.  You'll be pushed around like a rag doll, facing wickedly strong shields and all kinds of nasty combos.  You need to be overwhelming them with significantly more firepower just to stand a chance.

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.

I really don't know how he can argue that Push will falter so greatly against SC but then say that an Advent battle ball is nearly invulnerable. It's a contradiction.

Besides, if I want to avoid flak or push from being too powerful, I split bombers into 5 groups, have them fan out, and then come in tapered off. You can take out 1-3 waves, but the rest are intact and keep on trucking. Meh.

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.

ok advent went and became the tertal civ, and as far as carriors go i have to agree with CptSiddy.

BUT The advent does have some nice late game sheild bounses. 4% mite not sound like much in midiagation but miltiply that by a few thousond attack and how meny battles [planets probably] and you start to get the picture. however if you are playing agenst the vasarii, then you are doomed. probably, Although advent VS Vasarii is a murder waiting to happen if the Vasarii player is compadent. Sorry bout the spelling.