Now that I think about this particular example a bit more I'm feeling more unsure about it. After the first minute or two, the enemy Hoshikos should all be dead, but so will my LF, and it'll be my 20 LRM and spare ships plus the enemy's 30 LRM and spare ships. The enemy will have significantly more damage-dealing power, won't have any repair capabilities, but will probably have the advantage. A huge factor is where our relative frigate factories are. If I'm attacking an enemy gravity well and they can build backup Hoshikos every 20 seconds or so, my use of LF probably wouldn't be worth it because the enemy would be able to build and continue to have continuous repair capabilities, while my LF would be slaughtered and my fleet wouldn't be all that strong after that.

If they're attacking one of my gravity wells and I can replace my dead LF by building more LRM quickly, this strategy seems viable.

If both of our frigate factories are far away from the battle... I dunno, but I think the enemy would have the advantage, given their LRM.

Scouts work well for this purpose as well. Scouts have very high HP/Cost ratios and as a bonus can take out mines if needed. I find myself using scouts even in late game for the very purpose of chase down and cannon fodder. I usually always keep about 30 scouts around my caps for a reserve fleet.

That would generally work against the easier AIs, but not against humans... there are usually better things to invest in than defenses.

Against a strategy where my opponent is spamming LRFs-in early games, I tend to use a reasonable amount of LRFs, mixed in with support cruisers (that can heal/disable- depending on faction), flak frigates and maybe a carrier capital ship. Later on (if my opponent continues to spam LRFs), I would mix in heavy cruisers, and possibly build more carrier capital ships without neglecting my own armada of LRFs. A mixed navy usually proves superior to one that spasm a particular unit(s), likewise the LRF should be the backbone of any armada.

Here I am assuming you're also TEC- I'd counter with x1 cap ship (Akkan with Ion bolt), x5 hoshikos, x20 LRF, and put the rest in flak. I'd also focus on opponents LRFs first, while trying to keep my own capital ship and flak alive with hoshikos. To be honest though your opponent has a nice mixture of ships that complement each other, so it will always be a tough battle.

That sounds about right.

After doing some tests it seems that (with my LF strategy) even with all ships focus-firing on the Hoshikos, it takes a long time for even one of them to die. By the time all of my (8) LF are dead I've only killed 2 or 3 Hoshikos, which would ruin the battle for me. But for my attack-Hoshi-strategy to work I'd need to kill all of them, else the ones left would keep repairing.

Light frigates are a little more durable than people make them out to be, I think, but not by much. If the enemy is using a few Cobalts then the choice is between your LRM attacking the Cobalts or the enemy LRM. Looking at the numbers, it seems that Cobalts can actually withstand a bit more damage, on a per-ship basis, even after factoring in their weakness to LRF. (Cobalts are also a bit cheaper than LRM)

But since Cobalts would only be that useful for attacking Hoshis, and since the Hoshis simply won't die quickly enough, it makes sense not to build Cobalts at all, even if they absorb damage very slightly better.

Against the mostly-LRF-spam tactic I'm attracted to building a large number of flak, especially if I have a carrier cap which can effectively threaten the enemy cap (and if the enemy isn't Vasari b/c of SB). If I have only 4 or 5 flak, they won't be able to do much damage to any individual ship - and, if the opponent is TEC, the enemy'll be able to repair the damaged units easily. Still, flak of course have excellent durability: if I can get the enemy LRF to attack them instead of my own LRF I'll probably gain the advantage in the battle, all else equal - and getting enemy LRF to priority attack my flak is very easy unless the enemy micros every single attack order onto my LRF (in which case they'll get a significant amount of wasted overkill damage).

Also, if I focus mainly on flak and don't have LRF or have LRF elsewhere out of range (like attacking the enemy cap), I think it's possible to micro a flak swarm around enemy LRM or Assailants so they do very little damage while the enemy gets eaten by flak. Due to moving, my flak won't be doing all that much damage, but... it's an option.

I think I'd normally rather have a few more LRF or flak with my main combat fleet than have some spare LF of mine staying out of the fight and being mostly useless except during the 30 seconds to a minute that my enemy tries to retreat (more depending on if they need to retreat more than 1 phase lane)

You have to build in ratios: 

E.g weakest race:Advent

 U dont have lrf till tier 3 but u nid to build a big military before reaching tier 3 and have a good economy.

First put down 2 hostility temples and scuttle the cap factory once u have built a halcyon.

By building with ratios i mean a ratio of 2:1 were u build 2 desciples and 1 defense vessel to counter lrf. send out scouts to see what the opponent is building. If hes going all out lrf then change the ratio to 1:2  

U cant negate lf because there the only early heavy armor dealing unit capable of killing caps and carriers effectively. u have to put down the extra hostility temple once you get 1 culture temple econ benefits/ trade ports up cos illums with eat your economy up. 

At tier 0-2 units u can survive with ratio balancing and repair platforms while u ready the economy for illums.

Advent is complicated... yes my strategy is a small map strategy: 1v1

5v5 is trade ports, illums+/destra crusaders and flak/illums.

They way as see it on a small map is opening with illums is difficult in terms of the numbers produced because of advent economics. U have to ratio balance again to get bigger numbers. 

So your saying i should go 3 hostility early game?

No, the problem is the opportunity cost.  You can't afford to waste money on civic investments, when you need as much military (ie: fleet) as soon as possible to defeat your opponent.

Probably Yes, especially if: your opponent is nearby, and if you are in danger of being rushed.  At a minimum, 1 or 2 hostility, and probably no civics at all.

I think early Advent Disciples (LF) are a special case.  They are so cost and time effective that they can complete with an equivalent cost of Vasari LRF.  And win! 

Vasari are still quite vulnerable to so called Advent "tier 0" spam.  I've seen it happen often. 

"Perhaps".  Very Risky!  And unlikely.  Advent are currently the most vulnerable race to rushing strategies.  No mistakes allowed.  I've not seen this work. 

Again, its the opportunity cost.  Every civic investment you make means that many less frigates you can acquire - when you really have to have more than your opponent to survive.

Well, if you read the rest of that sentence after the semicolon, you would see that that's what I said: "you have to be spending nearly all of your income on basic fleet and probably won't even have enough leeway for any civic labs. At least, not until you've killed your main opponent." But I think logistics slots are also a very significant issue, especially if you get the phase lane glitch: if the asteroid is disconnected, you probably won't be able to get it easily (it would be a few phase jumps away), and of course can't get the civic labs to colonize the ice/volc your HW is connected to... so you're left with only the logistics slots available on your HW unless you're able to press and colonize a more distant planet, which can be somewhat risky; also, another player is somewhat likely to have colonized it first.

Now that I look at the source files, you may have a point. Comparing to the Cobalt, Disciples do 46.75 every 5.5, compared to 52.25 every 5.5, which is significantly closer than the difference between the infocard's rounded "8 DPS" and "10 DPS". Total durability is also pretty close, but Disciples are 1/5 cheaper ish.

As I said, if you knew the map layout you could actually weigh those risks and alternatives.  Because you don't at the time you have to make your decision, this is normally infeasible for a 5v5.  That risk is considerably smaller on a 4v4, and quite manageable on 3v3's.  On 2v2 and smaller, there tends to be enough distance that economic openers are not only viable, but actually the better bet.

As for my online record, I've actually been playing mostly sporadic 1v1's in recent months.  With that as my default frame of reference, I tend to be much more receptive to civic openers.  I will admit that my skill level has dropped since I became employed about a year ago and have much less time to devote to playing the game.

Well this thread is aimed at multiplayer strategy, so...

Flak do a decent amount of damage against LRF (especially when you have like 20 or more of them) and have great hulls, but I don't think building a few carriers at that point in the game would be all that viable because, in low numbers, they'd be pretty easily neutralized with flak and capital ship fighters.

I thot we were talking about 5v5s.