The only reason I can possibly think of that would ever give cobalts an advantage over disciples is the build times....

The base build time for a disciple is 22 while for a cobalt it is 24 (these are the base build times, game speed will change them but both would be modified by the same multiplier)...

So, on a pure fleet supply basis, disciples are building at 5.5 seconds per fleet supply while cobalts are building at 4.8 seconds per fleet supply...in short, cobalts build slightly faster on a per fleet supply basis...

I can potentially see this making a difference if you were immediately Orky rushed (we are talking 2 jumps away)...that being said, the extra DPS per fleet supply that disciples have should mostly offset this...IIRC, disciples do 9 DPS (which comes out to 9/4 = 2.5 DPS per fleet supply) while cobalts do 10.5 DPS (which comes out to 10.5/5 = 2.1 DPS per fleet supply)...

If you consider both build time and DPS, you will find that on a per second basis you can "build" 9/22 = .4091 DPS/s as Advent and 10.5/24 = .4375 DPS/s as TEC...in short, TEC can "acquire" or build DPS (via LFs) slightly faster than Advent...however, the percent difference between these values is only 6.7% in favor of the cobalts....

So, there is a difference, but it is very small...in my opinion, both factions are going to be capable of defeating an Orky rush coming from 3 jumps away and both factions are going to have difficulty stopping an Orky rush that is 2 jumps away...

Note that this analysis did not consider costs...however, I think it is fair to say that the costs are comparable enough where the DPS and build times are far more relevant...

Another thing ignored was the capital ships....on one hand, the Marza clearly has more direct firepower...on the other hand, the Progenitor has a squadron of SC (which if bombers would contribute a decent amount of firepower)...because the Marza does not have a squadron while the Progenitor does, in reality both capital ships will be contributing comparable amounts of firepower (I do believe Marza still would be contributing more)...

In a true Orky rush scenario, it is unlikely the capital ship is beyond level 1....most Marza players would have picked raze planet while most Progenitor players would have picked colonize, neither of which are abilities that matter when it comes to Orky rushing...but, if we let the capital ship become level 2 (in my opinion we would then be at a stage where both factions are more than capable of having enough LFs to make this argument moot), then we can allow the Marza to have radiation bomb or incendiary shells which would result in extra DPS...

However, if we do that, then we also have to let the Prog player pick a 2nd ability as well...since that ability could very well be shield regeneration, the Advent capital ship would actually go to great lengths in protecting the disciples from a low level Orky...this is a strategy I have done myself and have been told of by very skilled players (it is by no means a new or recent strategy)...

In short, I find very little evidence to suggest that an early TEC fleet could stop an Orky with minimal (or zero) losses but that in the same situation an Advent fleet would suffer massive losses...Sagewon and Cykur's tests also support the notion that both factions are more or less equally capable in this regard....

If a test is done that shows Orky rushing from 2 jumps away can easily be stopped by TEC but not by Advent, I would be interested in seeing those replays....

Yes, it was 3 jumps, but two of the jumps are almost right angles and don't take long to traverse.  The final time I was showing Sagewon he could defend from me, I sent the Migrator immediately and it was arriving just as the technology was finishing being researched.  2 jumps or 3, it was near the limit of how soon an Orky could be built. 

The other thing I demonstrated was that there is quite a margin of safety...you don't HAVE to be completely prepared as long as you react right away and start building and sending ships.  When I was defending the first time, I didn't even start building a second frig factory until after the Orky was being built.  Sagewon again had an easier time than I did, because in his paranoia he amassed more ships sooner, while I pretended I didn't know an Orky attack was coming.  Both of us had no problem fighting it off.  Ironically, the only person who might have trouble fighting off an Orky with frigates is another Vasari if they haven't committed to frigates and didn't research for their own Orky....but as for Advent and TEC, they can just spit out Disciples / Cobalts.

Anyhow, that is why I wanted to see a replay of someone fighting the "impossible" Orky rush.  If this becomes an issue in 5's, the only possible thing I can think of is that the games early speed boost via Alloy disproportionally affects build times and not attack times, making an Orky build faster than it should.  This is just wild speculation on my part, because I've never directly encountered what "all skilled players know", that it is impossible to stop an Orky rush as Advent.

been a while since I double punched.

I would never throw any type of LF against an already built Orky unless I had crushing numbers.  It would upgrade faster than you could kill it otherwise.  We were just talking about rush situations.

The egg being in the gravity well is irrelevant unless the egg goes nano-disassembler and starts eating disciples to make your life harder.

I actually rushed faster by not waiting for my Egg which was colonizing the asteroid.  If the Egg is there, it CAN kill the asteroid while you build the Orky, but a loss of an asteroid is much less than a loss of an Orky.

I already wrote a couple times that I simply lose the asteroid to the egg, kill the orky, then chase down the egg.  You are the one who fails at reading comprehension.  This played out twice with Sagewon.  The last time I tried a different strategy purely because I can get the migrator on location faster than an Egg so that it was building at the soonest possible moment.  I'm pretty confident the only way an Orky rush succeeds is because the other player doesn't expect or see the Orky rush until too late.  Of course a more experienced player might succeed against a less experienced player, but it isn't because there is anything wrong with Advent, which was your whole premise when posting how bad Disciples were.  Anyhow, I'm done with this thread.

Jingly we tested it properly (just like Quar does).  Used an Egg, etc.. After all its a simple strategy.  I think the biggest factor is getting the starbase building as soon as possible - befor the opponent has a chance to build fleet.

Its funny how the one time Seleuceia isnt trolling, nobody believes him.