dbkita

[quote who="Wrath89" reply="41" id="3015554"] Indeed. I just like focusing on just a few capital ships at a time and putting my money into frigates with firepower instead. [/quote] Agreed. I usually use two for a while (Egg then Skirantra), go to four when I want to hit the AI hard, and wait for the rest once I have the economy to fill them in. I have seen to many people who 'over-capitalize' if you get my drift. A pack of kanraks and bombers takes care of that ni

[quote who="Wrath89" reply="30" id="3015142"] If you skimp on capital ships (with the expensive logistics upgrades for caps) and stay at eight and go light on starbases (I try to use none) and light on research (except phase missile, some armor and the key economic ones) and heavy on trade and expansion in the beginning you can reach most of this mark in 75-90 minutes on unfair medium large random. Guaranteed. That doesn't seem long to me. The capital ship numbers you mentioned

[quote who="Wrath89" reply="19" id="3014353"] Quoting dbkita, reply 11As a Vasari near the end of the game, I aim for roughly 100+ bomber squads at maybe an 8:1 bomber to fighter ratio with 30-40 flak. Rest of my fleet is 12-13 caps heavy on the Skirantra (though a couple of high level eggs are very devastating when used in tandem), 20 subverters, maybe a few overseers to help heal caps, and a boatload of assailants. I no longer even bother building enforcers or skirmishers. The former a

Have to agree with Wrath89 in using flak and bombers vs AI. I know you are discussing TEC but I have more experience playing Vasari so I will comment from their side of the equation. As a Vasari near the end of the game, I aim for roughly 100+ bomber squads at maybe an 8:1 bomber to fighter ratio with 30-40 flak. Rest of my fleet is 12-13 caps heavy on the Skirantra (though a couple of high level eggs are very devastating when used in tandem), 20 subverters, maybe a few overse

Finally got to play a vicious FFA on Sedition. That was a pretty rough start. I got lucky early when one of the enemy AIs stopped pounding me and I guess had to engae another AI encroaching its far border, leaving me to deal with my nearest neighbor. Had no choice but to SB up since they are right on top of you from the get go. Was tough though since the enemy AI kept throwing Ogrovs at me. Tougher on this map since you can't easily get a good trade chain up. Finally turned the co

[quote who="Wrath89" reply="7" id="3007373"] Quoting sareth01, reply 6Also, as advent you have to get into your opponents head. You have to do everything you can to pick apart the enemy fleet/planets. The main thing is to NOT LOSE SHIPS. as advent losing ships is tantamount to dying. But with the almost-necessity of Advent T0 spam, isn't losing ships just what is going to happen? (you just have to lose fewer ships (cost-adjusted) than your opponent)[/quote]

[quote who="sareth01" reply="6" id="3007352"] If their fleet is set up for an attack, line up right on the other side of the phase lane where they will appear. The damage you will do to the fleet warping in will be substantial, and if this is a first engagement it is one of the little tricks that will help turn the tide in your favor. Also, as advent you have to get into your opponents head. You have to do everything you can to pick apart the enemy fleet/planets.&

I just had a weird game in locked teams FFA on the Sedition map with cruel. I was early on fighting for my life as I had snatched one of the TEC AIs 1-jump asteroids and caught a bunch of hammering due to that, meanwhile I start getting rocked by another Adevent AI on my own 1-jump starting asteroid. By the time I got my act together and launch a retaliation on the volcano world again 1 hop from the TEC homeworld. And what do I find? They hadn't even colonized it yet a good 25-30 minutes

Thanks for the map DesConnor. I had a fun cruel where while I was putting the finishing touches on stomping one of my neighbors, an enemy Advent brought the house via the backdoor wormhole from the other system. That was fun and unexpected :)

I agree the skilled Advent player is going to keep microing and moving the illums into position but at the same time the deft opponent is moving their cloud also so I am just saying in practice the theoretical dps is never really achieved if both sides are paying attention. If the opponent is sitting on a large group of flak (a la one of Aquia's defensive trademarks) then they are happy to see your illums up close and personal. If they are using LRMs of their own then the enhanced range o

Just finished two games on your map DesConnor (nice map btw though I detest plasma storms o_o). I played both at cruel (since I don't have the time to play large vicious games right now). Playing with unlocked teams was still formulaic via exploiting the diplomatic boosts and fighting one at a time. I quit once I had killed two enemies and after the rest of the dust settled there were only 2 other empires that were any threat. I quit since once I am max fleet Vasari the remaining AI were

Agreed ceasefires give the player too much leverage. Some AI relationship bonus is probably reasonable but there needs to be a higher threshold to get a ceasefire so there is more equilibrium time for various empires to fight each other and then pair off into alliances based on adjacency, competition, common hatreds, etc. Missions are broke imo. They offer little impact overall. Not enough dynamic alterations possible of alliances once they set into place. In 1.31 doing every mission

Even in MP, illums lag behind for most situations. People postulate their effect of being in the midst of the enemy all banks firing. But the human opponent isn't stupid and is always moving. Kanraks are still much more brutal. Does this mean illums are trash, heck no the good DT player with advent still goes for illums and flak if they are in the hot seat. As a vasari player, I see no reason to ever go for the HC since with kanraks, sentinels, and subverters you can wreak havoc enough an

Couple of comments based on reading your recent posts DesConnor. 1) I agree it seems envoys are too powerful now. Too easy to get to high pact status. 2) Too easy to get ceasefires. But at least with the AI relationship bonus reduced they are not as likely to all cease fire each other early game and they will start to engage each other. In 1.31 at cruel and vicious since they start with lots of techs (including some diplo) analyzing the diplomacy relationships showed they were

Maybe this has already been mentioned before but please get the TAB key to work for sub-selections in the empire window. Would be invaluable for certain micro tasks (like subverters, guardians, etc.) imo ...

Have to agree with DesConnor. Excellent analysis btw DesConnor :) In regardless to the relations logic... In 1.32 all you have to do in unlocked teams regardless of difficulty level is to research a little relations boosts in the diplomacy tree early on and you can effectively cease fire all the other opponents while you pick one off at a time meaning gg... In 1.31 at cruel and vicious more than half the time the AIs form super alliances with often insane joint fleet s

[quote who="Darvin3" reply="11" id="2984985"]LRF will only beat heavy cruisers if you have support cruisers to disable the heavies, which is really more a matter of the support cruisers countering the heavy cruisers and the LRF are just bringing the firepower to the party. In a straight shootout with relatively similar fleet size, heavies will win rather handily against LRF. [/quote] Ok that is what I figured. I just never would consider LRF a counter usually to a heavy cru

Hmm this might be a good point to try to get a clarification from the devs since though Ryat has confirmed a cap, it isn't clear it is working as intended, right?

[quote who="DirtySanchezz" reply="4" id="2984884"] Oh, yeah. That guy would have been King of Kings. He's famous for rushing to Kodiaks ASAP. He's been doing that for ages.[/quote] Understood. It was just interesting to see it get stuffed by Kreyfey's sova rush. At that point he would have been better off knocking one lab out and getting a second or even third frigate factory while he got fed. Because the rate of building was too slow and the embargo

I agree that the Hoshikos + some flak are very useful. As gamerlamb mentioned the flak soak damage well relative to their cost. But ... if the player is driving their Orkulus the whole time (which seems likely) then he wil target the ogrovs regardless and the extra dps from the flak is well less than some at range LRF (especially with targeting uplink). On the other hand if he had strikecraft also then the flak are essential to keep the pgrovs up long enough. Don't mistake

Understood. To be honest while the traps protect the SB from your strikecraft, if he stays put (as you said he did) then he he doomed to ogrov focus fire. Period. Even if the SB is upgraded and assuming you have armor upgrades on your ogrovs, and even if he has multiple repair platforms which you may have to take some out first; 20+ ogrovs will shred an undefended (even max) orkulus let alone one being also hit by some LRF. Maybe some hoshikos with the ogrovs could be some insurance.

Interesting game. Thanks for posting it. I certainly learned a few things. I found it to have several interesting sub-dramas in it. I thought Star's use of the 'pause' from Slow Motion's attack was brilliant (he used it to colonize three worlds, while using his feed to build illums on his HW) and his use of micro-managed repulse to stifle the flak defense was also very impressive (let alone taking down to SBs in one grav well later). I wonder if SlowMotion real

Why are LRF considered 'good' counters vs Heavy cruisers? Yes you have no choice if you have pure spammed them ... but I always use the LRF to rip LFs, other LRM, caps, and some of the high threat support class (like for sure they are in charge of nailing subverters at range). I use caps and bombers, along with subverters or guardians or hoshikos to withstand or manipulate the enemy heavy cruisers. If fighting TEC I find that the hoshikos have to get pounded some otherwise the

I agree with Ryat. But I might add a couple of things. Yes for sure use the ogrovs to kill the SB. But ... maneuver your fleet to an edge of the grav well to lure the SB away from the hangars. Have your bombers / fighters on hold position over your fleet (you can usually safely navigate them). Put the ogrovs behind the fleet with your flak and lrms. If the Orkulus doesn't come to you then blast at edge of range with ogrovs and your lrm and keep fighters in hold position. I

Patch 1.32 seems to fix this (at least when testing on cruel). Thanks to the devs for fixing this issue.