Yeah...talk about derailing the thread, right?

True, Flak is not the answer all by itself. The point I was making was that you could buy enough flak to counter his bombers, and purchase other ships to destroy his carriers for the same price ( like the LRMs you suggested ). Cobalts, LRMs, HC's... doesn't matter really. Once his bombers are gone he's got a lot of very expensive ( and empty ) cargo ships.

Ok i just tried the carriers tactic myself and they got owned by illums so obviously just build illums if your advent.

Cobalts are resistant to bomber weaponry, not so much fighter weaponry.

If you're lucky enough to get a Dunov to survive long enough, magnetizing a few of their ships is possible.

I just tried it with 40 fighters from a sova and 35 frigates against his 40 illums and they barely scratched him. I thought 1.05 was the latest patch though so what is this patch 1.09 you speak of?

Given that TEC is the main race from the storyline point of view and so most players will probably be choosing them after watching the intro you would have thought they would be the easiest to play.

my new creation the antifighter terran cruser

I have a tactic for flak frigates.  I detatch 1/2 my flak frigates from the fleet and jump them into battle before everybody else.  The rest of my fleet follows about 10-15 seconds later. 

All the opposing strike craft attack my flak frigates and take damage.  Usually his strike craft make 3 passes or so fighting only vs flak.  Opposing light frigates race toward my flak.  If the timing works right, his light frigates are outside the radius of Iconus Guardians or other support just when my main fleet arrives.  I prioritize his light frigates, then his flak.  I deploy my strike craft after all the opposing stike craft have been weakened.

I'd try a mixed fleet of maybe 2 kinds of each cap ship with 20 cobalts, Javelis, 40 flak (put them ahead of all other ships) 20 light carriers with interceptors, 20 robotics cruisers to repair any damaged ships, 20 kodiacks with the afterburner ability to rush the opponent and attack the drone hosts while the bombers are attacking your fleet.

You might lose a couple caps against that many drones but with the support abilities of ships like the robotics cruiser and the dunovs you might be able to keep your fleet going. Be sure to use at least one cap as bait so the others can help the kodiaks you rushed in earlier to attack the hosts(which should be defenseless) make sure your marzas have the missle volly ability as it has an area affect. Once the marzas get in range use the missle volley and if the hosts are close enough togather the opponent should lose a lot of them. While thats happening have the rest of your fleet follow the kodiaks and marzas while using your 20 interceptor squads to harass the bombers and microing the flacks so they are always the first ships the bombers fly by.

Since I usually play vs the AI, I can't really comment on carrier spam - except maybe for the fact that I use it myself.

Against carriers, the trick is to survive the first wave and decimate the strike crafts. Many people forget that strike craft need quite some time to be rebuild... So once the destruction of the enemy strike crafts is achieved, the carriers are sitting baits - except for the fact that they will try to run away.

Okay, so how can I destroy all these strike crafts?
Well, you can use flak frigates. Mass them, set their move-to-attack radius to minimum range and gather them around your fleet. The enemy may micro his fighters to avoid them, but if you stay tight, you can easily adept.
But frigates are only the minor part to deal with mass strike crafts - the choise of caps will decide the game. As TEC, you have to use Magnetise, as Advent, you rely on Telekinetic push (which WILL rip the strike crafts to pieces, esp. if you got more than one carrier), as Vasari... Well... Okay, dunno... Phased out hull?
Remember to turn off outocast! You have to wait until enough enemies are within range and THEN trigger your abilities. You might loose your caps - but if the strike craft go down, the rest of your fleet will make micemeat out of his carriers.

Another thing is, that YOU have to choose carefully where to fight.
On the offensive, your choises are limited. A pack of charging cobalts might do the trick, maybe Illuminators if you can jump in close enough, as Vasari, a Marauder might speed you up enough to catch them.
However, on defence, you can win! With phase jumo inhibitors, he can't run away. And if he targets them with his strikecraft, you have time to catch up and kill his carriers. And don't forget that inhibitors do now stack. 2100% jump time, anyone?

I agree it is tricky and micro demanding to deal with mass strike crafts - but is not impossible to win.

Usually once I hit mid game I stop bothering with them, though it always helps to have a balanced fleet so I am sure a few wont hurt.