Immaterium

Join Date 12/2008

Need Assistance regarding TEC counter in Diplomacy 1.0

Have some friends and Me, playing the Diplomacy without patches at the moment as training together.

I am playing with Advent vs TEC. It is a 2v2 game Advent + Vasari vs TEC and TEC. One of the TEC players don't have a clue what to do so he is not a thread. But the other one seems to get impossible economy of 70 + Credits. He entrench himself with starbases and gravity wells full of mines and after that he starts to Mass build Carriers like 80 , 100 and even more flaks. How are we supposed to counter him with my Vasari ally. I know the first advise restrict him from planets and resources as early as possible. Anything else ? Also what counters should i make as ships and so on so I can counter his Carriers and flaks mass..

Thanks.

John.

strategy

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Light frigates are good vs both carriers and flak although with the numbers you're talking about you would need something like 200+ of them.

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What do you mean by Light Frigates , Desciples and Skirmishers or generally all of them , like Illuminati , sentinels and so on ?

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Lf=skirmishers,disciples,and cobalts.They are good vs carriers support frigs and flak.If he is keeping his carriers close to his sb so you cant attack them best thing to do is to mass carriers yourself and when you attack put all sc on hold near your ships.Maybe get some flak to deal if his fighters get close.Get mostly fighters on your carriers.Then you build a vas sb near you forces and defend it till it is maxed.Get overseers to heal it incase his bombers get some damage on it before your fighters kill the bombers.Keep all sc near you sb cause flak rip fighters apart.Then when sb is upgraded have it move in for the kill with sc right behind it defending it.

Other option is to get 6-8 kosturas.As soon as they are built turn off autofire.Now when you go to attack fire them all at same time where his fleet is.I think you may need 8 to kill carriers but it will kill his entire fleet if you have enuf.

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Thank you for the tips. What about the long range support Illuminati , Assiliants ? Are they any good >?

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not very good against sb or carrier without support from fighters.

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fighters wont help much vs 100 flak

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Illuminators are intended mostly for killing light frigates. A recent patch that fixed bugged damage coming from them ended up turning them into the weakest LRF in Sins (the bug tripled their damage, making Illuminator rushes frequent up until that fix). I don't remember what version it was fixed for, so if it is patched, Illums aren't so good. If it isn't patched for Diplo 1.0, then the Advent player can go Illuminator-heavy.

TEC is a good rush faction, but will have problems keeping up with Advent and Vasari fleets of equal size and technical advancement as the game progresses. The Advent player can construct what's known as the battleball - a fleet with a core of Iconus Guardians and one or two Progenitors with Shield Restore. Once sufficiently large enough, a battleball can tank a ton of damage and further upgrades and ship mixes can allow it to repel both frigates (Replusion on the Iconus) and strike craft (Telekinetic Push on the Halcyon). For the Vasari, they probably will have to use the nastiest trick up their sleeve - Subverters and Distortion Field. One Subverter can lock down quite a number of ships on its own. Field enough of them and micro them carefully and you can keep huge chunks of the enemy's frigates out of action. If at all possible, force the other player to fight you outside of his Starbase's firing range.

If the Trader player is really intent on defensive tactics, then get the Vasari player to research the Kostura Cannon and build a Phase Stabilizer somewhere. The Kostura will open up a Phase Stabilizer Node at the targeted planet when hit (not to mention disabling every structure except for SBs at the targeted planet for 3 minutes) and enable him to jump a raiding fleet directly to rear area planets and bypass the front line. It will certainly force the Trader player to either knock out the cannon or have to contend with rear area raids. Carriers are good hit and run ships (especially when loaded out with bombers for structure demolition), though jumping them a lot will deplete their antimatter quickly. Even if he decides to starbase everything, it will certainly divert his resources away from his fleet.

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But the other one seems to get impossible economy of 70 + Credits

70+ credits per second is actually quite tame. I've personally hit over 300 credits per second when given the opportunity, and I've heard as high as 600 credits per second achieved in only 90 minutes.

He entrench himself with starbases and gravity wells full of mines and after that he starts to Mass build Carriers like 80 , 100 and even more flaks

Okay... that's actually pretty easy to beat. Sounds like you're just losing to sheer numbers of units and the real killer is his economy. Massed disciples should handle this no problem. You'll need to steer clear of starbases, but that's not actually a big deal since the TEC starbase cannot move. You can also use the Halcyon Carrier to push away enemy strike craft and reduce their influence. Your Vasari ally can also bring along the Kortul Devastator which can shut down strike craft weapons. Unfortunately, his equivalent to the disciple is the skirmisher, which is actually a very sub-par unit. Generally Vasari is better off leaning on Assailants which use the more favourable phase missile weapon.

In terms of fleet power, Advent really starts to mature around the 3-5 lab / 400 command level. If you can get this far, the TEC player will need to outnumber you. Use the Progenitor Mothership with shield restore and the Iconus Guardian with shield projection for defensive qualities, then complement that with a balance of frigate types (disciple/defense against the type of fleet you describe) to give you good offensive power. Against strike craft, use the Halcyon Carrier with telekinetic push to disrupt enemy attack runs and then thin out their ranks with defense vessels. Once you have a frigate base, start building up a carrier force and spec it all bomber. The goal here is to mince the enemy with a single strike run before they can at all thin out the bombers. TEC lacks a good way to prevent the initial strike run (unless they have a level 5+ Kol), and since Advent has much better staying power in a frigate battle, this should let you totally mop the floor with him.

However, this all presumes you can keep a competitive economy. I suspect this is where he's winning the game, and it's probably locked down in his favour long before the first shots are fired. I suggest learning some rapid expansion tactics and economy booming. Vasari/Advent vs TEC/TEC should really be all about the rush game; if you can maintain a competitive fleet and economy and reach the mid-game on par with their team, you should have no problems winning this. The problem is that you're falling behind early.

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That's right Darvin3.

I just don't have very good eco strategy and I am seriously failing mid late game because of that. As i have loaded a game we were playing to see his eco. He is building starbases at every planet upgrading them with trade docks and frigate hangars for constructions. Also TEC receoves his Trade port early in the game.

Can you please advise me on a good rush tactic, also how to Eco boom early with the Advent.

Also as InfiniteVoid suggested are the illuminaty a green go in 1.0 or should I first start on Disciples ? Also what will be the best mix of ships in your opinion vs those massive carrier , flak fleet. Also when is the time to pull my second capital on the field ? And yes the other problem is that when we decide to attack he have an economy that can just overswarm our fleets and we can not keep up building ships because of the lack of funds. So in total the roots of our undoing is the low economy.

Please advise.

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Trying to go Econ with the Advent is quite difficult, as their Trade Port is Harmony Tier 3 and have no upgrades to the trade ships themselves (aside from Karmic Retribution, which is of marginal value). Resource upgrades are also one Tier higher than the Traders (Harmony 2 for Metal, 3 for Crystal), and the best economic aid for the Advent aside from the Trade Port research subject would be Allure of the Unity. The problem with AotU is that it's Harmony 8 - a very late-game subject - and requires you to have sufficient culture before you can make use of its effects (namely, raising max alleigance by 5%/10%, which is effectively 5%/10% increase in planetary tax and extractor income). Don't touch Resource Focus - the boost is way too small to be useful and you may as well have left the Trade Port in its normal operational mode.

I did go back and look through the changelogs - the Illuminator damage fix (and in fact was for beams in general) was done for Sins 1.19/Entrenchment 1.05/Diplomacy 1.01, so the bugged Illuminator damage will still be there unless you update.

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Can you please advise me on a good rush tactic, also how to Eco boom early with the Advent.

Early-game Advent vs TEC is just not favourable for you in any circumstances. You will lose early rush battles, and you will fall behind economically. There's a reason Advent is the undisputed "weakest faction" right now, you know. On the other hand, Advent's fortunes reverse in the mid-game and if you can just stay competitive until you get there, you should be fine.

Key to any fast-economy strategy is expansion. You want to grab as many colonies as quickly as you can, and develop them to bare minimum standards. A high loyalty asteroid with three extractors is arguably the best economic investment in the game; it costs very little to acquire but generates lots of revenue in crystal and metal (which can be sold for at least 3 credits a piece on the black market). You can get a lot of mileage out of your Progenitor Mothership here, since its colonize ability reduces the cost of planetary upgrades.

Establishing trade is a little tricky as Advent, but believe it or not that 3-lab requirement isn't your biggest problem. Your biggest issue is actually the 2-lab requirement of the repair platform. Where TEC and Vasasri can get their repair platform unlocked with a single lab, Advent needs to sink two even if they have no other military needs at the time. Quickly repairing your capital ship is important for keeping momentum if there are any large militias.

TEC's fast trade is nice, but you can often match it with delayed trade and focus on quick expansion instead. When you do phase in trade, try to get a long chain of trade ports operational. Avoid having to spend too much on logistics upgrades, and intentionally leave space open to be filled by trade ports later. If you can build a long chain, you can generate very large amounts of revenue with relatively few ports.

Above all else, stay lean. Pinch every penny and divert it towards your long-term goals: a more advanced military and a more mature economy. While it might seem convenient to build a hanger here or grab an extra tech there, this can quickly add up to thousands of credits which could have been diverted to higher-priority expenditures. It takes a bit of experience to get this down, and without specific examples of your playstyle (ie, a replay) I can't give you specific advice.

If you want to try a military rush (this is map dependent; particularly on more spacious random maps this is a gamble) your best opener is the Halcyon Carrier, which can deploy a lot of strike craft with its "adept drone anima" ability. Using multiple Halcyons for swarms of reliable strike craft is arguably Advent's only really strong opener. If you can avoid early combat (it seems your opponent is playing defensive) you're better off teching to higher-level units than trying to make due with Advent's relatively unreliable low-tech showing.

so the bugged Illuminator damage will still be there unless you update.

@_@

Oh, I didn't notice this...

Yeah, build LOADS of illuminators and rush hard. Those things will shred just about anything. They are bugged, though, so this is kinda cheating if you don't patch...

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Agreed but it also sounds like your in the late game if your opponet has such defenses. Luckly the devs gave us superweapons to end such entrenchment. It one cant successfully engage the enemy then force them out of hiding.

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