Mass capital ships and fast titans.

In general, going very heavy on the number of capital ships 1) reduces your total fleet firepower and 2) prevents you from getting high level capital ships (since XP is spread evenly across all capital ships in a battle)...frigates and strikecraft contribute far more raw firepower and you really should only be using titans/caps for their abilities....

Also, turtling generally is bad...expand quickly early game, scout your enemy, and fleet up at just the right moment to either rush or hold off a rush...

Thats exactly what i do, using drone hosts(full bombers if no counter) or illus as my dps in the fleet. But in early game i just cant get the titan low fast enough with such small fleet. I get him low but it takes some time and since titan is low its already taken out like 15 frigates and then just retreats to regen. Would take me few jumps to kill it but by then he is already regenning from repair bays and i still losing my ships while i havent killed anything his. Even worse is when i try to attack the planet where few repair bays are together, then he just moves in and out all the time...taking out my frigates and gaining xp for his titan.

Same goes for mass cap ships, when someone has 4 kortuls and 1 or 2 support caps. Ofc i try to take out support ones first, but they still get away with 20% hp. If im lucky i manage to get something down and thats only if he is not paying attention. Everything has over 3000 hp and not a single frigate to kill, if cap is starting to get low, he will just retreat it. By fleet dps and damage done i for sure am over his fleet but i cant kill anything. As AR i dont have any serious regen abilitys to overheal caps dmg with only 1 mothership(prolly not even with 2), tried with culture spam and 150% shield regen, not sure how does this tech work exactly tho, if im on enemy planet wheres my culture is present and his isnt, will my shield regen work? Even if it does its still not enough to heal over caps dmg. Only thing that seems to work is kite with drone hosts around the well but thats just temporary solution.

When titan gets in im deadmeat, i was against 2 kols, 1 dread, 1 dunov and ragnarov(thats only 350 fleet supply), i had 15 drone hosts(300 fleet supply), mothership, 2 revas, halycon(200) and few illus with guardians, around 650 fleet total. My caps were getting nuked so badly, in 1 min i had already retreated all my caps(lost mothership) while my bombers were chasing retreating dunov with 30% hp( and it got away).

This might be one of the few cases where you need a revelation battle cruiser. It revere ability will allow you to disable caps as they try to jump out. with careful micro you can use it to kill his caps one by one. You can do the same with the TEC akkans ion bolt. But the best ship for forcing enemys to stay and fight is the Vasaris space egg. 2 of them at low level or 1 at a high level can force a decent sized enemy fleet to stay and fight even when there losing.

If someone invests heavily in capital ships, they wasted a lot of resources and you should be able to take them out early by rushing....

It seems to me they are just getting the expansion and eco up faster, and so you can't overwhelm them with frigates or bombers...it's hard to tell without seeing a replay or something...

Revelations seem to work perfectly when theres no titan. As for rushing, i cant kill him in team match, in 1v1 its not a problem cos when i cripple his eco its gg. My eco is always better than the guy im rushing. My problem is if i meet titan + lets say 4 caps (no frigates at all) how can i kill anything there? He will just retreat his cap or titan if it getting low while its 5x harder to retreat frigates cos they are so fragile. What can i do against retreating caps as AR, with vasari there is phase jump disable (2x of these and perma lock). With revel disable spam it is doable, but only when my revels are safe and alot AM (have to spam it on one unit) cos disable breaks after some dmg.

If the enemy retreats, take the fight to their planets. If they retreat there, take over their planet. Rinse and repeat.

The infidel who wrote this is very  right. You must have a maxium of 2 capital ship. The third xp hungry ship is going to be your titan because it will level up a alot faster to level 6 with 1 or 2 caps but the pace absolutely breaks down when theres 3 caps and the experince points being split in 4.

With more than 3 caps you could have a titan ending a game at just level 4.

At the beginning of the game you must open with 2 strong Caps that will support your fleet and defend them at the same time.

For the advent there is the Mother-Ship, Discord and the Halcyon. Pick 2

Best defense and offense is 2 discords with fracture( armor weaking) and Psionic Scream ( Disable enemy abilities)..both abilities cause damage and combo one another for an extra damage buff.  In my mind this is the deadliest offensive cap combo because its damage output resembles a mini Chastic Burst and a defense against every cap in the game.

What would be the best caps to start for TEC Loyalist ?

You misunderstood me, he is not retreating with his fleet but one ship at the time which i am focusing. Following that ship is not an option, ill lose most my fleet for that one ship (only do it for a titan kill if i see i can pull it off and thats mostly 50/50).

And for slow xp for titan, im talking about early game when most caps are lvl 1-3, titan mostly 1. But i think i know what ill do, if i see heavy caps ill just sit on my own planets and boom cos they dont have enough dps to kill me around my own planet with few def buildings. Ill get my fleet supply up to 1000-1300 and roll over these low lvl caps.

In general, I would say always start with the colony cap regardless of faction...

After that, it really depends on the situation...a sova or a marza are excellent if you are rushing the enemy and bombing out worlds...marza better if you need to just wipe piddly planets out fast (get raze planet), sova if its going to be a prolonged fight or if it's at the HW (get embargo)...a kol with flak burst is also actually pretty good if you plan on getting a titan soon and want some protection from bomber spam...dunov with EMP is good for dealing with titans and preventing them from using their ability....Corsev is good no matter what, passive regen and AoE damage make it a beast...

It really just depends, frontliners are probably better with marza or sova, and eco players are probably better with kol (since eco players will be getting titan earlier)...either situation is good to have a corsev, which is arguably the best 2nd choice...dunov is probably best to save as a third choice...

I actually usually only go with one capital ship (progenitor) then straight for Titan...the resources saved on buying one less capital ship and one less cap crew tech help immensely...I won't say it's the best strategy as in the long run a Halcyon or Discord may be better, but rushing a titan that much earlier has definitely saved my butt...in fact, on the occasions I lose my starting cap, it's not uncommon for me to just get one more cap crew and go for Titan...

 Edit forgot corsev:

one way to annoy the hell out of AR using a titan + caps fleet is 2 dunovs. He basically can't do enough spike DPS against you without frigates. your support should be carriers (all bomber) and flak, the reason you are losing so many frigates is probably because they are Lrm/corvette

This can work, but your DPS likely will suck too...unless you started with 2 dunovs (which I seriously doubt, and that would be really dumb anyway), you basically are already looking at 3-4 caps, which seriously detracts from 1) their ability to level up and 2) your amount of frigate firepower....

I agree that building 2 dunovs works great after the fact (ie they already have amassed lots of guardians and carriers, and don't have frigate firepower), but if your AR opponent doesn't go that route (and they don't always) then you are in bad shape if you already built them...