Dealing with Late Game Advent Fleets (as TEC)

They seem invincible...

from Sins Forums

I'm playing a 1v1 with my friend who is playing the Advent Rebels.  After looking like the game was in the bag and having an enormous economic advantage... he managed to come up with a fleet that just seems to be wiping out everything I can produce.

 

When I say I economic advantage I mean I could be losing 4 ships to his 1 and come out ahead... in our last engagement I ended up losing 16 ships to 0.  Late game advent seem like they figured out how not to take any more damage.  His fleet is comprised of 4 or 5 level 10 carriers, the advent mothership, the Eradica titan of course, something like 40 drone hosts, and at least 15 or so other support ships such as defense vessels and guardians.

 

I had 6 digits of gold and 5 of metal and crystal, and I went through all of it suicide entire fleets trying to kill a carrier or a few drone hosts... mostly unsuccessfully even at that.  Here are the things I've tried:

 

-My own bomber spam, protecting the the light carriers with 3 Kol battleships.  While this failed to kill anything, the Kols almost immediately went to level 9 based on the sheer number of bombers they were killing with Flak Burst.  However, my bombers weren't doing the damage to his carriers due to the telekinetic abilities of the advent carriers to push them away.

 

-Arganov Starbases.  Die horribly under the crippling weight of bombers.  I was able to catch about 1/4 of this fleet with Last Resort at one point.  But in general the gravity wells are too large and the AoE is too small, meaning he can just go around or stay well out of combat range while bombing them safely.

 

-Lots of Kodiak Heavy Cruisers.  These looked great and I'm sure they would have torn up those drone hosts if only they didn't get pushed away telekenetically out of the defensive bubble and mauled by bombers at range.

 

-Javeline LRMs.  These were doing great damage at range to the drone hosts for the 15 seconds or so out of telekenesis range before the titan just charged forward and turned them to shrapnel.

 

-A level 10 titan Ankylon, and 13 capital ships of all types at level 4.   These were all dead before the first carrier I was targeting lost 1/4 of its hull.  All of them.  Every last one.  Seriously... it seems like the advent just don't take damage anymore.

 

I could have an infinite resources cheat enabled at this point and I think I would still lose this game.  It seems like there is literally nothing I could build to put a dent in this fleet.  The advent just stopped caring about damage.  I think he's spreading the shield damage out among all of his different ships, effectively meaning I have to do 60,000 shield damage to kill one thing.

 

This game is probably lost, but I still need to understand this game better and figure what tactics work against a late game fleet that seems effectively invincible... there's got to be something.  Fighters will slow down the bombers DPS, but fighters don't make the hosts go away... and the end result is his mitigated damage is still doing a lot more harm to my infrastructure than me killing bombers that he just rebuilds after jumping out unscathed.

12,723 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

build an equal amount of carriers, or more and spam fighters, or get even more, whittle his bombers down, problem solved.

Research range in jarvelis and snipe his guardians, (they are repulsing your fleet) next hit his subjactors if he has any (they heal his fleet) Then kill his carriers with kodiaks and light frigs, Light frigs because they also deplete anitimatter on enemy frigates, get hoshikos to cripple him with demo bots, get ceilos to laser paint/heal 

At this point though, his titan is probably going to eat you.. 

You could try to put a starbase somewhere painful and blow his fleet up :]

 

Ideally though, if you've lost a fleet battle at that point in the game, id say you've already lost..its a lot of ground to make up. Advent aren't invincible and should be easily shut down by tec early game. Advent have the weakest eco and pretty weak early game, good mid and good late, but if you think they are bad, try vasari..

 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

I feel your pain. Even using VR to warp in a fully upgraded SB wont help you. What level of AI are you playing?

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

If he's massing Halcyon Carriers with TK push, in all honesty you're probably not going to get much done with bomber spam.  It may be a better bet to devote carriers to fighters to keep the air clear and deal your damage in other ways.

In general, first thing you want to get done when fighting any advent fleet is force their Progen motherships to die or withdraw. That's the main thing outsustaining your damage output.

Also Dunovs are great Against the Advent.  They will allow you to deal widespread AoE damage and drain much needed AM from the advent fleet.  No AM=no strikecraft rebuilt by carrier frigates & no shield restore from progen mothership & no massive AoE damage from Eradica & no more TK push making your bombers useless.   If you can manage to run the Eradica out fo AM, actually using LF & LRM frigates for damage instead of carriers becomes a lot more viable.

 

 

 

That said, tryign a direct confrontation with a mature advent fleet late game is probably a bad idea for TEC in general- that's simply not playing to your strengths.  The TEC is all about early game pressure and late game forcing the enemy into a war of attrition that their superior economy can better afford.  They aren't given to clean decisive late game victories where they take the enemy fleet head on unless their early game pressure managed to cripple their opponent early game.

 

Now I'm sure this sounds rather abstract, so what do I mean specifically?

For one, the Advent is all about synergy- they lose a lot more having to divide up their fleet then you do.  Not to mention due to the amazing potency of Ogrov Torpedo Cruisers, even very small TEC fleets can pose lethal threat to enemy gravity wells.  As TEC you should be attacking on multiple fronts, forcing the advent player to divide up their main fleet to defend.  Once they have divided up their fleet, and lost a good deal of synergy it should be feasible to start making trades- and again trading casualties is in your favor since the TEC economy can better afford replacing losses.

That said, pay attention to enemy movements- If they send their entire fleet against one small assault detachment, retreat that small fleet, and continue your assault at other undefended locations.

Not to mention simultaneously sending several smaller attack fleets to different gravity wells with Ogrovs generally means you're going to destroy some structures somewhere before enemy reinforcements show up(Ogrovs kill buildings FAST)- which can result in damage to Advent infastructure their weaker economy can ill-afford.

 

One of your absolute best tools against the late game Advent Fleet is your Starbase self destruct upgrade. I can't stress this enough- it's basically War of attrition given form.  It will allow you to wipe out whole fleets worth of frigates that are anywhere nearby if you can create a good opportunity & will clear the air of strikecraft.

When you are engaged in battles your main focus is inflicting painful losses, and the Cielo's Designate Target is an extremely useful tool for this task as it enhances focusfire drastically allowing you to make key capitalships very dead very fast.

 

 

As for Specific tips depending on subfaction:

 

TEC Rebels:

You Have the Ragnarov- even if your bombers are getting scattered by TK push, that alone should be enough to start sinking Advent Capitalships- Inflicting the Losses the Advent can't very well afford.  As always Progen Motherships need to die first.

The TEC rebels also get all sorts of benefits from bombarding planets so stay on the offensive- as described above attack mutliple enemy wells simultaneously with the aim of splitting up the Advent fleet and causing Casualties somewhere.

 

Due to their extreme expansion rate, the TEC rebels also ahve a ton of potential for ending the game early or achieving an utterly overwhelming economic advantage by the late game

 

TEC Loyals:

The TEc loyals will have a tougher time then their Rebel Bretheren.  That said, at high ranks the Ankylon's Disruption Matrix is a dealy natural combo with Marza Missile Barrage & other TEC AoE such as The Dunov's EMP blast for the Advent.  The AoE silence interrupts their Guardian shield projection and Progen Mothership Shield Regen channels which are two of their strongest tools for mitigating AoE damage and prevents them from casting any interrupts of their own(for Marza).

With the exception of repair platforms, the Advent have absolutely no hull/shield restore over times or damage mitigation abilties which are not channels- So Disruption Matrix pretty much leaves the Advent Fleet briefly almost naked, denied all of their standard counters to AoE damage.

The Ankylon's Group shield is also extremely useful against the Eradica Titan- It can singlehandedly allow even Frail frigates to survive a Malice+Chastic Burst combo at least once.  This makes using non-carrier frigates late game against the Advent Rebels easier for the TEC Loyals them most factions- Take advantage of this and using kodiak(if you can control the bomber situation) or Javelis LRM frigates if you can't.

Lastly, if the game runs long, Novalith cannons can certainyl help.  They can be used to kill off populace that could be sacrificed to Wail of the Forsaken and generally contribute to the war of attrition you're trying to fight by hurting the Advent Economy & perhaps destroying a few small worlds, distracting the enemy with the need to recolonize.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, hope this post has been helpful, If you have any other questions I'd be happy to do my best to answer them.

 

 

 

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