What's Best to Combat Illum Spammers? Please Help!

Of course it's "fair", silly.

To combat illuminators, you need to know that he's doing it as early as you can find out. Then you spam carriers.

Also, start hammering him before he gets it up and running (as in 100+ illums). Good scouting combined with some small fleets of LRM's or bombers to focus on killing his military labs early in the game.

Or you with TEC and vasari you can straight out outproduce him and send in a smaller fleet very very early of assailents/javelisis.

but if this is late in the game, then you already messed up   usually by this time, that kind of spam would have been countered by a crapload of heavy criusers and carriers. for this, Tec excells as they have the best heavy criusers out there ( but make sure to back them up with fighters/antifighter frigs)

Thanks both of you guys

So basically: Know when they sdo it, if not, stop them mid-process, but if they've already done it, build HC's and carriers. >:|

The main problem you are having is that Illuminators are one of the most dangerous ships in the game for the cost.  They are extremely effective.  In a smaller map, the trade off is that it takes a bit longer to get to them and he doesn't have them yet, but this is a non issue on extremely large maps.  If the guy is JUST using hordes of Illuminators, it is hard, but you can use counter ships to beat him.  As mentioned, HC's and Carriers with fighters do wonders.  TEC has the cheapest HC and can spam them easily while the Vasari HC has a researchable self repair ability.  Your fleet has to be damn close to the size of the Illuminator fleet, because Illuminators do almost as much damage as an HC, but they are much easier to kill.

The problem occurs when the the enemy is a wee bit more more advanced and has some additional ships with him.  Guardians can counter HC's when used well by pushing them out of range while the Illums chew them up.  The Halcyon's Telekinetic Push ability can destroy strikecraft.  Smart Advent players usually build their Illuminator Fleets around some Capitals and Guardians, so now the fight is seriously hard.

For Vasari, you have to add Subverters to the mix to lock down his ships long enough to destroy the Guardians.  This is not too hard in 1.05, but will get a lot harder in later patches due to Subverters being nerfed.  If you have large numbers of assailants, you assassinate his cap ships, prioritizing the Progenitor and Halcyon first to allow your other ships to be effective.  Then you can get to work killing the Illuminators with your mixed fleet.  No, you can't totally rely on Assailants, unless you have significantly more of them - the Assailants are just there to boost your overall damage, and give you a shield piercing attack to take down capitals quickly.  You can also use the Assailants to kill guardians, since they can outrange the repel ability.  You still need a mixed fleet of other counter ships though.

It is harder for TEC.  If the other guy has over 100 Illuminators, you better have a kickass economy in place at this point, hopefully fully teched up.  If he has the biggest economy and a bigger fleet of Illuminators with support ships, I don't see you winning.  If the enemy is keeping his support ships close to his Illuminators, my advice is raid with carriers and run em away.  Force him to come to you and fight on your turf against your repair bays and hangar defenses.  If he hangs back, start raiding with your carriers again.  Have a fleet of HC's with tons of Hoshinko's supporting it.  You can even have a fleet of LRM to up your damage, but keep it back near your defenses and don't let the Illums engage it, or the LRM's will die.  You can use the LRM AOE ability to boost your damage if you can keep em alive.

I don't advise letting your capitals get near 100 Illuminators, they will die almost instantly if focused.  Use your powerful economy to keep a second small warfleet going and raid raid raid with your capitals and take out worlds.  Advent don't like to split their fleets, they want them all clustered around their capitals to gain the full synergy.  Fight him with your horde of HC's, Hoshinko's, and Carriers, and go knock out his worlds with your capitals.  He will have to decide whether to keep pressing the attack or pull back to chase your second fleet.  At which point, you run it and then go back to harassing with your carriers while looking for an opening.  It really isn't easy for TEC...prepare to lose a lot of ships.

What have we learned from this?   Illuminators CAN be countered.  But notice to counter them, you are usually making some complex fleets of multiple ships with additional research paths.  Illuminators are so nasty because you DON'T need anything else but Guardians and a few capitals to kill most players.  The good news is if the other guy has 100-200, you should have had time to see what he was doing and build appropriately.  But if he is attacking you with his first 30-40 Illuminators, you haven't always had time to build the ship diversity to handle it.

It gets better in 1.1, with Illuminators getting a small nerf (they are still plenty dangerous) and TEC getting some small boosts to some of its capital ship ablities.  Carriers also get a boost, which helps a lot as a true counter, as 1.05 carriers are not quite as cost effective.  In 1.09 it is arguable that carriers became the fleet ship of choice of most races...for the most part though, I think it is now pretty balanced, and most people are just annoyed that they can't spam one ship anymore.

Wow that's a lot.

Thanks!

Those assholes are in for some ass-kicking! >:)

Meet 100+ of anything with at least 50 carriers, and the larger the fleet size, the more carriers you add. With the fleet your talking about, 100+ carriers !

Then use Alt-select your bombers and target the Illums as groups using the list down the left. Keep targetting them every 5 seconds or so so the bombers keep at them only, until you get them down to small numbers. Unless they have a lot of flak around them, they will be in trouble.

If you find this sort of fleet late or your initial fleet gets fragged when you find it, you need a planet where you can build 3 or 4 frigate factories, and turn out a lot of carriers very quickly, and get them to your marshalling point as soon as you can.

You may ahve to experiment as to what mix of fighters and bombers, but I'm finding bombers will target ships a lot better than fighters will, and unless the oposing fleet has a lot of fighters, I tend to build more bombers now and just use fighters to protect them. Especially if you select all bombers and keep specifiying their targets.

Yes, use manual targetting to control your strikecraft.  NO, you don't use bombers to kill Illuminators.  You use fighters.

Bombers kill HC's, Capitals, Carriers, Support Cruisers....hell, you can even use Bombers to kill Flak if there isn't too much of it.

You use FIGHTERS to kill Illuminators.  Bombers will take 4 times longer to do the work, and the longer it takes to do effective damage with strikecraft, the more likely your opponent is to shoot them down before their job is done....or just chase your carriers away.  Use your bombers to kill Iconus Guardians and then work on the enemy capital ships.

Have a MIX!

direct your Fighters toward the Illums (just make sure they have no strikecraft deployed) and keep your bombers harrasing the Caps or Guards.

However, if the Shit does hit the fan, then fall back and start rebuilding. you might have to build a "Stop gap" fleet to buy yourself time to do your job, but in the end the enemy will be weakened and you have a brand new shiny fleet ready to wipe the floor with him

I used to use mainly fighters. Until I noticed one day that without commands, the bombers went after ships while the fighters buggered around doing nothing. Since then, I've been using more bombers than fighters, and get more ships killed faster as a result.

I've not noticed the bombers picking targets either, they seem to attack all frigates equally.

It is true fighters get distracted doing things like trying to shoot down bombers and other fighters, etc....which is why you control them manually.  Do what you want...unless you have modded this to suit your playstyle as well, fighters are the counter until to long range frigates.  Bombers will also kill them...just four times slower, and against a good player, this means death.  You DO play multiplayer sometimes, right?

Just to add my $0.02 to the mix, I usually play Advent and illum spam is definately something I do a lot, so I'll offer up what my fleet is usually composed of, as well as a response to some of the counter-strategies already posted.

My fleet is usually composed of (just to give an idea)

120-200 Illuminators

30-50 Defense Vessles (anti-fighter/bomber)

30-40 Guardians

20-30 Subjugators

Halycolon Carriers (Building Fighters only)

Mothership(s)

Battleships, late game

The reason I've added my fleet composition to this post is that I realize that carriers are an obvious counter to the Illum spam, and I usually throw in many anti-fighter ships into my fleet to combat this, as well as building only fighters out of my carrier capital ship(s) as well. The guardians and subjugators keep my illums alive a bit longer, and the push from the guardians is almost priceless.

In smaller maps I've found that if I can get anywhere near the numbers I've listed above it's basically GG for anyone else I run into. Meaning if you cut the lower numbers in half, I can usually win with a fleet of that size.

On larger maps you're going to have to out produce me, which means getting a huge economy for TEC, or Returning Armada for Vasari. For this reason I usually go after Vasari opponents first because even in large games Returning Armada takes a LONG time to tech up and then afford to build. Once running you'll most likely be throwing ships at me since most of your ships are essentially free and the only thing you'll lose that cost you are capital ships, which can easily be afforded with the money you save on production. After awhile you'll whittle down my fleet and eventually defeat it, and that is when you know it is time to go on the offensive. Don't be afraid to lose an enguagement, but make sure that you can replace the ships you lose easily. Advent take awhile to rebuild an entire fleet, where the other races tend to turn over their fleets a few times in a game. Also, don't panic and spam cobalts just to fill out a fleet, illums cut through them like butter.

Some strategies to help this idea might include building phase jump inhibitors. If I go on the offensive you don't want me running away when you have me in your lap.

In response to the carrier strategy: I am very afraid of mass fighters/bombers, and if I see you spaming carriers I will increase the number of anti-fighter frigates to my fleet as well as guardians and halycolons to repell them away. A good advent will always have a scout on you and shift their fleet composition from pure illuminators to combat your carriers. The carriers are a response to illuminators, so when you mass carriers and get a decent size fleet to combat mine you need to strike first before I change my fleet composition to match yours. The advantage goes to you on larger maps since it will take time to move the new ships to my fleet, so strike before they get there. This is also a good time for you to molest my planets with a secondary force, if possible, since my production will be focused on re-balancing my main fleet than building another. Again, once you realize you have the upper hand go on the offense until I am completely gone. If you stop and let me rebuild you may end up facing an Advent with a counter to your fleet.

The secondary fleet strategy: While the idea that Advent don't like splitting their fleets is true, this doesn't seem like a hard-counter to the Illum spam. Most of the time while I am on the offensive I have an infant fleet brewing, usually composed of ships I plan on using to reinforce my main fleet with. Namely, more illuminators and, since this is later in the game, more powerful support ships like guardians. Not to mention I also will have some capital ships there who have not seen the light of battle yet. In short, your attack may seem like a good idea from your standpoint because I don't want to split my main fleet, but if you are careless and don't scout a little farther into my territory your secondary force could end up just being a means for me to level up some virgin capital ships a bit before I add them to my main fleet. Even worse, if the battle goes  too far in my direction you may end up with the opposite. Instead of having me on the defensive on two fronts, you may end up on the defensive on two fronts.

One counter that I have had a hard time figuring out how to beat except with HCs is that of flak frigates and hokishos for TEC.  Flak frigates are tough, and with their AOE attacks I have a difficult time Microing my fleet of illuminators around so that their attacks are not as effective. Because of the side beams on my illuminators I usually keep my fleet formation tight, so if I run into an enemy fleet i shoot as a small ball in an almost 360 degree arc around my fleet. Flak frigates can focus on this small area and tear my illuminators to shreds fairly quickly in large numbers. Just something else to think about.

As a side note: If I don't think my fleet is going to be able to stand up to yours I will build some culture buildings to slow down your advance. While this may not help my fleet at all it will slow your advance to help me get some more ships produced in the meantime, so make sure that even while you are winning a fight you continue to produce your ships to combat my fleet. Destroy those culture buildings!

I hope some of this helps those of you wishing to counter the illum spam know what one is thinking when you fight them. I know the tactic seems like an easy way to win, but understand that the people who are playing the build do not just play it because its all they know how to do. Whatever your counter to our fleet we will attempt to outfit our fleet to counter you. For me its a small game of chess. I make a strong basic move and look for your counter and then attempt to counter your counter.

Nice summary

Regarding culture, I never let culture slow my advance. I just leave a few ships behind to make sure it isnt recolonised behind me (Vasari for example love to jump some ships behind you and try to kill the planet you came from). Preferably with a blocking force in to stop anyone else colonising it, and my colony frigates waiting for the culture to disipate. Depends a bit on the map, but as I tend to play minimum phase lanes, its usually not an issue. Knocking out the retreating AI is my main objective, the planets can be colonised at leisure.

From a previous post .....

"You DO play multiplayer sometimes, right?"

Never.

Yet you still mod the game to win???

Who?

I dont modify the game to win.

I modify the game to enjoy it better. I mod for maximizing my FUN. I mod it to remove all the balance that developers feel a game must have, which just annoys me and detracts from the fun of playing a game. I mod it to remove assumptions I dont agree with and silly requirements.

Things like ....

Gauss guns should actually be defenses you should worry about.

Carriers should actually carry something.

Battleships should carry big guns and small guns and be based on WW2 characteristics and not the destroyer type characteristics of now. And they should be hitting with substantially bigger hit power than a cruiser does. One full broadside of a battleship should practically destroy a frigate.

Scouts should actually be capable of scouting more than 3 pirate infested planets without running out of shields and hull.

Planet abilities should actually cover the whole gravity well. (eg. repair and phase inhibit).

Colony ships should colonise from whereever they are in the gravity well.

Stuff like that.

Its not about winning.

Or better yet... Scouts should not revisit pirate infested planets more than once!

Is that even possible? I've not attempted to mod the game at all yet.

Definition time. I classify all planets that ahvent been taken over by a race yet as pirate. Technically, a Pirate base is the only pirates, and the rest are militia, but they are all pirates to me. I've also modded the game so all the militias only use pirate ships.

So I mean any planet with pirate or milita forces, and I find that the vanilla is too weak to go far even with just basic militia forces about.

I dont think there is a way of modifying the scouting behaviour, which I might add is desperately in need of some AI. Having ships double back all the time to revisit systems that have only just been scouted when unscouted systems are known, is just plain silly imo. They are not very bright, thats for sure !

So your scouts can now win a battle by themselves with a cap???

Brilliant mod

postioning wise, keep your dps ships right in front of the illuminators. this counters their side beams, and also reduces  flight time for non-laser weapons.

This is why I say it - mods to battleship and the scouts

kill them.

Use HC's.

People who use 100 illums instead of HC's are dumb.

Theres like a billion threads on this.  People need to learn to play. :/

wait till 1.1 is live and you see a billion threads about carriers. cause your HC answer wont work there.

People who do stick to only one strategy are dumb.

Spamming 100 illums can be a good choice when there is tons of lrm or assaillants to bash, it is more cost effective than HC at this point. Illums are often the backbone of an advent fleet they draw fire while being thrown in the melee. And coupled with guardian's repulse and fully upgraded, they still are effective against HC. Of course, adding HCs to an illum fleet is a nice thing to do, but you better add a lot of drone host with mixed fighters/bombers to take out Hcs and LR frigs faster.