cobolt light frigates in late game (swarms)

What I try to do is have equal numbers of carriers as my opponent, spam fighters, and outright ignore the carriers and strike craft.

The point of v1.1 is o make sure that each ship type now has a role.  The carriers are good now and so are the LFs because they counter carriers. 

@KingofThailand

The whole point of this game is to not out spend your opponent, but build the counters to what he is producing.  Therefore, if you see a fleet of carriers, build LFs, HCs, some carriers with fighters, and flak if the flak ever get fixed.

Not as TEC. Mid to Late game you have so much money the only thing limiting you is your production rates. TEC's main strength is their Economy, not economy.

Not saying you should SPAM stuff, cause 60 Cobalts versus a single level 6 marza would be funny ( for the marza as long as you didn't get AM drained  ). But if you have the cash/resources, and enough frigate factories, there isn't anything wrong with loosing a fleet. TEC ( IMO ), as all about grinding an opponent down. You can sustain huge losses as long as your economy is booming.

TEC has a better economy than Vasari?  Did I miss something?

Vasari get a huge resource boost, and their economy research dwarfs TECs.  If you ever let a TEC player reach a point where he is outproducing you, you made a serious error somewhere down the line.

Besides all of the above, my whole point was that sure, it would be great to outspend your opponent, but the way to win this game is to be smarter than your opponent by building counters to what he is building.

For instance, last night I was Vasari in a 2v2v2v2.  The last Advent player said it was luck that my team won.  I said no luck involved.  All he did was spam Illuminators.  I found a choke point, built up a fleet there (with a phase jump inhibitor so he couldn't go through the planet and expand anywhere else) of HCs, Carriers, and eventually subverters and 3 other caps while I was killing other players with a smaller fleet and a Space Egg of doom.  Once I killed 2 other players, I hit him and won in no time.  I am certain he spent more than me, but because I knew how to play and built counters, his 100+ illuminator fleet stopped dead in their tracks.  I knew he would micro my caps, so I got a Maruader and just phase-out-of-hulled the one he would micro.

I agree with Harada's point.  I'd go further and say that, actually, EVERY race should be outspending its opponents.  In terms of a simple choice, having the economic capacity to outspend your opponent is always preferable to outspending less, just as spending wisely is always preferable to spending poorly.

Tactical options should inform the strategy, but strategy should dictate the tactical option selected.  You build ships to kill other ships, but you build fleets to complete strategic objectives that either expand your own resource base and production capacity, or deny your opponent the resource base and production capacity necessary to compete with your own ability to wage war.

Sounds to me like you didn't win because of superior strategy, Howdidudothat, you won because your opponent didn't have a clear idea of what he should have been doing either tactically or strategically.

And here's why I might as well stop giving my advice on these forums. ^^  People not being able to read and not being able to take advice from a guy who has played more than 600 games of Sins online.

I apologize if you thought that was an insult.  I didn't say you were a bad player.  I simply said that the other player employed a flawed strategy that left him with no viable tactical options based on your description of his actions.  And it's absolutely true.  By spamming one type of ship exclusively, he invested his entire economy in a force that wasn't giving himself a winning tactical option.  You exploited that flaw by building a force that gave you enough tactical options to defeat him, and you employed it well.  And good for you.

But let's be forthright: he beat himself as badly as you beat him.  He squandered an economic advantage on a force that simply wasn't capable of competing with yours tactically.  So I think the ultimate lesson your narrative teaches isn't that you're brilliant, it just teaches us that spamming one kind of ship is only brilliant when your opponent doesn't understand what counters it tactically (for instance, spamming a ridiculous number of light frigates to kill enemy carriers is great--but only if the enemy doesn't have a bunch of LRM frigates waiting to kill your ships).

You could still be brilliant, that's just not what I think we should learn from your story.

If the main object is to build counters to what someone else is building, how do you handle a balanced fleet ?

Say 3 each of each capital ship, 50 of each cruiser and frigate, and 150 strike craft (however many carriers that needs).

Just interested.

Um...If I ever let you get that far advanced that you would have that much of a fleet, I messed up and I would give you the win; I would probably let you have the epic battle that you wanted, but would then quickly surrender not to drag it out.

I usually scout and get the phase detection leveled up to 2 jumps away.  That way I know what is coming.  I have NEVER seen an MP game with a balanced fleet (although the AI does it very well).  If I saw a balanced fleet, I would just spam HCs, LRFs, some fighters and maybe a support cruiser here or there.  In version 1.09, I don't know yet since I haven't played the beta in over a month, but I would have to laugh if I saw flak in your fleet, they are that ineffective. 

In any event, if I know that I was outgunned, I just go and do raids and what not.  I love the maruder, I can move faster than you and I am immune to phase jump inhibitors.  Anyway, while you are busy chasing me, I would be getting whatever kind of econ/ships I need and hit you on your exposed flank. 

If I know I am outgunned, I may also just turtle at some choke points and let the battle come to me.  Vasari get damage bonuses in friendly culture, and repair bays are the best defense platform in the game.

My real sticking point with this thread was that people misquoted me.  LET ME RESTATE, I AM ALL FOR OUTSPENDING AND HAVING A BETTER ECONOMY, BUT YOU BETTER BE SPENDING IT WISELY AND YOU BETTER BE #1 IN FLEET AND YOUR FLEET BETTER HAVE COUNTERS TO WHAT THE OTHER GUY IS BRINGING.  LRFs ARE NOT COUNTERS TO LRFs IN MY BOOK.  Too many MP games I end up mopping the floor with people because they spend so much money early game getting their economy up that I have 2x the fleet than they do.  For instance, if I am playing a medium 2v2 map and I see that my opponent has 2 civ labs up, I immediately know that I won because while they were paying for those labs, paying to tech ice/volc research, paying for 2 infrastructure upgrades, I've bought 20+ more ships than them.  Then I just crush them before they ever make a profit off of all those economy expeditures.  If we were playing a 1v1 huge multi star, obviously my strategy would be quite different and I would rush economy.

Thanks for that. Puts me right off playing MP Seriously though, from what I read, the maps in MP dont suit me at all, hence your answer. I dont like maps with exposed flanks.

Why are flaks ineffective in MP when they work pretty well (massed) in single player ? I always have at least 20 in a fleet and they work well in keeping strike craft away. I tried without them and took casualties, so went back to using them.

Having an epic battle and then surrendering is not my idea of fun. And it sort of suggests that the balanced fleet cannot be countered.

I take it that MP maps are all lots of phase lanes leading everywhere, and its full on battle from second 1 ? And everyone spams because its the only way to get the ship numbers high enough early enough to survive ? I take it no-one is able to play a defensive game with a few key block points that give time to build a full balanced fleet behind ?

And economy is a luxury you cant afford from the sound of it. Not my idea of fun I have to say. I like building the economy and pitched battles with major fleets.

Just as well I dont have a good enough net connection to play MP, since the types of games would just frustrate me. Having someone quit because I was able to build a full balanced fleet and hit them with it, would also be a major frustration.

Thanks for the answer though, gives me an insight into the MP world that I didnt have before.

Honestly, I would suggest MP for you.  Not all the maps are rush maps, it depends on how many players and how big the map is.  Most maps don't have many strategic choke points, so if you find one, you defiantely take advantage of it.  I would honestly suggest you fix your connection problem and try MP, I think you will find it very exciting.  To me, taking the time to build a massive fleet isn't nearly as fun as strugling to survive. 

Oh, and flak work fine for v1.05.  For v1.09, they are worthless.  Hopefully flak will be fixed when v1.1 comes out.

I havent bothered with the beta as yet. I'd rather wait for the full release.

If the flak has been downgraded in 1.1, then I'll just mod it back up again

My problem is the net connection generally. I've got fast broadband, but we get random periods where the bandwidth completely stops for anything up to several minutes at a time, and there is nothing one can do about it. Its mainly to do with the path the net takes from here in Australia to the site, via key overloaded sites in the US. Its just not reliable enough for game play imo, as starting a battle that may only last minutes, and suddenly finding you cannot give any instructions or see whats going on for 2 minutes, will likely get your fleet killed and planets lost with nothing you can do about it. Not my idea of fun.

Sounds like the connection down under stinks.  In any event, what actually happens is that you will get dropped from the game and the AI will take over for you.  So you may just want to try it to see if it works.  Besides, what do you have to loose?  There's no ranking system.

If you have repeated problems, then go back to comp stomping.

True. Doesn't matter how much cash/resourcces you have if you're spending stupidly. But in general, someone with a better economy will win, all else being equal.

About MP Play. While I enjoy a good game versus a human, I don't enjoy the uber-optomized strategy required at higher levels of play. I might as well script the first 5-10 minutes of play. Or the "I lost 15 minutes ago" epiphany because you didn't micro your scouts properly and missed vital intel. The intense micro-ing, pseudo-scripted starts, and optimized strategy really sucks all the fun out of it ( for myself ). I like trying different things, odd strategies ( SPAM scouts ! ), Only Caps and Hoshinkos, etc. Online, thats suicide. I like to play a shoot from the hip game. And finding someone has run 5038 scenarios on their home LAN over the past month to perfect the winning sequence on a given map really kind of kills it for me. Could I rise to the challange ? Maybe, but if I'm going to invest that much time and effort, I better be getting paid for it.

All that, and my Internet connection blows..