I think someone once said that you go to war with the Titan you have, not the Titan you wish you had.

Goa's pretty much right on every point.

Anything will work in single player against AI sure, but against realy players who know what they are doing, massing capitalships, overinvesting in research, or choosing capitalships poorly will make you lose.  If you are vastly better then your opponent in micro & scouting you may win, but you are putting yourself at a substantial disadvantage.

Overinvesting in static defenses is also a mistake players new to MP tend to make. Turrets should rarely be used for defense and hanger defenses are luxury defenses for the late game and niche other uses.  For a vast majority of the game your defenses consist of Repair bays and a few well-place frigate factories(to quickly build reinforcements), with the occasional starbase where needed.

And btw the Kol is pretty much accepted as being one of the bar-none worst capitalships in the game.  it has a few little tricks, such as using flak burst as a last resort SC defense, and certainly combos well with a dunov if you can get both to level 6.  But by and large it's a bad capitalship to build- and it should never be built early-game.

The TEC has more strong & viable capitalships then any other race(Akkan, corsev, & Dunov are bloody amazing, Marza pretty damn good, and the Sova is decent) so use them.  The Kol is pretty much the Only "bad" TEC capitalship.  of course some shine in areas more then others(Akkan or Marza are usually the best starting caps).

But when it comes down to it, frigates are the main workhorse of any good fleet.  You get a ton more firepower per cost from frigates then you do from capitalships, not to mention less capitalships means your titan/caps level faster.

As you say a bunch of level 2-4 caps will kill 1-2 level 6+ ones.  of course this is the case, one fleet costs a lot more then the other.  But 4-5 capitalships level 3-4 will get utterly trounced by 1-2 high level capitalships combined with 13000 credits worth of just about any frigate.

What can I say, I'm not a Rumsfeld fan.  And yes, emoticons are great for that.

I realized the irony myself; Incomitus' answer is indeed a great one to the OP. However, generally such things turn into balance discussions, and I think any discussion of how to use the TEC Loyalists needs to acknowledge that they are likely not the best race to play as if you just want to win. Especially when he's also asking about the Vasari Rebels, which are probably the best faction in the game. The contrast is just too great. 

I do put the TEC Loyalists at the very bottom competitively, but despite all I've been saying, I really don't think they are super far behind the Advent Loyalists or TEC Rebels, they just need to make the Ankylon better and to give them a little something to make the early/mid game easier so they actually have a chance to get some use out of their late game goodies.

Here's my ranking for multiplayer, though some might actually switch Vasari Loyalists and Rebels just for the titan.

1. Vasari Rebels (Starbase Mobilization, nano leach and dissever make their titan hard to kill and hard hitting, best phase missiles. Technically they're also very late game focused but unlike the TEC Loyalists their late game goodies can be devastating if you rush them at the expense of everything else).

2. Vasari Loyalists (Strong Vasari base faction, the Vorastra is probably the most dangerous titan in multiplayer as it is the only one that can easily handle carriers, hard to corner and defeat with the Vorastra setting up phase stabilizers everywhere. You don't see striped to the core much but they're still great).

3. Advent Rebels (Really just because of the Eradica and Wail. They are better than AL in other ways but none that matter much in MP. Weak Advent Eco is the main issue with them, as well as that some hosts will ban them due to wail).

4. TEC Rebels (TaR can be amazing if you have the right map setup, the Ragnarov is a great titan, best for those new to MP. Besides TaR tech tree is probably the worst in the game, but that isn't as big a deal in MP, and is another reason why they're the best for new comers as they teach you to invest less in research).

5. Advent Loyalists (The Coronata is actually alright now, and AL fleets are really hard to kill when properly formed and researched, and slight eco advantage over AR, but too much investment in culture techs kills them. Add in the fact that the strongest factions are Vasari that already have a big advantage over the Advent, and its an uphill battle.).

6. TEC Loyalists (Mediocre titan, all great techs save counter deployment come too late to influence the game in most cases. Early Novaliths can be very helpful, but otherwise none of their techs are potentially game ending in themselves if you get them early unlike Vasari Rebels.).

I would argue that in games against the AI, Advent Rebels and Vasari Loyalists should be switched as you'll rarely need the mobility advantage of the Vorastra as the AI won't be smart enough to use carriers and corvettes, so the better damage and durability of the Eradica puts it over the top in a slug fest.

Personally, my fav's are either VL or AL.  

Are you guys saying that you don't use kols?  Because i would be angry.

In my opinion,   The kol is not a ship of the line.  It is, however necessary to have 2 or 3 in any TEC fleet due to flak burst (has saved my titan many a time).  In addition, a group of 4 kols is in my opinion an amazing tool for raiding.  A group of kols can easily sneak in through wormholes or around the sides and survive a lengthy amount of time.  with grg, they can easily ambush any capital ship coming off the assembly line and blow it to shreds in seconds.  This in itself is not particularly useful, but the fact that in order to destroy a group of kols, your enemy will have to recall a section of his fleet IS.  In addition, a group of four or so kols will easily take down eco starbases without breaking a sweat.

of course this doesn't work anywhere based on chokepoints, like twin empires...

Probably...it'll still be a good titan for wiping frigates (possibly still the best if they don't nerf the actual damage desperation does) but the superior phase missiles of VR combined with mobile SBs I think will beat out SttC...

Oh my... so much to respond to, but I'm not up to it tonight.

Gentlemen, if I may be so bold as to offer free non-game advice: take care of your gallbladders. Granted, there's not much one can do to take care of one's gallbladder, so maybe I should say hope and pray (if you're religious) that you never have trouble with yours.

Incomitatus, i will only say, wow. i haven't played in a while and your posts really put things back into perspective for me. especially the first capital ship being the akkan (been going with the sova).

however, being someone who likes the sova so much, i have to say, it is FAR from useless.

while the the other capital ships are important, aside from the boarding one (forget the name), i find the fighter/bomber support of the sova evens itself out. you say you need lots of carriers to avoid bomber spam, but the sova kind of negates the Percheron carriers in my opinion.

i haven't delved as far in as you have, but believe i need 2 main fleets as a tec loyalist. One is for offensive maneuvers while the other is mainly for defense. ships can be swapped out when damaged so as to maximize their durability and keep more resources in store for research and even more ships. the defensive fleet moves around the empire as needed from front line base to front line base while the offensive one strikes enemy bases.

anyway, back on topic with the sova. the heavy bombers upgrade increases the durability of the sova's strike craft (i believe all of them). the missile platforms behave and can act like extra units and unless micro managed, or with the proper units, enemy ships will treat them as relatively high priority. the embargo ability helps when raiding enemy territories mid game, as you said to keep them off balance while getting yourself to the end game with research. and the rapid manufacturing, the level 6 ability which allows for instant, or almost instant rebuilding of strike craft (cant remember off the top of my head) is incredibly important. with a Sova screen in combination with garda flak frigates, enemy fighters are easily killed by the flak frigates and the bombers are damaged, and the Sova's upgraded fighters can easily finish them off while quickly replacing lost units. when combined with much of the other strategies you've mentioned, the sova becomes a powerhouse that you should bring at least one of with your fleet. by constructing one or two sova carriers, you basically negate the need to bring numerous Percheron carriers, which cost a number of supply which can go instead towards more heavy frigates, flak or LRM ships.

not saying its the right or only way to play, but i find using the same fleet supply on a sova carrier with a couple of flak frigates to outperform 3-6 Percheron carriers if you put the points in correctly by level 4-6. i tend towards 1 embargo point, 1 rapid manufacturing and 2 each in missile platforms and heavy strike craft at level 6. in combination with properly placed and upgraded garda frigates (armor and damage upgrades), the Sova's fighters can handle usually 2x as many enemy fighter/bombers with relative ease.

again, thanks again for all those very informative posts. appreciate it as a loyalist player, especially as one who hasn't been delving into the pluses and minuses of each ship's abilities used in concert or playing much since rebellion came out.

also, a bit off topic, but quite a while ago, TEC was the way to go for early rush type battles, able to create strong (relatively), cheap and durable ships and overpower opposition. is this now relegated to TEC rebels specifically, or another empire altogether? i ask simply for curiosity's sake as i play with a friend and cousin against various difficulty opponents and find a sova with support frigates and LRMs seems to still overwhelm all but the cruel and viscous AI in a quick rush game.

The days of Sova rushing and using embargo are pretty much over....if you are 1 or 2 jumps from the enemy HW, well sure some embargoing may do wonders....but that's extremely unlikely...

Sova rushing now is basically a double Sova start with missile batteries on each sova (heavy SC is your secondary ability)...with 3 squadrons of SC and lots of missile batteries, Sovas will provide far more raw firepower than any other cap at this stage of the game...you need 2 though so that if one is driven off to repair you still have another one spawning missile batteries at the actual battle site...

It is a risky strategy but it can be very effective if done well....just don't lose either sova or you're pretty much hosed...

most recent patch.

Doesn't matter a whole lot though, as among titans there is no better antimatter-drain-then-gnore candidate then the ankylon- though the ankylon is now certainly one hell of a hard-target.

I do kinda wish the AM cost for GRG didn't scale up with its level.  That +10 per level almost negates the extra shots you could be getting from the bonus antimatter you gain from levels.  Keeping it a flat 50 would go a long way towards making it an early game ship.  BUT, if the Kol were viable in the early game, it would be an absolute God in the late game using the strategies Icomitatus explained earlier.

I still won't admit defeat for the Ankylon though.  Might be personal bias on my part, but it is definitely bias against it on the part of the MP community who want all titans to be dps.

Now, here is a thought however.  How about making Furious defense much weaker, but applying it to the whole fleet in a radius around the ship, similar to the Skirantra?  (I'm talking something like 20/30/40/50 or 20/25/30/35 repair per second to HP only.)  Would that alter anyone's opinions of the Ankylon?  And don't give me a bs excuse like repairing that many ships would be OP.  If Ragnarov can Space-Shotgun a whole fleet, Ankylon should be able to repair as well.

Thoughts?

-Huzzah!

I do not find the TEC Loyalist Tech tree reasonably more impressive. Only good thing I see is Militia and Novalith Deregulation. However both those tech suffer from being highly situational. As does Twin Fortresses who isnt that good because most things that can kill a starbase will kill 2 just as easily.

On the other hand, while certainly not awe inspiring, the Rebel tech tree offers some additional weapon upgrades, that are not situational. Especially as they affect strike craft, the main source of focus fire lategame firepower. Yes, thats right, TEC Rebels have better fighters and better bombers as TEC Loyalist. And that advantage works everywhere.

What major advantages do you see with them? By the time you can actually "spam" Novaliths you are not going to make more then a dent in their economy. That leaves a high level Titan + supporting fleet that has major trouble against 1! lightly supported starbase.

Yes, as long as its antimatter is not drained/depleted the Anklyon is close to impossible to kill,  once it is on higher levels. It also helps a bit in the hectic of combat if you can click the large ship to use it. 

The Ankylon really needs some kind of Anti-Antimatter draining ability. Perhaps Furios Defense could also regenerate antimatter? Or give 200 antimatter when it is cast?

For Ankylons that are not drained this would not change much, by the time it runs out of AM the battle is usually decided. However it would finally not fall victim to one pathetic medium level Kortul.

Well, it certainly is a fact that playing the "badass" ships is a lot of fun. Flying arround with your 20 kilometer long rail gun of doom and hear it say things like "I put the laughter in slaughter" while it utterly decimates the remains of what had been a mighty enemy warfleet less than 1 minute ago is fun. There is no denying in that. So the Ankylon also needs to be competivly fun wise. Being - nearly - invulnerable can be very enjoying. Believe me, I speak from experience.

Back the in the first Beta, the Ankylon was close to invulnerable. Even at level 1 and without ANY researched upgrades, you could sent it right to pirate base and let it stay there. After a while, all pirate ships and turrets were dead. The Anky just took the tremendous firepower like it was nothing but pesky flies. Entire enemy fleets focus fired on it... to no avail. To deal with it you needed firepower capable of killing a fully upgraded starbase in lets say... 10 seconds? You could send it to the enemy capital, with enemy fleet + Ragnarov there. Guess who won? (back then)

That was very fun. It slowly grinded the enemy fleet while said enemy was more and more desperatly trying to find ways to do more than scratching the paint job.

Of course this was - justly - nerfed. The Ankylon can still take unbelievable ammounts of punishment. but it has little going for it besides that. And that makes smart players focus fire anything else first. And deal with it afterwards. And contrary to the beta now a large fleet +Titan will reasonably kill it.

Now, that means to truely be capable of enjoying the Ankylon we need to things:

1. Ankylon needs to be very very very hard to kill = achieved already (Level 10 Ragnarov in a neutral Gravity Well after 5 minutes non stop fire on the Ankylon "Oh, look, we scratched the paint job. A little". (However, no AM drain was used)

2. Ankylon must give the enemy incentive to fire on it = not achieved Only then its high durabilty is truely helping. All firepower that is directed at the Ankylon cannot hurt your fleet.

Interesting idea.

QFT

Someone on this forums said once:

The Kol is a brick that the enemy stumbles over. The Ankylon is the wall the enemy slams into and shatters.

Now we just have to find the necessary changes to make above statement a reality.

The reason the Anklyon is inferior is not its defensive role. The problem is that it does not futfil this role good enough. So naturally against offensive Titans that do futfil their offensive role very good, it fails.

I think the following changes would go a very long way to make the Ankylon competivly:

• Disruption Matrix: 15 seconds abilities disabled is NOTHING. The vasari have Disruptor Nanites on a cheap and pathetic little  phase missile turret that disable all abilities, passive shield and hull regneration for 5 ! 5 ENTIRE MINUTES. (@ Devs: NERF IT HARD)
  So, lets increase this to lets say... 2 minutes for 4 points into it?
  
  Damage of Disruption Matrix is imho fine.... we dont need another fleet wiping AoE ability - if it can actually futfil its primary function good enough.
• Furios Defense: What about giving antimatter regeneration to it? Just enough AM regeneration that you need 3 AM draining capital ships do get it dry (after a while). Other stats of this ability are fine imho.
• Group Shield: You already allowed it to target the Ankylon itself. Fantastic. Now lets make it more useful: Make it a not targetable ability: This is superior in 95 % of all cases to the targeted one. Increase range to 8000. If you keep it targeted increase range to 12000. If you do not implement the changes of Disruption Matrix, make it reduce all ability damage by 150 %.
• Inspire and Impair: Make it affect all Titans (Own, Allied, Enemy". Make it affect strikecraft. 

And since we are at it:

General TEC Loyalist changes:

• Grant Milita Weapons a 30 % range increase too.
• Change Milita Weapons into more stages of the research:
  
  
  2 Military Labs = first level (10 % more firepower, 2 armor points, no range increase)
  4 Military Labs = second level (20 % more firepower, 4 armor points, 10 % range increase)
  6 Military Labs = third level 30 % more firepower, 6 armor points, 20 % range increase)
  8 Military Labs = Last level (40 % more firepower, 10 armor points, 30 % range increase) (Expensive to research)
  
  of course all in owned gravity wells.
  
  Why the range increase? Simple, it wont make much of a difference in ship to ship combat, however it would make the starbases far more dangerous.
  
  Right now, there are two preferred solutions to twin fortresses:
  
  1. Use bomber spam to kill them
  2. Just fly by and ignore them.
  
  Point 2 shouldnt be that easy.
  
  
  
  And bomber spam leads to the next point: 
• What about Quad Fortresses? Or Oktafortresses? Sounds awesome but impractical? Yes, because it is.
  
  The same bomber spam that will destroy one starbase will just as easily destroy 2, 4 or even 8 starbases. It just takes longer. Red button? Sure, but you dont trade a starbase often for "free = AM" rebuilt strike crafts.
  
  Imho the TEC Loyalists, and ONLY the TEC Loyalists should get a dedicated anti Strike Craft Starbase upgrade. One that is powerful enough that bomber spamming it into oblivion gets a lot more difficult.
  
  which again leads to the next topic:
  
  
• The TEC Loyalist Starbase is not a BIT BETTER than the TEC Rebel Starbase. That is not good, for our premiere defensive faction. So what about giving it:
  - Dedicated anti bomber modules?
  - More module slots?
  - special TEC Loyalist only abilities? Like an anti bomber weapon as suggested in -1. ?
  
  
  So... now we have finally what we wanted... a powerful defense that makes even the most arrogant of Ragnarov Commanders write down his last will before daring to attack us. The last thing we need now is to give them incentive enough to do just that. 
• The developers realized that a defensive faction cannot do much, if the enemy is not forced into attacking it on its terms. So they gave Novalith Deregulation to the TEC Loyalists. Their firepower was meant to be the incentive for the enemy to attack the TEC Loyalist. Unfortunatly, the reality is, even 8 nonstop firing Novaliths are little more then a slight dent to the enemys economy, even on medium sized maps. Nothing stops him for further building up his fleet and working on your demise with nearly the same effort as before. So we either need another incentive to attack the TEC Loyalists or some buff to their Novaliths.
  
  But here I am at a loss, how to buff the Novalith without making it OP? We could give it make dead ability.... so no starbase can save your worlds (except capitals) but that would imho make it way to powerful.
  
  A rate of fire increase (like in the E4X mod) doesnt help much. Anyone got any ideas about how to make them more powerful without breaking game balancing?

This has been a very interesting discussion so far. Lets keep it up, so that in a not to distant future, all factions are well balanced and our enjoyment of the game is perfect.

Rebellion has come far already, not a remote comparsion to what it was at release or in the Beta stage.

No antimatter regeneration for 5 entire minutes pretty much makes it that way.

Yes, alone the turret is no threat, but it happens to be "escorted" by Hangar Defenses and a lovely maxed out Orky. Not to mention the Vasari Main fleet is probably less than 2 minutes away from joining in... if you are lucky. Stabilize phase space FTW.