Questions about playing as theTEC (vs AI)

The TEC in general have a good rush game with ships like the Sova, Corsev and their cost effective base units. But you are right that the Loyalist strengths are almost all late game. If you want to get better at early rushing, the TEC Rebels strengths are better for that task.

As to if you should attempt to rush early on, I think everyone should focus on expansion if not rushing in the first part of the game. If you don't have enough planets to get a good economy going your starbases and novaliths won't matter much. And if you happen to win a good victory against the enemy, feel free to turn your expansion drive into a rush and finish him off early.

Its very situational. Against AI max hull and weapons are the only requirement. I personally think hangar upgrades are a waste in everything but Star gravity wells. You ALWAYS need repair bay structures (best tactical structure in the game) but for a second starbase the resupply on the starbase can help as well. I don't usually get the construction upgrades unless its at an uncolonizeable gravity well. The AI will always fall for the self destruct but whether its better to get that or weapons/hull is up to debate.

While this isn't as popular as it used to be, I think the Sova is the best rush ship in the game. If you can keep embargo on the enemy homeworld early on you can economically cripple an opponent before they get set up. You can easily get it to work against the AI, but keep in mind it is less effective the farther apart your homeworlds are.

Just depends on the situation.

Spam 100 light frigates.

Proceed to steamroll AI.

Thank you for answering all of my questions so quickly. This should be a significant help in any future games I play. With regard to your answers there are some further questions I'd like to ask if possible.

As to if you should attempt to rush early on, I think everyone should focus on expansion if not rushing in the first part of the game. If you don't have enough planets to get a good economy going your starbases and novaliths won't matter much. And if you happen to win a good victory against the enemy, feel free to turn your expansion drive into a rush and finish him off early.

When I said that I preferred to fortify to victory, I meant after expanding as far as possible. Sorry if I was a bit unclear. I generally try to expand as far as I can before coming into contact with the AI and then increase my fleet supply and build starbases and repair bays on the border. I understand that a defensive strategy requires fast early expansion and victory by novaliths can only be achieved if the enemy owns less of the system than you. What I meant was whether or not to rush the enemy once expansion is finished or wait for them to attack my starbases. It's just that, while I know the TEC have a good early rush, if I intend to achieve victory that way I might as well play as the TEC rebels. I'm just a bit confused as to how I should go about achieving victory as the loyalists, as victory by novaliths can only be done if I already own more of the system, in which case I could probably win by other methods. Am I supposed to win by waiting for the enemy to destroy their fleet in an attack on my starbases and then counterattack? It's just that the harder AI's (unfair and above) seem to have little difficulty replacing sizeable fleets very quickly, even given the TECs economic advantage over them.

Its very situational. Against AI max hull and weapons are the only requirement. I personally think hangar upgrades are a waste in everything but Star gravity wells. You ALWAYS need repair bay structures (best tactical structure in the game) but for a second starbase the resupply on the starbase can help as well. I don't usually get the construction upgrades unless its at an uncolonizeable gravity well. The AI will always fall for the self destruct but whether its better to get that or weapons/hull is up to debate.

You have made some very valid and useful points about starbases. I can certainly see the reasoning behind all of these. The only points I am still confused about are whether or not I need trade bays on both starbases and the usefulness of the self destruct upgrade. While I can certainly agree that the AI would frequently fall for a self destruct and lose large fleets, a fully upgraded starbase would be so much of an investment it would be possible for me to make more of a loss that the AI. I know that the TEC can replace losses more easily, but I would still think that the upgrade could be better spent on something to keep the starbase alive and have it continue to damage the enemy. This is all speculation, note, as I have never actually used the self destruct on a starbase.

While this isn't as popular as it used to be, I think the Sova is the best rush ship in the game. If you can keep embargo on the enemy homeworld early on you can economically cripple an opponent before they get set up. You can easily get it to work against the AI, but keep in mind it is less effective the farther apart your homeworlds are.

Thank you for explaining this. I can certainly see how the sova would be very useful in an early game rush due to embargo coupled with it's high early dps. My only questions on the matter would be what abilities to upgrade to focus on in a rush, as I can see uses in all the abilities early on. Obviously embargo is a neccesity before the enemy homeworld is reached although I have no idea if further points in it are worthwhile. I can also see the need for early points in misiile batter and heavy strike craft however, to help the capitalship break through to the enemies home. I understand that this might well be somewhat situational but there must be an ability that you would get the most gain out of increasing early.

Another point I am somewhat confused about is how I would know whether or not to attempt a rush early on. It's just that If I wait for my scouts to find the enemy homeworld before deciding what  capitalship to build I may well be at a significant disadvantage in terms of expansion. Is there some way to estimate how close the enemy might be?

Again, thank you for taking the time to answer all my previous questions and sorry to have to ask even more. Hopefully I will be able to learn how to play the TEC in singleplayer competently so that I can move on to learning the other factions as well.

Spam 100 light frigates.

Proceed to steamroll AI.

While this is certainly a true against the easier AI I generally find that the harder ones can outproduce me, making victory by numbers difficult. Perhaps I am just worse at managing my economy, as I can see how the TEC would usually have an advantage in fleet production.

Edited due to multiple spelling mistakes.

Good. Too many players pick TEC Loyalist players pick that faction because they prefer a turtle strategy, yet fail to realize that in a game where all the territory is nearly free to acquire early on, you need to expand before you do anything else. Like a game of Monopoly, your goal is to get as many properties as possible before other players do.

Strictly speaking the TEC Loyalists are better suited for a slow war of attrition, however there is no reason they can't win early game as well. I would try one way at first then once you get comfortable with that strategy try the other a few times. Once you are familiar with both strategies you'll hopefully come to realize when a rush can work, in which case you should do it, and when it won't you can revert to an attrition strategy.

I get trade upgrades in two situations. One is in uncolonizeable gravity wells where a starbase is the only way to expand a trade chain. The other is when an enemy player's builds Novalith cannons and forces me to get auxiliary government on all my important planets. This leaves me with a bunch of starbases in my core territory I don't expect to come under direct attack, so economic upgrades on these starbases can be worthwhile. For frontline planets, focus only on combat and auxiliary government.

If you're playing random maps, you'll realize the different map sizes are usually different distances from the homeworlds. Random Small for example they are usually very far apart, yet anything bigger than Random Medium Large tends to be 1-3 jumps away. Further, if you play with 2 preset teams as is the norm in multiplayer, you can see the homeworlds of your allies at the start, which can help you get a rough feel for how the map generated and allow you to guess the positions of enemy homeworlds (in random maps, all the homeworlds spawn in a ring around the edge of the solar system).

Once you are well practiced, I find that a human player's superior management can outproduce up to the Unfair AI. For Cruel and Viscous however will need a vastly bigger Empire to be able to do that, so you must resort to exploiting AI tactical weakness to inflict vastly greater casualties on them to make up for their greater rate of production.

I always get trade on my starbases (maybe the only exception is the Vasari one). The AI never has an extremely big fleet full of bombers and anti-structure frigates, that focus on my starbase, and trade upgrades are not that expensive, nice little extra income, you already have the starbase, why not have trade ports on it? Better than fighters.. 2 upgrades for weapons, 3 for hull, you can easily get 2 trade upgrades without severely reducing your potential in battle.

The Red Button is better if your starbase is not upgraded and you only put red button on it, you can trick your opponent this way, this is a valid strategy even in multiplayer matches. BUT against AI it is not that effective, it is better to upgrade weapons and hull, and trade if you dont have any better, i don't find other upgrades that worthy against Hard or Unfair. And this way you don't always need to rebuilt the starbase.

Ok, thank you all for your help and advice. I should be able to use this information to help myself improve at fighting off the AI. The TEC do seem to be the easiest faction to start with and hopefully when I have gotten better as them I will be able to advance onto learning to play the other races.

There is not a single advantage that TEC Rebel holds over the Loyalist faction besides Titan (TAR is debateable), which is not applicable during early game. TL vette is the best in the game, allowing you to snipe caps with ease. The tier 1 Battlefield Promotions is nothing to scoff at either, as it gives you that extra edge for your marza to reach level 6 before your opponent.

And seriously? Sova? When was the last time you saw that in MP? Unless your opponent's hw is 1 jump away (I had that happen before) a marza/akkan is going to be better 99.9% of the time 

In short, there is NOTHING TR is better at then TL during the early game... On the contrary, TR is considerably worse than TL...

Marza with raze planet is far more effective than a sova. The AI is so stupid that all you need is a few ships to serve as distractions and the enemy hw will go down in no time.

Again, how is TL inferior to other races when it comes to expanding? 

You should NEVER get SB trade ports unless you want to extend your trade route, given that they take 82.5 minutes to pay off. That is one of the worst ROI in the entire game.

Have you even played AI before?

Yes.. Why are you asking it?

I know the AI may happen to build many of those things, but it's not that hard to get rid of the anti-structure frigates easily, both LFs and vettes will do the task, and fighters also have a good multiplier against them.

BTW if the AI is bringing a whole fleet consisting of many anti-structure cruisers to destroy your starbase, your main fleet cannot really be elsewhere unless you are fighting on multiple fronts, but defending a starbase requires some fleet to take out those things the starbase itself can't. I thought this was obvious. Some hangar defense with weapon upgrades to destroy enemy strike craft, and some fleet to take out anti-structure frigates fast. The starbase will handle everything else, even low-mid level titans.

Anyway, the question was whether trade upgrades are good or not. I don't really see a better starbase upgrade to have after I purchased 2 weapon and 3 hull upgrades for the Argonev, those few SC can be easily erased by hostile flak and fighters, docking booms is not much help, maybe red button, but I prefer to keep my starbase alive.. And those nice extra credits will help you build 20-30 corvettes fast to kill anti-structure frigates.

I don't really know about the hardest AI's as I only play against unfair, that is the last level that is challenging but does not have extreme cheating. I have never seen more than 30 ogrovs at once, and that was against a fully upgraded Orkulus, even this way they had no chance. Usually around 10-15 they send, and if you have a smaller task force to deal with them, it should be no problem. Maybe cruel or vicious does build 100 ogrovs, but if you are playing against such difficulty you obviously know how to deal with them.

Seriously, if you know what you are doing, only like 50+ ogrovs or starfishes will be a problem against your fully upgraded starbase supported by multiple repair bays and flak hangars, but this actually means your AI opponent has a weak fleet as well, and that's a true advantage for you.

Wow if a new player actually took your trolling seriously he would be in a world of trouble. 15+ ogrovs is enough to demolish any TEC sb, so wasting slots on trade ports instead of on SC is a very bad idea.

It depends on where your starbase is. If it's over a gas giant that connects two of your planets I would definitely build trade ports on it because:

• The odds of the enemy bypassing your planet to attack a gas giant starbase are minimal
• You connect two previously unlinked trade chains (e.g. take a chain of 4 and a chain of 3 and make a new chain of 8)

It depends on how you play. I usually have 1-3 front line worlds that needs defending while I am preparing to release my titan, and my main fleet is not far away at any time, so taking out Ogrovs is not much of a task.

Seriously, a lone starbase cannot withstand almost anything, it needs some help even if it has 14 squadrons of fighters.

And Bithynium said he likes to build 2 starbases when he can, so I guess upgrading bith starbases 2 weapons and 3 hull will be more than enough for withstanding even 15+ ogrovs, ofc assuming you have the adequate support (repairs, some fighters or ships to take care of ogrovs.)

BTW I am not trolling, I can count on one hand how many times I lost Argonevs to enemy fleets, while only having the 2 weapon and 3 hull upgrades, and the 2 trade ones. I never leave these in a vulnerable situation, and having your main fleet at the attacked gravity well is not an unimagineable thing when playing against the AI..

It is true, Fighters provide more firepower for your Argonev, and will help reducing the numbers of Ogrovs, but the Trade upgrades give you ridiculous amount of money that you can spend on MOBILE things like frigates, corvettes, cruisers, capital ships or titan. And mobile defense (ships) is way better than stationary one (structures, starbases, mines). Fighters will be doing nothing for most of the time, only mobilizing if you have attackers, while trade income is flowing till the end of time.

I guess it's really personal preference, and remember, it is only against AI, that is dumb as a rock, basically you can do anything you like against it if you know what you are doing.

I am still a newbie in the game but i found out playing as TEC rebels makes pirates and rebel ai as your allied. Capturing neutral planets quite easier and no more worries in pirate raid and putting some bounties on pirate.

My suggestion focus on civic research and diplomacy like building civic thing in the game.

Four civic lab is enough to get the special ability of TEC rebels being allied with any Ai rebels and pirates

For civic research focus on upgrading metal mining upgrade then crystal mining. Metals will be your main economy money in the game due of abundance of metal. Then get the trade port. Having great economy is the most important thing playing as TEC.

Focusing on military research in early gameplay is a bad thing with TEC due most of TEC ships sucks even w/ high upgrades. Military research is a good thing if you focus on creating some starbase and repair bay and high upgrade gauss platform. If you have enough cash create a titan but don't expect too much on it. Meaning create a large fleet to support this titan.

The "82.5 minutes to pay off" figure assumes that you build the starbase solely for trade port upgrades, i.e. it factors in the cost of the base itself as a cost that needs to be recouped by the trade ports. If you were going to build that base anyways for defense purposes then the ROI is far higher as the cost of the upgrade (with the cost of the base itself excluded) does not cost that much more than a normal trade port and also produces more once built. I agree that building starbases for the sole purpose of more trade ports is relatively inefficient but that is not necessarily the only situation in which people get the trade port upgrades.

As far as playing the AI my understanding is that the AI will suicide incredible amounts of fleet supply against starbases without any attempt to go around them or build mass bombers to specifically counter them. Therefore you can win relatively easily against the AI by just massing a fleet while waiting for it to suicide its fleet, then invading once it does. I can't speak as much to the effectiveness of rushing an AI down but as someone else mentioned, it is probably not worth attempting unless the enemy homeworld is very close.

Another weakness of the AI which will come into play depending on map type is expansion speed. The AI is extremely slow/inefficient in expanding its territories early on and a human player can acquire more territory far more easily to compensate for any incomes bonuses the AI might have based on difficulty. Therefore, assuming that you are halfway decent at early expansion, games against the AI will be easier on larger maps with more neutral territory for you to grab up, and more difficult on small/cramped maps where you can not get much more real estate than the AI even if you expand as quickly as possible.

Why would you waste two slots on trade ports when you could just get RB instead? Or a regular trade port for that matter?