Ugh, 4 pages of posts and you've only made me laugh once, you disappoint me RiddleKing...I wish Qu4r was here, he was much more entertaining....

Hi Seleuceia

Your post #47 was very informative. Albeit, is this information still at least remotely valid in the present state of the game? I stumbled here after searching for "corvette vs illuminator", as I noticed my vettes weren't doing as well as I hope they would against an advent fleet with illums (basically at this stage we had about 60 LF's each he went illums and i went vettes to counter). Again thanks for the info very informative.

This was interesting in particular, you see as a noob to this game I would consider running from this encounter. As on the surface it looks like advent has a nice numerical advantage. Are you saying that x1 Cobalt is roughly 5/6 better than x1 Disciple. Basically for every 5 cobalt advent needs 6 Disciples to even have some hope of winning (assuming both players are of equal skill/high skill).

Also if you were to take away the vettes. So now we have 24 Cobalts vs. 31 Disciples. Does this battle still favour the Cobalts? The only reason I ask is that I frequently see pure Lf fleets in the early stage of the game. Lastly, as TEC player should I even be bothered to build vettes vs advent fleet?

Hey Jingly

Thanks for reply. The typical scenario i encounter in MP games is the eventual illums coming to play as counter to my early fleet composition which tends to be (in most cases) 100% LFs. It seems then the best option would be (as TEC), to match illums with LRMs (and not vettes); HCs seem problematic due to time required to field a descent # of them + their eventual counter with bombers. In any case scouting seems very important here, so as to not get caught off guard and hopefully realise opponent is building illums before he has a chance to amass too much of them (so that i can actually keep up with my own LRMs).

First, to directly answer your question regarding the specific encounter you quoted...disciples use 4 fleet supply while cobalts use 5, so in theory 5 disciples should be equivalent to 4 cobalts (in this case the theory is pretty close to the reality)

As for other things, here are my thoughts...

In pure LF fights, Cobalts and Disciples are close enough where other factors are going to be far more important...IMO disciples are better because they have more DPS per fleet supply and thus are better than cobalts at focusing on SBs or caps...as far as corvettes are concerned, TEC is the clear winner...this is why a cobalt+corvette fleet is stronger than a disciple+corvette fleet...the LFs are basically a wash, but the stronger TEC corvettes gives TEC the best raw fleet power in the early game...

Just to reiterate a point made earlier, LFs generally beat corvettes, so you (as TEC or Advent) really only should bring out the corvettes if you anticipate LRFs being brought against you...that said, if your opponent goes cap heavy then corvettes are better than LFs for that...

In small numbers, illuminators are still countered by corvettes...its the medium or large amounts of illuminators that are really troublesome and difficult to counter, and malice really nullifies any corvettes trying to counter the illuminators...Vasari corvettes drop like flies to illuminators and advent corvettes don't fair too well either...TEC corvettes aren't awful against illuminators but you would still probably be better going with other fleet compositions...

For TEC and Advent, you are almost always better trying to spam LFs before investing in other unit types....if you see your opponent bring out kanraks or LRMs, corvettes are the obvious ship to incorporate next....if you see your opponent start to bring out illuminators, TEC and possibly Advent corvettes will still work well for you....if your opponent has already amassed illuminators, then you are better building LRMs or your own illuminators...

If the Advent player has any combination of disciples, illuminators, and defense vessels (LF, LRF, and flak), then pure LRM or pure illuminators will work pretty well...your main advantage will be in your ability to kill SBs or caps...if however your opponent is going more an illuminator+corvette route, you will probably have to incorporate flak ships especially if you are TEC...

If you are Vasari, kanraks are probably your best bet against illuminators (assuming PM upgrades) but honestly Vasari frigates are pretty bad all around so hope you have some other advantage (economic, orkies, etc.)...

It's not uncommon for the deciding factor to be whoever micros their ships best...illuminators and flak require good micro to make sure all weapon banks are firing and that micro is often more relevant than the actual stats of the ships...

A general rule of thumb is that on a per cost basis, LF+corvette beats LRF+flak while on a per fleet supply basis it's the other way around....so basically, once fleet maintenance starts to nullify the per cost advantage of the LF+corvette fleet, it's probably time to change your fleet composition...

One detail that often gets overlooked...on a per fleet supply basis, illuminators and kanraks build a lot faster than LRMs...this means that if a player is getting fed or has a decent income rate, they are going to be able to replace their illuminators a lot faster than you can replace your LRMs...this is an important consideration that in some instances can be more relevant than the actual combat performances of the ships....

I'm not sure how that follows....in the converse situation (TEC player spamming LRMs via feed), the TEC player won't be able to build an LRF fleet or replace LRF losses nearly as fast as a Vasari or Advent would be able to...

In short, Advent and Vasari have inherent advantages with the build times of their LRF...

Skirmishers and Vasari corvettes will get rolled even harder...that leaves either pure sentinel spam or rushing HCs...

I've never seen someone skilled other than Greg (while trolling KoK) rush enforcers....I've also never seen someone do pure sentinel spam...

I'm not saying kanraks work, cause they don't....but Vasari don't exactly have a good option there...

I have absolutely no idea where you get this....I've had equal luck with both disciples and cobalts against orkies...disciples have slightly better DPS per fleet supply while cobalts have slightly better HP per ship, there isn't going to be too much of a difference between them...furthermore, if you are killing an orky with a marza, that has no bearing on the quality of your cobalts...

Trust me on this, its something i ve been using quite successfully since i learned it from doci, while learning how to play MP. Get 3 labs, get ships upgrades, test it yourself and you ll find that all discs will die in an above example and ALL/95%+ LFS will survive and kill the starbase.

Reason i mentioned Marza is because its insane vs orkies especially in comparison to say Prog. Since only one bank of weapons can attack the starbase it has the highest dps output of all cap ships - 55.8. Compare that to a 22 from Prog it is a huge difference. And secondly Marza's Nuke + Passive shells put two Damage over time debuffs on the starbase basically preventing it from self healing or regenerating.

hmm...interesting convos...i never really use flak as i heard lots of bad thinks about them so always too scared to use them early. I also didn't know about this 1:4 ratio.

If not for pure Lf fleets, I also typically see mixed early game fleets of say 60 Lfs + 40 vettes. I guess if a 1-4/5 ratio to flak:vette holds true as some have stated. Then it seems reasonable to add x10 flak to counter his 40 vettes. Say a fleet of x60 Lfs (to match opponents LFs),  x10 flak to counter opponents x40 vettes, and whatever else can be mustered in terms of more Lf's or your own vettes.

In other words:

My fleet= X60 LFs + X10 Flak + (whatever else i can muster in terms of Lfs/vettes) VS X60 Lfs + X40 vettes.

Would that work??? or would those X60 lfs destoy those X10 Flak before they can trully counter the vettes?

Disciples are just fine at stopping an Orkie being built...you just need more of them because they are a bit smaller than LF's.  Just ignore the egg and lose the asteroid.  As long as the Vasari player scraps or loses the Orkie, he loses more in resources than the cost of your asteroid, at which point you hunt down the egg with the Disciples since it won't have much backup due to the cost of the Orkie.

Cykur, yeah JinglyGoo is right.  It is difficult (as Advent).  At least that has been my experience, on several occasions.  Two factories going full tilt, with immediate fleet upgrade weren't enough to kill the Orky.  I suppose how far the Vasari colony frigate has to travel, or how long before it starts building makes a difference.  But if your roid is only 2 jumps away, then there is "no way".  Maybe lag, and connection speeds are a factor.  I don't know, but I've always wondered about that.

I'm thinking its better to try kill the Egg, chase it off, maybe pursue, and counter attack his homeworld.  Force the Vasari to waste money, ie: a starbase, on a gravity well that you just ignor.  Altho, going around it may be an inconvenience.

Edit:  Cykur is also right.  We've just tested it.  And disciples killed it easily.  See my comments below (reply #100)

Im giving a 5 second reaction time to above scenario. Cykur, this isnt just my opinion, ask any high skill player and you ll get the same answer. Reasons are many but outcome is almost always the same given equal skill.

Also yes as TEC you would stop it a lot easier and if u went marza rush will fail. Prog is just completely useless in this scenario.

Next time i see it happen i ll upload the replay since i lost all of my recent ones due to beta.

It happens so often in 5s there is really nothing to prove or dissaprove here. Then again SP/AI players and modders wouldnt have seen it first hand as they wont come across it as often.