Ok look here its not the best game and i am sorry for the bit of cursing, but the guy got me a bit mad taking the ice planet i was clearing for 5 minutes. https://www.sins.bz/infusions/pro_download_panel/download.php?did=100

Entertaining replay, in a way. That "someone stole my ice planet to build beam defenses on it" -comment made me spew coffee on my monitor. Too bad the general skill level of players (except Astax) was rather low.



Well, I'm sure that with balance updates and new start options it will change, but as of 1.02 those build orders are pretty optimal for small games. It's simple logic, really. Teching up and expanding are so expensive that it's better to tech/expand just enough to churn out ships on small maps - and of early units, LRM/Assailants provide the best bang for the buck. The rest is just microing, countering and counter-countering.

LRMs and Assailants will own everything as long as Anti-Medium damage type remains so overpowered. Anti-Medium does more damage to Very Heavy(buildings) and Capital armor than Anti-Heavy. If they switched Anti-Medium and Anti-Heavy numbers vs Very Heavy and Capital armor around, it would be much more balanced. Currently Anti-Medium makes them way too good. Apart from having range advantage and being counter to light frigates, they are also the best early ship vs buildings and caps.

Now that I've explained why LRMs are overpowered, here's why Advent are underpowered. Illums suck. They will turn toward the target they are engaging, at which point only one beam will shoot, reducing their DPS to only 33%. This makes them three times less effective at focusing fire than other LRMs. You can ram them into enemy fleet, then you'll get all 3 beams firing(but not at the same ship), but that will make flak eat them and negate their range advantage. Another thing is that their ability to make an illusion only gives like 20% extra survival to them, while enemies get AoE attack on their LRMs. Once again, illums suck.

Advent also suck economically. For instance vasari gets upgrade at T2 civ that increases mineral and crystal production by 5% per level. Advent gets upgrade at T2 that increases mineral prod by 7% per level and upgrade at T3 that increases crystal prod by 7% per level. So basically they have to invest more than twice as much in these upgrades than Vasari and they will have less crystal.

They also get early culture building at T2, while others get more useful things like tradeports. With their focus in culture, it really sucks that best bonus for fighting in own culture is owned by Vasari(more damage).

A large early game disadvantage is also that TEC and Vasari get Regenration Bay at T1 and advent gets it at T2. Also since on small maps, best cap usually is battleship, having weakest Battleship hurts them a lot. Radiance is worst battleship to clear neutrals with.

In late game, their weakness is Vasari phase missiles. All Advent ships have less hull HP and more shields than their counterparts on Vasari and Tec. So they rely on shields more, they have cap ability to replenish shields, so Phase missile tech hurts them way too mcuh. In late game vs Vasari, you'll have ships dying with nearly full shields.

Their strength lies in shields, which are raped by Vasari and in Capitals having large synergies. Mutiple capitals is a huge luxury you can't afford in smaller games.

Wow, and here I was thinking Advent was the strongest of all 3 races. You have to remember that this game wasn't particularly designed for competitive players. There's a lot of no-so-obvious strategies you can employ and even more that come to light later on when capital ships gain enough levels. While fleets are still small there's a lot that can be done when it comes to positioning your ships properly. Unfortunately, the "competitive" player I came across instantly accused me of cheating when I had Disciples staying in his LRM's blind spot at the rear. He couldn't fire without turning and I just had those Disciples moving in such a way that the LRM's were going in circles. This caused the other person to quit, adding to my general disdain of "competitive" play. If you're having problems with Advent, then you need to spend more time getting to know them. I can run around with a pair of Radiances or Halcyons and pair them up with a Progenitor and later the other two capital ships for a strong fleet.

I've been playing advent mostly, they're not as bad as people say on the forums. They need to be played differently than tec or vasari and require a little more micro to be as effective as other races.

For competitive play, there is no competitive play in sins. Just some more serious players, but nothing near the level you have in other games. This has been stated clearly by the devs, is by design.

I don't think i've played enough to upload my replays as example.. after the patch i'll play a few games, the online community is very small, you don't really need replays. You could just challenge me or any advent player I'm up for 1vs1 or 2vs2 in the euro time zone. After 1.03 goes live that is (and if those crash fixes work).

Btw quitters are not competitive players, they're just idiots. As are people using the same strategy in all games and expecting to win easily.

so dont go illums vs a vasari player, you can do other things.

phase missiles are not that good vs advent carriers at all which have the highest hull of all carrier cruisers.

as I said before a level 6 combined with a level 3|5 cap can kill x LRM's, I didnt mention which its up to you to figure it out, which is possible on small random and above, in smaller games the games are so short that the opponent is not gonna appear with 80-90 LRM, unless you let him build it up and the tech levels will not get high, meaning scouts + carriers should take out sentinel+assailants and it becomes a game of who uses better mixes, how many fighters/bombers, how you use the caps (advent can totally take 1 cap out of the game on the smallest maps in the fights making it advent fleet+cap vs enemy fleet).