We all know that the TEC warships are probably the weakest of all the races. This is in keeping with the backstory/intro movie for the TEC. However, these also imply that the TEC catches up in effectivness with the other races as the war goes on.
After having played all three races for some time now, I just don't see where the TEC "catches up" in the late game. In the early to middle game their superior economics can let them have increased production and/or research capacity to compensate for their lack of combat ability. However, in the late game (particularly when all techs are researched and everyone has fleets) they really have no advantage. The way I beat the AI at this point is because of the cowardly nature of the AI, not by exploiting an inherent strength in the TEC. The AI (even on hard) simply flees from worlds instead of making a stand in a hard fight, which lets me roll over worlds until I reach their homeworld, where I can keep them trapped and grind them down over time. It is no wonder people spam ships as the TEC, that is literally the only realistic strategy and tactic available.
I am not calling for the TEC military itself to be improved. On the contrary, I like them having their own feel. However, I would like some late-game attribute (perhaps some tech) which, in some way, brings their overall effectivness up to the level of the other races. I've done a personal tweak to their cap ships (I would have prefered to do this through reasearch, but there is no modifier to perform this). What I did was raise the maximum amount of squadrons (what they have at level 10) on cap ships by one, and on the Sova Carrier raised the starting number by one as well. So, the Kol Battleship has 0-3, the Sova Carrier has 3-8, the Akkan Battlecruiser has 1-4, the Dunov Battlecruiser has 1-4, and the Marza Dreadnought has 0-2. This might seem like a small change, but it has gone a good way to making a high level cap ship almost (but not quite) as good as a similar cap ship from the other races. In particular, the Sova Carrier has become an effective member of a fleet, but still not as powerful as the other races carriers, especially the Halcyon. Since the TEC has rapid manufacturing but NO cost savings over the other races, this seems fair to me. I also increased the fighter capacity of the Hanger Defense by one. This seemed fair to me, as the Gauss Gun is probably the worst orbital weapon platform in the game. It seems to be well balanced in testing so far. The Percheron Light Carrier was left unchanged, as all the carrier frigates are the same in all factions.
Anyways, the point of this rambling is that I'm looking for a small scale tweak that brings the TEC up to par in some way in the late game. I thought perhaps a tech to increase Supply points, to represent the industrial and support capacity inherant in the TEC's theme, but the Vasari already have something like this.
I dunno...any thoughts?
