Advent Guide
This is called the Illuminator Trick and should be considered a cheat:
Illuminators can get the deceptive illusion ability. It is a very powerfull ability which allow an illuminator to clone itself for 120 sec with a cooldown of 180. Cooldown can be reduced by the Revelation battlecruiser’s Guidance ability.
Many players know that, but…
The illuminator clone, like every clone in the game, can be scuttled… and you get back one third of the cost for free. It is a bug.
So make a few illuminators, research deceptive illusion ability, manually clone your illuminators, and manually scuttle the clones. You will earn one third of the cost of each illuminator.
In theory, you will be able to double your amount of illuminators every 540 seconds. One can max his supply with full Illuminators in less than an hour.
PS: To properly use the illuminator Trick, don’t use your mouse. You must switch between your illuminators using “Tab” key, activate illusion using keyboard, usually “a” or “q”, select all your illusions, switch between illusions using “Tab” key again and scuttle them again with keyboard. Personnaly i reaffected the scuttle command to the “Delete” keyboard key for that purpose.
NB: SINCE LAST PATCH, THIS TRICK DON’T WORK ANYMORE
Homing Mines
Homing mines are considered fighter. They are carried by hangars or Aeria Drone Host. Each units deploy 8 mines. Each mine deal 1050 damage to one single target and 150 splash damage around. The total damage par units is 8400. Once mitigated, you will have around 3000 damage.
Each unit cost 540,120,120 to deploy. They are highly cost effective.
Fighting Starbase:
Settle 1 mine around a building Starbase. When mines will trigger, starbase will die. Just take care that mines trigger BEFORE starbase finishes.
Killing Capital ships: The Revelation Trap
If you settle Mines around an ennemy capital ship, it will kill the mines before they trigger. So the idea is to paralyse the capital ship with the Revelation Battlecruiser’s Reverie and then deploy mines around it. (Mines are supposed to be already near your target)
You will need 2 times reverie level 1 or 1 time reverie level 2 to lock your opponent capital ship until mines trigger. Usually it requires 2 mines for a low level capital ship and 3 for a high level one.
Be carefull NOT TO SHOT the paralyzed capital ship or it will wake-up sooner as expected and may kill surounding mines before they could trigger. You can momentarily disable auto attack on your Revelation battlecruiser for that purpose.
Lock Spot: Advent death trap
Altough Advent acquire phase jump inhibitor lately (Tier 3 in eco tree), they can lock spot very effectively. First, one should remind that their beam Platform are the most effective of all 3 races, because they acquire Shield in 2 different ways (hangar gives shield, or synergie between Platform). I personnaly think that beam Platform and hangar are more cost effective than Starbase for advent on owned planets.
Anyway, once you have PJ inhibitor and hangars, use Homing Mine for 2 reasons:
- First settle mines around your PJ-I. A fleet would take time to clear homing mines, and can’t escape meanwhile.
- Secondly, If the fleet tries to retreat while PJ-I is active, just settle homing Mines around the locked fleet. Mines will have the time to trigger, fleet is already dead. Same for escaping cap ships or titans.
That trap is unrecognized, yet extremely effective.
Killing Fleet of Frigates: Domina / Homing Mine Combo
Homing Mine field can be settled around fleet of frigates, but frigates will simply kill your mines before they trigger. The Idea is to do the same trap as with the Revelation Battlecruiser.
We will use the Domina Subjugator. His first ability, suppression can disable units, and prevent them from jumping for 90 seconds. So if you are able to catch a retreating fleet with your Domina Subjugator, you can freely settle mine fields around them as they won’t jump or move or Attack for 90 seconds. This trick is usually done by Vasari with the Subverter/Ruiner combo.
All in all, Domina Subjugator is a good investment which shine with Advent Rebel and Revelation Battlecruiser. (see other topics)
Microing your Homing Mines:
- Homing Mines can and should be microed. When triggered, Homing Mines are on auto-attack. This is not a good thing. Skilled ennemy will be tempted to suicide 1 units through your mine field, and all your mines will explode cost-ineffectively. Thereby, you must select all your deployed mines by “Alt” clicking on any settled mine, and disable auto-Attack. When a hard single target comes close, reactivate your mine field (same way, “Alt” clik on any settled mine will select all deployed mines). If a fleet of frigates is going to pass through your mine field, wait until it reaches the center of the field, then re-activate auto-Attack.
- You can select the target of your mines. Click on a mine and click detonate on a target in their range. The mine will fly to the target and detonate. “Tab” key will ease switching between mines.
- Homing Mines can be scuttled. You will earn back 1/3 of their cost. Again, “Tab” key will ease switching between mines.
Rapture Battlecruiser’s Vengeance
Vengeance is a very strong defensive ability but sometimes misused. All know that you can use it on your capital ships or on your starbase to prevent them from being hit by ennemies. More precisely, Advent Starbases are unkillable with a Rapture with them. Bombers will die in seconds if they try to hit a starbase while vengeance is active on it. Thereby Vengeance is an Anti-focus fire on a single target.
But it is also an anti AOE damage:
If your fleet face an AOE damage unit like Titan’s abilities or meteo storm, or missile barrage from the Marza: Protect you fleet with an Iconus guardian, and target Vengeance on the Iconus. Shield Projection will make the Iconus to absorb 1/3 of the AOE damage, while Vengeance will hit back up-to 230% of the incoming damage. The result is that your iconus will die instantly, but the ennemy AOE unit will receive 230% of the Shield and Hull of the dead Iconus, meaning a minimum of 5000 back-damage at each AOE shot.
Last thing, activate Vengeance before Shield projection, so disable “auto-shield projection” on your Iconus.
Mass Transcendence: Capital ships are the soul of a fleet (Gandhi – 1869-1948)
Advent late game can be oriented on Fleet of capital ships because Advent have an unique yet very powerful ability called mass Transcendence, avaible on Tier 8 of Hostility tree.
Mass Transcendence provide an auto gain experience up to level 4 for each capital ships you will have. Also they will gain experience in combat much faster (+50%). This ability will also shine with a level 6 Progenitor and its resurrection ability.
So once you get a level 6 progenitor, start spamming capital ships and try to reach the Tier 8 on tech tree. If you can get it, you will have a very strong late game fleet.
I propose the capital fleet:
1 Progenitor level 6
1 Rapture for bombers buff, crowd control, and Vengeance if one of your capital ships suffers
2 Discords
1 Radiance to counter titans
7 or 8 Halcyon with bombers only
1 Revelation if you want buff on abilities, specially Progen’s shield restore and Discord’s screams.
Level 4 Discords will clean any spam of frigates.
Level 4 Halcyons will clean any hard target, and any spam of fighters
And remember that bombers from Halcyon are way more effective than bombers from aeria drone hosts because they auto-regenerate without antimatter. If your Halcyons reach level 6, well… it is gg.
PS: The mass transcendance ability is permanent. Meaning the once reasearched, you can scuttle the weapon labs and the ability remains active. So that ability can be rushed mid-game.
Math’s propose for the Al ultimate fleet:
1 Progenitor: with Colonize and Malice level 4.
4 Raptures: two with Concentration Aura Level 4, two with Vertigo level 4 and all with Vengeance level 4.
2 Discords: both with Psionic Scream level 4 and one with Fracture level 4 and the other with Lethargy level 4.
1 Radiance: for antimatter drain, also if you find your self fighting strong sbs use radiance to be a focus for Vengeance (from Rapture) because Radiance will hold as much as Al titan.
4 Halcyons: two with Telekinetic Push level 4, two with Amplify Energy Aura level 4 and all with Adept Drona Anima level 4 for maximum strike craft support.
1 Revelation: with Reverie and Guidance level 4 to support your fleet.
1 Coronata Titan: with Suppression Aura level 4, Unity Mass level 4, Psi-Reactive Armor level 4, Adaptive Weapons level 4, Psi-Contaiment level 1, Repossession level 1 and Subjugation level 1.
100 Acolyte Corvettes: for support and anti-titan.
50 Domina Subjugators: for general assistance in your defenses.
Iconus Guardian: the amount will be depending on your need.
Destra Crusaders: i recommend not to build them, unless you fighting someone without skill enough to kill your hcs.
Shield Mitigation
While Tec and Vasari are masters in Armor, Advent have the Shield Mitigation mastery. Yet Shield Mitigation isn’t well understood by players, and more precisely, how strong Shield Mitigation can be.
Things to know about Mitigation:
- Starts at 57% for frigate and 63% for Capital Ships
- Shield Mitigation is always active, even when shield is depleted. On the contrary Armor mitigation only works when shield is depleted.
- Shield Mitigation can be improved in 2 different ways, through weapon tree (4% max), and through culture tree. (6% max)
- Shield Mitigation increase with experience. You can assume 1% mitigation for each level, for a capital ship.
- The maximum reachable Mitigation for Advent capital ship at level 10 is 84% and 86% for Titans. In other terms, they can increase by 20% max their mitigation.
- The maximum reachable Mitigation for Advent frigates is 67%. In other terms, they can increase by 10% max their mitigation.
Now here is a graphic to compare Shield Mitigation and armor mitigation:
Each point of Shield and Armor are represented in term of damage reduction %.
Conclusion
Shield Mitigation start at a modest damage reduction rate and will stay modest for frigates because they won’t benefit of any experience. Yet at the maximum 10% Shield Mitigation, Advent frigates are already more resistant than Tec or Vasari with 10 armor upgrade bonus!
But as plotted in the graphic, Shield Mitigation really shine at high level, and remember that capital ships and Titans gain Mitigation with experience. Starting at 63% it can reach 83%, in other terms, the damage reduction is more than doubled.
So if increasing mitigation is questionable for early game, it is a must-have for Capital ships and Titans in the late game. On the other hand, Armor is less and less effective at high level.
Civilian upgrade & Social Specialization
Advent Loyalists have a different way of ecoing. they can trade but they can also improve their planet population and the allegiance of the planet. This is done by many ways:
- Advent colonizer Capital Ship has a currious colonizing ability that lower the cost of any upgrade on a colonized planet for a fairly long time.
- Advent Loyalist have a unique ability called “Assimilated populace” which provide almost instant population up to 60 on a newly colonized planet.
- Since the last DLC, it is possible to upgrade population on planets at a fairly high level, which also improve culture spread. This is called Social specialization.
- Culture increase allegiance by 10%
- Advent Starbase allow to up allegiance by 30%. (for each Starbase, up to 2 on fortress world)
- Advent loyalist can up allegiance by 10% through global unity.
- Advent Loyalist can up allegiance by 10% through Allure of unity.
So now, ecoing only on Planet population is viable. For the ones who still doubt about it, one single Terran planet, fully upgraded, will make 114 cred/sec. (assuming 160% allegiance) and can reach 220 cred/sec (assuming 195% allegiance – fortress world, organic AI, pacts)
But if your population will grow fast, if civilian upgrade and social specialization are cheap, and if allegiance can be improve easily by 60%, which Should i go first ?
Planet population vs Trade:
Abscissa are upgrade levels and ordinate are time in minutes to earn back your Investment.
Each line Under the purple one are valuable Investment. Purple one is the Trade eco Investment.
- Each upgrades are compared to trade in “time-to-Investment.”
- Each upgrades that can’t be reached are capped to the max.
- First civilian upgrade are Worth it because of the underdeveloppement tax rate penalty.
Thoose graphics will help you to decide which upgrade are Worth it. Players usualy make the same mistakes, as an example, it is more cost effective to go for social specialization then civilian upgrade for a terran planet…
Allegiance and Metal/Crystal income:
Allegiance not only improve drastically the credit income, it also improve metal and crystal extraction rate. Planet farther from your capital planet will have lower allegiance, which will drop down to 35%. But AL can improve allegiance by 60%. So allegiance can be bringed back to 95%. In other terms, your crystal and metal extraction rate will be improved by 170% ! Tec and Vasari refinery can’t match that improvement.
Trade vs Social Specialization for Advent Loyalists:
When should i favor Trade and when should i invest in Social & allegiance ?
Social is effective when your planets are close to your homeworld so that allegiance can reach the 160% value. So you will be tempted to go social on open map where nearby worlds are highly connected to each others. Also, don’t forget that u can relocate your homeworld to a more dense part of the map.
On the other hand, Trade is effective on far away worlds and when map is closed, i.e worlds are connected in a chain.
Note:
- NO, Ecoing isn’t all about Credits, it is equally about metal and Crystal. Too high income of credits and you will have to buy metal and Crystal on the market at a poor exchange rate. On the contrary, high income of metal and Crystal and you will equally have to sell them on the market. So the best is to keep a balanced ratio. Between 6/1/1 and 10/1/1 is a good ratio for an eco. (cred/met/cryst)
- YES Tec can reach higher credit income. But the important thing in ecoing isn’t how high your eco will get, but how fast it gets. Reaching 100 cred/sec is good enough for feeding others. Your ally can build their titans, lock a choke for ever, clean pirates, etc. While the other team is still waiting for their eco to pop up ? AL can reach a good eco very fast with allegiance and specialization, and more importantly, this eco will already be balanced since allegiance affects not only population income but also metal and Crystal extraction rate.
Advent Culture :
Culture Spreads. Ok but what does that mean ?
When you settle culture on one of your world, you will make 20 Culture/sec spread, or divided, on each phase lane connected to your world.
a 1 phase lane world will spread 20 Culture/sec on the single phase lane.
a 2 phase lanes world will spread 10 Culture/sec on both 2 lanes.
a 4 phase lanes world will spread 5 Culture/sec on each 4 phase lanes.
…
So making culture on a choke point with multiple phase lane isn’t very effective. On the contrary, you can out-culture a choke point by settling a culture center next to it, on a single phase-lane-world.
Disciple Spam in LF battles :
Disciple is the best LF unit. But not because they spam faster.
Disciple cost 240/40/0 (cred/metal/crystal)
Cobalt cost 300/55/0
Ravastra cost 420/70/0
So 10 disciples cost same credit than 8 cobalts but already less metal.
If 10 disciples fight 8 cobalts, they will win and 3 disciples will survive the battle. This is a huge difference. (surprinsingly, the result is the same when both have tier 1 upgrade, because the 1.5 tec armor upgrade sucks by only adding a virtual 7% hull)
Now if you consider the fleet supply fight, the result is the same as 1 disciple use 4 slots when 1 cobalt use 5 slots.
Now if u consider the same battle in spam rate, Disciple build rate is 16, cobalt is 17. So the fight will now be 17 disciples against 16 cobalts. Cobalts will win the fight.
…
So Disciples are the best LF unit, not because they spam faster, in fact they spam slower, but only because they are more cost effective. If you start 1v1 against a TEC in a 5s, you will win the LF spam fight, but only if you wait until you have maxed your fleet, or when both have already spent all their starting money in LF. So… take your time.
How to control where a constructor reborn:
If you have lost a constructor and the ennemy is waiting to snipe the new one when it will reborn.
There is a trick:
Constructors appear near your factories, as if they were built from there. But if you don’t have factories ? They do also appear near your factories to be built.
So stack a factory in your building list, even if not in first position, and constructor will appear next to it. You will have time to delete the factory from your building list once constructor has reborn.
Titan leveling with 50% bonus experience:
Mass Transcendance ability, avaible in tier8 of weapon tree allow 50% more experience for capital ship and for your Titan !
Scuttling units:
Scutling units prevents your opponent Capital Ship to get the experience. But it doesn’t get you back much money. In facts, you will earn back 1/3 x the remaining hull. So an almost dead capital ship, chase by some fleet won’t give you much money if you decide to scuttle it. No need to scuttle if there is no ennemy capital ship nearby.
Build Orders
Culture Rush:
This Build Order will allow you the fastest culture opening ever.
Opening civic with advent isn’t necessarily going eco. Indeed, many of Advent offensive or defensive abilities are avaible from their civic tree. (Shield mitigation, resurection, planet for a planet, PJ-inhibitor, assimilated populace, cloning). Also, culture isn’t only an eco solution, it also protect planets from being colonized by ennemies, and it might reduce ennemy income and even kill their planets.
- Upgrade logistic capacity
- Build Capital ship
- Build 1 scout
- Build 5 Disciples
- Build 2 Harmony Temples
- Build 3 Disciples
- When 100 crystal, research Culture Temples
- Buy 100 Crystal
- Build Culture Temple
Only now you can colonize nearby planets.
This BO (build-order) is best suited for all aggro starts (no eco in 5s)
Prefered Capital Ship is Radiance.
A variation of this BO is not to buy the 100 Crystal and go for the first fleet upgrade and spam LF.
Note:
- You will probably be outfleeted for 2-3 minutes, so don’t colonize too much and focus on spamming disciples.
- This Build Order might prevent from SB rush because your neighboor planets will be protected by culture. But remember to keep your capital ship in the roid gravity well to prevent culture repulsion from opponent capital ship.
- Try to build Culture Temple on the opposite side of your planet, in order to prevent your ennemy to easily focus firing it. (so send constructor on the opposite before… !)
- Building all harmony and culture temples on your homeworld is both safe, fast and it will allow you to build an hostility temple on your first roid.
- If later you want to increase your culture, build an other culture temple at 2 or 3 jump away from your HomeWorld.
Late Cap Ship:
In this build order, the idea is to delay the construction of the capital ship until you have reached the first fleet supply upgrade. That sound stupid ? Agreed.
The idea is double:
- First you will have more disciples avaible cause you won’t be blocked by fleet supply. You can reach 14 disciples instead of 11.
- But the main idea is that you will be able to scout your ennemy capital ship or fleet and build the correct capital ship accordingly.
As examples, if you scout:
Marza+vettes, go Discord or Radiance.
Rankulas Rush, go Radiance.
Egg SB rush, go Rapture.
Marza+LF, go Revelation.
Kortul, go Radiance
Dunov, go Radiance.
Embargo Rush, go Radiance or Revelation.
All in all, Advent have specific capital ships, particularly fragile, but very strong against spam of frigates. Be sure to get the correct Capital ship in this Rock-Paper-Cisor situation.
Damage Retaliation
Advents have 2 ways to give back the damage they receive:
- Rapture’s Vengence on Iconus:
Iconus absorb 1/3 of the damage received by any of your units. So if you apply the Rapture’s ability Vengence on the iconus, you can deal to the ennemy up to 80% of the incoming damage.
- Discord’s Revenge from beyond:
Each time you loose a frigate, the ennemy will receive 450>650 damage (level1>level2)
Conclusion:
Advent can fight AOE ennemy units like Titans with their light frigates, but only if they bring some retaliation.
