Illum Spam Help

from Sins Forums

Alright strategy buffs, help me out here,

Barring the use of Missile Barrage, how does one counter an illuminator spammer as Vasari or TEC? I've tried the hard counter with carriers, but I can't seem to kill them fast enough with fighters, at least not before the spammer can get 3 or 4 drone hosts out or a bunch of defense vessels. For a scale reference I'm talking about around 30 illuminators, I can usually get between 7-12 carriers out by that time, depending on my start. I'll kill maybe 9 or 10 of em before I run into drones or vessels and then I start to lose drastically. As my firepower starts getting cut down by the drones or vessels,  the illuminators simply ignore the carriers and move on.

I played last night as TEC, ran into an illuminator fleet of about 30, with my 29 LRMS and 12 or 13 flak and 5 hoshis I lost. I played another game where one of my allies fed the other up to around 50 illums and he engaged a fleet of assailants of about the same size, and came out victorious only losing around 15 ships. I mean a smart illum spammer always engages point blank so their illums will use their multiple beam cannons, and when that happens, assailants or lrms, people (myself included) tend to lose them on a 3 to 1 ratio (3 lrms to one illuminator) and that makes sense as they can fire at 3 different targets at a time. How do I combat that? What should I do if the illums engage point blank? Do you really need a fleet of Lrms 3 times the size of the illuminator fleet to beat it?

I need some real answers here, and please don't assume the illum spammers are stupid (the dumb ones I can handle). They always come with a progenitor and have 2 or more factories not far away pumping them out faster than I can kill them. I've come across Illuminator fleets of all different sizes and the only way I've been able to stop the fleet with more than 30 is with a missile barrage. Give me some tips that can turn these battles in back in my favor.

strategy
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Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I'll kill maybe 9 or 10 of em before I run into drones or vessels and then I start to lose drastically.
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Run away and get a bigger force. Make him attack you so that you will have the advantage of turrets, hangars etc. Sentinals make a great meatshield against illums.

Scout him so that you can find out if he is rushing to get illums. If he has 3 mil labs early, then quickly attack him with scouts before he gets too many illums. Scouts kill LRMs, but getting enough to counter 30 illums is a waste when he starts using something else. That why you should attack with scouts before he gets so many.

 

I played last night as TEC, ran into an illuminator fleet of about 30, with my 29 LRMS and 12 or 13 flak and 5 hoshis I lost. I played another game where one of my allies fed the other up to around 50 illums and he engaged a fleet of assailants of about the same size, and came out victorious only losing around 15 ships
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Well, the other guy did lose half his entire force. I would not have brought LRMs to that battle. I would have got more flak, more hoshikoes and Kodiaks if possible. A Dunov with EMP charge is a good investment against shield-reliant Advent. Phase missiles are even better.

Use the Egg or Marza to kill the Mothership. If you take it out, they will suffer a big loss. If they have a Halcyon kill it straigh away. Its fragile so that should not be too hard.

Do you really need a fleet of Lrms 3 times the size of the illuminator fleet to beat it?
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You do need a bigger fleet of LRMs to kill illums, because LRMs are not designed not counter LRMs. The stronger LRMs (illums) will always beat weaker LRMs in equal numbers. Use scouts, flak, carriers, HCs etc. to kill Illums. A skirantra carrier with repair cloud helps alot too.

 

 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Hc will counter illums. Flak will too but to kill them u have to hav large numbers.Fighters do awesome but if they have large fighter force or lots of flak then its tough. Thing to do is put your fighters on a hold ground stance and park them next to the illums. That way only 1 bank from the flak are hitting ur fighters. If he micros his flak then its really tought but if u can stay on one side of the flak at all times you should win easily.Also hoshis is a must for me anyway.

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Hc will counter illums.
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Well thats a no brainer, but it's kinda hard to get them out in force before 30 illums come tearing through your system, especially when all they'd have to do to cripple you is destroy one of your military labs.

Scout him so that you can find out if he is rushing to get illums. If he has 3 mil labs early, then quickly attack him with scouts before he gets too many illums. Scouts kill LRMs, but getting enough to counter 30 illums is a waste when he starts using something else. That why you should attack with scouts before he gets so many.
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That seems like it would be a slaughter, but I'll give it a shot.

Run away and get a bigger force. Make him attack you so that you will have the advantage of turrets, hangars etc. Sentinals make a great meatshield against illums.
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My flak meatshields work against every other race except for Advent and the illums. They'll just be ignored while the illums target the lrm cluster.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

I made a post about this a long time ago. I'll give it a bump so you can see it. I spell out how to counter an illum spam. Really, it's not too hard, but it's one of the hardest tactics to counter (oxymoron, yes). Look for it on the strategy forum. It's by Raging Amish

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

As a self proclaimed Advent specialist ( read that as I dont play other races  ^_^ )

There are two things based on micro and technique...

Hit them early before they get flaks out. If you kill enough illums, then they will have to switch to making more illums to match your illums/Lrfs rather then increasing flak capacity.

When you make carriers , they ARENT part of your fleet. They are hunters , regard them as solo hunters that move into enemy territory to hunt illums. Rush them in (once strike have been built) , and dont just park them and say well they will be part of your Illum Fleet.

My Carriers work separately to my illum fleet.

Its only when flaks reach a certain number that they become super effective and can nail fighters. With only a few flaks they wont really hurt the fighters enough. If they continue to build flaks then fine , you will now have superior illums and they will have too many flaks. I always create this scenario with my enemy.

The second thing is to try to target illums that are not part of the main group. The best bet being reinforcment illums.

 

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks for the heads up Amish, but I had read that one before, and apparently I'm not the only one. It works sometimes, and doesn't others.

 

Actually the most information on beating the strategy I've gathered is by playing it against competent opponents, but what I've gathered from that is that its still an extremely difficult strategy to counter, I played it 3 times today, and won with it twice. The third time I got trapped in a corner by a guy (Mhiggy) who had gone econ only 3 jumps away from me. I requested feed from my allies to effectively take hime down. He realized he'd made a mistake early and built 3 weapons labs at his first asteroid pretty quick, pumping out 5-6 carriers before I could jump in and destroy the labs. Luckily I has scouted those labs beforehand and was already pumping out defense vessels. His allies fed the crap out of him, and during my assualt on his HW I stopped getting feed. He got an orkulus operational just as I was jumping in, and managed to get its health fully upgraded and weapons to level 2 before I had to limp off, unable to produce enough illums to keep up with their destruction without feed from my allies. By that time he'd already cut me off from expansions (his egg capturing planets the whole time) and built starbases and PJIs to keep me contained. The moral of the story however is that, after rebuilding my fleet, throwing in some guardians and bombers(45 illums, 20 vessels,4 guradians, 6 drones with docked bombers), and after several attacks by Mhiggy, he had to build a fleet of enforcers and subverters (~35 enforcers and 10-15 subverters with distortion field) to finally bring down my battle ball. I stayed alive stuck in a corner with an illuminator fleet for the majority of the game.

But I did learn a lot.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

That seems like it would be a slaughter, but I'll give it a shot.
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Believe it or not, but scouts really do counter LRMs. It works, but attack with it before he gets a large force.

 

They'll just be ignored while the illums target the lrm cluster.
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Thats why you do NOT bring LRMs against illums. If you still bring them, place the flak in the way so that illums can't reach them. They will try to go around and that will slow them down. If he attack you on your ground then you will more fighters to from the hangars and cheap turrets draw fire.