Gameplay Properties

TEC Fleet Properties:

• TEC frigates and corvettes are built to be simple, straightforward, and cost effective, although they often do not match their Advent counterparts in terms of damage-dealing efficiency, and are individually weaker than their Vasari equivalents. The TEC's mainstay light frigate, the Cobalt, is marginally less efficient than its Advent rival, the Disciple, but in terms of fleet supply it can be built up more quickly.

• TEC cruisers, like their frigates, are straightforward and utilitarian. The Hoshiko acts as their repair/defensive support cruiser while the Cielo is their disruptive/offensive support cruiser, although both cruisers do possess both supportive and disruptive abilities. The Kodiak is the TEC's heavy combat cruiser, and while it is extraordinarily tough for its cost, it lacks the offensive power of its rivals from the other factions. The TEC also have a specialized anti-structure cruiser, the Ogrov, which is very good at destroying the only things it can target: orbital structures and starbases.

• TEC ships have weak shields but exceptionally tough hulls and very thick armor. This makes them class leaders in terms of resilience - hull points benefit from both shield mitigation and armor, while shield points do not benefit from armor and thus decrease relatively quickly. TEC ships thus also frequently enjoy both shield regeneration and hull repair in parallel during battles. In support of this hull-heavy philosophy, the TEC has lucrative hull and armor research topics, but relatively weak and expensive shield research.

• TEC ships wield a variety of ordnance and energy weapons, including lasers, autocannons and missiles, and in a few cases, beams and Gauss guns. They as such have weapons research spread across several fields. The weapon type with the greatest upgrade potential is missiles, and this is also the weapon type of several offensively-oriented TEC units such as the Javelis frigate, the Ogrov, and bomber squadrons.

• TEC strikecraft are average, being individually weaker and more numerous than Vasari strikecraft, but stronger and fewer than Advent drones, having 5 bombers or 6 fighters per squad.

• TEC scouts can be used in flotillas to attack key orbital structures such as labs, capital ship factories and titan foundries with their unique Timed Explosives upgrade. This is especially effective against an enemy who isn't expecting it and is constructing a titan or a superweapon, as their significant resource investment can be blown up suddenly for very little cost. The scouts can also be upgraded with the Probe ability early on, allowing constant vision of enemy planets for extended periods of time for little risk or cost.

• The TEC's colonizing capital ship is the Akkan Battlecruiser, which is very tough and provides free resource extractors upon colonization. It can also interrupt and briefly disable enemy ships, especially capital ships, with Ion Bolt, and provide strategic support at higher levels with Armistice.

• The TEC's primary direct combat, area-effect damage and planet-bombing capital ship is the Marza Dreadnought, which excels against singular targets with its frontal firepower and can devastate fleets with its level 6 Missile Barrage ability.

• The TEC's main anti-ability/disabling capital ship is the Dunov Battlecruiser, which can do shield damage and drain antimatter in an area with its EMP Charge and disable enemy capital ship and starbase abilities with Magnetize.

• The TEC's anti-strikecraft capital ship and 'tank' is the Kol Battleship, which is extraordinarily resilient and can do heavy damage to massed strikecraft with Flak Burst. In addition to simply being tough by itself, the Kol's Adaptive Forcefield and Finest Hour make it even more durable should it come under attack.

• The TEC Rebels' Ragnarov Titan is offensively among the strongest titans in the game, excelling against both fleets of lesser ships with its Explosive Shot and Scattershot, and singular hard targets with its Snipe ability. The titan's main weaknesses are its fragility at low levels (by titan standards), and tendency to run out of antimatter, although it still provides very impressive long-range conventional firepower.

• The TEC Loyalists' Ankylon Titan is the toughest ship in the game and is designed to do battle right in the middle of enemy fleets, with its all-around weapons distribution and area-effect abilities such as Disruption Matrix, which deals moderate damage and disables the abilities of everything within its radius - even other titans. While less of a direct offensive threat than most other titans, the Ankylon can still make its presence felt with its support abilities and respectable planet-bombing damage.

TEC Defense Properties:

• The TEC acquire repair facilities with only 1 Military Lab, and can upgrade them with research. They are made even more effective by the TEC fleet's strong armor, which can make each point repaired last longer.

• TEC starbases are built from dedicated construction cruisers, which account for a large fraction of their initial build costs, and require 3 Military Labs to research. TEC starbases possess significant firepower and are resilient, but are immobile and can thus susceptible to being bypassed by human opponents. Instead, their main threat factor comes through the Last Resort ability, which can be researched with 5 Military Labs. It allows a TEC starbase to self-destruct in massive catastrophic detonation which can eliminate entire fleets of frigates, cruisers, strikecraft, and even low-level capital ships in a large area around it. This makes it a serious threat that is more difficult to ignore. In addition to defensive purposes, the ever-utilitarian TEC can also use their starbases in supportive and economic roles: extending trade chains through uncolonizable gravity wells, acting as remote frigate factories, or serving as repair & recharge platforms for the fleet. Finally, with 8 Military Labs, the Loyalist TEC can research Twin Fortresses technology, which allows them to field an additional starbase per gravity well.

• TEC defense turrets are armed with Gauss guns, a weapon that isn't used by any other ship or structure except for the Rebels' Ragnarov Titan, but nonetheless possesses a number of upgrade technologies. The turret can also be upgraded with a semi-long range single-target debuff ability, and area-effect damage ability.

• TEC hangar defenses can be outfitted with Flak Turrets that provide effective static defense against strikecraft and corvettes.

• TEC need 4 Military Labs to access Phase Jump Inhibitors, meaning that they appear later and at greater cost than they do for the other factions.

• TEC mine fields are built like structures, by construction frigates. This means that unlike the other factions, the TEC cannot deploy mines offensively in neutral or hostile gravity wells.

• TEC require 3 Civics Labs in order to access interstellar travel.

• The TEC's superweapon is the Novalith Cannon, which requires 6 Military Labs to build for the Loyalists (making it the fastest superweapon access in game) or 8 for the Rebels (putting it on par technologically with the Vasari's Kostura Cannon). Novaliths do severe direct bombardment damage to distant planets, reducing their health and population. Starbases with certain upgrades can be used to defend against planet loss from Novalith bombardment, but can't prevent population losses.

• The TEC can research Insurgency technology with 8 Civics Labs, which can force opposing players to build some defenses on all of their planets in order to fend off randomly-spawning hostile militia. However, the enemy can also take advantage of said militia to easily gain experience for their capital ships and titan, so this technology is not without its drawbacks.

TEC Economy Properties:

• The TEC have access to an early economic technology, Modular Architecture, with only 1 Civics Lab, which allows them to build extractors and factories more cheaply.

• The TEC gain trade the earliest, at only 2 Civics Labs, and can upgrade their trade abilities with further research. This gives the TEC the strongest credit economy of any faction.

• The TEC prefer Terran planets, and can hence increase their already large populations to gain even better credit income.

• TEC resource extraction technologies are relatively cheap and require few labs, and so, depending on circumstances, they can often be worthwhile investments.

• The TEC's ultimate civil research techology is Pervasive Economy, accessed with 8 Civics Labs, which grants them a fraction of the costs of any transaction going on anywhere on the map. This unique ability gives the TEC a very strong late-game economic advantage.

• The TEC have research topics which can improve structure and ship build times.

• The TEC have civil research (Favored Client Discount) which can improve exchange rates for resource trades on the black market, providing a viable alternative to resource extraction technologies, especially for a trade-heavy player with a strong credit economy.