Thanks for the info. Its better then it seems I guess. So with 10 you could kill all defenses with one shot? lol I still think Dark Armada seems to be the best overall ability. During my game yesterday I ended up getting the marauder to 6th and Dark armada gave me something like 60+ heavy cruisers. Every time I'd hit fleet cap I'd research it again and get a bunch more ships.

Is there a way to Scuttle multiple ships? I could only do one at a time. it was obnoxious b/c dark armada kept eating my fleet cap before I could build caps or planetary assault ships. I basically had to rapidly do tab/scuttle

Nope, one at a time.

Another benefit to the Kotsura is unlike the Novalith, it has absolutely no research pre-reqs. Of course, it's in the other tech tree than Returning Armada, but that's the point

raw power doesn't mean anything. Actually when you think about it the Novalik is the worst of the three super weapon.

I hate paralysis. It is evil.
I hate dark armada, it is evil.

I am a tec fan! and they get the money, not just the firepower. It's one of their primary features.

The Novalith cannon is good for raping capital planets, and so then dramatically lowering allegence

once you get 2 novaliths in the same system as the capital and keep having 2 in the same systems, if the enemy is vasari/advent (might take 3 for tec), you can keep the players allegiance most of the time under 65%-70% across all planets (if you fire both at the capital). Thats why it is even better in lowering allegiance (not to 0, but to cripple the opponent) across a massive empire in certain cases than deliverance is when used strategically.

Chances are, if you're firing at the Capital, you want an easy way to insta-gib it. And your units AREN'T there.

The more important effect of novalith nuking is to completely cut off the enemy's tax income... Can't fight if you have no money

i love it how there is such variety... each race has significant plusses and minuses, they are balanced as a WHOLE... rather then have "balanced units" (read: Identical with different grahics).

You need to research so many prerequisite techs for the advant super weapon I never bothered with it... I OFTEN rush to build 8 research labs early on (read 3-4 planets/astroids) to get the ascendency... Ascendancy 2 (for 3000 credits with no prereqs) gives you automatic capital upgrading up to level 4... and then +50% bonus to experience rate... I just mopped a small 10 planet map with a 10 capital ship fleet that was levels 6-8 by the end of it...
And that -33% research speed is NOTHING to sneeze at... I get it right away.

The tec has armor coming out the wazoo. And their Kol capital ship is extra powerful. Two kols beat 3 enemy whatever capitals...

The vasari have unparalleled phasing tech and cheapest manufacturing.

So rather then saying "how do the various superweapons balance against each other" I think... how do the various FACTIONS balance against each other... so far I Wouldn't say that one is superior... I am happy playing with random every single time (well... except my next game will be tec, because it randomly chose the other two for my past 5 games or so.. )

TEC superweapon is just pure win i had 5 of them on gateway in an MP game the other day i just set them to auto fire enabled and sat back with a huge grin on my face

advent one is just lame a whopping 4% mitigation isnt doing much and if u build 4 of them and constantly bomb planets it would take forever for them to fall.

vasari one only seems good for pirate bases

ya, i go ADD long before the advent weapon takes out the planet

Guys, the allegiance drop is not always the primary function of the Deliverance Engine It's not bad for flipping planets if they're far away from the homeworld, but its main use is that it sticks a huge chunk of your culture anywhere. Here's an example of how nice it is:

Vasari culture upgrades give them +11% damage in their culture.
Advent culture upgrades give them +6% shield mitigation in their culture.

Deliverance Engine replaces hostile culture with friendly culture, which means:

- Vasari loses their +11% damage bonus.
- You gain 6% max shield mitigation.

That 6% mitigation doesn't seem like much at first, but let's do some math. Let's say you have your shiny Radiance using Animosity, so it gets shot at for 1000 points of raw damage. I believe it has a base max mitigation of 70%, so it would've taken 300 damage at max mitigation. Now, you add your 6% and it has 76% mitigation, and takes 240 damage. That's 60 points less, or 20% less damage! Add that to the fact that the Vasari lost their culture bonus so the damage output was only 1000 instead of 1100 (another 11% difference), and you gained a 31% damage reduction for a few minutes with one shot of the Engine.

Now consider that along with Iconus Guardians and Progenitor's shield restore, and yeah..