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..

The TEC may have the best superweapon, but none of their ships or planetary weapons is the best of their class. The Sova Carrier can come close to matching it's counterparts, the Halcyon and Skirantra, but the strikecraft it carries are inferior to their Vasari/Advent counterparts.

Disabling 35 points of defense is another one of your ideal scenario's. It will not stop hanger defense, and that's the only one used if any defense is built at all. The 10% current hp damage the Kostura causes will be hull repaired by the time you finish phase jumping over to engage the planet. So most likely scenario you stop a repair bay or two and perhaps a couple turrets if the player felt like building some.

I agree... Not only is the kol the cheapest capital ship (50 crystal less then all the others!) it is also the most POWERFUL capital ship in the game... with the advent I have to diversify my ships to get some power going... but 4 KOLs will win against 4 of any other combination... they are the most powerful "direct damage" capital ship in the game. Their armor stars the highest, and rises quickly with level (the advant direct assult cap needs to use the absorption upgrades for that, and it doesn't compare)
So the TEC has the KOL's raw power (and coolness too... times of war are upon us... this shall be our finest hour! )

The KORTULs will drain all the antimatter from their primary target, slow its firing rate down by 30%, and debuff it with nanites to ALMOST negate its massive shield bonus

except the kortul's abilities are not as good as the kol, who has the best abilities of all direct damage dealers.

For the kol you need to ignore flak burst, its useless...
You get the following
1. shields
2. gauss
3. shields 2
4. gauss 2
5. shields 3
6. Last stand
7. gauss 3
8-10. flak.

The shields ability gives a large flat damage reduction AND a huge anti shield penetration bonus (it negates phase missles!)
So the vast majority of missles will not phase... the few that will do so little damage that they actually reduce overall damage, as now the hull can recharge simultanously.
Forcefield:
Anti matter: 40/50/60
Cooldown: 45/40/35
Duration: 20/30/40
Damage reduction: 15/25/35
Phasing missile negation: 25/45/65

And yes, at level 3 (which is what you would have at level 6) they actually last longer then their cooldown, so they are essentially always on, even if the enemy uses something to delay cooldown recharge it will still finish on time. (so, immune to delay?)

Finest hour:
Cost: 150 anti matter
Cooldown: 180 seconds
Duration: 60 seconds
Range: 1000
Damage: 60

Repair hall at 10/sec (for 60seconds = 600 hall repaired.)
Regen antimatter at 5/sec (60 seconds = 300 antimatter)
Improve ability recharge rates by 20%

Allows the ship to have splash damage... I think this means that for 60 seconds the ship's normal attack become splash if in 1000 range... i am not sure... its unclear.

Gauss is actually a direct damage, it does 300 then 550 then 800 damage per shot... problem is.. it takes more antimatter then the shields so the computer always uses the shields first and depletes all the antimatter... Can be used every 6 seconds. Costs 75 antimatter and has a range of 5000...

However in a 4vs4 battle I would disable auto cast of shields and cast them manually for the one ship that is being focused upon... it gets the shield bonus while the rest to 800x3 damage every now and then...
Ofcourse you specified level 6... at that level I would have had the 550 version of the gauss canon. last stand will be more useful. All four ships will be with last stand on (for regenerating antimatter) and one will tank it with shields... getting only a few shots of gauss... While the others will just gauss away until the kortuls to shreds...



The kortul ability to jam weapons says "enemy fighters"... That doesn't include capital ships right?
Either if so, you might have elected to have one of the four take it (and I said four only as a general number here...).
But generally their other abilities are better.
Power surge increases weapons firing rate... by 25/50/75%... so basically it increases damage done.
Nanite swarm causes enemies to take 30% more damage for 60 seconds, if they are killed during that time then they explode for 300 splash damage.
And then they have the nifty passive ability to drain antimatter and it has a CHANCE to increase recharge time of enemy weapons by 10/20/30%.

As I said before, direct damage dealers have little room for diversification. Some abilities are plain better. the TEC and Ves... aliens have 1 that is only useful against fighter craft (read, useless... pop their carrier and they die out anyways...) And advent has one that makes enemies focus fire on it.. sort of a support ability. I wouldn't decrease my power by getting it... so unlike with support caps where I diversify my abilities, the direct fire ones always go the same exact route.
Kortul:
1. Power surge
2. Disruptive strikes
3. Power surge2
4. Distruptive strikes2
5. Power surge3
6. Nanite swarm
7. Disruptive strike3
8-10. Disable weapons.

So here is the kicker... if you want to have ANY chance of winning you have to focus fire... on both sides one of the enemies is chosen and all fire is focused on it.

Now the big day arrives and our 4 KOLs fight 4 Kortuls...
A single target is chosen on each side because splitting your fire means loosing.

TEC: Disable auto-shield cast... Enable it for the one chosen as the target... it now has massive damage reduction always on (until out of energy)... Especially effective against the vasari phase missles! The others are now blasting away ALL their antimatter at a rate of 85 every 6 seconds for a nice 550 damage hit...
Finest hour is just icing as it allows them to fire gauss much MUCH more often...
Vasari: They cast nanite swarms... doesnt matter on whom. It does not damage in of itself, it just increases damage taken by 30% and does NOT stack... this almost negates the flat 35% damage reduction the KOL gets... but it does nothing to the 65% phasing negation... The kol will NOT die in those 60 seconds... but if on autocast then they might all repeat cast it and eventually it will come to be that it explodes... for a pathetic 150 or 300 damage (forgot which)...

The vasari will be using power surge... that should increase their firing rate by 75%... so its not only a 75% improvement to damage, it also means that the main weapons fire 75% more often, doing a chance of slowing down enemy fire and draining 12 antimatter per shot.

The thing is... played properly the KOLs will pop two kortuls within 30 seconds... and then be out of antimatter and without finest hour for 3 minutes.
The KORTULs will drain all the antimatter from their primary target, slow its firing rate down by 30%, and debuff it with nanites to ALMOST negate its massive shield bonus... and boost their normal damage by 75% for a few seconds... which will, together with the nanites add to much hurt... but not enough... Not when you consider that for the first whole minute of battle that ship gets 10 hall repair a second... If they even managed to breach its shields, it will be at almost full health. And healing fast while two vasari were popped already.

If you are NOT playing it smart (all abilities on auto use and you just let them fight)..
the KOLs will quickly run out of antimatter by ALL using shields AND canons like crazy while not engaging the finest hour. Most of their advantage would be lost but they will still win.
The vasari would probably not use nanites, and just blast away with their passive power drain and their awesome power surge ability will autocast as often as possible.

Overall the KOL have extreme direct damage ability, one useless attack, and two AWESOME personal buffs.
The Korul has one good self buff, one useless ability, and two debuffs...
The KOLs have the advantage since you have to focus your fire, and you have to turn to shoot at another target, and you can NOT use an ability on an opponent without switching to it as your target, and that either you waste precious seconds and chances by having autocast disabled or the computer will waste it all by casting the same debuff on the same target...

Its like the advant's direct fire "combust antimatter"... awesome ability, causes enemy antimater to explode, dealing it damage, disabling all its abilities, and draining all its antimatter... Except, its useless once the enemy is out of antimatter... you can use it once or twice in the entire battle... and if you have multiple ships then they are doing nothing...

And that is why a fleet of KOL will dominate anything else..
Oh and if you were really worried about a fleet of carriers with bombers... you could let one of them get the flak ability and take care of them all at once with area of effect... (or you could just let them all build fighters... at level 6 do they have 1 or 2 fighter bays EACH?).

BTW, I accept mixed fleets as opponents to a same number fleet of KOLs as well... I guess you COULD find a specific level, and a specific fleet combination, and a specific list of abilities, and a specific amount of capital ships... where pitting all KOLs vs that other fleet the KOLs will loose...
But even then the battle will be close... and the other fleet is especially engineered... the all KOL fleet is the easiet thing in the word to do... and it is a completely generic fleet that is good against ANYTHING... its also highly effective against pirates, and against frigates, and cruisers, and planetary bombers (Gauss canon can shred them...) And for icing, the KOLs are the cheapest of all capital ships... costing 50 crystal less then others...

I think it compensates for the TEC having only one level 8 ability. (dark armada + novalith might be greated then the TEC supercanon... but the TEC super canon and having the best capital ships make a balance)...
Oh and the TEC colonizer is the only one who doesn't give massive cost reduction to building up a planets infrastructure... but instead gives a pathetic useless free mining depo (which isn't used normally since the enemy planet dies before their miners)...
But it compensates by also giving a boost to damage of all surrounding craft, AND having the ion bolt, the most complete disabling of all, that can even prevent jumping (and escaping)... so its a mighty engine of war as well...