Try it again against Starbases. If they don't work there either then its something, but a Starbase would rip Illuminators to shreds.

"Stay out of range" is the key thing. With the beta 2 weapon bank changes, Starbases completely oblitterate groups of small ships. Take the three Starbase 100+ damage guns, and have them all firing at FOUR of those Illuminators at once.

They might still win (maybe, they can't bring all their DPS to bear against a Starbase), but its going to be a bloodbath. Against a fully upgraded Starbase with stuff like frontal shields and meteor control? Good luck.

53.5? that can't be the per second value. last time I checked that was more like 15 or so and since the info card summes it up, the front bank alone probably does even less than that. seriously, the group you desribed would get beaten by a starbase with 2 to 3 military upgrades, that I am quite confident of.

but go make your experiment, attack a starbase with a bunch of illums and guardings. I'm curious of the result. report back in.  that's what beta is for after all.

ah yes, then my first calculation with 18 dps was correct.

still way more damage than those Adjudicator and of course more flexible.

i'll give it a shot and try my cap + 50 illus + 10 guardians on 1 fully upgraded vasari starbase.

and then of course 60 illus alone and see how many die

but with the upgraded vortex the starbase would smoke any adjudicator fleet for sure, but yes i was planning on going with 2x weapon, 4x hull and 2x shield upgrade.

that is maximum possible defense and we'll see what happens.

of course I will try the 20x Adjudicator too, even micromanage them out of range

Well I think part of the design intention behind the Adjudicator is that they can also attack 5 targets at once, which make them more ideal to breaking massed defenses. The Ogrov might do more damage, but it's single target.. which may help it kill a starbase faster, but if that starbase is surrounded with 35-point defenses those won't have a scratch on 'em.

Neither, GoldenShadow. If I knew of the Marza deathtrap, I'd probably go for a fleet strike with one single intention: killing off as many of the Marzas as possible; that means capital ships, carriers, and possibly even LRMS and it means accepting punishing losses. Even if I lost everything but the capital ships, and perhaps even if I lost 2-3 of them, it would probably be worth it to remove highlevel Marzas from the game forever, especially when one had a chance to fight them without significant fleet support (not that the Starbase is insignificant in any way)

If one succeeded in removing the highlevel Marzas, one could always return at a later date with whatever solution to the starbase is preferable.

--- Against the backdoor, though, if forced to attack as advent and having to choose, those adjudicators sound very tasty with basic anti-strikecraft support since there are only 14 squadrons defending. They won't last long if the gauss cannons are individually targeted on focusfiring them down, but then, nothing would, so it is all about doing as much damage as possible while alive, and hitting 5 structures per shot sound ideal for that - much depends on what other ships you can send along, though. Is extensive shield repair through multiple motherships available? Got the battleships to attract fire, significantly increasing the lifetime of the adjudicators?  Then again, if the question is not which to use as part of a larger force, but which to use operating alone - then the question is none of them.

Not bad for the starbase though

Sounds like it worked as intended.

I was in a game last night where I ran into a fully upgraded Argonov that also had hangar bay support. Tried attacking it with my fleet, which went badly. Ran like hell. Came back with 4 Ogrov torpedo cruisers and some flak support for them. They sat happily out of range blasting the Starbase. It took a while, but it was a lot more effective in the end. (Against a Vasari Starbase not so much since they would lose their range advantage.)

made just 2 new tests and it doesn't look good for the adjudicators.

all ships had weapons tech up to tier 5, starbase had full tech, 2 weapons, 2 hull, 2 fighter and 2 random other upgrades i didn't see.

1st fleet consisting of 3x capitals lvl 10, 30x illuminators, 10x guardians and 10x subjugators

fleet won with not even a scratch on it

2nd fleet consisting of 1 lvl 10 progenitor, 40 illuminators and 10 guardians

fleet won with just 4 illuminators lost

3nd fleet consisting of 20x adjudicators

fleet won but lost 10 of them due to the fighters.

the starbase was on a naked uninhabited planet with no other defenses left whatsoever.

now i'm really convinced that adjudicators are in fact not starbase killers but a very weak structure killer which needs desperate support from fighters and healing-ships.

hitting 5 targets at once can really clear any planet defense pretty quick if you keep them safe, but for the starbase they just need too much time.

2nd fleet consisting of 1 lvl 10 progenitor, 40 illuminators and 10 guardians

fleet won with just 4 illuminators lost

That is a pretty basic fleet. You guys should see what would happen with the egg plus kanracks. I have seen this used against sb and it is way to lethal.I would really be intereted in seeing the losses for this fleet vs a fully upgraded vasari sb.

OK so I did a test of my own.

I was vasari against hard advent.The advent sb had all weapons upgrades and I think all hull upgrades(14k hull and 8k shield).It also had fighter upgrades(think it had 10 squads)

I attacked it with level 10 egg,25 kanracks and 5 sentinels. I had 6 points of hull,4 points of shield, and 4 points of armor researched for my fleet.I lost my cap and 1 sentinel. This was with no micro but i sent my cap in ahead of the rest. In multiplayer this is 1\3 to 1\4 size of a later game fleet.

This comes out to 10000 creds\1625 metal\1125 crys for kanracks, 2000 creds\250 metal\160 crys for sentinels.

Poor Advent

It was a test. I could have microed it in and out and made sure it survived. The point is:

2nd fleet consisting of 1 lvl 10 progenitor, 40 illuminators and 10 guardians

fleet won with just 4 illuminators lost

Vasari only needed half of that fleet to defeat a fully upgraded sb. Not to mention a fully upgraded vasari sb has 32000 hp+shield. It repairs itself and can do 200% damage reduction to frontal aussalt(which is confusing) and you cant loiter at all. They have cheapest and more powerful mines. They get thier powerful ships and sb earlier then the others.

Im gettin off topic tho