I don't think they need a "hard" counter. The problem is many times your fleet is less than worthless against another titan because your destroyed frigates give the other titan XP to level it up. Thus your fleet becomes a liability rather than an asset against the opposing titan. Hence you need your own titan supported by capitalships and perhaps large amounts of corvettes and bombers, the latter two happen to both give little XP and are expendable.

Titans need a very hard counter that is completely useless against everything else. Something that has no place in your fleet except to take out Titans. Even if that hard counter only does something to shut down the weapon systems on the titan so it has to retreat or sit around being pummelled.

I would rather have several unit-types to be be soft-counter to Titans, lets say corvettes, LRM frigates, light carriers, heavy cruisers and capships.

Just make them succeptible to capital ship skills, maybe to a lesser extent like 1/2 or 1/3 the duration. Meaning several capships could effectively shut down a titan, meaning its reduced to being a mobile fort/chunk of health/shields with lesser(depending on level) stats.

right now they're only vurnerable to weapon/movement speed reductions, passive regeneration reductions, and maybe one or two antimatter skills(afaik). I dont think they should be completely shut down(egnines + weapons + abbilities), but atleast preventing them from using abilities, and having engine/weapon disables translate into 50+% weaponspeed/movement speed reductions should go a long way in making fleets more viable against them.

If i recall a 100% reduction equals halfing its effectiveness right? so 100% less instead of a complete shutdown would prevent the titans from getting hunted down, but would make fleets more viable against them. And finally maybe Titans should become more hardened against such things the higher level they get? meanimg low level titans need to be more carefull without nerfing their endgame potential. (i suppose this might make titan leveling and racing towards one more important though)

The Advent Starbase using the Mass Disorientation ability can easily cripple even a titan and leave it vulnerable for a kill.   

If Titans had the same vulnerability to siege guns that Starbases do, it'd make attacking a Vasari Starbase with a Titan interesting...

Otherwise, yeah. It'd help the TEC because the Ogrov has huge range and does insane damage against Starbases. The Adjudicator is terrible in comparison.

Mass disorientation can be easily countered by humans (i.e. it can be interrupted).

• Detonate Antimatter (Advent Radiance)
• Disruption Matrix (TEC Loyalist Titan)
• Disruptive Strikes (Vasari Kortul)
• Magnetize (TEC Dunov)

Titans are horribly vulnerable against overwhelming numbers. A mid- to lategame fleet can take Titans apart. It's just that you feed the titan XP every time, so a player with enough resources can just keep suiciding the titan into an enemy fleet to level up.

Looking at the amount of XP you need to sink into a titan to make it fully effective I think the titan should not simply be reset. I liked the "keep level but loxe XP" bug in beta 1, but maybe that one is a little unrefined.

After reading various threads about titan leveling and XP my suggestion would be that a titan retains its level (and XP) up to level 4 after being destroyed, much like a capship can buy its level up to level 3. Also, similarly to the various crew training researches the races can do for normal capital ships there is a fifth titan research (tier 6 or 7) that adds "crew escape pods" that increase the retained level to a maximum of 6 (so you may retain the ability to use your "ultimate"). This reseach adds a visible effect to the titan (either on the hull or as part of the destruction animation) so other players know you researched the ability.

there alrdy is there called capitals ships and heavy cruisers

Yea I don't think there is a need for a "hard counter", the counters that we have now, they work well enough.

I think Titan levels after lvl 6 should cost about 5x what they cost currently.

That would limit how much of a liability smaller vessels are against them, reduce the impact of them keeping their levels, and reign in their effect on the game a bit generally.

All that while still letting them easily get enough levels for their "ultimate" abilities.

Well either they lose levels when they die or actually up the cost and where it sits in the tech tree.  Early game shouldnt be about rushing titans it should be about small fleets doing damage and getting into late game should the titans be available. 

If you consider the tech tree solution you might want to consider where it will sits and the cost extra.

1. final stage should be on the same level as the super weapon considering how much of a difference it makes

2. fleet resources needed to build it should be changed: suggestion = make it have multiple techs thats researched in the fleet tree as well as. i.e. after fleet cap 4 you can use it to build a titan, also this would give it its own research and you could have an announcement someone is researching titan crews etc.  (room for improvment).

this would allow for the early game to still be an early game with frigates etc while late middle to late game would involve titans which is where you should actually see them.