Subverters

Anything that knocks out antimatter reactors. Sabotage Reactor, Interference, Steal Antimatter, or another Distortion Field would do the trick. If the enemy Light Frigates survive an Assailant attack, that is...

The TEC's Hoshiko Robotics Cruiser also has a disabling ability, the Demolition Bots, but that only stops enemy movement. The Advent's Domina Subjugator also has an ability very similar to Demo Bots, which also stops enemy movement. The Cielo Command Cruiser also has an ability, Designate Target, which increases damage done to that target by 25%, I believe.

Otherwise, the TEC/Advent support cruisers are of a more defensive supportive nature, more about helping their ships survive, and not hell-bent on screwing the enemy(unlike the Subverter).

Subverters are simply god like in their ability to sway a battle. Teleport plus AOE disable = win.

Ive also found that the Kodiaks "intercept" ability can play heavily into the hands of a subverter laden fleet. This is because when they use "intercept" they all tend to bunch up in one small area next to the target (kodiaks dont take up as much real estate as other HC's either). As such the the AOE is HIGHLY effective against them. Ive had the AI disable like 30 of my Kodiaks with 3 or 4 subverters. Not cool.

Subverters should be your #1 target...always.

Innociv has opened discussion on nerfing them a bit and I agree that they are a little OP. Not sure the best solution though. Maybe just a doubled cool down rate and slightly higher supply cost.

Being that I enjoy the Vasari, I enjoy the Subverters power, but even I think it is OP. When I can simply lock down and entire support fleet...I was poping his Caps left and right. I mean, what really can be done to make this even? If you combine this with the slow effect of the Enforcers slowing down a fleet and the Marauders ability to phase out a ship....You can stop, trap and slow down an entrie fleet.

subverters are insanely powerful. there's really only one counter to them: spread the heck out! you'll have to micromanage your ships to prevent them from clumping (which is their natural behavior, since clumps are the most efficient at focus firing). if your fleet is spread apart a subverter warp bubble can only disable 2 or 3 ships at most and its no big deal, the subverter itself is a sitting duck after it jumps. if on the other hand you leave your whole fleet in a big cluster, it only takes 3 subverters working together to keep it on permanent lockdown.

moral of the story: SPREAD OUT SPREAD OUT SPREAD OUT. your life depends on it.

Come on! Stilakus Subverters are a Tier 5 ship, Distortion Field is a Tier 7 tech. It's better than having to face Returning Armada.

Anyway, that's one more thing to add to the ever-enlarging Nerf List...



Spreading out saves you from a lot of area-effect nastiness. But it also reduces the effectiveness of your own auras.

This man, or woman, is correct.

Spread out, and micro-manage. That is the correct key to defeating subverters. Will it make your own fleet somewhat less efficient? Yes, but that is the point. No ship or tactic in this game can completely neutralize another ship 100%. Why? Because this game is far more than a simple game of Ro-Sham-Bo. I am quite glad for that... For far too long have RTS games been dominated by that simplistic childhood logic.

Subverters are not OP. They are, however, difficult to manage. If your game is running into that high of a tech tier, you will need to have increased your personal skill level from that which was suitable for destroying Skirmishers and level 2 Cap-Ships.

I have bolded certain entries in the quotation to highligh key points of wisdom for the benefit of those readers who just don't get it.

You are given a choice of formation densities for a good reason.

Yes, but how much does that really spread your ships out? (Something I will be looking into my next game)
Does the Marauder ship negate the effects of distortion field?

All capital ships are immune to cruiser abilities, AFAIK.

The thing is advent CAN'T spread out.

Advent spreading out is the same as being aoe disabled.

They are the most powerful unit in the game, though for the most part Vasari tends to have the weakest ships per cost/supply except for their HeavyCruiser.

Advent has Domina Subjugators which heal also makes ships undisablable.. So at least you can bring your gaurdians back on, use a repel, put up shields, and wait for Subverters to run out of AM (they have 250 iirc, takes 100 for aoe disable, and the AM recharge ratei isnt' fast. So if you can survive 2-3 of the disables... yeah that's really your only hope.)

There isn't any really good counters to them, because ships that are disabled can't exactly do anything to counter, now can they? Subverter's get the first strike.


I LIKE the ship a lot. Vasari was my favorite race. But yeah, it's too good. Best case scenario, it needs the duration reduced and cooldown increased, and take more supply. Worst case scenario, the AOE disable needs to effect a max of 6-8 targets or something.



And yes, Caps are immune to the ability. However, no cap has an ability to un-do disables and such, and caps aren't going to single handedly kill the subverters unless you have a large number of high level ones.

I was afraid innociv would find this thread.

The only time I've played against someone who used subverters, I had scouted before hand and got a decent size group of light frigates... The enemy wasn't very smart and had the skills on auto-cast so I sent in my light frigates one by one before the rest of the fleet, so they went *fwip* and disabled 1 light frigate. I had plenty of others around too to mop up the rest of the ships.

He was stupid, but in the right hands I can see this skill being overpowered. 8-10 ships disabled still seems widly unreasonable. One ship makes 10 ships useless? All counters to the ship being able to just be disabled? I dunno... oh well.

I suggest a max of 1 ship being disabled at a time, but still have the subverter able to do his damage amplification to targets around him, maybe even give it an additional effect to targets it's subverted... I dunno, the way it seems now just doesn't seem reasonable.

Nope. The Assailant and Transporter are both better than their equivalents. The Assailant doesn't have much more DPS compared to the Javelis, but it had Phase Missiles to make up for that and is tougher. The Transporter uses equal supply to it's counterparts and has better strike craft. The Vasari heavy cruiser, the Skarovas Enforcer, is in fact offensively worse than the Destra Crusader when both are fully upgraded.

Of course, the Vasari eventually make up for this problem with Phasic Transmissions - the extra 16% supply nullifying the bigger supply requirements of their ships.



350 before upgrades. Vasari get the same upgrades as Advent(+30% antimatter, +30% recharge rate).



They can still be bombed. Bombers can't be disabled either, can they?

I think Subverters are fine. It takes alot of research to get to them.
In short, learn to micro.   

Innociv, if you mean they can't spread out because they need to stay in range of the auras and shield regen from their cap ships I understand your point. I think what it comes down to is that you need to make a choice about how you deal with the Subverters (which have to be the first thing to die). You can spread out, greatly reducing your fleet's effectiveness until the subverters are dead but still retaining at least some of your ability. Or you can stay in the clump and try to tank it with shield regen from Mothership until your cap ships and bomber squadrons finish off the subverters.

One of these two options is better than the other. I'm not sure which is best though, but certainly the Subverter is a highly troublesome ship for the Advent to try to deal with.

In the case of the other two races spreading out is certainly the best option in my experience. The Vasari in particular are good at spreading out, its easier to do when you have somewhat fewer ships in your fleet. TEC can do it too pretty easily but it probably requires a couple more mouse clicks. Neither tec nor Vasari are especially obligated to stay within range of auras are buffs from their cap ships though so your fleet effectiveness doesn't drop by very much by spreading out, the only thing you lose is some of your focus fire ability. Losing optimal focus fire is bad but it can be dealt with and you don't have spread out TOO much, so really only a few ships will be totally out of range of their weapons. I think it works just fine if you can micro it correctly.

I'm one of the best at micro in this game..

I'm one of the best at micro in this game..

What about Aeria Drone Hosts? Can't they spread out pretty well?

yeah but.. they suck. It's not like a vasari player is going to have subverters without sentinels which instakill advent squadrans

Advent's greatest strength though is using the various abilities of their ships to compliment each other to make an effective fleet (especially against Vasari who when the massed Phase Missiles come out, you can be in real trouble against). Having to spread out negates all of your defensive advantages with various shield and Aura abilities, but also if your enemy spreads out to deal with you, also makes all of your potential offensive abilities (like Malice) less effective.

Aeria Drone Hosts can work if you keep them spread out (although for maximum effectiveness, keeping them near a Rapture which can boost their craft's abilities by 30% is out of the question). But Drone Hosts are not cheap and not all that effective considering what you get. They cost more Metal, more Credits, and more Supply than a Subverter and that late in the game you'll likely need several per Subverter in order to get enough by the enemy flak and support ships that will help keep the Subverters running.

It can work, but it's one of those counters that is more expensive and difficult to execute than the tactic it's made to counter.

For the love of god, stop nerfing Vasari.

They're already borderline unplayable as is.

A double nerf to RA and Subverters would take them out of the game completely.

Subverters need to be nerfed AFTER vasari's eco is fixed after being broken in 1.03, and skirmishers are buffed.

Returning Armada is more of a mind rape than anything else. It's really not all that... great. It helps, but it's nothing too spectacular. It's a pain in the ass, it can surprise you, and it's a solid ability - yes, but it's nothing too "uber". It's fine how it is currently implemented, imo. Hell, I don't even bother taking it until almost everything else is already had. It's not needed.

The Kostura Cannon? Now there's a piece of shit. It's damage component seems negligible, and it's disabling effect is very short duration. It's only saving grace is that it doesn't affect friendly ships. But still, it's not worth the cost and time when you have Subverters handy to do essentially the same job - at least as far as I am concerned. If someone has some praise for the Kostura, by all means, share it... I hope this thing is somehow better than I've found it to be.

And someone having good micro, is never an excuse to nerf something. You do not punish people for being skillful! The auto-cast for those things is pretty stupid. Which prevents it from being OP for the general masses who probably don't micro them intensively. And for those who do? Quit whining about it, and counter them with your own micro. This isn't something game breakingly OP - something you cant counter... it's something that you just haven't gotten the hang of fighting against - yet.

I personally hate being focus-fired upon by multiple Kols using their max-upgraded rail gun to pop things like water balloons. Is it OP? Nope. Just something I haven't gotten skilled at stopping yet. See my point?

My opinion on Vasari economy is coming around from it's former negative stance. It's not quite that bad, really... in games where you have atleast 4 other factions. In those games the blackmarket is used enough where you can still work it, and come out strong. Now, in smaller games with less factions? No... in those cases, the Vasari economy is somewhat broken. One problem is, if no one uses the Black Market, they are screwed on any size game - that is however, very unlikely to happen (although a low incidence of usage on a small game hurts). The other problem is, if you change their eco to work properly in smaller games, it might well make them OP in larger games.

I'm really not quite sure what can be done at this point... My only thought would be to reduce the costs of Vasari ships somewhat. As it stands, they are quite damned expensive when compared to eveyone else. Even the scouts take 20 metal. The price on Skirmishers is downright absurd for what they give you - especially in the early stages of the game when they are your main option!

Until there's a ladder, I don't think anybody is qualified to say that.

They can. But if you're going carrier-heavy, the Stilakus Subverters are not your main problem. Fighters operating from Lasurak Transporters maul Advent Bombers, and Junsurak Sentinels are good too.

If the Vasari are wielding Tier 7 Warfare technology, it is inevitable that their Skarovas Enforcers will be armed with Inertial Fields. Once they catch the kiting Drone Hosts, there is no escape.

Unless there are Iconus Guardians on sight. AFAIK, Repulsion out-ranges Distortion Field, so as long as the Guardians hold out, the Subverters are kept at bay. The unwanted side effect is that your Crusaders can't shoot without leaving the protection of the Repulsion ability, and in doing this, they get hit by Distortion Field and fall silent. Illuminators have the range, but not the firepower, and capital ships aren't affected by the Subverters anyway.



Each ship is also damned more powerful than each individual enemy ship.

The Jikara Navigator costs an extra 25 credits and 25 metal because it has the ability to capture neutral extractors, which pour in resources faster than normal asteroids, and well justify the extra investment. On a map without neutral extractors, the Navigator is just plain worse.

Just an ovbservation, it seems the stunning effect has to be maintained by the Subverter through out the entire duration. ie. destroying the subverter breaks the stun.
At least that was what I observed, were I correct or not?

I am not saying it is OP or not (powerful it sure is) , just want to make something clear.