the thing is a 10-20 seconds is enough time to kill the 100 cobalts if the advent is playing with two capital ships, one at level 6 (brilliance) and the other at level ~3 (malice rank 2 should be good enough) and the tec player has most of his cobalts in the same vicinity.

so once you include combined abilities, you have to include things like that .

an unbalanced test

70 cobalts vs 80 diciples..... try using about 100 diciples vs 75 cobalts

wil end up randomly (overkil etc.)


you dont use bombers vs cobalts
if you didnt know this lil thingy u might wanna redo your strategy... advent are a powerfull race... if used smart


even if using 1 type vs 1 type.. nothing wil happen other then 1 race winnig since he got tad more powerfull cobalts and tad less powerfull capitals (at least add 2 capitals 4 both races and see what happens) microing = definatly needed since shield restore auto-use = sucky



to make it even shorter.. U CANNOT test like this
the thing u proofed here is that TEC has stronger cobalts then Advent.. but everyone knew that!!!!
advents ships are cheaper so y... cobalts do own diciples in a 7:8 ratio (duh)


all this isnt meant harsh but just 2 make clear u cannot compare this way

the cobalt is a vital part of the TEC fleet. The Cobalts really shine with hull, laser, shield upgrades, and the anti-matter saba... ability.

Upgrades for the cobalt are what I focus research early on when I play the as the TECs.

I can test anything you want. Just let me know what you want.



It is naive of you to assume EVERYONE already knew this. I post these things to help enlighten the newbies. It's not really intended for veterans. GALAXY FORGE changes everything. Now, I can test anything.


Hmmm...Seems to me the Advent player would rarely have time to get his capital ships up to that level before the TEC player obliterates him. Nice try though. I just don't think that would work in a 1v1.

The first thing I do is toss cap ships out for leveling as advent... by the time someone gets 50 or so cobalts it wouldn't be anything strange for me to have 1 cap at lvl 6 and 2 more @ lvl 3. Not to mention that a radiance w/ progenitor/haly backup is going to smoke whole fleets of smaller ships in a very short amount of time.

Ok. I'll try it out. Thanks.

It would be 70 Cobalts vs. 87 Disciples, based on cost and supply(same result for both). Since we see 7 Cobalts survived here, with one of them probably damaged, it would be a damn close fight if 7 more Disciples were to be in the mix from the start(since they'd be contributing their firepower all the time).

This is without any support from capital ships or structures, of course.



Even after the new improved Illuminator arrives, it's still going to be Tier 3 Hostility technology. Cobalts(and Disciples) will remain no-tech-required ships.

You still run the risk of getting tagged by the enemy rushing to target your labs before you can start Illuminator construction. Similarly, there is risk involved in getting a Radiance to Level 6 and a Mothership to Level 2/3.

There's really no reasonable basis to be testing 35 illuminators vs 70 cobalts. On cost (using a 3:1 metal/crystal:credit conversion) it should be 35 vs 55. Using supply it would 35 vs 42. So, you're not testing whether something would be a cost effective counter- you're testing a random match-up.

My biggest problem about your posts: lack of clear methadology, test design selected to prove a point rather than determine a point, lack of replays.

Every single post you make on strategy turns out to be a flamewar because you constantly throw-out lopsided tests and statements to back things up.

Re-formulate based on clear, defensible test design. Attach a replay.

There might be merit to your point generally, but I'd just like to point out that this bloodless sort of test badly reflects actual game reality. Focus fire alone can boost the performance of an army a lot, and if army A defeats army B in a straight no focus fire match, that doesn't mean army A will also defeat army B if they both focus fire, because then suddenly other things enter the equation.

But yes of course in this case Advent is simply too weak because of the bug with illuminators. The way SoaSE is balanced, the long range unit is meant to be the hard counter for light combat, and with advent not having this counter, they're obviously at a large disadvantage.

I did do "focus firing" for the losing fleets to see if it would change things. It didn't.



Like I said, I can test anything you want. Just tell me what you think it should be and I will test it and let you know what happens.

Keep in mind that you are ignoring the fact that Illuminators require 3 Military Labs and Cobalts I believe require zero (I dont play as TEC, so not 100% positive). So, you must factor in the time and resources it takes to build the 3 Advent military labs.

I think I'll trust Malice on this.

A few Captial Ships throwing vollys of AE missles at them pop the fleet pretty good =D I think about 4 ships should do it

What level of capital ship again do you need for that?

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Alright here's the deal. Cobalt Light Frigates and even Vasari Skirmishers are medium armor, NOT light armor, units.

They are good against heavy armor units (like defense vessels and drone hosts). They are actually fairly tough, although they do very little damage to anything that doesn't have "heavy" armor. The fact is also that, ruling out late game ships such as heavy cruisers, the only things good against skirmishers or cobalts are the long range frigates, Specifically Javelis LRMS or assailants.

Because Advent do not get long range frigates early, and because illums are expensive as hell anyway, Skilled advent players, realizing that building disciples will probably lose them the game if their opponent gets long range frigates (ie: 90% of the time) will often chose to construct area drone hosts or defense vessels. Niether of these choices is terribly effective against cobalts or skirmishers, and so therefore in a 1v1 a tec player would actually be making a GOOD call to go mass cobalts if and only if his opponent is an advent player; however, once the advent player has enough time to have 10+ area drone hosts and a ton of illuminators, the tec player will immediately lose his fleet and the game.

My conclusion: The mass cobalt strategy actually WORKS against advent players, but ONLY as a rush strategy, period. Anything else will result in disaster.

I have a question Kruelgor and everybody else, why haven't I see any tests between fleets with mixed units?? Like what happens when 40 cobalts go up against 20 ilums and 10 drone host(with fighters and then with bombers) and 5 subjugators for example??

And also, why so many stats, numbers and "if". In this sort of discussion a replay would be a lot more useful to identify what really happens during the battle.

okay Im going to save everyone time

87 DISCIPLES VS 70 COBALTS
replay 1:
http://files.filefront.com/87discvs70cobrecord/;9908145;/fileinfo.html
replay 2:
http://files.filefront.com/87discvs70cob2record/;9908183;/fileinfo.html

35 disciples survived in replay 1 and 37 disciples survived in replay 2, however the cobalts had to spin and only started firing ~7-9 seconds into the ~400 second battle.

Second Part

due to the 6-8 seconds difference that some of you might not like, I will do a biased test towards cobalts:

80 DISCIPLES VS 70 COBALTS
http://files.filefront.com/80discvs70cobrecord/;9908215;/fileinfo.html

10 disciples survive, however the cobalts had to spin and only started firing ~8 seconds into the 600+ second battle.

PS: theres a reason I always add replays

I can attest to that. I've got replays where I was against the AI and pretty much smoked an entire TEC fleet using Malice / Cleansing Brilliance. Use Malice in the opening phase, then let your Destra Crusaders wail on them with damage propagating. Once Malice expires, use it again and then use Cleansing Brilliance simultaneously. When the dust settles, the other guy won't have a fleet anymore.

oh just so you guys understand why I didnt make disciples rotate, I cannot make the disciples start as the ones that need rotation, tried changing planet/fleet ownerships a few times with different combinations, its possibly something to do with size of the fleet.

also I hope those replays (previous post) end the discussion.

So, you were micromanaging the Disiples?

The only problem is that in a multiplayer game, both players will likely be "focus firing" and micromanaging which your replays don't show.

I'll edit the TOP MAIN post and include replays too, soon.



End what discussion? You are only NEUTRALIZING the Cobalts. You are not countering them.
A "counter" is something that massacres the Cobalts. The Disciples cannot massacre Cobalts.

Example: The Advent's Defense Vessel is a counter to the TEC LRM. It massacres them.

archpsi, it will only end the discussion as to wether a Cobalt spammer can defeat a Disciple spammer (they probably can't). it does absolutely nothing to settle questions of real strategic importance.

it has already been asked in this thread but i will elaborate upon it, the real question that might matter to players is this one:

what mix of ships available to the Advent faction is efficient and competitive with the ships available to the TEC faction?

this manifests in 3 different forms, each of which seems to lead to a bad conclusion for the Advent.

1. TEC LRM spam can be blunted with Advent Defense Vessel Spam.
2. TEC LRM spam can be blunted with Aeria Drone Hosts with fighter squadrons.
3. Advent Fleets composed of Defense and Aeria are easily taken down by Cobalts. The only reasonable answer to Cobalts available to Advent are the Disciples. The Disciples are almost impossible to use against TEC because they are so bad against the LRM spam that started this whole circular argument.

The best proposed solution so far has been clever use of the special abilities on the Radiance capital ship. That may in fact be the only answer until the Illuminators are fixed.

Regardless, all this Galaxy Forge simulation doesn't do much except establish some baseline facts, that actually could have been discovered just by number crunching on an Excel sheet. I hope threads like this one go away in favor of more detailed and insightful discussion of real gameplay scenarios.

Hopefully, the new 1.04 Illuminator will end the discussion.



Exactly!

I dont think you watched them, I wasnt always the owner of the disciples and I let the a.i micro everything in all replays.



35-37 disciples remaining is quite good imho, im sure it would be 20-32 if the cobalts didnt rotate.



I just wanted to show that the whole premise (the original statements) of this thread are not to be taken at face value:
1- the biased numbers that are used.
2- replays showing that results closer to what would happen are not exactly as stated.

I only used replays to show people something about the original statements, if you checked most of my other posts, I was the first to mention malice and things like that in this thread which are actually things you would see in-game.

If you really want to continue discussing things that will be significantly change by mid next week (they planned to get 1.04 by end of this week), go ahead.

i'll wait for the patch, rather than discuss the current game balance situation in any more detail. in the meantime i'd like to thank you Archpsi for your appropriately formulated test (even if its a silly and meaningless test) and for debunking yet another piece of misinformation from Kruelgor.

The premise of the thread is that Advent has no counter unit against the TEC Cobalt.

Your replays do not prove anything.



Good Idea. I'll do the same.

oops I reread kreulgor's post so I did miss one line. anyway about:



I didnt micromanage them, because letting the a.i micromanage equivalent ship types is a lot more objective than two human players when one is being a bit smarter (others observing might not be able to even notice it) giving advantage to that side.

Focus firing and the A.I:
The a.i in some cases (not always and in many cases not) is a bit better than humans in focus firing, it makes sure that it splits the fleet into x segments if each segment will kill it's focus fired vessel in a volley or two. Humans might make the whole fleet shoot one vessel, wasting a lot of potential damage.



actually they show outcomes of the matchup and that the disciples do a lot better than you claim they do. I edited my previous reply to reflect this before you replied.

Request for kruelgor
Kruelgor if your replays are more objective and you do a 87 vs 70 replay, please post it asap and the map, I wanna see how to make replays without the rotation. I could make a map were all ships start spreaded across the gravity well, but thats useless since the random factor of the spread could result in different things each time.