Wow, thanks for the offer.

Statistics and all are interesting, but I like to know what things look like and how they're most effectively used. So I've been toying with the idea of getting all the units down, what they can do and how they can be most effectively employed, supported by images.

I've still been playing for a format that works, making it on the forum here sounds like it could complicate matters (although solve the trouble of where to host it). I'm not sure how it could work here, I love the images (been compiling a lot just for the fun of it) so trying to cram it all into one post, or even a page on a thread would likely be murder on many connections.

I don't know, still just thinking and playing with various ideas. I'm right now just running down a few units to see how long it takes on average to cover what I want. I'm still not sure on the project, to get a single layout and all the images I wanted took over an hour this morning (it was just for the Seeker Scout, too), so have to think about things a bunch.

Results of my playing just for fun...

Advent Seeker Vessel

Role: Scout

Prerequisite Research: (none)

Relevant Research:








Basic Seeker Stats:

Built by: Frigate Factory
Cost: 200 Credits
Population Use: 2
Build Time: 14

Hull Points: 400
Shield Points: 425
Armor: 2
Armor Type: Light

Average Laser Damage: 3
Damage Type: Anti-Light


Description:

Small, fast and cheap, the Seeker is the basic Advent scout. With various research options the Seeker retains much of it's usefulness throughout the game, but is rarely a viable combat unit due to it's light armor, light damage type and low overall damage. Like all scouts the Seeker starts off with Auto-Attack off, so this must be toggled in the instances where it is used for direct combat. The seeker is unique in that two of it's four abilities stem directly from the unit's own death.

Counters:

Virtually every unit in the game can defeat a Seeker, since the Seeker's main weapon is speed. Strikecraft, generally Fighters housed in Hangers, Carriers or Capital Ships are best for countering Seekers (who usually aren't in the area to fight) because of their superior speed. Early cost effective counters for combat seekers are the basic combat Frigate (Advent Disciple, TEC Cobalt, Vasari Skirmisher) or the Long Range Frigates of Vasari and TEC (Javelis LRM for TEC or the Kanrak Assailant for Vasari).

Abilities:


Explore:

This ability will cause the Seeker Vessel to automatically go to a nearby unexplored area, or if all areas have been explored, an area that has not been viewed recently. Left on Autocast, the Seeker will roam the map, giving the player a constant up to date image of the field until the Seeker is destroyed. The Seeker will not stop to fight opponents while in this mode, but is also difficult for most units, other than Strikecraft, to engage.



Martyrdom:

Requiring three Temples of Hostility, Martyrdom allows the Seeker Vessel to engage in a suicide attack on a nearby enemy. In slamming into the opponent, the Seeker inflicts 250 damage and is destroyed. This damage, however is subject to Shield Mitigation and is not Propagated by Progenitor Mothership's Malice ability. It may be tempting to use Seekers for combat with Martyrdom, but by the time the player can research this ability Seekers are usually obsolete.



Lingering Presence:

Lingering Presence allows the player to view the location the Seeker died in for a period of time (nearly five minutes for the first level, nearly ten for the second). requires two Temples of Harmony to research, Lingering Presence is a fairly expensive ability, but can give invaluable and prolonged intelligence on an area, at the cost of the Scout itself. Often a good ability to employ, it remains viable into the later part of the game, only really surpassed by the Revelation Battlecruiser's Clairvoyance ability.



Infallible Jump Drive:

A passive ability requiring six Temples of Hostility to research, Infallible Jump Drive allows the Scout to ignore Phase Jump Inhibitors tax on the the time it takes to jump between worlds. This allows the Seeker to bypass a fortified world and continue deeper into enemy territory to aquire intelligence. It is rare to encounter a gravity well that has all of it's exits covered by Phase Jump Inhibitors, so this research is rarely required, but can greatly help in some instances.


Uses, Tactics and Strategies:

At the start of the game, Seekers are invaluable information tools. Building two is a common strategy and sending them on Auto-explore. Once an enemy is found, a Seeker can often play cat-and-mouse at the Home Planet of an enemy for several minutes before being destroyed, which can tie up enemy units and give the player much needed information. Beyond scouting, Seekers are generally left off the field. However, their speed, ability to bypass Inhibitors, and Martydom can theoretically make them good for striking deep into an enemy's territory after a specific target such as a super-weapon. But the costs (nearly 50 Seekers would be required for such a task) and inherent risk of such an idea presumably keeps it in the realm of theory-crafting.

Images:











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Actual uses could require beefing up, but in my mind that's how I would imagine it on these forums. However due to the number of images (even if I resize them, which I should) it doesn't seem practical to put them in a single topic, and I doubt the good folks and Ironclad would want a topic per unit. To the drawing board...

All the pictures are too much, you think? Or just the giant ones at the bottom?

I have sick, unhealthy love affair with pictures, which skews my views on things. I think at least one picture of the unit (maybe just a link to it, though, to avoid being too intrusive) would be fine. At least I think one picture is nice, I know when I'm first getting into a game (and even for a while after) I don't recognize all of the units by name and need some kind of image of them to place them. I like the pictures of the abilities, but they might be off too.

I'm still not exactly sure how to tackle this even though, these forums don't allow you to edit after a reply has been made (except opening posts, from the look of things, two of the typos I have in that test post are driving me crazy right now). So this might not even be the right place to toy with the ideas.

Thank you for the suggestion, though.

Hour and a half or so, first one is always the longest and the Seeker has an above average number of abilities, but that's offset by the relatively few tactics and strategies I have listed for it. Times that by forty-five and it's not an unreasonable amount of time to spend on a task.

Obsessive-compulsive tendencies and sleep problems can lead to some strange projects.

I was thinking that on the images too, just the first image given, resized to something reasonable (200x300 or something like that, not tiny, but good enough to see what it is) and just at the end for reference.

I figure tonight I'll do the Disciple and either the Illuminator or Arcova Scout Frigate (doing a unit from another faction will help give a better representation of the time and the Illuminator is due for some changes this week anyway) and see how things pan out. Shouldn't take all that long, though.

The medium is right now more my concern. I really would like to do it on the forums here, since I'm no uber-player, I consider myself barely proficient, and I think a lot can be gained by having better players reading and suggesting (or flat out saying things are wrong). And frankly, a lot of players come to the forums for help, so maybe it could maybe even be helpful to someone out there. But the editing restrictions seem to make that difficult, and solutions seem few at the moment.

But finding solutions to problems is half the fun in life, I guess.

Good guide there, but the Uses, Tactics and Strategies could use a little work. Also if you ever use a lot of pictures, they should be for the captial ships, and point out where there weapons are.

Here some notes that I think should be put in, even before you talk about any of the factions or there ships.

Same Role + different abilities = different roles. Even thougth, many ships have the same role as that of ships in other factions, there special abilities, cahnge there over all role in there battle fleets. Case and point is the battleships for each pf there factions. They all do the same role, of close combat unit, nut there special abilities change how they act in a overall battle group. The TEC Kol Battleship is more of anti-capital ship, where it can work in packs to fire it rail gun after enemy shields are down, to destory enemy caps in seconds(note this only works if you have about 5 of them shoting at the same time, with the enemy's shield down). The Advent Radiance Battleship is is more of a fleet protection ship. Its abilitie to focus attack away form other ships, allows it to protect, nearly destory ally ships. On top of that, it has Energy absorptive armor, that help it, for being attacked. The Vasari Kortul Devastator is more of an anti fleet weapon. It does not have the abilitie to save ships, like the Radiance or hunt caps like the Kol, but in a fleet fight, there no one else I would not stand by, but a Kortul. The power surge increase weapons AND(trying to point it out) shields. On top of that, the increase in fire power, increase how useful disuptive strike is. This is add to the fact that the Kortual can use Volatile Nanites, that make targets easier to destory, which is supported by the power surge's increase in firepower. On top of all this, destoryed ship under volatile nanites damage other ships when destoryed.

As you can see, they are all combat ships, but there abilities, make them have very different roles in the over all fleet.

Second thing to note, is how you play the game, will effect how useful or useless some ships are to you. Half of the Vasari players will stand by the Antorak Marauder, and the other half will never build them again.

Sorry, should of put this first, the thing you got wrong in the Uses, Tactics and Strategies section is that the scout does not stop in the enemy home system, but keeps moving form system to system, trying to keep you up to data on all plants that it can jump to.

Can you add a link to these guid Ron Lugge? I would like to see them to, but I think a gide here would be easier to find. Also we need to work out all the parts of the guide, before we post it any where.