Questions about Advent ship abilities

from Sins Forums

I've recently started learning how to play the Advent and I'd like to learn more about some of the ships' abilities.  I'll add more questions in later posts as they come to me.

Malice.  Does Malice (the mothership's ability) affect only the single ship that you target with it or does is it also have an area of effect?

Ruthlessness.  One of the upgrades for the Destra Crusader (the heavy battle cruiser) is ruthlessness.  How useful is it and is it a passive ability or does it consume antimatter and require microing?  Does a single Crusader's ruthlessness ability damage only a single enemy ship at one time or all enemy ships within a certain area of effect?  Is Ruthlessness additive?  If five Crusaders are within range of an enemy ship, will the enemy ship receive ruthlessness damage from just one Crusader or all five?

Deceptive Illusion.  The Illuminators can cast shadows of themselves, causing enemy ships shots to miss them.  Does it really work and is it really useful?  Will the ships do it themselves or does it have to be micromanaged?






strategy
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Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
when you click malice on something, ships around your target also get hit by it. After that, everything that's malice'd will take a % of the damage that any other ship that's also maliced receives. The targets still take full damage if they're actually being hit and the malice damage is added on top of that.

ruthlessness is a passive that deals constant dps to everythign near the ship. It doesn't require antimatter and it's just always on. I believe it also works with malice, but I'm not sure if that's correct. Also, the skill doesn't stack if I recall correctly.

Deceptive Illusion is definitely worth getting. It creates exact duplicates of illums that can also shoot. However, the illusions don't deal damage. It's autocastable and works fine when done as so.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks. I get the sense that Ruthlessness really isn't all that great. 1.5 DPS that doesn't stack or 90 hit points in a minute. Is paying to research it really worthwhile?
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Is paying to research it really worthwhile?
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It doesn't seem like much, but when battles can take 10+ minutes with large enough fleets, it adds up. 10 minutes is 900 AE damage just for your ships being there and you having to do nothing :P

At those stages in the game research costs are pretty negligible. But I wouldn't say there's much point for smaller and short fights.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Ruthlessness. One of the upgrades for the Destra Crusader (the heavy battle cruiser) is ruthlessness. How useful is it and is it a passive ability or does it consume antimatter and require microing? Does a single Crusader's ruthlessness ability damage only a single enemy ship at one time or all enemy ships within a certain area of effect? Is Ruthlessness additive? If five Crusaders are within range of an enemy ship, will the enemy ship receive ruthlessness damage from just one Crusader or all five?
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It's passive and is on all the time, and doesn't use anti matter. No micro required. It doesn't stack with other Destras ruthlessness aura. It adds 1.5 dps, which is basically approximately a 5% increase in the Destra firepower (assuming no other upgrades). In small battles, it's not worth it, but in larger, longer battles it can make a difference. I think it's worth the money in a long game.

Deceptive Illusion. The Illuminators can cast shadows of themselves, causing enemy ships shots to miss them. Does it really work and is it really useful? Will the ships do it themselves or does it have to be micromanaged?
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What happens is that a fake copy of the Illuminator is created. You can actually control the fake Illums like they were regular ships, but their weapons, obviously, don't do any damage. You can tell the fakes from the real ones just by looking, but obviously your opponent can't. It takes anti matter and can be microed or set to autocast. I find that autocast works fine for this ability, IMO.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
You can see which ships are affected by Malice if you zoom in, they have a graphical effect on them (the info card also shows it). The area isn't huge, but if ships are tighly packed you can do a ton of damage.