Advent Scout Martyrdom

It isnt meant to be superpowered, to stop suicide fleets.

300 damage isnt super powered. Tecs scout does 1200 damage to structures and vasari capture neutrals which is a big advantage.

If only Advent and TEC scouts' abilities could be used to blow up the neutral extractor mines...

Yeah Martyrdom is never used because it's worthless.

Yep and I hate it even more because of Martydom in CoD4...I despise that!!! Blah!!

-Phalnax

I agree with the OP.  I don't think I've ever seen a tactical use for that ability, other than when it is coupled with lingering presence....although you could just let the ship get killed and save the resources.

And I'd like to look at another ability that is woefully underpowered for its cost: The Jump degredation ability granted to the Severun Overseer.  It sounds cool:  Delay enemy forces phase jumping into a planet to buy for your fleet to arrive, prepare defenses, etc.  Except that the vast majority of phase lines on any map are so short that the 50% reduction in speed grants you maybe about 5-10 seconds.  Which isn't enough time to do anything.  It's basically worthless.  I recommend increasing it to 100% at the base rate with a possible additional tier of research to improve it to 150% or even 200%, with an appropriate increase in antimatter cost to prevent spamming(or some other effect like disabling the ship for the duration of the ability).  This would actually give you time to build a few more missile batteries or repair bays or finish another upgrade on a starbase.

Even better would be a fixed delay for jump-in. Like a PJI but on the other end of the phase lane.

That way it would be effective even with short lanes without becoming insanely long with longer lanes.

I have to agree that Martyrdom is a pretty darn limited ability, but I also understand the need to avoid suicide fleets.  Perhaps exchanging it for something else would be a good idea for the future. 

Jump Degradation, on the other hand, is a reusable ability that doesn't cost any resources from a fairly cheap ship.  It shouldn't be powerful.  However, it would be interesting if there was some sort of "stacking" ability where the effect is increased a bit with each additional ship engaging its Jump Degradation ability.

Definitely agreed on the martyrdom ability. It also doesn't seem to fit the advent as well. I can understand the whole "Give your life for the advent", but it seems a sort of pointless gesture, even with the level of devotion of a seeker crew. And with lingering presence, the advents sight specialty is already covered. Perhaps something that affects culture spread, either you own or an adversaries. It doesn't seem unreasonable that seekers could be outfitted with broadcasting equipment, or some such thing.

And as for Jump Degredation, I'd like to see that be a bit more useful too. As it is it's only useful for moving a defending fleet an almost infinitesimal distance into a marginally better position. That, or to start moving the rest of an outnumbered attacking fleet towards a phase lane in order to retreat (leaving the overseer behind in the process, but that is after all their job).

Its only useful to trigger the secondary ability of lingering pressence.

Well, the TEC scout needs 900 sec cooldonw, so it is just a hit and run weapon OR a fleet support weapon. The AI seems to have no targeting priorities whatsoever against 20 or so (cheap) TEC scouts.

EDIT:Though I was playing on the map where the two homeworlds were point blank...