Progenitor Mothership final ability?

1) no this is a bug. I always shut it off and have still been able to use it. turn off autocast and save am for better abilities.

2) When you lose a high level cap simple target a lower level cap and it will be brought up to the dead caps level. Not added too but made equal too. This can work on any other cap no matter class or level (though it is wasted if you use it on one that is already equal or higher that dead cap).

Stupid ability. I think it should distribute the levels between the present caps ships. However subtract one from the total levels added and make a max of 2 or 3 levels added per ship.

My thoughts

-Phalnax

Lol stupid ability. That's a stupid statement.

Tell that my enemies who have put their hearts and souls into taking out a radiance and halycon level 8, only to have them both back in a couple minutes. That's the single best ability in the game. It's priceless.

I like it.  You can bring back dead ships.

It's been suggested before that it should go quite well together with Animosity and Vengeance.

when does this ever happen, honestly? i'm pretty sure that the Mothership is always gonna be the first target anyway just to get rid of the Shield Restore if nothing else. the Mothership has to be alive to Ressurect dead cap levels and thats why the ability is bad. 

my opinion is that the ability should function as a re-incarnate in advance kind of ability. this is how i'd like it to work:

first you cast Reincarnate on a ship thats still alive. you would normally do this out of combat. whichever ship had been designated with Reincarnate you would be able to rebuild that exact ship at any capital ship yard any time after that ship had died. you could target the mothership itself with the ability as well so the thing would keep coming back over and over again no matter how many times you killed it. 

now that would be a noticeably powerful ability. the way it is now is gimicky and mostly useless since the Progen is the most likely ship to die first anyway. 

Then build two motherships (and keep one out of the way)?  It doesn't need to be in the same well to "save a soul".

This is an honest question.

Isn't being able to "reincarnate" your destroyed caps worth 50 fleet supply, a cap (everyone complains about how caps are useless and they never max their caps anyway), and a couple thousand experience (most of which you should get over time automatically)?

It's fine as is-it would be noticeably overpowered if it were as you suggest.  Advent caps would practically never die (permanently).

It is a great ability for a worst case scenario. But it is usually the lower level capital ships that die first. Might be different in multiplayer, but for singleplayer you usually have much more serious issues when you mothership, usually your no.1 cap ship, dies.

This was going to be my next question.  So, it doesn't matter where my mothership is, even if it's in a completely different star system than the cap that just bit the dust?

this suggestion is really getting to the heart of just why the ability is underpowered and impractical. if you've got 2 level 6+ cap ships running around you ought to be just dominating with that fleet. if you were a TEC player and could double Missile Barrage people, would you expect to be losing capital ships? no you'd be dominating.

in my opinion no, it isn't worth it. its the couple thousand experience part thats not worth it, the economic costs aren't nearly as big of a deal. if that experience were directed into increasing the combat strength of your fleet you might not be in a situation where you're losing cap ships in the first place.

would it? Advent fleets are very centered around their capital ships and as such are more adversely affected by losing them then other factions. there are many different implementations that could be used for the Re-incarnate ability that are balanced in various ways. I was merely suggesting that it should be more useful. The crux of my suggestion is that the #1 problem is that a Mothership cannot save itself. I think Ressurect or Reincarnate or whatever its called should be able to address this issue in some way because it loses 100% of its utility if your Mothership is killed first, which is basically always what happens if you're in a battle big enough that you start losing caps.

balancing factors could be included to reduce the relative power of the ability i have suggested. perhaps increase the cost of rebuilding a lost high level ship, to make the economic penalty much more severe. perhaps put it on a cooldown (can only rebuild a Ressurected ship once every 10 minutes, maybe?) to prevent spamming the high level ship and sending it on suicide missions.

you see what i'm getting at? i'd like to see the basic flaw of the ability fixed. if fixing that flaw overpowers it then it should be balanced in some other way that doesn't reintroduce the flaw that was fixed.

I would agree that that is a flaw in the ability, yes.  It would be nice if that flaw were addressed in some way.  I still think it works well as is.

I'm not real clear on the whole "two level 6 cap ships running around" idea.  You have one cap ship that is at least level 6, and one cap ship that is...any level, really.  It could be level 3...and it dies...and you build a new one and save time and/or resources and/or experience getting it "back" to level 3.

With regards to it being an experience sink...I take it no one goes to 7 military labs as Advent?  Ever?  Not even once?

I don't remember specifically testing it being in a different star system.  I'd test it now but I'm on the verge of passing out due to tiredness.  I can't think of a good reason for it not to work even in a different star system, but I'm not the one who coded the game.  I do remember it working at a different planet.

Edit: Have a look here.

That's a great ability. Eternal high level caps, especially for Advent that needs the abilities, is nothing to laugh at. Like CommanderAdama says, put all that hard work into taking out his high level caps, and they're back in two minutes. Building a new one is almost quicker then repairing the old one !

Wish TEC had it to replace my Level 10 Marza Planet/Fleet killers if one gets killed. Makes me sad to see one go 'boom'.

In MP this ability is used most often by your second mothership, to bring back your frist mothership :/  That's about it.  Yous tart with a motership, it dies around level 5, you use antoehr one and it lives till level 6, so you build one more mothership and resurect it to level 5.

Usually it's your first capital ship that dies most often, and that's always a mothership.

The ressurrection ability is a great asset, but you don't "pre-emptively" add to it.  If you don't have any high level caps to ressurrect, just add your skill point to something else.  You add to this ability once something has died and you want to replace it.

This ability works fine with all motherships after your first.  The first mothership obviously has the paradox that it is the highest level cap and therefore the most likely to die first.  I think this is fair given how powerful a colonizing mothership is.  You basically get a gimped ultimate if you pick mothership first, but otherwise with a higher level cap the ability works great.

Well, recently I am playing Advent to understand the game balance more fully.

When always against any semi-decent players, they don't seem having interested in my other capitals, sometimes completely ignore them.

Then they bring 50 Enforcers with teh EGG! and solely focus fire on my mothership, until it dies, which happens before I blink.

And yes, I have same thought as Astax. If this works on Allies' capitals then it would be great though.

You can argue its "uselessness" all you want, but when i have mass transcendance and the ability to ressurrect my caps, they are no match for any other cap ships, simply because i can keep getting my level 8-10 caps back over and over, while the enemy loses theirs for good.

That situation is pretty rare, but when it happens it really makes life easy for Advent.  So long as they retain at least one level 6+ mothership, they can get back all their cap ship experience in the blink of an eye.

There's no question that ressurrection is one of the most powerful ultimates in the late game, and one of the weakest in the early.

i think this is not a comparison you want to start making. not unless you're prepared to argue that Advent's late game cap ship spam is somehow a match for Returning Armada + Phasic Transmissions or Pervasive Economy + Industrial Juggernaut. 

The old RA would be another matter, but in the current version I do think Advent cap spam is comparable with those other upgrades.  Advent has a shitty economy, and no one will argue with you there, but on the flip side they get benefits that simply cannot be purchased with any amount of money by the other factions.

The only times I've ever gotten a full fleet of 16 capital ships is as Advent.  As any other faction, there just isn't enough experience to go around to get them all up to a high level, so you're always better off with fewer of them to keep levels high.  Between the free bump to level 4 and rapid experience again afterwards, mass transcendance gives me a fleet that would simply be impossible to raise as Vasari or TEC, and you can't put any money value on that.

Just to let you know, im playing a match against 5 AI in the Ancient Gifts scenario. Fleet size is set to huge. I've hit the fleet cap myself, but only have 2 real fleets because the AI have basically all of their ships in 1 fleet. if i try to divide up my forces, i wont stand a chance in a fight. in fact, i've had to use both my fleets in some battles. and they have ALOT of carriers.

anyhow, my point is that i play as Advent. I have used that Resurrect ability about 5 times this game. never put it on auto cast, its broke or something. All my capitals are lvl 10. Why am i losing capitals? as I said, they generally out number me if 1 of my fleets goes against 1 of theirs. recently, the vasari AI has started disabling all my shield frigates or all my healing frigates, or some combination plus my progenitor (actually, does anyone know which ship of theirs has this ability? i need to make it a priority target). so, i usually start off pretty good, then suddenly start dying vary hard. and retreating from a fight against the vasari also means im losing at least 1 capital ship. they lock out my phase jump and wail on it. i've even lost 1 progenitor, but because i have 2, i got the replacement back to lvl 10. its really awesome that basically once i have a ship at lvl 10, ill never have to worry about what level my ship is at. if it dies, its right back at 10.

In smaller, shorter games, i can see how it might not be very effective. so, in general, you should probably be putting your points in Shield regen and Malice (maybe a point in colonize if you think its worth it). once those are maxed out, any extra points are leftovers anyhow

How is this possible?  You mean a second mothership can resurrect a cap that died before it - the second mothership - was even built?

Your first point goes in colonize, because it's your first cap ship and a 20% discount is very helpful.  Your second point goes in shield regen, because you're fighting, and it's damn good, but also because it won't let you put it in colonize yet.  Your third point goes in colonize, because a 40% cost reduction is even better than a 20% cost reduction.  Your 4th point goes in shield regen, for the same reasons as the second.  By the time you get to level 5, you might not be colonizing anymore, but if you are, raise colonization to level 3 and wait til level 6 for level 3 shield regen.  Get resurrection at level 7.

You do it that way because it's your first cap ship.  It's your first cap ship because there's no reason for it not to be your first cap ship.  If you build another progenitor later (and you're not using it to colonize as well), then you can do shield regen/malice/shield regen/malice/shield regen.

The Vasari disabler is the Antorak Marauder.

If you read the thread I linked, you'd notice down at the bottom that the game stores the cap ship levels even before you have a Progenitor.  No one ever notices this because they always make it their first cap.

It's very rare I get past the carrier/colony/dreadnaught combo with advent,game is usually over by then

I've never once even used the ability, but I only played the AI when I just barely started a handful of times and moved to MP

I've never once lost a capital ship to the AI, so I only add to ressurrection at level 10.  However, against a player it's entirely another story.  I've never payed a multiplayer game where I haven't lost at least one cap.

As I said earlier, add a point to ressurrection only once there is something to ressurrect.  If nothing is dead yet, don't bother adding to it yet.  If there's something available for ressurrection, then go crazy, but don't pre-emptively add to it and then complain you never got the opportunity to use it.

Levels are everything for Cap ships, and Advent has that market cornered.  Its so easy to build an Advent ship and get to level 4 in no time.  They also get xp bonus after 4.