Yeah but who actually wastes money on research planet in Multiplayer.    

I think that is the thing people are confusing:

"Ion bolt is by far the best cap killing ability in the game."

They want to see a skill that does awesome damage, gives a damage over time, and stuns for a time with only the Akkan single-handedly killing the ship with 0 support.  That won't ever happen because that would be too powerful, but I agree it is one of the most helpful skills in the game as long as it has its support ships around it to do most of the damage.  You can ion bolt a ship with the Akkan from one end of the grav well to the other and not get a kill, but as soon as you have a good size fleet around the Akkan, yeah that other ship is dead.

Another thing that this skill does is interupt the phase jump, and I believe that the level 3 ion bolt has a shorter down time than the phase jump time, meaning you could perma hold a ship in the well as long as you have anti-matter.

I played a game with my fleet having 2 Akkan, 1 I made at the start, so maxed colonize and ion bolt, and the other I made on accident so it went full ion bolt and target uplink, thought I clicked Sova but I didn't, so I just went with it.  Having 2 ion bolts was the greatest thing i could have done, it made any other cap ship I saw totally useless.

Well, not "free".  You pay for the research.  I did the math in my head awhile back, and I think the break-even point is about 5 1/2 planets you have to double-explore for artificacts before you start making the research back.  That's a little high. 

OTOH that time bonus from the research is interesting when stacked with Progen's colonize bonus (which is for a limited time). 
I still don't think it matters much, but...it might....

with two lvl 5 Progenitors and lvl 3 in Shield Healing you can tank a lvl 6 Marza using Missile Barrage. This is not to be underestimated!

Still not totally sure how the progen ultimate works, so if you use the progen ultimate and you have another ship in the grav well where some other cap of yours died, it gets the levels of that ship?

Once a high lvl cap dies can you use the spirit-revival on all of the following cap ships of the same class? I could imagine getting a halcy to lvl 10, let it die and use revival on the following 10 halcyons... does it work or not?

Okay, the progen's level 6 is VERY case sensitive.  It works only once, so you cannot have multiple free high level caps.  Also, in case others didn't know, it only works on the same class of ship as the dead one.  Realistic, but it really puts the ability's overall usefulness into question.  THough in Darvin's case, it did prove invaluable, so maybe it's more than i give it credit for.

-Exile(\/)

Not true, if you found yourself facing an enemy who had built up an anti-strikecraft force, i, at lease, would be building something to defeat that, not build myself into the same corner that got my last cap killed.

I do see your point, though.  It would mean replacing a great many of your frigates.  But it is a necessity when your opponent has already beaten your last fleet. An identical one won't do better the second time.  Of course, with your cap ship dead, you probably aren't going to have much of your first fleet left anyway...

-Exile(\/)

Regarding the Akkan, I think it's a fine capital ship now.  I did used to think that it was mediocre and not worth the opportunity cost of building before, but it's great now that it's been buffed.  You build an Akkan, of course, for colonization and it's colization eco bonus is now very good.  (Before it was kind of silly.)  Ion Bolt is a nice ability.  Armistice and really frustrate your opponent and save your fleet and caps.  Targetting Uplink is also useful.  No capital ship is going to have four awesome abilities, perhaps just one or two excellent ones and one or two more useful ones.  The Akkan is fine and gets its primary job--colonization and eco expansion--done.

I'd like to see some calculations for its eco bonus so we can compare it to the Progen.  The Akkan's Level 3 colonization saves you 750 credits for extractors (assuming you didn't research that extractor building tech) and, most importantly, you get the 3 extractors IMMEDIATELY--you don't have to wait to build them as you would with Vasari (don't have to wait as long with the Egg) and Advent (worst in these regards) and you get double the extraction rate with Colonize Level 3.  That's probably good enough to pay for the costs of upgrading the planet's population and then some.

The thing about the Advent fleet is that they're all about synergies.  If you have a Progenitor, you're comboing with either shield restore or malice and your fleet largely depends on these abilities either to deal decisive damage or to keep guardians in the game.  If you're running a Halcyon, it's probably the center of your counter to strike craft; if it gets taken out replacing it is top priority (plus energy amplification is big-time useful).  Rapture is used to boost carrier damage, again if you have lots of carriers it's a no-brainer to bring back the synergy.  Radiance is used to counter other capital ships... chances are they still need countering.  I personally don't use Revelation, but again if you're counting on Reverie you're still counting on it.

Advent uses its capital ships to empower the rest of its fleet with synergies.  Unless you're completely retooling your fleet from the ground up (totally impractical if we're late enough in the game that you have level 6 caps running around) you will almost always replace one cap with another of the same type.  For TEC and Vasari, yeah, you often will swap caps as your strategy changes, but Advent almost never.

Akkan is an amazing cap ship. Heres a couple of examples of recent situations It saved the day.

Situation 1: I have lvl 6 Akkan, and lvl 6 Marza-

Enemy tries to FF my Marza to death, solution? Armistice and retreat. I come back, Missile barrage, Marzas health is getting low, Armistice again and retreat to safety. I've done this so many times that the Akkan has become almost as useful as the Marza.

Situation 2: Im in the pocket, I start Eco. 4 planets in I spy an enemy Marza escorted by a handful of javs claiming an asteroid 3 jumps from my frontlinemans Hw. Its one of the enemies pocket players. I switch to military and start pumping out Javs. Enemy Marza strikes my allies HW escorted by a fast increasing number of Javs, well into the 70s, I dont have the fleet to match, so I increase production trying to catch up. I send my starter Sova in to try and drive off the Marza with bombers before the HW is lost. Sova is killed and Marza reaches lvl 5 as allies Hw dies. I realize I need an Akkan. While his Hw was being bombed, my ally built an Orky at his neighboring planet and upgraded it with feed from our other eco spot. Enemy Marza attacks and his javs start ripping into the starbase. I finally catch up and then exceed in javs as my fleet jumps in to protect the starbase. Marza reaches lvl6 but is weakened and flees, I send half to chase it, other half to help the starbase widdle down the javs. Stabase gets destroyed, enemy javs retreat, Marza gets away. I continue pumping out javs, knowing full well they could all be destroyed with the click of a button. I reach about 110 before the enemy Marza hits my allies planet again with 80 javs. I send in my javs set to hold position and lure the Marza to the edge of the well, MB goes off, but my Akkan is jumping in and disables it before it can do critical damage, then keeps the Marza pinned down while my Javs turn it to junk. No escape. Marza is destroyed along with enemy javs. Enemy eco spot leaves game. Game won by Akkan. I love that little ship.

I can agree with you there.  And i suppose it's mostly a lore problem keeping it so specific.  A Radiance crew reincarnated into a Halcyon would be pretty screwed, after all...

-Exile(\/)

Has to be the same.  I tested this, too.  I got a Halcyon to lvl 6, sent it to the Pirate base alone, with all squadrons docked, parked it in the middle of 5-7 gauss turrets for good messure, then built a Halcyon again, after i saved, and reincarnated it.  The next Halcyon refused to level, therefore confirming the one-ship limit.  THen i reloaded and tried to do the same to a battleship, and the ability effectively dry-fired, doing nothing but wasting the Progen's Antimatter.

Refreshing out look on the lore, though.  I hadn't thought of it like that.  THough "Reincarnation" does seems to imply possession in this case.  The ability is reincarnate, right?  I forget...

-Exile(\/)