Four abilities that really need help are:

Gauss Rail Gun

Flak Burst

Adaptive Forcefield

Finest Hour

Actually, Shield Restore got buffed, not nerfed. The amount of shields restored was decreased, but so did the cooldown. And TEC ships have low enough shields that the 250/500/750 should be sufficient. With the Dunov as a whole, it has pretty good abilities, but is just overshadowed by the Sova, Akkan, and Marza. EMP Charge deals good damage, but Missile Batteries has less cooldown and Radiation Bomb deals more damage. Magnetize is outdone by Ion Bolt's cheaper AM cost and short cooldown. And Flux Field requires multiple caps to do well. I'd just think that buffing all of the Dunov abilities would make it a lot better. EMP Charge should interrupt frigates/cruisers using abilities, Magnetize would be better with a shorter cooldown, and Shield Restore could also use a shorter cooldown.

GRG needs shield bypass, Flak Burst cheaper, Adaptive Forcefield would be best be made a passive (With reduced damage reduction, but keep the phase missil block), and Finest Hour would be better with shield restoration or a DPS boost.

Making Subversion affect the economy would make it too much like Embargo. Instead, it should reduce the AM, Hull, and Shield restoraton of all enemy buildings in the gravity well (Including Starbases). It'd still be a situational ability, but could be a serious threat against Starbases.

Normally I'm against double posts, but I think this warrants one...

This is my response to Sword's abilities that need help: Yes, no, no, HECK NO!!!

GRG: see previous post.  It needs, help, but not shield bypass!  Do you realize how OP that is?  That is an instant kill on many ships including guardians.  You say that it is only fair because of Nano.  Wrong.  Nano has the ability to aid Assailants by killing armor on just about anything smaller than a SB.  It has a value to the fleet as a whole, not just against a single target.  That is simply out of the picture.  Many people say that that is the method to use, but there are more reasons not to do that than there are to do it that way.

Also, don't go suggesting straight DPS buffs either...  Same problem as before.  The first strike in battle always deals nearly full damage.  That means that you can get off a huge shot if done first and instantly put a huge dent in that enemy capital's shields without even trying.  No.

 

Flak Burst: This ability is fine.  It isn't in desperate need of aid.  If SC come in range, it makes them pay.  This is better if you have more than one Kol as two using it will kill all nearby SC.  The problem isn't this ability.  Its the other abilities on the Kol making it so that no one gets more than one Kol.

 

Adaptive Forcefield: This ability is good.  Once again, its not the issue.  it makes the Kol the hardest ship in the game to kill.  No more PM's means it goes down slower as does the generic damage redux.  If you want to make it a passive, that is a problem with the Kol, not this ability.

 

Finest Hour: This ability is awesome!  It buffs darn near every stat!  You want shield regen?  Why?  Shields don't get armor, hull does.  Its best as is!  You want a damage boost?  Do you not know that the Kol has more guns than any ship in the game?  You just gave it splash damage!  Do you not realize what that does?  This ability is good.  I understand your points on the others, even if you are misinterpreting the facts, but this one...  FH is one of the best abilities in the game, but it is on a sucky capital.  Nothing makes a cap harder to kill than FH+AF+Hoshis+RP's.  Nothing.

Actually, this one was obvious to me when I read the patch notes.  The amount of shields it restores is well above the maximum of any frigate or cruiser, so by lowering the maximum and lowering the antimatter cost it actually got better for restoring frigates and cruisers.  The ability is still practically worthless, but at least I understand where this is coming from.

To fix this ability, how about adding a secondary effect:  bumping up the target's shield mitigation to 90% for a short duration?  This would give some killer damage reduction, it wouldn't stack with other bonuses (like friendly Advent culture, which could push it over the edge) and would certainly make this ability worthwhile.  Self targeting alone isn't enough, IMO.



After the early game, magnetize is basically only worthwhile as an interrupt and is pretty worthless for strike craft control, and even then you need to get it on to the enemy carrier for it to be effective. 

I'd agree that Animosity needs a rework, preferably something useful in larger fleet battles.  One thing I suggested is making all units in the area around the Radiance invulnerable, except for the Radiance itself (two Radiances using this ability would not affect each other).  This would force everyone to attack the Radiance or nothing at all.



Couldn't agree more; this ability lacks a definitive role.  More functionality or better functionality is necessary to make it worthwhile.



Those are good and decent abilities respectively, GRG is crud by comparison.  I'm personally starting to think adaptive force-fields is also too weak.  The problem is that if someone is throwing all their forces against your Kol the difference between 20 seconds and 30 seconds of time to live is not enough for pumping points into an ability whose sole purpose is to keep the Kol alive.  While we're at it, an antimatter cost reduction of flak burst would be nice.

I think people forget just how little after-mitigation damage GRG does.  130/260/390 is your damage presuming you're hitting 60% mitigation (capital ships are a little higher).  That's pathetic, I get more DPS from a dozen LRM's than I do from a Kol spamming GRG, and that's not antimatter dependent.

All things said, I'd like to see GRG moved down to 30 antimatter cost, flak burst 90 antimatter, and adaptive forcefields free.  The brick needs more punch and reliability.



Personally, though, there are a couple other abilities I'd mention here:

Guidance
Decreases the cooldown of capital ship abilities.  Of course, if this ability just causes you to deplete antimatter faster, it really didn't do any help at all.  Unless you're swimming in more antimatter than you can use (not the case for ANY Advent capital ships) this isn't very useful.  Guidance seems more like a support-cruiser level ability.


Phase Missile Swarm
Let me just open up by giving you a breakdown of its after mitigation damage (60% mit):
level 1 -  80 damage x 3 targets = 240 damage
level 2 - 160 damage x 5 targets = 800 damage
level 3 - 240 damage x 7 targets = 1680 damage

For a comparison, suppose a Marza gets twenty targets within radiation range (fairly typical).  What's the effect of radiation bomb's area of effect damage over time component?

level 1 - 140 damage x 20 targets x 40% (mit) = 1120 damage
level 2 - 280 damage x 20 targets x 40% (mit) = 2240 damage
level 3 - 420 damage x 20 targets x 40% (mit) = 3360 damage

Because it doesn't have a damage cap, the Marza's ability scales much better than the pathetic PMS.  In fact, because PMS has such a tiny target count at the first and second levels, its damage is nearly negligible.  Combined with high antimatter cost and high cooldown... why would you ever use this ability!? 


Jerrasul Colonize
TEC gets free extractors and a temporary extractor bonus.  Advent gets a substantial discount on planet upgrades.  Vasari gets a small build speed bonus?  Are you kidding me?  Colonize is still an awesome ability, but I'd like to get something competitive to the Akkan or Progenitor out of this thing...


Incendiary Rounds
These just don't do that much.  They don't stack with themselves, so 3 dps is pretty well negligible.  It's like getting one quarter of a LRM added to your fleet.  Even maxed out, what's 6 dps gunna do?  Even over the course of an absurdly long 2 minute shootout, that's fricken 720 damage.  In late game fleet battles where we're tossing around THOUSANDS of damage every second, that doesn't even register a single blip.

Shield Restore- Though I understand the interpretation of the purpose of the reduction, it still doesn't make any sense... so there would have been 'excess' had it been kept at the same level with its cooldown and antimatter costs reduced- so what?  It just means that it wouldn't have hurt to have left it at the same level.  When you need to get a capital out of trouble, there is less upfront restore though.  Perhaps the ability might work better if it could increase shield levels? 

Animosity- Darvin's Armistice-type solution would make the original ability work.  However it would also be a new type of ability, which might be difficult to implement.  One objection is that the invulnerability would require less skill than the original ability, as you would get your own ships in range rather than the enemy.  The solution has the weakness of the original that it doesn't do anything of itself.   

Also Advent have the problem that they have no anti-strikecraft ability without their carrier, which reduces their options.  The other battleships have anti-strikecraft abilities.  I meant that the Radiance would in effect magnetize itself though, not an enemy ship, so that the strikecraft crashed into and damaged the battleship, causing 25 damage each to the Radiance but destroying the strikecraft...

However the basic problem remains that the ability does nothing at all at present.  I'd be happier with some sort of solution that involved making it do something...

I won't dissent on the utility of Jam Weapons or Microphasing Aura.   Guidance seems like a good alternative candidate for a buff, its on a little used ship, and the ability is very poor compared to the Kortul equivalent.  It does also make weapons fire faster with a 40% cooldown reduction on a single ship for 15/30/45s, the Kortuls cooldown reduction is 25/50/75% for 20/25/30s, and the Kortul becomes faster with better shield regeneration as well..  Like the Dunov if this is intended to work with frigates and cruisers its very antimatter heavy and with much micro involved, the abilities have similar problems.  I'd be tempted to start with a decrease in antimatter cost for Guidance itself so that it would work better without other capitals- there isn't a solution posted?

Radiation Bomb only does its initial damage to a single target, the others are just irradiated...?  Also Phase Missile Swarm is on a half-decent ship.  Incendiary shells could use a buff but that would be a buff to the Marza.. would it hurt to have them stack?  Either that or slightly more damage, 4/7/10?  Even at the top level 10dps is like a 20% or so passive?  Below level 6 the Marza is nothing special anyway..   

The Egg is one of the best capitals there is, and the Vasari already get early game advantages with neutral extractors.  I'm not even sure that points are put into colonise after the first on the other two ships.  The Egg's other abilities are top-notch.   

I'd also be against buffing all the abilities on a single ship at once.  I'm not sure how the splash damage works on Finest Hour, radius damage of 60dps for 60s is not a poor ability, if that is how it works, but the rest seems inferior to the Kortul's Surge.  Having one of its abilities passive, either the rail gun or the damage reduction, would change the ship greatly.  The Kortul works because it has a great passive, an anti-strikecraft ability and a further ability that is like 3 abilities in one...   

Skirantra was buffed because it was the weakest of the 3 cap carriers, which gave a serious handicap to an already-handicapped vasari.  All factions limp along with various unviable capships of one sort or another - this is no problem.  But with the "carrier caps rule" patches, no faction limps along with a weak carrier cap.

I've always thought that magnetize would be far more useful if one could magnetize his own ships.  But I haven't thought it through enough to know whether this would make it OP or not.

Thing is, shield restore obviously should be used almost exclusively for capships, starbases, etc.  Using it to restore a frig is situational.  Why spend antimatter restoring some stupid frig, especially if it is being FF'd?

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/377069

Darvin's idea sounds interesting too.

 

The Dunov can never be good simply because people will always focus it first.  You make Shield Restore as crazy as you want, but if the Dunov can't save itself, it simply does not matter.  Make it self-targetting, and throw in Darvin's mitigation buff, and you have a real counter to LRF focus fire spam for TEC.

RadBomb: Fairly certain it affects shields and so is mitigated.

Incendiary: Maybe make it bypass shields+small 'other' buff?

Guidance: It's a 40% buff only to ability cooldown for a while. Give it AM regen.

Power Surge: Only affects weapon cooldown and shield restore, not ability cooldown or speed.

 

I was using the 1.18 ability tables... it says radiation damage is 5s duration not 20s..?  Early game twenty targets in that small an area would be fairly unusual?  It was always good against massed scouts though!

I may have been misled by the Guidance summary, it says increase rate of fire 1.67 times, but that might refer to the ability?  You've used it more often than me...

I have used Surge to get out of combat occasionally however, so I'm surprised that there is no speed boost- the Kortul must just be fairly fast then!  Surge is still far better than Shield Restore, though, the difference between heal that takes a few seconds and instant heal isn't that great under normal circunstances.  Perhaps when fighting another Kortul Shield Restore might have advantages?

Guidance is still the only ability I'd add to the four I started with, maybe Incendiaries.  The Marza sufferes more from carrier capitals because it is so slow, and it hardly clears planets as well as a Sova.  I'm not even convinced that the entire carrier capitals fad isn't because of TEC finally having a 'fighting' capital that isn't too slow to survive- TEC is forced into Sovas and the other factions then follow.  Perhaps?

Okay, to my understanding this is how it works.  The target takes damage and is irradiated for the next 20 seconds.  Any unit that gets too close to it is irradiated for 5 seconds.  If they remain close to it, the duration gets extended.  So yes, you could move away and have the duration cut out after 15 seconds or so, but in the same breath if something else moves closer then it starts being affected.

I think that's just a poorly worded description in the abilities thread.  It doesn't say anything like that in-game.

Marza moves just as fast as Sova.  In fact, all non-colony capital ships have exactly the same move speed.  Akkan, Progen, and Jerrasul are a little slow, but otherwise all capital ships have exactly the same move speed.

Agreed; carrier caps are quite overpowered now for this very reason.  They are overshadowing all other choices because the only response to an enemy carrier cap is your own carrier cap (regardless of which faction you are playing).  I don't think rolling back the additional squads given in 1.18 is a viable choice, since ADA and scramble would continue to dominate.  In that respect, I believe the only option is to buff every other capital ship across the board with regards to its combat presence with better weapons and armor. 

For reference these are the only abilities that bypass shields (i.e. damageAffectType of AFFECTS_ONLY_HULL):

• DestabilizeHyperspace
• Disintegration
• NanoDissaembler
• SabotageEngines
• TimedCharges

The major problem with the Kol is simply that is needs the shield ability to become a passive.  If it could spend 100% of its AM on GRG or flak while still getting a toughness bonus, it wouldn't seem as terrible.

Only reason I'm against such a debuff on GRG is because this would turn it into a superior version of existing abilities.  It's a big gun, it hurts you; the only tweak it needs is finding a happy medium between cost and effectiveness compared to other direct damage abilities.  It must do more significantly more damage to single targets than, say, Detonate AM or Rad Bomb, but you don't want to turn it into an 'I Win' button in cap vs. cap fights either.

*gets on own soapbox*

My inputs:

Jarrasul's Colonize:  It's been said before, but I'm saying it again for all to be reminded.  As of now, the Akkan gets free extractors, plus up to double extraction rates with its colonize.  The Progenitor gets up to half-off the price for planetary upgrades.  The Jarrasul gets...faster build rate?  That's it?

Seriously, now, in comparison to the other two, the colonize ability is just crap as it stands.  As it so happens, though, I have an idea that would work from a lore standpoint as well:  Tax income increase.

The Jarrasul is said to have 15,000 Vasari stowed away in its hull - more than any other ship in existence.  Odds are, at least some percentage of those 15,000 are civilians, who could help contribute to getting the conquered planet's economy up and running.  My input is 15%/30%/45% increase with leveling, but I'm open to other suggestions, as well.

Animosity:  One idea that was put forth by...I think it might've been Volt, but I honestly can't remember, was that it acted as a temporary "mind control" of sorts - basicially, neither players OR AI would have control over the ships in Animosity's AOE.  Well, "allegiance shift" would probably be more accurate than "mind control," as it would have to convert the ships to a faction that players and AI have no control over...and maybe one that only hunts Radiances as well?

At first, I was against the idea, but since it IS meant to draw fire from other ships, I'm starting to reconsider that decision.  However, after further investigation into how this would work, I'm already starting to see problems.  But, it's an idea, nonetheless.

Phase Missile Swarm:  Ay, yai, yai, where do I even BEGIN with this one?  Well, let's see - too few targets?  Check.  Pathetic damage for an attack?  Check.  Phase missiles that DON'T bypass shields? BIG FRICKIN' CHECK.  Why would a storm of Phase Missiles be any less capable of bypassing shields than a few fired by Assailants or Strikecraft?  SENSE:  THIS ABILITY MAKES NONE.  So, in closing, I'd like to table the following improvements:

• More targets allowed for the ability
• Increased damage
• Phase Missile Shield Bypass

Damage/Targets/Shield Bypass values are up for discussion, as I have no idea about what sounds too OP or UP.

Incendiary Shells:  AKA, the one ability that people skip for Rad Bomb and Raze Planet.  It really is pathetic as it stands - As Darvin pointed out earlier, the small amount of damage this ability adds is not enough to justify getting it.  AT ALL.  Even early game, this ability pales in comparison to just getting LRFs and start blasting the crap out of anything that moves.  I was against the idea of having damage stack, but now I think having damage stack wouldn't be a bad thing at all - there should be a limit as to how many times it stacks, though (say about 5 times or so) - beyond that, it should just reset the DPS timer.

Doesn't this kind of prove my arguement though?  I agree an armour debuff isn't out of line with what TEC technology does, but you say the Kol still loses with the armour debuff because it doesn't do enough damage.  That's the whole problem with GRG, it does less damage to the target than just about every single target damage ability in the game.  Even at level 3 it will be doing less than 450 damage with mitagation.  That's pathetic; that's not even 50% damage to an unupgraded Disciple.  I don't care if the AM cost increases significantly, and the Kol only gets off 2 or 3 shots a battle then sits there like a lug.  If those 2 or 3 shots need to cause the enemy cap ship to run like a little girl, the Kol will have a use again.  As it is, people can pretty much ignore the Kol.