Three seconds is far too short IMO, and would make Distortion Field nearly useless (only good for stopping channeling frigate abilities, of which there aren't too many).

The real hit to the Advent was a result of the Illuminator bug fix. Its weapons were doing "mystery" extra damage, which once fixed, revealed that the Illuminator was far less powerful.

Personally I disagree that faster was the culprit.  No matter what speed you're on, assailants are going to be out the door considerably faster than illuminators, and if the distance is close enough they'll be on your doorstep just as you get the ability to produce illums.  If anything, I'd argue it would be worse on lower speeds because you can't afford to even buy illuminators in sufficient numbers after putting down all the cash. 

I think what really killed Advent was simply the shift from scout/LF to LRF based rushes.  Advent has by far the strongest scout and the strongest LF, but the scout is now non-viable, and the resulting dominance of LRF has made the disciple non-viable.  With the illuminator now the weakest LRF, this leaves Advent with essentially no viable openers.

The simple issue here, in my opinion, is that LRF are too dominant early and Advent has no good LRF-based opener.  If a carrier-based opener was viable, I don't think Advent would have a lick of trouble.  If scout/disciple were still viable (somewhere betweeen 1.19 and 1.181) I don't think Advent would be in any trouble.  If the illuminator were still the strongest LRF and capable of beating assailants and LRM's in equal cost, I don't think Advent would be in any trouble.  The problem is that NONE of these approaches are viable, so Advent has no option but lose in these sudden death rush scenarios.

advent flak is fine but too easy to counter, the advent DO NOT have the strongest scout. their scouts now only have 2 dps. TEC have a stronger scout with 3 dps plus easy armor upgrades. and i mean 3 second stun to whole fleet it would leave subverters as still useful in numbers but it means that 3 or 4 cant keep a fleet stunned indefinetly

I don't think the speed change has much to do with it either.  Vasari had more of an advantage back before Fast Start because neutral economy might kick in very quickly with nearby asteroids while everyone was still trying to afford labs.  I think it is just the various ship balance changes and Illuminator bugfix have taken their toll.

Seekers can still shut down early Assailants.  I played a couple months ago and someone hit me with a Disciples and a crap ton of seekers.  I had started with an Assailant mix, but I had to completely switch to Skirmishers / Flak and fight at my repair bays for a while to turn the tide. Seekers can thwart an early rush, but they shouldn't be overbuilt because they become useless in the face of static defenses and starbases as the game progresses.

The big thing that switched the tide for Vasari / Advent was Vasari had been getting incremental buffs over the last few patches bringing their ships a bit more in line for the cost, and they got the Skirantra & Kortul buff.  Advent used to be ridiculous because Illuminators were broken and the Seeker was too effective.  Now that the Illuminator damage bug is fixed, they are not as useful until massed with Overseers.  Advent is back to being a slow methodical expansion race instead of a "rush" race, which is where the Vasari are usually best. 

This is just the way things go, the balance swings one way and then another.  I would agree that Advent is particularly disadvantaged towards Vasari, but I don't think that Vasari is way overpowered.  I played a few games as TEC and was able to handily beat skilled Vasari opponents.  I'm not sure who the smurf was who hit me with all the seekers / disciples, but he gave me a tremendous fight -- the outcome was not assured until we had fought for a while and I finally managed to fight off his fleet.

Ha, no, you'd have remembered...I was playing under my name.  (Unless you recall me beating you a month or two ago....)

There is some truth to the faster speed setting favoring vasari.  Fast resources benefit those who can get the most resources and credits fastest.  As far as resources goes this means vasari with neutrals.  They get more bang for their neutral buck because they can get them fastest and keep them easier so it benefits vasari substantially more than it does advent and to a slightly lesser extent TEC due to earlier trade for them.  This is a point I have brought up in the past and was ignored.  I actually hosted a game a couple of months back insisting on fast rather than faster.  You would not believe the ranting and cussing I got because I would not change it to faster for the almost completely vasari room.  Fast was fine for them before diplomacy.  They ended up leaving my full 5s game to make their own.

As to the OP, advent sucks because advent has been nerfed repeatedly and vasari buffed repeatedly due to a few vasari players whining incessantly while the devs were still listening.  Vasari have numerous OP things that they can utilize.  They have moveable and tough as nails SB, phasic traps to prevent any number of SC from functioning to get rid of said SB, subverters to neutralize any amount of fleet, phase missles to skip the heavy shields of advent on practically EVERY UNIT , bomber spam/lrf to kill caps quicker than you can get the cap away even when you are already pointed at the edge of the well or thin the bombers out, kostura that wipe out any fleet and prevent them from leaving to get away with enough of them, easy resources with neutrals.... I could go on and on.  The funny thing is they have had all this stuff for a while.

I assume you do not mean overseers because thats vasari.  Domina subjugators suck so you can't mean them either.  The only support cruiser worth a damn for advent is guardians.  Vasari are great at rushing but they are great at everything else too.  Once entrenched, they are practically impossible to dig out due to SB and phasic traps.  They can then strike with impunity with kosturas or fleet or both.  You can't be slow and methodical with them because they will continue to use their huge bag o tricks against you.

[_]-Greyfox

Yeah, I meant Guardians, not Overseers.  And I basically agreed that the Advent vs Vasari match up was not favorable.  I have still done pretty well as TEC vs Vasari

A couple patches ago before Vasari got their stats re-adjusted for Diplomacy, Advent was ridiculous due to the Illuminator damage bug.  Illuminators didn't have a slight advantage like they should have on paper -- due to the bug, they used to WTF slaughter the other LRFs.  Seekers and Guardian repulse just added insult to injury.  The only viable Vasari strategy back then was to use starbases at key worlds before you were overwhelmed.  Things have gone too far the other way, but I would not characterize the old balance as being good either.  This is just how things go, they tend to flip flop due to a few changes happening in different places at one time.

Apparently there is to be a patch for the second expansion in November, though we have been warned that this is intended to be for second expansion features only, and that if anything else was to be changed it would be up to Ironclad.

One of the developers was supposed to have put some time into the game in the summer but nothing appears to have come of that as yet?

We are promised a beta phase for the new patch, which would be excellent for a balance patch, but if its just the single player stuff like pirates and AI relations, then it may prove something of a disappointment.  It's good to have work ongoing on the game, but if a patch comes out and the current balance issues are still there, well it's not going to make me want to play anymore than the current version.  Single player stuff I can mod to my own taste as I please.

I'm just so tired of 3 skirantra/assailant/starbase play off scarcely any tech.  The game has four tech trees, and apparently endless complexity if a minimum of effort were put into balancing it.  A beta phase could be that opportunity.  Its not as if it takes any more effort than text file edits- if you're going to recompile anyway.   

The illuminator was far from overwhelming even with the bug despite what some may say.  At that patch, it was more prominent to disciple and seeker spam(which is a gay strategy but effective) anyways as advent.  It rarely got to illums if you played against certain players(JJ, Star player).  A vasari SB stopped illum spam cold unless its a huge fleet with guardian and progen backup and little to no opposing fleet.  Illums suck against any single target which makes SB difficult to deal with using them(half the dps literally with only 50 percent damage being front).  Don't get me wrong....they were great at taking out frigates if managed right and all side beams firing but hardly an unstoppable juggernaut.

[_]-Greyfox

Illum spam back then was actually rather effective vs vasari starbase if you micro them to get the side beams to hit...

This is due to the illum's decent modifier vs structures, and the vasari starbase having very very wierd damage modifiers (first 2 are anti-heavy and anti-mod... which does crap vs light)

Unfortunately though you are fighting against a race that can skip shields and take out caps with ease.  Guardian hull is paper thin too.  Assailants outrange push and so do bombers.  Some of those guardians need to be using the shield buff too rather than push to enable any amount of tanking the SB.  This assumes you can even afford to build a progen considering you are guaranteed to get at least 2 skirantra from a vasari.  It also assumes that you want it alive after 1 or 2 shield restores because sitting it in the middle of an attack makes it prime target to get vasari sniped.  Progen is slow for a cap anyways and all caps take forever to turn around even when there isn't a fleet or 2 in front of it to slow it down further.  Building anything other than a halcyon or 2 and you are instantly gimped against a vasari.  Even then its rough and you have to be ready to jump out at a seconds notice to a repair in the next grav well.

[_]-Greyfox

Oh, I'm well aware.  Advent vs Vasari is just a horribly lopsided match currently.  You don't see many people arguing about that.  Still, guardians with repulsion are pretty much Advent's only ace in the hole. 

Agree with you on Halcyon; totally mandatory currently.

Where fighters with phase missiles will kill a capital ship, bombers with phase missiles will annihilate it.

Yes they do, it's their second weapon upgrade.

TEC has hoshikos, Vasari has Overseers.  They actually work quite well for keeping units alive under focus fire, and because their healing kicks in even before shields are down when faced with phase missiles, they actually do a good job.  Still doesn't change the fact that phase missiles are the best weapon in the game.

And what, remark in particular are you talking about?  Turrets are practically identical for all three races until you hit their higher level upgrades, with the exception of the TEC turret which has inferior range for no apparent reason other than to tax the player who wants to use turrets.  There really is no explanation to this, and it comes across as arbitrary and needless when we could have gotten something cool (a faction with longer range turrets) instead of one faction with gimped turrets that has to pay a tax to reach the status quo.

First of all, the situation is entirely different from turrets.  The TEC and Advent starbases are comparable, but the Vasari starbase with its ability to move is fundamentally different.  People are forced to face Vasari starbases toe-to-toe, while this is virtually unheardof against upgraded Advent and TEC starbases.  The role of the starbases are completely different. 

Beyond that, the weapons upgrades are mostly the same as the other factions, compare for yourself.

The basic starbase weapons are Laser, Plasma, and Pulse Gun for TEC, Advent, and Vasari respectively.  For TEC and Vasari, these are their "low-end" level weapons used by light frigates and support cruisers, and are completely equivalent.  Advent uses their heavy cruiser's weapons upgrade instead, which is really only a benefit because the Destra is Advent's only viable combat unit this version.  Back when they were illuminator-based, this was actually no benefit at all.

The second starbase upgrade is different.  TEC gets their "beam" type weapon which is theoretically upgradeable, but in practice it only affects the starbase and the Kol's frontal weapons, so it effectively never gets upgraded.  Advent gets unupgradeable "psionic" attacks, while Vasari gets unupgradeable disintegration attacks.  None of these are favourable weapons types.

The third starbase upgrade is upgradeable once again for all three factions.  TEC gets their favourable "missile" type upgrade which is used by bombers and LRM's, the Vasari gets their godly phase missile weapons, and Advent gets their generic laser-type weapons.  If anything, Vasari has the best weapons lineup by this point thanks to phase missiles.

You're construing me as saying phase missiles are balanced.  I never said anything of the sort, merely that you do have some counter-measures against them.  The fact is that phase missiles hit harder than any other weapons upgrades and rip through capital ship hull in particular. 

Repair platforms also work, but I can't take them with me when I'm going on the offensive.

I actually don't know what the targeting threshold is for the hoshiko.  My gut feeling is that this is a waste of micromanagement; if the TEC has enough repair power to tank you, he's probably going to win that battle or at very least deal disproportionate casualties to his incurred losses.