I'd recommend looking at Seleuceia's "project equilibrium", which already made a lot of headway on what you're trying to do:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/389291

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/386879

 

I generally don't agree with your changes to damage types and capital ship attributes.  Increasing the number of squads on capital ships wrong-headed to me; rather than addressing the factors that make the carrier's role and contribution dominant, you've chosen to make every other capital ship into a mini-carrier.  Furthermore, I think you've buffed the Kortul to the point at which it's unstoppable on a rush.  It's already very difficult to bring down with its power surge ability (enough so as to be viable even against carriers), but with 50% bonus damage, strike craft, and even better hull/shield it's now probably impossible to take down.

The biggest problem with capital ship balance is that you need to be able to take them down early on, but still be able to keep them alive later on.  I do not believe there is any conceivable level of toughness that will satisfy both ends of the equation.  This is why I advocated move speed as a possible solution.  This gives capital ships the mobility to avoid late-game death-traps without giving them the raw power to steamroll early-game forces.

While this is nice, I don't think it's going to solve the problem.  The bottom line is that this ability is nothing but a boost to attack damage, which really isn't worth your capital ship's time.  I strongly believe this needs a secondary effect other than damage to give the ability more usefulness.

Unnecessary; this ability is fine as is.  If you want to buff the Sova, focus on its late-game support role (which is lacking).  It's early-game combat role is already top-notch and in no need of buffing.\

This ability is fine, and that buff is over the top.  Ion bolt in the right time and place is already a death sentence, this just makes it ridiculous.

I don't know why you're buffing Vertigo.  It's a fine ability as is.  Maybe a little lacklust at level 1, but it quickly becomes exceedingly powerful, cutting enemy damage by more than HALF at level 3.

Still useless; there are no Advent abilities that actually have any meaningful cooldown limitations, hence the ability remains worthless.

This still allows a formation of multiple phasic traps to keep an indefinitely large amount of strike craft in stasis for an indefinite amount of time.  It needs a target cap.

This is unnecessary; this ability is already a fine passive ability.

That's a severe overnerf.  It's probably worthless in that state. 

While this is an improvement, it's not really going to change the world.  The biggest delay in construction is actually that silly construction frigate which moves at a snail's pace from one site to another.  The actual build time is already low enough that this bonus is mostly irrelevant.

 

I still think many of the capital ships need additional help finding their role.  Currently the only capital ships with strong roles are the colony capital ship and the carrier capital ship.  The Vulkoras and Marza fulfill a niche role as siege specialists, and the Kortul is the only exception that stands out among the other capital ships that actually can operate in its intended position (front lines).  Support ships and battleships otherwise just can't fulfill their intended role because they can't operate anywhere near the enemy and end up getting fragged.

I do not believe you have "fixed" the fundamental issue, which is focus fire.  It doesn't matter how much you tweak damage modifiers, there will eventually be enough LRF or bombers to kill a capital ship without providing it any realistic chance of escape.  This is why I strongly believe that we need to look at other possible solutions; I've recommended changing move speed, but there are other approaches.  Just swapping up modifiers isn't going to change the fact that eventually there is a fleet large enough to render front-line capital ships obsolete .

Your making light carriers.... better?

ehhh....

okkeyy...

akkan ion bolt is already amazing... doesnt not really need to be more amazing...

if you do increase the ion bolt duration, make sure you increase its cool down. it should not be able to stop a ship from charging phase drive.

 

phase missle swarm = omgwtfbbq.  in vanilla we already have problems with people building nothing but desolators...

 

disruptive stikes does not need to be more powerfull.  jam weapons could use a little range increase.  (due to the whole hitbox+range thing)

I like marza.

kololol railgun still is lolol.  expecially with eveyting else buffed around it. (something is fishy about force field length/cooldown...)

advent dont seem to get nearly the ammount of op stuff that other factions get... but w/e

wholly shi-, 3/5 caps get +50% damage?  I r go build triple donovs, 2 kols, and a marza now. k bye!

The level 10 comparison is mostly irrelevant; these values are rarely reached, and by this point capital ships only make up a small fraction of your fleet's firepower anyways.  What's more valid is the level 1 comparison, which differs by only a single squad.  For all intents and purposes, this does put other capital ships on similar footing with carriers near the start of the game, and they remain competitive until the carriers are hitting level 5, after which the faster carrier progression pulls ahead.

I feel that the solution is to strengthen the role of battleships so they provide meaningful presence that matches the benefit provided by a carrier's strike craft.  Equalizing their strike craft contributions at lower levels only serves to homogenize, rather than provide a wealth of variety that we should be shooting for here.

Perhaps I'm sounding like a broken record, but I loved the "destroyer" battleships with the speed to run down any enemy.  True, they had no strike craft, but they had their own strengths to compensate.




You've changed the damage modifiers sufficiently that it's difficult to predict how things will fall into place.  It may not be the LRF we need to fear.

Furthermore, I don't mean to imply that you can't make capital ships too strong.  Rather, I mean to say that any stats strong enough to survive in the late game would be overpowered early-game, and any stats weak enough to be counterable early-game would be underpowered late game.  




I don't have a problem with the hull damage, that's all fine in my books.  My point was it needed something more than damage.  This will work just fine.




While I agree powerful abilities with strong roles in-game are nice, ion bolt is already "game-breaking" in this sense if used intelligently.  

Furthermore, why single out these two abilities?  They're really on the same level as abilities like nanos, malice, raze planet, power surge, or reverie.  Perhaps not top-level abilities, but well above average.  There are many far more deserving abilities of obscene buffs.  Heck, even the Rapture's vengeance ability is weaker than vertigo.



To repeat what I said:  the ability is literally useless.  As in, the Advent faction has no use for it.  You could set it to 0 AM cost, it would still be a mediocre ability because Advent has no units with meaningful cooldown limitations.  This ability needs a secondary effect.




There are two aspects to consider with scramble bombers.  The first is the deployment time, the second is maximum "steady state" effect.  You are considering only the latter, but ignoring the former.  The problem is that scramble bombers costs antimatter, and even at 50 antimatter per minute this mostly knocks out your regeneration.  That's a small price to pay when we're talking about the 12 squads of bombers you currently gain from it, but for only 6 squads, this price no longer makes sense.

As a result, you will begin battle with ZERO bombers and will have to wait a full two minutes to reach your "maximum".  The problem is, the deployment rate is now so slow that these bombers will likely die in the interim.  In other words, in practice you will never reach that theoretical 6 squad.  

I made a similar conceptual blunder back in 1.18 when I called this ability "among the weakest in the game".  I only was paying attention to its deployment time, which was definitely on the weak side, without paying attention to the potential for a "steady-state" monster.  I believe most people are now making the opposite mistake I made in 1.18 and the "solutions" they propose will return it worthlessness because the steady-state condition will once again be too impractical to use with the more reliable repair cloud as an alternative.

For this reason, I believe a composite of buffs and nerfs is needed to change this ability to weaken its maximum steady-state but strengthen its deployment time.  I advocate for a faster cooldown, but lower duration that strikes a balance.  This will reduce its theoretical maximum number of squads, but also enable you to scramble those squads faster to keep this ability's hard-hitting nature.



I've seen this attempted many times, but I've never seen it actually be effective.

Actually, revisiting his list, I realize he's adopted the "project equilibrium" target cap without also adopting the damage nerf.  Project Equilibrium lowered its damage per target to compensate for the massive target cap.  We also didn't decrease its antimatter cost.  Although to be fair, the level 1 Vulkoras still lost to an equal cost of LRM even when fighting on a star for unlimited antimatter.



Agreed; as I mentioned it's very difficult to overbuff this ability due to being single-target, reduced by mitigation, reduced by armour, and having minimal secondary effects.

 

This raises alarm bells for me.  The Kol's biggest issue is that it sucks before level 6.  You seem to only be exascerbating this problem by making it even more reliant on Finest Hour to function.  This capital ship is fine at level 6+, it's at the lower levels that it needs help.

I completely disagree; capital ships are built with a high level of specialization, and this adds more diversity to their role and imrpoves the game.  While homogeniety may be the direction you want to go, I don't think it's supported by the canon and I don't think it's the best direction for the game.

It's not very powerful.  At the end of the day, level 3 GRG deals about 30 damage per second for constant use if all reductions are accounted for.  Needless to say, this is about the same performance as level 1 nano disassemblers, which deals 25 damage per second (flat, no reduction), reduces the target's armor for the duration, can be used against multiple targets simultaneously, and its damage:antimatter cost ratio is better even with your buff.

The bottom line: GRG isn't even in the ballpark to begin with. 

I'm going to have to agree with Darvin...abilities that simply do DPS are usually pretty worthless unless it is on a massive scale (ex. Missile Barrage, Meteor Control, Malice)...

Nano-disassemblers is fine because it does hull damage (which is not affected by shield mitigation and has a lower passive regen rate) and it has a secondary buff...

Incendiary shells, first off, doesn't work...if you want the ability to work you will need to change it so that it prioritizes old, not new buffs....for whatever reason, the ability cancels itself out if you hit a target multiple times in a row and you have a stacking limit of 1...

In general, abilities that do raw DPS need to have secondary buffs...for example, GRG slows the enemy ship down (though this isn't very good, especially sins Kol must face its target)...one idea Darvin gave a while ago was to have the ability also reduce the weapon cooldown of the target (extremely useful against starbases)...

You can have whatever secondary debuff you want...but you probably want at least something other than just raw damage...

Another thing you may want to consider is how sins actually applies a lot of the values you are discussing...

In general, if you give an x% boost to a certain attribute (such as damage reduction), the game will apply that change by multiplying the base value by the factor:

1 / (1 + x%) where x% is the decimal between 0 and 1

So, let's take damage reduction....

A 50% damage reduction DOES NOT reduce damage by 50%...instead, it multiplies all damage by the factor 1 / (1 + .5) which is basically 2/3...so, instead of reducing damage by 50%, it only reduces damage by about 33%....

Likewise, a damage reduction of -40% (like that on the cielo's designate target) is actually 1 / (1 - .4) = 5/3 ...so actually, this ability increases damage by 66%, not 40%...

This also applies to GRG...a -100% speed penalty is actually applied as such...the speed of the affected ship is multiplied by the factor 1 / (1 + 1) which is 1/2...so actually, GRG doesn't stop the movement of a ship, it simply halves its speed...

Most things in sins are applied in these manners...damage reduction, AM cost reduction (like that on guidance), etc...there are some exceptions (construction time penalties I think is one of them, as reflected by subversion)...

Another small consideration is that weapon cooldown is essentially a DPS increase...if your ship has a 10% weapon cooldown bonus, it actually just increases weapon DPS by 10% instead of actually decreasing the weapon cooldown time (which would actually be more powerful)...I believe the difference between a damage increase and a weapon cooldown buff is that the two multiplies are multiplicative, not additive...so, a 10% increase in both is not a 10% + 10% = 20% increase, but rather a 1.1 * 1.1 = 21% increase....

I'm not entirely sure on that last distinction, this is from observing a level 5 Kortul and trying to do mental math in my head with in-game rounded numbers...in general though, unless you get some large numbers like 50%, it probably doesn't matter that much...

 

 

You are not alone...the problem is, they'd have to do A LOT of DPS to justify their existence if their abilities aren't good...now, if every battleship was a tough sucker like a level 6+ Kol, that would be intense...

The problem is not level 6+ capital ships, but level 1-3 capital ships.  This is the range at which a capital ship needs to shine, because raising a level 6+ is impractical regardless of how powerful it is once you get there.

Now, in that sense, the Kortul is the "tough sucker" that we should be looking at, since this guy is actually quite competitive from the word "go".  I actually think our move speed change on its own brought the Kortul into line, especially since it became great at chasing down enemy capital ships.  The trick is getting the Radiance and Kol to the same level.

I don't think we ever got GRG to a level at which it made the Kol a viable early-game selection.  Similarly, I don't think we ever got animosity to the point at which it was an interesting and useful skill on its own right.  These abilities must be dealt with to make these capital ships workable.

 

As for finest hour, I'm increasing convinced that to make the Kol balanced for level 5- and 6+, the ability must be reworked in some way.  Right now, it is basically fueling the Kol, which is making balancing the other abilities impossible.  I'm thinking to solve this, finest hour should become double-edged.  Increase its benefits, but at the end of the duration cause the Kol to lose all antimatter reserves.  That also better fits the concept of a "finest hour", because right now it's something that's used willy-nilly in every minor engagement and sometimes in between engagements for faster repair/regen.

Oh I agree...but there are few things more satisfying than seeing your enemy trying to kill a high level Kol and epically failing...

Animosity and GRG are...okay, maybe?  They aren't great, but honestly Animosity is giving you more damage reduction than adaptive forcefield used to when it was an active ability and if you got energy absorption then you'll be able to spam animosity quite easily...GRG is, I don't know....the problem with both of these abilities is that there is no good way to balance them without changing them...GRG has to now reduce the target's weapon cooldown while animosity gives DR...I mean, it might work, but it is definitely not the same GRG or animosity...

One thing I'd consider with GRG is having it reduce the target's shield mitigation...that would provide a different yet similar role to incendiary shells or nano disassemblers....

Perhaps 3%/5%/7%?  If you're target was normally at 72% shield mitigation, a drop of 7% would increase all damage by about 25%, which is comparable to -5 or -6 armor (I'm thinking nano-disassemblers here, which has -4.5)...

A difference between GRG and nano-disassemblers also is that GRG can be fired faster so you could hit many more targets in a shorter period of time (assuming you don't have to turn very much)....

As for animosity...shield mitigation is too hard to balance and doesn't help against PMs...armor is already used by energy absorption...adding HP on damage taken is just impossible to make work right given the different DPS's out there...PM blocking would be useful, but then it's just another adaptive forcefield...I'm not seeing something other than damage reduction short of adding a completely new ability to the game...

Maybe a weapon cooldown debuff...a lot of people suggested that when we worked on this ability...I mean, it seems to me like a vertigo/adaptive forcefield but maybe that isn't as much of a problem as I think it is....

 

I was thinking using the same stat change for GRG that shield disrupt on the subverter applies...I'm pretty sure it is max shield mitigation...

The reason I compare GRG to Nano disassemblers is because nanites are great...it is a good ability, so any ability that is just as useful is likely in good shape...

Nanites have a good early game use, but with the armor reduction, they also have a late game use that scales decently...it's not the damage as much as the debuff that I want to compare between the two, since that is what will be scaling late game (not the damage over time)...

I think I am going to try the shield mitigation with GRG...the exact values will be dependent on if the duration changes (even 7% is a bit low if the duration is not very long)...

Radiance has energy absorption for survivability....Kol has Adaptive forcefield while Kortul has power surge...both of those also have anti-SC abilities though obviously the Radiance can't do that since Halcyons carry the Advent anti-SC ability...GRG (assuming it enhances FFing) and disruptive strikes are good for priority targets like caps and SBs, but so is detonate antimatter...basically, I'm not seeing an obvious role for animosity that the Radiance is missing...

Because energy absorption is on the weak side for survivability, I really think animosity needs to add some resiliency...as for the other component of that ability, I don't know...

Here is a thought....I have no idea if it can be implemented, but whatever...what if all ships affected by animosity suffered from damage propagation (like malice), but instead suffered a portion of all damage done to the Radiance?  I already can see some players finding ways to get around this ability, but it's an idea...

Another possibility is to do a percent damage against all affected ships after the duration of animosity...this is the same mechanic that SBs use on ships that jump out of there gravity well....the nice thing is, it couldn't be used as a clincher against large amounts of heavily damaged ships since it is percent damage...also, I think a target cap (which animosity already has) combined with a small percentage would prevent animosity+malice from becoming ridiculous...besides, you do have to put the Radiance in harms way to use animosity...

I'm leaning towards the damage propagation, but I'm not sure if it can be made to work...

 

Another update.

Major changes:

 

Counters system improvements: All caps are much stronger now. LRF are now easily countered by caps. LF are much stronger against caps, but also take more damage from LRF. Both fighters and bombers take 100% damage from Flaks (buff to fighters and slight nerf to bombers). Flaks do more damage vs LRF, but LRF do more damage against HEAVY too. Almost all support caps are stronger too. Caps take 100% damage from other caps, 75% damage from bombers, HCs and LFs and 25% from everything else.

Major changes to Subversion (now cripple resources collection too), Scramble Bombers (~back to last patch), GRG (now ignore shields and cripple ships movement in more ways). Phase Missiles Swarm (less targets but lower cost AND ignore shields), Incendiary shells (more damage), Power Surge (now slightly weaker regeneration at first levels), Major buffs to nearly all caps AoE support abilities (Micro phasing Aura, Targeting uplink etc).

Buffs to the most underpowered weapons upgrades: Pulse Beams, TEC Beams and Wave cannons.

 

 

Release date: probably next weak.

First: Run that by me again...

Second: Cuz it adds more variety to TEC and buffs a not-very-good skill.

Fourth: Cuz the skill refers directly to armor.

Fifth: Kostura is far, far better than the other superweapons at this point, though the nerf might be a bit much.

Sixth: Carrier caps in general are quite powerful right now. Scramble Bombers is particularly strong early on.

Ninth: Vulkoras is the best Siege ship in the game.

 

For the kostura cannon, I would be wary on nerfing all of its effects...

With the current stats you have given it, one kostura is pretty much worthless, yet multiple kosturas are still absolutely devastating...a fifty percent reduction in damage is irrelevant (as far as ships are concerned) if you are fielding many of them, as it is more than enough to allow your Vasari fleet to clean up the heavily damaged ships...I feel your changes don't prevent multiple kosturas from being OP, but make 1 or 2 kosturas worthless, which is not very balanced...

The issue people have with kosturas is not the affect of one kostura, but the effect of many kosturas...things like stun time and creating a phase stabilizer are what make even one kostura useful...the damage done is what makes multiple kosturas devastating...

With this in mind, reducing damage may be a good change for preventing multiple kosturas from being OP, but there is no need to reduce the stun time on structures...

If you are concerned that kosturas are OP, I'd recommend a serious nerf to their effects on ships or structures, but not both...

Incendiary shells affecting hull is fine since the DPS isn't very high anyway...however, GRG is different since it does have a high DPS, so I'd be wary on making that affect only hull damage...

The problem is not one Kostura, the problem is five or six Kosturas.  Point them all at the same planet, and the entire defending fleet is instantly annihilated.  Once you have enough kosturas, the enemy is no longer capable of defending because their fleet will get vapourized if it stands in one place for any length of time.  This means that Vasari eventually have an "auto-win" button with sufficient Kosturas.

The Kostura isn't even in the same ballpark as the other superweapons.

There's a lot of discussion over how to fix SB.  It's completely unacceptable in its current state, far superior to what any other capital ship offers.  I'd agree we don't want to send it back to oblivion (it was definitely too weak before the last patch) but at the same time it cannot stay as it is now.