I think this will make eco players obsolete made embargo either even stronger or on maps without massive eco players completely useless and force fleets to chase 1 single ship across whole map. 

Valid point.

@Goa: Along the lines of what you were saying, what if the base income was stolen, but the capital planet bonus income wasn't?  That way, on say, Point Blank, you still get a Terran/Desert worth of tax, but not the extra amount that allows for empire building?

U evil carebear, u wanr sova swiched from rush tool into eco sucking tool?

Whatt an tec carebear!!

Sova need nerf and few great ideas  were already sugested like make embargo tuneling ability , or reduce sova speed while embargo or reduce its speal ability with levels to 40% , 55% , 70%.

The problem with embargo was created by devs nerfing bombers.

Its about time for nerfbat to hit tec

That more or less sums it up.

Also, I HATE with a fiery passion rush games. I think they defeat the entire purpose of playing a game with the scope of SINS and they take about 2 brain cells, most of the time, to properly execute. So I will always be AGAINST rush abilities and FOR abilities that scale well into the late game.

The problem with games lasting more than 2hrs is that the lag is unbearable. Plus many people have lives, e.g kids etc. They can't play massive games.

I like games between 1hr to 2hrs, but after that, you have a better chance in microing your penis while drunk off your face while taking a piss standing up then microing your fleet in battle.

'I swear to drunk, I am not god.'

By the way there is no significant counter to the Sova when using Advent, I would avoid Advent like the plague until something is done to balance the game back out.

Radiance needs a clear direct shot to be efficient, but if the sova is running about, it will be quite hard. Plus, even if you manage to force the Sova to retreat, he will repair and come back, and if he brings a fleet, your kinda left with a useless capital ship, (for multiplayer anyway) 

Only way advent can counter the Sova by THEORY is by drain antimatter ability for disciples however, they require the antimatter to be transferred and emptied from there reserves before they can take more in. You could use your dicicples to transfer anti matter to your capital ship, but this hasent been tested yet.

While Advent's certainly the worst race at the moment... to counter the Sova, why not go for double carrier caps + ADA = 8 bomber squads defending your HW? The Sova won't be able to survive in your HW's gravity well for more than a couple minutes, after which point your carriers can make a good attempt to chase down and kill the retreating heavily damaged Sova.

What? Disciples can drain antimatter from CAPITAL ships? No way, that'd be a bit overpowered.

Disciples can steal AM from enemy *frigates and structures* and can transfer antimatter to *friendly frigates, structures, SBs, and caps*, but can't steal from enemy caps.

In regards to the Radiance, I once made a mod that causes all ships affected by Animosity to take 5/10/15 DPS.  It's not much, but if you made SC sensitive to it... You'd make enemy SC die in droves, meaning that all the Sova would be doing is sitting there stealing some of your income.  The main thing after all that prevents strategies isn't the counter itself.  It's the threat of the counter.  If people knew that a Radiance could destroy the Sova rush, they wouldn't do it.  So, if we buffed the Radiance in some way that made it relatively pointless as anything other than a cap slayer.  I guess DAM could have longer range, but I still would love Animosity to do something...  Maybe it would have a longer range and make targets fly towards the Radiance where it can unleash DAM and wipe out abilities (and a good chunk of health).  In a way, it would be the opposite of repulse, allowing you to stop retreats (or kiting) by pulling them towards you.

Also, Disciples only steal from frigates and structures.

Yeah your probably right, didn't read too much into the abillity.

Two carrier capital ships are easily countered by the right person. However, a valid point and I will test in future games. Will post the results up when I can, and even how to counter the two capital ships.

My changes would really only put the game in the 1-2 hr range. An effective Embargo HW strategy can bring 1 team to a halt and easily finish a 1 vs 1 in 15-30 Mins.

I also like games in the 1.5-2 Hr range, thats all I can steal away from the family before my 18 month old is jumping up and down on my lap at the computer.

previous post edited to have complete thoughts.

That'd also be an interesting way to make up for the Radiance's weakness to strikecraft because it has so few of its own.

It would be interesting anyways.

So, let's say that of the ships in the AoE (let's make the darn thing have infinite targets), all capitals, structures, SB's, and frigates take 5/10/15 DPS directly to hull.  SC on the other hand take 3.333/6.667/10 DPS.  This way, a Radiance can start turning into a fleet grinder.  If nothing else, the SC thing would be cool and would make the Radiance more viable.

Option II: make Animosity suck all things towards it and fire on it, but keep the target cap.

Option III: Animosity sucks SC towards itself where it deals a DoT to them.

Option IV: <insert your own related idea here>

Just ideas, but I think it would be interesting to see.  Giving the Radiance some role as SC defense would help make it more valuable.  Skirantras are useful, but the moment you add a Kortul, you gain air supremacy.  Sovas are nice, but Kols wipe the skies clean.

Ok, Blackhawk and I did some tests and the problem with the Sova Embargo rush is simply that any ship capable of catching up to the Sova gets eaten alive by the ensuing LRM spam.  With that in mind what needs to happen is a reduction in speed while Embargo is active.  I'm thinking to something around 350 instead of the current 525. 

Thoughts?

Also, cooldown time needs to be extended, that or activation duration needs reduced.  Being a tunneling ability would also help (think Ion bolt, phase out hull, etc).

That would probably help a lot.  If we can make the Sova less mobile while Embargoing, kiting won't become an issue.

I do think that if speed of ship while embargo is active is reduced embargo as ability will become useless. As you aren't able to turn it of or on and while cap becomes extremely slow it will be easy to snipe off.

I think right path to fix ability is in a way to delay when you can get lvls that really hurt if you are getting rushed.

I suggested earlier that for each level of embargo, there is something like a 15%-25%-35% sova speed reduction for levels 1, 2 and 3 respectively.

However someone else suggested that it should be a focused ability (like shield restore is), which I think is a better option.

Slayer

I'm still not sold on the channeling.  I still think the best way is to counter the Sova, not nerf Embargo.

Sorry, but how exactly do you counter the Sova?  Even KNOWING that it's coming, you need a purpose built fleet that will be torn apart by support ships.  Sorry, but it's ridiculous to build a whole fleet to counter one ship.

I'm still working on that   But you assume that I'm trying to build a fleet to counter a ship.  Not so much...

Okay, so once again..  The Sova is powerful because:

1. it produces SC for no AM cost

2. it can steal an entire homeworld's worth of income

3. it has a lot of health

4. it can kite while still being all of the above

5. it can create a small static fleet

So..  That means we need something powerful and fast to out-run and out-gun it.  Other capitals have lots of power, but not the SC unless they too are carriers, at which point the Sova will still win due to a war of attrition.  LRF have a lot of power, but don't do so well with chasing.  LF are fast and decently powerful, but get torn apart by LRF (which everyone and their brother will be building masses of anyways).  Flak don't fit the bill at all.

I suppose there are two way here:

1. give the other races something long range that can stop the Sova in it's tracks/stop embargo

2. buff LF from 50% damage against capitals to 100% or something.  This could throw balance out the window in other regards, but it honestly might not since LF still get shredded by LRF.  (That, and I've always wondered how the thing that is made to take down heavy armor is less effective against heavier armor than something made for medium armor).

Since I think we want to stay away from 2 because of the can of worms it opens up, let's investigate 1.  What abilities could potentially put a stop to this?  I can already think of two that could possibly do so in one form or another: Gravity Bomb and Detonate Antimatter.

In both cases, you have to get in range, but once you do, I think it should be significantly easier for you to take down the Sova.  GB halts it's movements and DAM halts embargo and those pesky missile platforms.  In both cases, it comes down to acquiring a target in range.  This could be done by increasing their range.  I'm not going to say that this is a perfect solution and could have ramifications elsewhere, but I think it's something we should at least consider, if only to disregard later.

Most things are easier said than done when playing multiplayer sins games.

The reason I now endorse channelling is because, to use embargo, the sova would then have to be stationary, and not move. Making a fleet is too difficult because embargo also has the effect of decreasing ship build speed. By the time a fleet is built, the damage is done in a multiplayer game.

Channelling is the easiest and probably best solution here,

Slayer

My problem with channeling is that the Sova is already a piece of junk in the late game. If it's channeling, the ability becomes absolutely worthless after the very beginning of the game.

(2) would also make caps a lot more vulnerable, especially in the mid-late game when larger numbers of LF are built. I think caps already die a bit too easily in the middle of a firefight already, at least once the game is to that point.

Using (1) means that players would have to build a specific capital ship in order to counter the rushing Sova. I really don't like that idea: players would either have to get lucky and start building one of those ships from the start, or would have to research an expensive capital ship slot upgrade and then take the time to build another capital ship, which (in the case of the Radiance's Detonate AM) could even then be a little too single-purpose for an entire capital ship.

I think the best idea for a fix would be a debuff to the Embargo itself in some way, rather than simply acknowledging the possibility that some other caps could effectively counter the Sova if built.

I wouldn't say that. Already, using the Sova for Embargo late-game even without an Embargo debuff doesn't really work that well. But, the Sova can still drop missile platforms and be regenerating 4 or 5 squadrons continuously (for free), and can act as a great damage-soak if the enemy tries to FF on it and if you're good at timing the warp-out. In other words, even just as a regular carrier capital ship late-game, it's decent. I'm fine with Embargo being mostly useless late-game; if it's very strong in the early-game I see no problem with it being underpowered or almost useless later in the game. The capital ship as a whole is still fine.

I cautioned what could happen to balance if you buffed LF that much.  Still though, it was just something I was thinking about.

Well, the Radiance still spits out decent DPS early on and increasing the range of DAM would make it a better cap-slayer, which is always a good thing to have around.

I've always wondered this myself.  But as you mentioned it would throw balance pretty bad, and disciple/scout spam would become that much more of a pain.