I've been leaning strongly towards this same sentiment but in truth don't play Advent enough to see how effective Guardians are in different situations.

The Hoshiko is one of TEC's greatest early-game advantages. The Guardian, while nice, is also expensive, and soaks up damage rather than reducing/preventing/repairing.

But also remember that the Guardian can get the Repulsion ability, which can be incredibly useful in some situations. (of course Hoshikos can also get Demolition Bots...)

Guardians used to have a lot of love for two very simple reasons...

First, illuminators were the best damn ship in the game, and they could shoot from behind a repulsion field with impunity...anything other than LRFs can't outshoot the range of repulsion, meaning illuminators could hit the enemy while the enemy couldn't shoot back (unless kanraks or LRMs)...

Then illuminators were nerfed (thankfully)...and that whole strategy fell apart...

Second, dem bots got buffed, and now is very powerful....

So, not only did iconus guardians get seriously nerfed (indirectly), but hoshikos got seriously buffed...

In general, I think hoshikos are currently the best support ship in the game...

Early-on it's the hoshiko hands down.  Later it's the Iconus, hands down.  The demo-bot change means the hoshiko stays on top for much longer than it used to, and combined with the general weakness of the faction Advent rarely lives to see the full potential of the Iconus anymore.  However, if you play a large multistar where the Advent has free opportunity to get a fully mature fleet online and you'll feel the full power of the Iconus Guardian.

I don't know man...those dem bots can shut down entire fleets and unlike subverters without having to micromanage much...I mean, that's a full minute of no weapons and slow engines...50 of those things can shut down 300 (1200-1800 fleet supply?) ships for a minute and probably keep 100 shut down indefinitely...

It requires some good ship placement (so, some move orders) but that's about it, fire and forget ability with no real drawback...

Granted this type of scale happens usually only in SP as no MP game I've ever played is willing to go that long.

Would love to see the guardian given tweaks to make it more of a mid-game as well as late game player. Perhaps a slight change to Repulsion where it only slows all ships but violently throws and damages a set # of frigates.

Depends on the fleet size we're talking about that they're fighting against.  If we're around 500 command points of units, Orkulus is the god of starbases and even a small amount of healing makes it invulnerable.  Once we start pushing over 1000, Orkulus loses its luster and can be bowled over by brute force and none of its upgrades will seriously help it.  The transcencia, on the other hand, retains a powerful combat presence against any size of fleet and is only truly threatened by uplinked Ogrovs or massed bombers.

Depends on the faction you're against.  Against TEC, I'd actually say that the Vasari are actually slightly inferior to Advent.  The late-game Advent faction is, IMO, much better equipped to take down the TEC than the Vasari faction.  If we're talking direct Advent vs Vasari, though then 2-3 times stronger is an understatement.  Vasari absolutely murder Advent in the late-game.

That only works if you can get the enemy to attack your starbases in the star's gravity well...but even so, a single upgraded starbase on a friendly planet can also fight off hordes of attackers if you have frigate and structure repair abilities.

Guardians need too many variables to be effective: Shield regeneration, Vertgio and steal/transfer anti-matter from disciples. 

Hoshikos need nothing to be effective. They just pawn while being the most offensive repair cruiser in the game. Nothing gets better than these babies. 

As an advent player your job is to force your enemy into using light frigates and heavy cruisers by using the most effective early game units:

Defense vessels + Drone hosts backed by any number of mother-ships for shielding, rapture for vertigo and halcyon for push and aurora (Trinity +).

These units are bulky, hardened and can take a pounding from phase missiles. There comeback is also devasting on long range frigates and heavy and medium armor units. 

It means you can safely research the shield branch and get your guardians to soak up even more damage.

Guardians are however stupid. Be sure to activate shield projection manually when you can. It will ensure victory even in the late game if you survive massive punishment by preventing damage with vertigo and shield projection.

People don't see it but the advent defense vessels is their most revered unit. 

It is unfair to compare guardians and hoshikos.

It should be guardians vs Overseers 

The + from guardians is 1 guardian can protect the entire fleet from more damage provided your in range of the shield bubble.

Its impossible to get drone hosts early on. Im neva clear wen i say things. U have to use flak+desciple, , flak+ illums then add drone hosts. I'll upload a simple replay to show u all this. 

U see once u force vasari to make light frigates or heavy cruisers it means less phase missiles and shielding comes into play. Objective achieved.

I think I get what he is saying: you use flak+LF, the opponent sees this and counters, then you switch to flak+illums, the opponent sees this and counters, then get drone hosts. It's sort of a gambit. I think the idea is that you dont want them to ever use kanraks so you make them have to pick up other ships and fall way behind in the LRF race.

I don't see how this really accomplishs that though. How does flak+LF cause the opponent to stay away from kanraks? flak are tough, but if you have both flak and LF, and the opponent has an equal supplys' worth of kanraks, I think they would win, no?

Couple of quick questions about the Hoshikos:

1. How many ships are affected by a single Hoshiko? And do Hoshiko repairs stack? I thought I read somewhere that it didn't but I was just checking.

2. Can Dem Bots be micro-managed in the sense of picking out a particular group of targets to affect?

This is just the thing to be doing when you see an enemy with Heavy Cruisers and you happen to have spare Hoshikos.

Guardians are-in every sense of the word-high maintenance. In a firefight between defense vessels and assailants where you need to micro there movements between enemy lines the guardians need not be in that fleet but just near by to turn on shield projection while channeling. There basically static units in their role on the battlefield and should be treated as such.