TCN's instagib cannon needs to be replaced by something remotely sane

You mean the TEC? Yeah the AI builds too many Novalith cannons because it can't do anything else effectively. Its annoying for now, just make sure you build a starbase with Axillary Government on as many planets as possible.

If you're playing TEC and keep getting hit with Novaliths, build planetary shields. Those things, fully upgraded, pretty much make the Nova obsolete. 

Use auxiliary government on your starbases to keep your planets, all factions have a variation of this research. The AI is borked, it builds ridiculous amounts of superweapons very fast since it doesn'T spend money on fleets. AI is to be fixed once factions are complete I guess.

I actually prefer the Vasari and Advent superweapons over the Nova, the only effect versus humans is a dent in the planet and some minor eco decrease...  If you compare the effect of one Nova versus one Advent or Vasari super the Nova kinda falls apart. The Advent can use their super to fight in their own culture and remove enemy cultural influence as well. Vasari can skip forward planets, jump in with multiple fleets from multiple directions and meet a completely shutdown defensive ring.

Even if you manage to take away that planet the defender still has his cultural advantage and his defensive structures. The only cas in which this would have an advantage is if you fight a TEC loyalist and especcially a TEC loyalist has the frre space to use aux government to protect his planet from nova spam.

I just finished a 9 hour long game versus the AI on a Random Huge Single map (yes, I like playing single player). At some point during the game, I took only 670 damage per Novalith hit on each planet that had a Shield Generator to protect it. I guess the Seige pact combined with fully upgraded Shield Generators make miracles happen. Even my Asteroids couldn't be taken away by the AI.

As to the OP: I don't think the Novalith Cannon needs to be replaced by something else. The AI simply needs to be tweaked so that it doesn't spam too many of those superweapons all the time.

Alright I agree with almost everything you all say but can we please nerf the duration of its tritary effect. Which is negative population growth and trade for 30 minutes. That duration is ridiculous.

I was playing Advent so there is no option to prevent the cannon blowing your planet up. And aux. gov. doesn't solve the actual problem, namely that TEC is able to take out your population and income as the game progresses and you can't do anything about it, except assaulting his cannons. 

There really does need to be a counter to the population damage for advent.

TEC can build shield generators

 Vasari can disable and blow up the cannon easy with use of a raiding fleet & their own superweapon

Advent is forced to go on the offensive(Which means fighting TEC loyals on home-ground) or have their economy ruined.  This is especially an issue considering how much trouble the advent has dealing with the TLT's disruption Matrix ability even on neutral ground.

The advent really needs a means of defending against the population damage of the Novalith.  Or alternatively a reliable method of raiding a novalith cannon on a back-line world.

Or better yet, limit the novalith's targeting in some way.  Such as only allowing it to be used on worlds where the TEC player has at least 1 ship.  Being able to make use of defenses to repulse scouts to prevent the cannon from hitting any back-line worlds would also present a viable counter(establish a  well defended front-line between the TEC player and key economic worlds)

We have hardened cities, but that does need a buff.

aye, this is the most likely method.  The big issue is the population damage, not the planet damage(key worlds can be protected from that by aux goverment).

Though having a single technology that applies to all worlds mitigate this damage much would be too strong(at least at the sort of % necessary to keep novalith from wrecking economies).  There needs to be per-planet investment as is the case with shield generators.

Perhaps something like:

Hardened Cities:  Each level of the Emergency Facilities planetary upgrade, in addition to increasing planet health also reduces population loss due to bombardment(including novalith cannon) by 8/16%% to a maximum of 24/48% for worlds at emergency facilities upgrade level 3.

or perhaps:

Hardened Cities: Adds an additional level to the emergency facilities upgrade for all planets.  Rather then increasing planet HP further, this final upgrade rather then further increasing planet health instead reduces all population damage suffered by the planet by 65%

The point is there should be some per-planet cost, but the mitigation should be considerable.  I chose to link it to the emergency facilities planetary upgrade because it was the best way I could think of to add a per-planet cost without adding a new structure.

I suppose something could also be done on the starbase front.

Regardless at present the current population damage of Novalith exceeds the population regenerated at any 3 planets combined during it's cooldown.  To keep it from wreckign the advent's economy we're going to need a population loss mitigation that would be too strong to have applied to all planets with a single research(frankly a 15-20% reduction won't cut it IMO as a single novalith would still be able to keep 2 key-economic worlds bottomed out at all times).

I don't know I agree with you to be honest. And as for Goa its not losing the planet thats the problem, its the damage it does.

Well in all fairness I may be a bit overly vehement on this issue.  Unmitigated long-range offenses(or I suppose more of a substantial economy debuff in this case)with heavily cost-ineffective semi-counters have always sort of pushed my buttons(I'm surprised how often that specific of a pet peeve seems to come up in strategy games).

I'd be just as happy just having novaliths require the presence of an allied ship in the targeted gravity well to fire.  At least that way a strong front line of defenses(complete with phase jump inhibs to keep lone scouts from just running through) could be established on moons/asteroids front of key economic worlds to protect said eco-worlds.

I just like some sort of counterplay that allows an advent players to keep their economy intact in some manner besides fighting the TEC loyalist on home ground.

Yours too? It's almost like a conspiracy or something!

I don't see anything wrong with the suggestion at all. Even if the numbers need to be tweaked, the idea is good.