How to balance Phase Missiles

Fighters are meant to shoot down bombers (other strikecraft)...since strikecraft don't have shields, it seems rather silly to give fighters a weapon meant to bypass shields (with Rebellion, fighters generally aren't used to counter anything other than bombers, though some have tried to use them to counter corvette spam)...

Furthermore, because of how good PMs are against targets with high shield mitigation, it was possible to have situations where Vasari fighters would be better against caps than other faction's frigates (which is completely nonsensical)...lowering the base damage of fighters would not be a good solution because it would horribly affect their ability to shoot down SC (which is the entire purpose of fighters)...changing the damage tables also wouldn't be a good idea since that would affect all fighters (and anything else with anti-light weapons like corvettes)...changing their weapon from PMs to something else was the best solution IMO...

There is nothing inherently wrong with vasari bombers having PMs...the problem is that Advent are grossly outmatched against them while TEC and Vasari are not...logically, this lends to a change to Advent's defenses, not Vasari's offensive capabilities...in general, two solutions have continually been brought forth to fix the issue:

1. Give Advent shield techs a big phase blocking modifier...this is very viable (the modifier already exists) and because it is tied to technology, the Advent would always have the bonus...furthermore, it would scale at the same rate that PMs get upgraded since both are tied to technologies of comparable tiers
2. Give the Guardians shield projection ability a PM blocking buff...this ability is AoE with decent range and comes at tier 3...you'd probably want it be stacking with a small limit (say 3 or 4) where each guardian gives ~10% blocking (testing would be needed to determine best value)...

I would be very wary of giving this buff to repulsion instead...while I do think repulsion is too powerful for a cruiser ability, it is one of the few things Advent have going for them...it does not need to be empowered with an additional PM blocking buff, and replacing it with a new ability would probably put everyone in an uproar without compensation somewhere else in the Advent arsenal...

FYI, Vasari fighters already are by far the most powerful...they are the hardest to kill, and Kortul spam with Jam Weapons means Vasari arguably already are in the best position to counter bomber spam...they don't need any more help in that regard....

Are you kidding me? The Kortul is by far the most durable cap in the game. The Skirantra and Jurrasul are great caps as well. Even the Vulkoras can be amazing with either a rush or hit and run attacks before starbases are up. The new nanite cap is kind of meh but it can basically spawn overseers, so its definitely not weak. And the Antorak... well okay it sucks if you're not playing a flagship game, but 3 always good, 1 situationally good, 1 average and 1 weak cap is definitely no worse than the TEC or Advent.

Totally false, you forget the overseer, which is the best cruiser in the game for keeping single targets (caps, titans and starbases) alive. So that's another benefit the Vasari have for them. Their repair bay isn't near as good as the other two but that's more a defensive weakness.

In hindsight I half agree with this. I would have given fighters pulse weapons and bombers the pulse beams. I don't know if we can still sell that idea though.

An issue brought up in the past is that the base damage of Vasari bombers is already very high....

Compare this to the kanrak, which has a low base damage but makes up for it with better weapon techs...

A slight nerf to the base damage of Vasari bombers would go a long way....

My idea here is more that Vasari use the PM for two reasons:

1. It bypasses shields. That's why their LRF and Caps use PM that excel in bypassing shields.

2. You can't dodge them. That's why the Junsurak and SC (should) use them. Screw shield mitigation ignore—phase space allows the rockets to travel faster than any SC. (Maybe this should then be reflected by the Junsurak and SC having 100% Chance to hit while lowering their base damage by 30–50%.)

That's why I would propose to change Repulsion so it counters all missiles (TEC too) but has high AM cost, low range and doesn't block 100% of the missiles (more like 30% with first tier of research and maybe 50% at second tier). That way you'd have to decide which Guardians to use to counter energy weapons via shield bubble and which to counter rockets via Repulsion, both wouldn't be possible except with AM restore e.g. by using Disciples. The new ability would kick ass, but has some serious downsides e.g. high cost (AM restore or more Guardians needed).

Isn't that completely in line with the Vasari liking hit-and-run best? I mean regarding SC bombers should be the slow and heavy-hitting ones while fighters are fast and agile and can quickly take out certain threats to the fleet. So for the Vasari I'd imagine the fighters to be like saboteurs that take out the enemies SC (and corevttes) to let the few Vasari ships reign free (of SC attacks) and also secure their escape should the need arise.

Okay, sorry. I truly forgot the Overseer.

My biggest issue that keeps me from playing Vasari is that I don't seem to be able to keep my caps alive early in game because I lack fleet size (and ship construction speed) which often means that my cap has to defend itself in tight battles which it often can't.

So yeah, for me the caps seemed too weak. But that may just be my fault then... sorry, I take it back.

I have to agree with Seleuceia and GoaFan77. The weapons distribution of the Vasari ships is just fine. Its the fact that the Advent are too weak vs phase missiles that cause the biggest issue. A mix of what Seleuceia sounds more reasonable. Modify the Guardian Shield Projection with anti-phase missile ability for early protection with a shield tech done the road for late game strengthening is more logical and easier to balance out as a whole. Of course there is still the bomber alpha strike problem but that is a whole other series of threads.

It is true that the Overseer needs 1 more lab to deploy, so there might be a bit of truth to that. However, most all Vasari players will get a Skirantra Carrier as their first or second cap. It's repair cloud gives you access to a nice AoE healing ability that should allow you to keep your caps protected until you can get overseers online.

Actually I agreed with taking phase missiles off of bombers. I just didn't agree with why the Vasari need phase missiles. Heck I think you could change phase missiles to a normal %damage increase instead of shield bypass, and all you'd need to do is buff the Assailants' damage and the Vasari would still be playable. They have so many other cool toys now so its not all about phase missiles anymore. I'm not advocating that off course, but I don't think we have to worry about either Vasari suddenly becoming under powered with anything suggested here.

The problem here is a durability one. Why not change it so that ships with greater than 20% shields repair hull points twice as fast. If its still an issue make the missile ignore a set 33% mitigation. To make that less of a set back, negative mitigation would be allowed if it would occur.

You are right but that is the weakness of the Advent as they have higher DPS. We want to keep that effect while making it so that the phase missiles aren't as powerful as they are now if the Advent does their job right.

Well first of all, passive hull repair in almost useless in combat. Ships get like a 90% penalty to hull regen while in combat. It's basically only useful between battles, not in them.

It could be interesting, but for the most part I still think almost all of the problem with phase missiles comes from bombers. At least you can at least retreat against a horde of Assailants. You can't always do that with bombers.

From a lore perspective, PMs don't really travel large distances in phase space...they use jumping in and out of phase space to "bypass" the shield frequencies...they aren't teleporting to their targets at all, but blipping through shields...

I think you misunderstand...unless we are talking about a modded version of sins, I am strongly against a fundamental change to repulsion...while I don't like repulsion, it unfortunately is a necessary evil to keep Advent competitive and should not be swapped for a different ability...

Advent are in a state of pain right now being the weakest faction...especially with the wail and Eradica nerfs, we don't need "swaps" or "even trades"....we need buffs to fill in some of the Advent weaknesses, and those buffs should not replace already vital assets to the Advent arsenal, but rather compliment them....

However, because repulsion is already so powerful, it most certainly is not a good ability to add buffs to...simply, it needs to be left alone....the PM blocking needs to be added elsewhere, and either shield techs or shield projection seem to be good places to look at...

Vasari fighters are the best fighters without PMs...I think granting them a better weapon is taking balance completely in the wrong direction...PMs should be on bombers, not fighters...it makes sense gameplay wise, and it makes sense lore wise...

Maybe I'm wrong, but wasn't it stated in the manual or in-game somewhere (back in vanilla sins) that PM are used on fighters or the Junsurak because they are un-dodgeable?—You try to dodge 'em, they phase out and are right before you when they reappear—At least I understood it this way...

Heck, it is still in the manual (Junsurak entry):

Why do Advent need Repulsion to stay competitive? I play mostly Advent myself and rarely need to use Repulsion (and Wail was always so heavily situational you seldom get to use it except when you go directly for it as offensive tactic in early game). Sure I don't actually play competitive but mostly with friends. But I can't imagine the general tactics to be vastly different in competitive play...

With a good shield bubble, amplify energy aura with illum + illusion spam, a revenge + animosity combo (paired with malice for extra damage), domination (to get Hoshis for your bubble) and the new culture buff after 1.1 (especially as AL) you already go roflstomping most enemy fleets and planets (even denying enemy (re-)colonization better and faster than strip-mining VL)—except when full PMed Vasari appear.

And I believe I didn't propose an even trade. My idea for the repulsion change was to make it even more viable for Advent as it would be a means to overcome their greatest weakness: enemy missiles. By allowing you to counter a certain percentage of all missile damage you could even withstand more incoming DPS than with a good shield bubble given the enemy (TEC or Vasari) spams LRF or bombers.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of things in the manual that are completely irreconcilable with actual gameplay....in this case, strikecraft most certainly can dodge sentinel fire...it suffers the same accuracy penalties all anti-strikecraft ships suffer (these values can be seen in the gameplay.constants file)...

I assure you they are....Advent are limited by their poor economy (which is coupled with expensive cruisers) and simply can't compete with the "bag of tricks" that Vasari have....Repulsion is one of the few "tricks" Advent have that keeps them competitive militarily....skilled players use repulsion all the time to isolate and kill titans or high level caps...it also can be used to force defenders away from a high level SB or titan, allowing them to be engaged safely....and of course, it is great for covering a retreat...

In skilled games, repulsion is huge and necessary to keep Advent competitive...

Yeah, sure the manual has some errors, but I didn't mean to use it for finding out about actual in-game values but more for reading the devs version of the lore since there is not much "canon" lore (especially on specific weapon techs) to be found apart from trailers, the descriptions on the website and the manuals.

About repulsion being needed: Well, then add it back in by allowing the Halcyon to use telekinetic push against all kinds of ships... This would mean a nerf to the old repulsion as it would be a cap ship ability then [not spamable but keeps the tactical possibilities] and would also buff the Advent by allowing them to overcome their greatest weakness.

Yeah, but there is evidence for the other side. Mainly that you can never avoid all damage from an attack in Sins, is just reduced by the accuracy penalty. So technically all flak always hit.

I highly recommend you try out some competitive games on ICO sometime then. I was in the same boat as you for a while. But I definitely think it helps you as a player to try games where the stakes are high enough that you can't just play for fun. If you're not fighting for your life against intelligent players its hard to know what strategies, abilities and techs are good and which aren't, because against the AI and to a lesser extent against friends who don't know any better, you can get away with all sorts of bad things. And as an Advent player repulse is something you should be exploiting to maximum effect, if for nothing else as a means to keep enemy ships from retreating.

Yes, all the terrible things you've heard about it are probably true, and you'll probably get abused as a newb, but I think even for fun players benefit from trying a couple to see how different it really is.

Does this apply to dodging (Animal Tempest)?

From what I have noticed yes. I have never noticed an attack totally "miss" (it may do so graphically but internally). Try it by setting flak damage to 9999999999 or something and accuracy to 0.01. I didn't use such an extreme example but I meticulously watched a ship I have 35% accuracy to and I never witnessed an attack miss.

Come to think of it I think I was playing with chance to hit, not chance to dodge with the ability I was doing that test on, but internally they are the same modifier so I doubt that matters.