Weapons might be a bit much, not the least because the Halcyon also does that, but bombardment would be cool.

That is way too much for a passive. It's quite possible 20% would make the Radiance near unkillable with all the other Advent shield mitigation buffs.

IMO this might be a bit to elaborate and a bit of a stretch of the concept. Maybe preventing all defensive structures from firing for a while would be more fun. 

It needs to be passive, but with lower values, the 10-20-30-40 is too much, I think 7.5-15-22.5-30 would be better.

By definition it should do it, but it doesn't and it surprised me.. A high velocity gauss projectile could easily bypass shields as there is not enough time for shields to reposition power to the impact location. So a good idea.

I doubt these changes would make me choose that ship over the others, because the weapon damage is already increased by the Halcyon (just with cooldown reduction). And bombardnment increase alone is not a huge help, the ship would still need something useful.

Mines are not commonly used if you play against people, but it may be helpful against AI if you are fed up with that stupid amount of mines everywhere.

This would be way too OP if you build more Antoraks and use this ability constantly.

I support Goa's idea with the defensive structure disable firing stuff.

Other ideas are good.

To everybody: thanks for the contributions.

To address specific comments...

Goa:

I'm aware that the Halcyon already passively buffs weapons. I added weapon cooldowns to Guidance, in addition to bombardment cooldowns, for several reasons:

1. A bonus to bombardment cooldowns simply didn't feel like enough -- you'd have to have a large fleet to truly see any benefit
2. The Halcyon's aura only effects energy weapons; this one effects ALL cooldowns -- abilities, weapons, bombardment, everything.
3. I hoped that the difference between the steady buff provided by the passive aura of the Halcyon and the more situational, "bursty" nature of Concentration would be sufficient to differentiate the two

You are, I think, absolutely right that the buff to the Radiance's shield mitigation, as originally suggested, was WAY too much. Here is my thought process:

1. The Rapture needs some way to compensate for incoming damage (it has a taunt, for the Unity's sake!); this buff needs to be baked into Energy Absorptive Armor, because none of the other abilities provides a justification for a defensive boost; in keeping with the theme of Energy Absorptive Armor, it should be something that charges up over time -- and shield mitigation is an existing defensive mechanic that charges up over time, but it currently isn't sufficient to protect the Radiance. Ergo, Energy Absorptive Armor should increase the shield mitigation cap.
2. Standard shield mitigation hovers at around 57% when maxed out
3. Advent abilities add another 10%, more or less, but I was too lazy to check the numbers
4. 67%+20% = 87%, which means, basically, that a Radiance under fire would be taking only 13% damage; to me, that seemed enough to justify the fact that a Radiance would have to take enough fire to get there in the first place

That said, I would like to reiterate that you're probably right: 13% is too little damage.

What do you think would be a balanced number by which to increase its maximum shield mitigation via Energy-Absorptive Armor? For the moment, I've modified the suggestion to improve shield mitigation by 2.5-5-7.5-10%.

What say you?

On the subject of Subversion, I actually originally considered your idea (shutting down defensive structures), but then I realized that you're still falling into the trap occupied by the current version of the ability.

To wit: currently, Subversion only works under two conditions:

1. The Antorak Marauder is in the gravity well
2. There is ship or orbital construction project going on in the gravity well

Those are VERY limited circumstances under which the ability is effective, and it doesn't provide all that much benefit to begin with!

Your suggestion has the same problem: it is only effective under two circumstances:

1. There are defensive structures in the gravity well (which aren't usually built in competitive play because players can simply go around them -- space is deep, after all)
2. These defensive structures are unavoidable and cannot simply be overwhelmed with firepower

Ultimately, it doesn't provide that much benefit.

I made the suggestion I made because it seemed very "Vasari" -- they already have means of detecting and interfering with phase jumps; this would fit very well with the Marauder's subversive nature.

That said, I will modify the above post, however, to suggest an alternative to my original proposition: that Subversion instead completely shuts down all ship production, building production, and planet upgrades for a period of 30-60-90-120 seconds.

Turchany:

I disagree with your assertion that my suggestions for a passive Adaptive Forcefield are too much. If you look at the math, you will notice that Adaptive Forcefield, in its current incarnation can already provide 40% protection constantly (antimatter costs excepted); only at level 1 and 2 can it not provide the listed protection at all times, and I have brought those amounts down to compensate.

Also, with regard to my proposal to Subversion, note that the very first bullet point after the proposal indicates that it should apply a "Heightened Security" buff that specifically prevents chaining Subversion on the target planet.

Teun-a-Roonius:

On the subject of a cooldown for the damage buff I suggested: I originally proposed a one minute cooldown because, if I recall correctly, the Vasari Rebel ability Phasic Strike (which provides a temporary damage boost to units upon phasing into the gravity well) has a one-minute cooldown. I envision the two abilities in a similar light: both provide a temporary but significant damage boost, with time to maneuver between uses. In the case of the Radiance, this is for one ship, stacking in intensity over time; in the case of the Vasari, this is for a whole fleet.

Thanks again for your comments!

I know this is a bit off-topic (but as the topic's here...); I also have a couple of things I'd like to see changed.

First, I think Vengeance should deal back damage without shield mitigation (and perhaps even to the hull as well) when the incoming damage bypasses the shield. Vasari phase missiles really do cause much more damage proportionally than is reflected, since the reflected damage is absorbed by shields and is subject to mitigation by the aggressor.

Secondly, I also would like to see the Iconus shield bestowal ability improved versus PMs and other shield-bypassing attacks. The Iconus will apparently share damage without mitigation directly, which is first inconsistent with Vengeance, and it also makes them fall easily to PMs, since they won't automatically stop using the ability if they have some shields left even if there is no hull. I guess there are several ways this could be done. Either the Iconus should share damage on a purely numbers basis, so whether the incoming damage bypasses shields or not, the shared damage never bypasses the shield (like a normal attack), or the shield bestowal ability gives a phase missile block to ships as well as the damage sharing (which is perhaps less balanced).

And really off-topic (I apologise), but could we also have damage values updated properly on the infocards when a buff is applied that gives a visible "damage output" descriptor? So, for example, if you have an Ankylon in a friendly well with Militia Weaponry, you will see the damage values updated properly despite there being no indication the buff is active, but if you use Furious Defense, you will not see any increase in damage values, even though the infocard suggests the damage output is increased.

If you feel Vengeance is not strong enough (and now that the holy trinity is rarely used I may well not be), I think it would be easier to simply let it reflect a larger percentage back rather than change how it behaves. I don't think its so bad that it can't be saved by how it currently works (unlike Gauss Rail Gun).

Actually its shield projection, shield bestowal is the ability of Advent hangar defenses to give other structure shields.

I think I bugged the devs about this in the beta, you might want to post in the changelog thread or make an entirely new thread to remind them.

Adaptive forcefield gets its utility out of being able to pop it for special situations. So keeping it as an active lets you focus on the Offensive/Defensive Kol dynamic and is good for tactical considerations as an Active ability.

The Kol ability that should be made Passive is Flak Burst. Any Strike Craft flying in the Vicinity of the Kol just takes the damage. That would go a LONG way towards discouraging bomber spam and cementing the Kol a place in TEC fleets.

I like the change for GRG, it would help with the underwhelming damage the Kol puts out by giving it a strong punch and good finisher.

Thanks, Goa; you read my mind.

To add to your comments, though: if the suggestion I made for Flak Burst goes through (<fingers crossed />),  Flak Burst will not only damage strike craft but actively reduced the damage taken by anything they hit, including the Kol itself. In this way, it would function in much the same way that you described Adaptive Forcefield -- as a strategic button to prevent damage. In this case, the "strategy" would mainly involve timing -- how soon do you fire it off? Do you fire as soon as a handful of squadrons enter the envelope, or do you take a few guaranteed hits from strike craft to wait for all of them to enter optimum firing range?

As most of seem to be aware, the Kol's primary problem is antimatter: with three active abilities, none of which are particularly overwhelming, it simply doesn't have enough bang for its buck. By making Adaptive Forcefield passive, we give it a solid defensive boost while simultaneously reducing its antimatter problems.

***

Agaricus, you have an excellent point about Vengeance and killing starbases. I feel it should be a valid strategic choice to let high-DPS targets kill themselves, and whilst this is possible against Advent and TEC opponents, Vasari units equipped with phase missiles have a sizeable advantage.

I'll throw it in the OP.

Jdr:

You'll need to specify a damage rate.

Flak Burst currently does 30 - 43 - 56- 69 damage to strike craft, but it does so on a 12 - 10 - 8- 7-second cooldown.

This makes its damage per second (to strike craft) 2.5 - 4.3 - 7 - 9.8.

Are you suggesting that the Flak Burst ability should passively do the amount of damage-per-second I stated above to all strike craft in a given radius?

If so, then I'm afraid that would hardly act as a deterrent to strike craft at all; they would be able to fly in, kill the Kol, and fly out before taking anywhere near the amount of damage needed to kill them.

This would hardly mitigate the problem of alpha strike damage, whereas my suggestion would allow you to do that by using Flak Burst to not only damage strike craft but also give their attacks a chance to miss, thereby preventing them from doing a successful alpha strike and one-hit-ko'ing the Kol.

EDIT: Examples of alpha strike damage and mitigation:

• Example 1 - Alpha Strike: Eighty squadrons of bombers fly in towards a Kol surrounded by 20 or so flak frigates. The Kol is, in theory, adequately defended -- it has an escort of 20 flak frigates and its own Flak Burst ability. And yet! The Kol dutifully triggers flak burst when majority of the squadrons are in firing range, cutting them to, say 66% health (for Advent bombers) or 80% health (Vasari bombers). The flak frigates likewise take shots at the now-weakened bombers, cutting down say, 20% of them before they strike. That's still anywhere between 192 ([3*80]*.8) and 448 ([7*80]*.8) bombers, which will kill the Kol in one or two passes.
• Example 2 - Alpha Strike Mitigated in Current Metagame: Eighty squadrons of bombers fly towards a Kortul Devastator surrounded by 20 or so flak frigates. Just prior to impact, the Kortul Devastator triggers Jam Weapons, which prevents all strike craft from firing in a radius around the Kortul for 15 seconds. Assuming the player controlling the strike craft is dumb, or simply doesn't know his bombers have been jammed, the bombers continue trying to peck away at the Kortul, all whilst being ripped apart by flak frigates. By the time they can fire again, they have nowhere near the damage potential they currently have (and the Kortul can tank it anyway with Power Surge).
• Example 3 - Alpha Strike Mitigated by Flak Burst and Adaptive Forcefield at level 1, as modified by my suggestion: Eighty squadrons of bombers fly towards a Kol surrounded by 20 or so flak frigates. The Kol triggers Flak Burst when the fighters enter optimum engagement range, reducing their accuracy by 20 percent for ten seconds. Assuming the generous amount of 20% casualties caused by the combination of Flak Burst and flak frigates, the effectiveness of the bombers has now been reduced by approximately 36% -- and the Kol's (passive) Adaptive Forcefield mitigates a further 10% damage, bringing the effectiveness of the alpha strike down by roughly 40% (remember, these effects stack multiplicatively: 100%  of the bombers * .8 * .8 * .9 = 57.6% effective, or reduced by 42.4%). And these are using statistics at ability level one for both Flak Burst and Adaptive Forcefield! Now imagine the following:
• Example 4 - Alpha Strike Mitigated by Flak Burst and Adaptive Forcefield at level 3, as modified by my suggestion: Eighty squadrons of bombers fly towards a Kol surrounded by 20 flak frigates. The Kol triggers flak burst; assuming it doesn't outright kill the incoming bombers, let's say they're reduced to half health. The flak frigates wipe out a third of them, so 33% of the bombers don't get to fire. Flak Burst causes 40% of their attacks to miss, and Adaptive Forcefield passively mitigates 30% of the damage that gets through. So with these two combined, the alpha strike is reduced to 27.72% effectiveness, or by roughly 73%.

As things were getting derailed over at another thread (https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/451038/page/2/#replies), I'm going to post the minor suggestion I have here instead, as it would perhaps be more on-topic.

The arguments against Animosity/Energy Absorptive armor essentially state that the cap ship is too weak for it to be a viable strategy (the argument for suggests otherwise ), so the following is an alternative idea for improving the Radiance in this context:

• Energy Absorptive Armor (or should it be called "Energy Absorptive Shields"?) does damage reduction instead of increasing armor (DR is independent of shield bypass/PMs and affects shields as well as hull). As DR is multiplicative compared to armor, which is additive, it is impossible to choose a value that is exactly balanced with the current status quo but a close approximation is 4.4%/8.8%/13.2%/17.6%, with the assumption that the Radiance has an equal amount of hull and shield points.
• Alternatively, Frostflare, if Energy Absorptive Armor should increase max mitigation, then again, it is impossible to choose a value that is exactly balanced with the current status quo. An approximation that reduces about the same amount of damage as my suggestion is 1.0%/1.9%/2.8%/3.6% with the assumptions that armor is not increased, max mitigation is 76% and hull points is equal to shield points. For 67% max mitigation, the numbers can be increased to 1.35%/2.65%/3.85%/4.9%.
• Animosity makes affected units vulnerable (they're being taunted) by applying damage reduction to them (for example, -25%/-50%/-75%/-100%) for the duration of the ability.
• Alternatively, Animosity applies the damage boost to the Radiance (instead of Energy Absorptive Armor as in the OP suggestion); perhaps a more consistent approach would be to apply increased damage output (e.g. 5%) per taunted unit (max output 40%/90%/135%/185%).

Calculation table available on request. Discuss.

I'd leave energy absorption alone and focus on making animosity do something to help the radiance's survivability...the only way someone is ever going to pick animosity is if they can pick it over energy absorption, because if you aren't picking detonate antimatter then there is no point in building the radiance...

In other words, the radiance's abilities need to be such that DA+animosity and DA+energy absorption are both equally viable builds...that means animosity must in some form help the radiance tank better...I'd suggest a simple buff to damage reduction or a simple buff to hull and shield regen...

You realize that a Radiance with 1 DA and 4 EAS could solo titans up to 3 levels below it, no problem?

This idea should be seriously revisioned.

As others suggested, animosity could take a buff instead (e.g. reduced incoming damage from taunted units) but we have to make sure that Radiance does not become an auto-win!

Think about it: Two Animosity Radiance caps capable of permanently keeping enemy fleet taunted, able to survive the onslaught for minutes... what the hell would you put against THAT? All those radiances now need to win every battle against any frigate/cruiser centric fleet is one Rapture with Vengeance. GG. Be careful.

Also, I disagree with your idea of buffing the marauder.

Yes, this ship is at the very end of my priority-purchase list in most games, but it's not because it's bad at what it is meant to do (i.e. trollcruising through enemy worlds and pissing the enemies off).

Marauder sucks because all caps gain levels from fighting and the Marauder is useless in battle. Yeah it has the POH that deals shit damage and makes an enemy ship immune or lets your own ship survive a few seconds longer or, if the enemy happens to be channeling something, it can act as an interrupt. It all sounds awesome on paper, but if you actually compare this ship in a fight with any other, you will see how useless it really is except for a few specific situations.

What the Marauder needs is viability in battle. Something that you can use to properly impact a fight, maybe not by brute force and tons of damage, maybe it has to work in a more indirect way, but it has to have some purpose until it's level 7, when being able to zzap around behind enemy lines, act as a phase stabilizer and interrupt powerful enemy abilities actually becomes important.

I dunno what that should be. Some suggestions could be:

> Distort Gravity should reduce weapon cooldown on nearby friendly ships and/or push enemy ships away (aka repulsion) or something.

OR

> phase out hull could be made more combat-oriented, e.g. when an enemy ship and one of your own are phased out at the same time (not hit by the spell at the same time, but affected by the spell), the friendly ship drains the enemy one of hull and shields. Every additional friendly ship affected at the same time increases the drain's strength and every enemy ship affected at the same time is just another victim. So you could drain 4 enemy targets with one friendly ship (strong heal for the friendly, weak drain on the enemies) or, conversely, drain one enemy ship with 4 friendly ships (strong drain on the enemy, weak heal on the friendlies).

OR anything else that's actually useful as of level 3 and in normal fights, not necessarily involving a Lvl6 Marza. 

Whatever is to be done, it has to make sure that the ship has something to fight with or support a fleet with. As it stands, this cap is a liability in a fight, and it has to be in a fight to level.

On the subject of the Marauder, I'd personally like to see it have some sort of offensive buff, whether it be worked in to distort gravity or subversion or replace one of those abilities.

I would propose a phase missile upgrade in the distort gravity ability (kind of makes sense that if you can phase jump closer to planets your phase missiles would be more effective) but this would encroach upon the territory of the Stilakus Subverter and Distort Gravity is already an awesome ability.

I feel the Vasari in general lack offensive fleet buffs on their capital ships. TEC have Targetting Uplink (Akkan), Advent have Amplify Energy Aura (Halcyon) and Vasari have what? Microphasing Aura (Skirantra) only affects strikecraft and is, in my opinion, a hell of a lot worse than something like Concentration Aura (Rapture).