WindsweptStone

I personally like the Illuminator changes, they may make them more useful in the future. But changing to be more like the other two LRMs, which are probably the biggest balance issue with the game right now, probably isn't a step in the right direction. LRM's speed being changed is nice, but LRMs aren't so powerful for their speed, but for the fact that they can slug it out with the best of the units. LRMs being dirt cheap, low in population cap, and only really don't beat for the c

Most of the weapon upgrades occur in too small increments at too high a price to be really worth it, in my opinion. The Armor, Shields, and even Antimatter can be more worth it because they upgrade both the total and the regeneration rates and are effective on all ships, while the weapon upgrades are on differing ships depending on the upgrade and in small increments. Someone who dumps a lot of resources into upgrading the weaponry on their ships doesn't have that much an advantage o

I've been surprised by the extreme survivability of a well balanced Advent fleet. Between Motherships restoring shields, Disciples stealing Anti-Matter then feeding it to other ships, Guardians using Shield Projection (and if needed Repel) Subjugators using Perseverance and the various other capital ships using their active or passive abilities that aid the surrounding ships, an Advent fleet can be a tough nut to crack. The trouble is that they're at an early disadvantage in

LRM spamming is usually something like this: build the first Capital Ship, scouts, a minimal number of Light Frigates, then tech to LRMs (T1 for Vasari, T2 for TEC) and building them exclusively. LRMs are probably the best unit in the game for their cost and population and are so low on the tech tree that in many games they're almost all that's needed. Generally the only way to fight this are Strikecraft, Flak, Heavy Cruisers, or spam your own LRMs, all of which have problems. Strikec

Still on Hard the AI isn't that much of a challenge, you can engage is weird or dumb tactics and still beat it handily. From my experience though, the Unfair AI added to 1.03 can sometimes do better. I played a Vasari one recently (I think an Aggressor) who began admirably fierce, Assailant heavy attacks on one of my worlds fairly early (granted, it was a Desert world that slowed my progress considerably while it had Asteroids, but still). The Unfair seems pretty good at amassing dece

Advent's greatest strength though is using the various abilities of their ships to compliment each other to make an effective fleet (especially against Vasari who when the massed Phase Missiles come out, you can be in real trouble against). Having to spread out negates all of your defensive advantages with various shield and Aura abilities, but also if your enemy spreads out to deal with you, also makes all of your potential offensive abilities (like Malice) less effective. Aeria Drone

My take on it, as a primarily Advent player (although not a particularly good one, by my standards). It's good to pick up the shielding early, you need it on the way to the Guardian and really pays off in earlier fights where the added regeneration can come into play. If you're Crystal rich you should often look at getting the first levels of hulls and lasers, since neither will cost you any Metal (Credits and Metal are usually being eaten by producing Disciples, afterall). Avoid go

I like Capitals as they are for combat prowess, especially early game. Late game they'er a bit too vulnerable to massed focus-fire (good luck keeping any cap alive long enough to get through it's Anti-Matter stores in most large late game engagements) but under certain situations with the right support ships you can keep a fleet together at least. My main problem with them is just how expensive upgrading the crew caps can be, especially beyond three or four. Capitals are good, but fra

Aeria Drones and Disciples can work, I have seen that. But the trouble is that LRMs do great against Disciples, so if the LRMs stay and fight your Disciples targeting the Flak instead of chasing the Drone Hosts around you can be down to just your Hosts soon. I've been trying to play with the strategy myself by also trying to get Guardians to the field early to assist the Drone Hosts. Guardians are only T3, although they require you to Research 3 different levels of Shield tech, those

Heavy Cruisers are probably the best LRM counter, I don't think making LRM's stronger versus them is the way to go, personally. LRMs are already the spam du jour, so making them better in any way, even if it's conjunction with changes against them seems like a dangerous idea that might just prolong the state of things until yet another patch. It's kind of sad that right now a T2 ship does almost everything you need in the game, making them weaker, more expensive and just generally less versati

I have noticed some improvement in the AI, but it still seems unwilling to really ever participate in a pitched battle if the odds are not heavily in it's favor. If this were in neutral territory, or even on the offensive, it would be forgivable, but the fact remains that it is unwilling to protect key worlds that it needs to win. It will run from a Dead Asteroid just as fast as it will a fully developed Terran or Desert. I noticed the patrol thing too, that Tamsta17 mentioned (than

Getting in an attack before the LRMs can really blob up is pretty important, from my experience. Using Disciples, your first capital ship (I prefer a Radiance) and Guardians as soon as possible, you can get the upper hand. On your way to getting the Guardian you have to do Shield Research, which in total gives 15% more shielding, and, more importantly that early in the game, 15% faster shield regeneration. This benefits all of your ships, and if you can end up fighting the LRMs in sm

Too early it seems for a final word, but from the way things are looking the most significant changes are indirect nerfs/buffs that stem from the changes to economy and Black Market. TEC is buffed by means of being by far the best for credit income, and the new Black Market is almost immovable. A "Boom" is rarely more than the price going above 500 credits for 100 of whatever resource, but it reverts to it's old levels very quickly, and the vast majority of a game it will linger in the

This whole topic seems to have gone way off base with the whole competitive versus casual players thing, which I think isn't the right place for this. The changes, particularly to the economy, effect everyone who knows the basics of the game. Not just people who play against the AI with friends a few hours on the weekend or just the people who rush your homeworld with a Sova and 5 LRMs 5 minutes into the game. Everyone who knows the game is effected by this. If you're a casua

I actually had a decent experience with the AI last night while messing around. Granted, the Unfair AI had one of the best starting areas it could hope for (Homeworld, Desert, 2 Ice and a Volcanic all very close) but it fairly fast got up a fleet of two capitals and 30 or so Light Frigates, with which it attacked me in reasonably short order. It still turned around and ran once it lost one capital ship, and didn't seem too keen on ever going beyond Capital Ships and Light Frigates, so

The new Black Market system has me very confused, personally. I bought, literally, 2,000 Crystal, all at once on the market, and overall raised it's price from 300 to 450, which the game said was a boom. Literally within two minutes the price change had reverted to what it was prior to my blitz on the market. I also tried jacking up the price on Metal in the market, since I was Crystal poor but Metal rich, but this also seemed to go nowhere. I caused a crash but it wasn't all that se

The fact that it doesn't "stick" to the last person you talked to murdered me last game. We were organizing and dividing territory in a Large Free For All, where our system was united and the other was still at war, and on more than one occasion myself or a teammate said something to All instead of to us that gave away what we were up to. And when there are eight people and difficult names to spell, either typing out names or tabbing through them is quite a hassle every time you want t

Try playing Advent against it and you're in for a whole world of fun. Personally, I more worry about when they TEC LRMs start showing up with upgrades, since those upgrades end with the Novalith. I've had a mean game a couple days ago where I was competing with LRM spam (my ally held him off and then I did Heavy Cruisers to help hold them). Things were going alright, we lost an important planet but still were doing alright, getting ready for the next push when the I got the lovely "

If Mass Transcendence brought ships to Level 6, where Cleansing Brilliance, Provoke Hysteria and Anima Tempest came to play, then it really would be a thing to be afraid of. With proper use and timing of special abilities, it could probably be stronger even than Dark Armada in some engagements. But at present, it's just a nice thing to have. In a long game there's really no reason to not want to auto-level your ships, but the extra experience is even nicer they get from battle (since

PurplePaladin, from what I can figure, the LRMs, at least Vasari's and Advents are going to be harder to kill to help match their higher population cost compared to TEC's (although Advent's is pretty irrelevant, since using Illuminators against LRM spam of the other two factions is less than stellar). From the numbers, it should look something like this (the numbers will probably be rounded though, I'm guessing). TEC Javelis 250 Credits --> 275 Credits 40 Metal --> 48

Yikes, 30% range increase? Is it possible for a minimum range be added to LRMs in a future patch? The things are already kind of crazy good for early game weapons and can be effectively spammed throughout a game with surprisingly good effect. Would be nice if something like Heavy Cruisers could more hard counter the things once you out-tech a spammer.

Spamming unholy amounts of Deliverance Engines as Advent can give you a win without actually attacking, but I've only seen it work against an AI, and it really required an absurd number of the things (over 20), it also took forever. Considering the cost of the things, and the time, it would have been an easier investment to just spam really any type of ship (even just Siege Frigates) and wipe the worlds clean. I only really use culture to boost my income (place a couple in centrally lo

I go with a Radiance usually as Advent if I'm expecting to run into an enemy fairly early because it's pretty good at slugging it out, and the experience is very valuable. It can run into any world except the ones with multiple Kodiaks right out of the box, and can clear them fairly fast (the Progenitors from my experience have problems with this because the flak frigates chew up their fighter/bomber wings). Once the that beast is leveled to with Cleansing Brilliance and teamed up with a Proge

The AI doesn't seem to fully develop it's worlds or research, so I don't think it's so much that the AI isn't spending it's money, but often doesn't have it to begin with. It also seems to like upgrading it's fleet's capacity very early (no other way for it to produce that number of Siege Frigates as well as it's fleet, since those Siege Frigates eat population cap). So I don't think it ever really gets the cash flow going to begin with (although late in game if Pirates are still around the AI

The AI alone, or even in locked teams of decent groups isn't all that hard, from my experience (I'm looking forward to 1.03, AI improvements are really needed in some areas). But it's when you try to play not just a Skirmish style like in a normal RTS, but something more akin to a Civilization 4x type game with unlocked teams that things go astray. Playing like that, how most people play a tradition 4x game, it becomes very difficult after not very long due to the AI's irrational rage