Pirate-Jack

Personally, I always go for the Progen first. It has the easily acknowledged best early-econ boosting ability in the game (low cost planet upgrades are an amazing advantage) that should give you enough of an advantage to counter any rushes the opponent makes. Enough to at least get a second cap ship out (Halcyon is my favourite though I have used Radiance to counter a capship heavy fleet before). As well as that, the idea for the Progen, in my mind, is to expand as quickly as possibl

Nah, the Advent are more like the logical extreme of Communism, unlike the hardcore theocracy of the Ori. The only real similarity between them is that they have the 'Join or Die!' motto as their main theme, though I suppose the splitting from the same race could apply as well.

1. I'm not sure on this one but I don't think the damage is split for each guardian. In any case you should generally only be having one or two firing shield projection at a time so you don't run down on antimatter too quickly and give your guardians time to recover their shields (using the Progen as and when a number of them are down to low shields/health) 2. Yeah they do, but since the illums outrange Assailants (I think, though I may be confusing this with Repulse), and th

I'll have to remember that one for Vasari, though I've not encountered too many problems with pirates alone (I tend to scale up my fleet about the same time they do) and try to get in a pre-emptive strike once I've got a good planet killing fleet going. My major problem though is that if I allow myself to face a pirate fleet I tend to be attacked immediately afterwards, especially in the mid-late game when the pirates are powerful enough to cause real damage to my fleet/defence structures. Tw

The basic idea is to form the Advent Battleball with Progen+Halcyon+Guardians+Illuminators, with the Illuminators dealing the damage, Guardians using Shield Projection to absorb as much damage as they can from the various targets within your battleball, as well as using repulse to force away all those annoying Heavy Cruisers that keep trying to molest your precious illums, and the Progen using Shield Restore to keep the Guardians' shields up (thus allowing them to use Shield Projection more a

If you're getting laggy you can always just reduce the graphic settings a notch, if you can cope with not being able to see the paint drying on your brand new cap ships of course. Aside from that I'd suggest closing down all unnecessary background programs and the likes (use the task manager to close down extraneous processes). If you're playing online the best I can suggest is not using other programs that take up bandwidth and, if you're willing to risk it, shutting down your firewall for t

Personally, I judge depending on the cap ship in question. Taking out an Advent Progen at the start of a game basically kills their early econ, so yeah, I take every chance I get to take those out. It doesn't work so well against Vasari and TEC but destroying that space egg is always a plus. Then again, if he's spamming LRMs or you've got units that aren't built to deal with his units then try to take out as many of them as you can while building/researching a counter. It'll make his

Still, there is always the argument that you just go around the starbase, let the Ogrovs and bombers take it out. If he's built it right next to the phase lane, find another route and go back to it only when you have to (here we come to the importance of scouting). Second strategy you can use is to send your fleet through in parts. Send one small group and clear it from range to fight whatever enemy forces there are or to assault the planet itself, then send another, and another and a

Personally, I see the Vasari SB as the most powerful of the lot. Debris Vortex and Frontal Shields make it the hardiest of the three in my eyes, and despite its lack of an overwhelming ability (like Meteor Storm or the Big Red Button) it has its own repair ability and phase missiles (never underestimate the phase missiles. Dear God I hate those things). Sure, MS can out range anti-structure cruisers, but the Vas SB can move to them. That makes it able to counter its hard counter, and if I'm r

[quote who="Deceiver_0" reply="14" id="2278757"] Imagine the Space Egg with 5 armour Problem is the Egg is supposed to be weaker than carrier caps. Yet it eats them for breakfast. Poor things, eaten by a breakfast item.[/quote] As the carrier caps are supposed to be weaker (in toughness and dps) than the 'battle caps'. They're meant to be support ships that give buffs to the fleet and SC, not battleships with fighter coverage.

Carrier Caps Increase Armour: No (They're meant to be support ships, not bruisers that can outlast the damage dealing caps in the fleet, colony caps are the only ones with less armour for a reason. Imagine the Space Egg with 5 armour O_O) Increase Squadron Cap: Yes SC Buffs AOE: No Additional Drones: No Rework Scramble Bombers: Yes

You're all forgetting that most of the weapons in-game would use antimatter as the source of their destructive force, thus all the weapons in game have the most energetic natural reaction known to give themt he power they need. Look at the basic TEC Javelin missiles: If they impact a shield the matter of the rocket itself provides the reaction, and if it strikes hull there is more than enough matter to keep a continued explosive reaction going. (Before anyone raises the argument, localised sh

Since new topics have been added since I last looked, here are my opinions on light frigates: 1) Increase Damage: Yes on the condition that 2 remains unchanged) 2) Increase Damage to Armour Type: Yes (on the condition that 1 remains unchanged) 3) Increase HP/Shields/Armour: No 4) Increase Ability Range: Neutral (since I can't remember anything about them atm >_>) 5) Increase Firing Arc: Yes 6) Increase Turn Speed: Yes (LFs should be very n

Personally I go for counters. Instead of using the whole fleet to take out one ship, use LRMs to take out LFs, use fighters to take out LRMs (or scouts, since fighters have been neutered), use flak to take out fighters, and so on. It whittles down their forces without you wasting your ships fighting against something they only do 50% damage against. Heavy Assault is pointless to fight with LRMs since they're a hard counter and LRM do 75% damage against them, so use bombers, which do 100% of t

[quote who="koda0" reply="15" id="2268895"]Vas.: Their starbases suck at killing fleets, at least compared to the other two... Not really sure what Vas. has that's TRULY op... Maybe Enforcers, but idk[/quote] I don't know what the hell you've been smoking, but the Vasari SB is a beast at taking out fleets. Ignoring the fact that it can move (which negates the advantage of the anti-SB cruisers), it has frontal shields that are much better than the usual ones and it can repair

Since you refer to the MP crowd as though you were not one of them you'd don't have the range of experience needed to comment on what is balanced or not in a multiplayer game. Suffice to say the most difficult (and most rewarding, imo) part of the game is multiplayer because when compared to a living, breathing human the AI just cannot compete. The AI does not use a tenth of the tactics and strategies human players use so a person playing single player will not notice half the problems an onl

[quote who="Ascension" reply="2" id="2263386"]i cannot agree on the fact that SCOUTS should be able to FIGHT nonetheless DEFEAT a heavy combat unit and do 200 percent of the dmg against it? that just sounds, and is, completely wrong. sorry amish. but i feel you need to find a new way to counter your rock vs rock scenario.[/quote] If they were named anything other than scouts this would not be the case. If for instant they were called Specialist Assault Ships, they would fill that nich

A few disciples work wonders against scout spammers. If you really don't want to abandon your illum spam then build them on a 2:1 basis (illums:disciples). Countering the counter and all that.

Oops, wrong one. I always get them two mixed up >_>.

Hoshikos are a pretty reliable steal for Advent since there are no hull restoration units for them. Combined with guardians you have yourself a useful little combo. Other units you could consider are the other support cruisers out there (Severun Overseers seem like good candidates since they increase armour as their default ability, and Advent lack armour upgrades until tier 6) and heavy cruisers, since they're the powerhouses of TEC/Vasari fleets.

Compared to losing entire fleets in 20 seconds? Thank you, I'll take the chance for a strategic withdrawal. Don't worry, some ships will be lost and others will be badly beaten but in the end the opponent will at least have a fleet left to fight with.

[quote who="Blair Fraser" reply="8" id="2240954"]Oh believe me I wanted to slow them down before but we wanted to verify it wouldn't have any other unintended consequences to the balance (and I had to convince everyone else it was a problem ) Jack, the reason is that kiting increases the effectiveness of carriers beyond their intended effectiveness and its very annoying.[/quote] Okay, I see your point on the kiting issue. Thanks for the info! :)

Since the Marza is being adjusted in the 1.03 and 1.17 updates I'm wondering what everyone's opinion on whether it will work/is good enough/is going too far and what that means for pro/anti-TEC strategies. Secondly, the carrier cruisers for all factions are getting a speed nerf from 500 to 450, placing them as the slowest unit in my reckoning. What's your opinion on this? Flogging a dead horse? A good change for an overpowered unit? Just right to make it balanced?

Could you tell us the reasoning for the carrier nerf as well, please? Really it just seems to be flogging the dying horse after the build rate nerf, though I suppose it means little since there wasn't a damage increase on the part of light frigates and the likes. It is the slowest ship now too, I think.

MB nerf I'm not too bothered by, but the carrier nerf seems to be beating the dead horse at this point. So they now build strikecraft like they were working in a shed and move about as fast as one too. Figures. Tell me again the point of Light Frigates? EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it, the Marza change isn't so much of a nerf as it is just tweaking how long it takes to kill everything. We should be able to run away from it now.