Honestly there is nothing wrong with allowing Caps to train to lvl 5 after research. Its a later tech in the game, You still would have to bring it somewhere wher it could be shot at to lvl it up to 6. And honestly, having a bunch of lvl 6+ Caps isnt that bad. If you have a well balanced fleet you can hold out very well against a horde of Caps.

Happened to me on a Distant Stars Mulit player game. Pbhead had like 10 Caps, he sent the at my fleet which was mostly frigates. It survivec fairley well for a time. I lost b/c I was fighting 2 fleets and SB at the same time. Anyhow, if nothing else this will encourage more Caps in game. Which Im fine with b/c Im rather good at killing Caps. *shurgs*

Like Ryat said, in Distant Stars we allow Caps to lvl up to 6 with research. To be honest, the ammount of cash you have to throw at it is quite crazy. Not to mention it takes 90 seconds per lvl trained....so training a cap to lvl 6 takes 540 seconds. Which is 9 mins. I dont thing its possible to just spam lvl 6 Caps anyhow with the time and cash needed to invest in it.

By allowing everyone to train high level caps, you are going to nerf Advent, give one less reason to play Advent, and make races less unique.

Plus with their ability (yes I know its a tech 8 ability) to affect experience (increase in the amount they get and getting experience over time) they still have the edge

What you suggested wasn't exactly a slight nerf.  Try something more like a 100% nerf with another 25% nerf on top of that.  So now its less than half as effective.  Maybe CD increase to 15 and AM increase to 100 would be better.

So what about:

Telekinetic Push:

- cooldown increased to 15s (from 10s)

- Antimatter cost increased to 120 (from 90)

AM/s cost is slightly lower, but colldown in increased by 50%. Yes, it is expensive, byt Halcion has 2 passive Abilities...

Hmmmm... did I not comment on any of this when it was discussed last year?  Odd, I usually do... so anyways


Seleuceia and I did some experimentation with capital ship balance in a mod over the summer, and we actually made one change that I ended up falling in love with:  changing capital ship move speeds.

Currently, most capital ships have 525 move speed, while colony caps have 475.  This means that LRF (with move speed of 500) can keep pace with capital ships for long enough to make a kill.  Because carrier capital ships are currently doing just fine due to kiting, we kept their speed the same.  For colony-class and siege-class capital ships, we set their move speed to 550, which is just fast enough to break from LRF fire momentarily after reaching maximum speed.  For support class, we set them to 575 since they're a little bit weaker to begin with.

The biggest change, however, was battleships which we set to 600 move speed.  This enables them to keep pace with light frigates and be used to chase kiting enemies, and gave them a powerful role as "destroyers" that can hunt down flighty opponents and have the speed to disengage from stronger formations of heavy units when the need arises.  This made battleship openers viable and in-fact quite powerful units up into the late-game.  At the same time, this didn't make them overpowering against early-game fleets and it prevented already powerful capital ships like the Kortul from becoming overly dominant.

I was quite satisfied with these changes, so to repeat I endorse these:
- Battleships set to 600 move speed
- Support caps set to 575 move speed
- Colony caps set to 550 move speed
- Siege caps set to 550 move speed
- Carrier caps remain at 525 move speed

Reducing anti-medium to capital ships is fine, though it's not going to solve the problem of the Assailant/Javelis just being tailor-made for focus fire.  At certain fleet sizes, they will still slaughter capital ships.

That composite damage increase is probably a death-knell to the LRF.  I did some testing in a mod with Seleuceia over the summer and found that the LRF vs HC comparison is actually balanced on the head of a pin.  Even a slight change could render the LRF unit useless once heavies are on the field, in a similar manner to how LRF drive LF off the field.

Caps already deal 100% to light armour, IIRC.




I wouldn't go down this route.  At a certain point, capital ship abilities should have to be earned, and no amount of money can buy them.  Mass Transcendence in particularly is quite fine and I wouldn't touch it.  Even a "small" amount of casualties in a late-game battle can amount to thousands of XP points, so as long as you can keep capital ships alive you can certainly raise them.  Considering I managed to run cap-heavy strategies in the days of illuminator spam, this is hardly impossible.  If anything, I'd be more incline to focus on the early-game non-viability of these upgrades and have them impart a cost reduction to the training process.




Seleuceia and I did a lot of experimentation with the Kol, and our conclusion was actually somewhat surprising:  the reason the Kol is underpowered is because Finest Hour is overpowered.  Simply-put, the Kol requires the antimatter regeneration of finest hour to make its other abilities work optimally.  Without finest hour, its performance drops several orders of magnitude.  As a result, it proved completely impossible to balance a Kol both for pre-level-6 and post-level-6.  We decided the only possible route was to nerf the antimatter regeneration of Finest Hour so it recovers its own antimatter cost over the duration, then buff all the other abilities.  

Railgun in particular needed a dramatic buff.  We experimented with several approaches, and surprisingly no matter how obscene the buff it never got to a state where we considered the Kol a viable opener (this included a level 1 GRG that costed 25 antimatter, dealt 300 damage, and reduced the target's attack speed by 50%).  The mitigation reduction is an interesting suggestion, but it is inherently a late-game suggestion and the Kol more than anything from this skill needs early-game viability, so I don't think it's the right direction.  I suggested reducing target's attack speed since that makes this an effective anti-battleship and anti-starbase tool.

I do not think that increasing the durability of the battleships is necessary.  As I mentioned, improving their move-speed went much further to giving them a distinct and meaningful role. 



This ability doesn't need further buffs, IMO.  This damage buff would be completely pointless anyways since any Vasari up against a non-negligable number of SC will have discharge-missile sentinels that will absolutely rip any strike craft that get in range to shreds.



I believe this ability should target self.  Some time ago I was against this, but after trying it in-game, I have to say it does wonders for this capital ship's viability and I'm all for it.

Personally, I think the Dunov is fine with some minor buffs all around (like self-target for SR) and maybe an antimatter reduction for all its ability costs.




Vertigo only needs a buff at level 1, maybe level 2.  It's already extremely powerful at level 3 and I wouldn't give it any buffs at that level.  This ability is, in my opinion, the most underrated in the game.  I always bring a Rapture into play once fleet sizes get big enough for uncapped area of effects to start shining.

If you want to help this capital ship, just reduce the antimatter costs of its abilities somewhat.  If any ability needs particular help, it's vengeance, not vertigo (vengeance is, IMO, one of the most overrated abilities in the game).



I wouldn't go for that one, since that could absolutely cripple certain types of fleets.  Vasari already have the Kortul's jam weapons, which is by far the most reliable anti-strike craft weapon.




Not a fan of this remix.  The duration's increase pushes its cheese potential off the charts while potentially reducing its utility for protective situations.  The antimatter change is over the top; a hard-stop stun that gives you fifteen seconds to get all your ducks in a row PLUS crippling antimatter burn PLUS it can be used in rapid succession?  Way too much.

On the other hand, 225 antimatter regeneration is practically a complete top-off.

While I'm all for an Incendiary Shell buff, I think it needs a secondary effect.  This quickly becomes a meaningless ability as fleet sizes grow, and with two very powerful alternatives I just can't be bothered to invest in this one.  Even a small armor debuff (non-stacking, of course) on attack would be nice.



Revelation needs A LOT more help than this. Guidance is still useless in this case, Clairvoyance still needs a stronger role, and Mass Hysteria is not worthy of an ultimate ability (sure, it's great against 6000 HP planets, but against anything else it pales in comparison to siege platforms or raze planet).




The biggest problem with this ability is the difference in power between level 1 and level 3.  Currently, level 3 is about ten times more powerful than level 1.  Simply put, any values that balance this ability for level 1 will leave this ability overpowered at level 3, and any numbers that balance it for level 3 leave it underpowered at level 1.

To balance things out, I recommend this:  maximum targets set to 24 at all levels, damage changed to 100/175/250.  Keep range, cooldown and antimatter cost the same.  While a target cap of 24 might seem excessive, I found this nicely compensated for the fact that the Vulkoras is a very fragile capital ship given its "front-line" role without making it too strong.  The ability remains limited by its high antimatter cost and due to mitigation a level 1 Vulkoras can't actually kill frigates with this ability alone.



It's ironic that I opposed the SC capacity buff before it was brought it, and now am fighting to keep it.  While I do believe that it has made the carriers overpowering, I also see that it has made the carriers viable as real combat units.  I quite like this, and would rather see the other capital ships buffed to the same level rather than the carriers nerfed.  As I already mentioned, simply increasing the battleship capital ship move speed was sufficient to make them a counter-pick to carriers.

If anything, the Sova is the last carrier I'd nerf.  It has a strong rush and harass game, but its an obscure support cap in the late-game that barely pulls its weight with its strong combat role.  If anything, I'd be looking at ways to buff its auxiliary functionality and make it scale better in late-game battles.



Don't nerf TK push; the only reason it's on the strong side currently is because Advent players often have 2-4 Halcyons.  Any strong ability stacked 2-4 times is going to be downright overpowering.  Really, this ability is quite strong, but stack up 2-3 Kortuls and you have permanent protection from strike craft and 2-3 Kols will kill any overhead strike craft instantly.  TK push isn't out of line.



One interesting buff that we could give this ability is allowing it to target enemy units.  In other words, you could target an Iconus Guardian or a Hoshiko to gain that unit type temporarily.  The only unit that could cause a major hiccup is the drone host, since it's by far the largest and most powerful (and most expensive, for that matter) non-capital ship unit in the game.



Why does this ability need to be reworked?  It's just fine as is.


Since the intervening patch changed the scramble bombers ability and made it too strong, this needs to be changed.  I'd recommend the following:

---Duration changed from 120s to 60s
---Cooldown changed from 35s to 24s
---Antimatter cost changed from 50 to 45/50/55

The lowered duration and cooldown refocuses this ability as a "scramble" ability.  You can quickly deploy extra bombers, but it does not build up to the same kinds of massive swarms.  In addition, this increases the antimatter cost to maintain the swarm (since you must use the ability more frequently) without changing the antimatter cost to actually get those initial units deployed.  The result is an ability that's just as strong (if not stronger) in a short fight but much weaker in a long fight.



Targeting Uplink is fine as is.  That range bonus is exceptionally powerful both when fighting starbases and defending beside a friendly one.  Maxed-out, this ability allows Ogrovs to attack from beyond meteor control range, and LRM to attack from beyond weapon range.  Similarly, a defensive starbase provided this bonus can attack Ogrovs freely and defend much larger areas.  True, it's not going to help much in a straight shootout, but personally I don't even use my Akkan in these sorts of battles; it's better suited to siege situations.


Gravity warhead is an awesome ability as is; no need to buff it.

While I agree that colonize needs help, I disagree that this is the way to do it.  Population growth is nice but Vasari already have a tech that provides this benefit and I see no point in having overlap.  Similarly, providing free infrastructure infringes on the Progenitor's infrastructure discount.  At the same time, free infrastructure is too much of a benefit; this is so high it actually makes effective economic sense to buy additional levels on your Jarrasul to get higher level colonize.  The free stuff will actually pay off that investment.