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The reason I erred on a high number is because their attack upgrade is very expensive (the first level doesn't become available until level 4 iirc, which is higher than any other attack upgrade).  As a result, the other HC's can easily have +10% or +20% researched before enforcers are even unlocked.  I think upgrades notwithstanding enforcers should be the strongest HC, because Advent are the strongest once all upgrades are accounted for, and TEC brings out all of their HC upgrades much sooner.

Advent lums have the best ability to kill capital ships.  Their side beams will cut a capital ship trying to run away. No chance of running away.

Agreed first damage upgrade for vas is at lvl 4, tec at lvl 1 and advent at lvl 2. Advent also has a 4th upgrade that allows them to fire faster.

Add that with haylcons fire rate ability, destras damage is too high..

hmm all these test make me want to go back to playing advent again. Back to the 1.05 good ole days

I do not agree with that.Me and how discussed this in a thread down to the seconds it takes to kill a cap.Kanracks won by a rediculous margin.Sidebeams only work if you can keep the ship in range too.

I am in agreement with ead on this one.Its clear vas hc needs some buff.If its straight damage then 22 would be my guess.Destras are only REALLY dangerous if the halycon has its 22% bonus.So increasing its base damage to much will put them out of wack.Its upgrades are based off its base damage.

I do not agree with that.Me and how discussed this in a thread down to the seconds it takes to kill a cap.Kanracks won by a rediculous margin.Sidebeams only work if you can keep the ship in range too.

I am in agreement with ead on this one.Its clear vas hc needs some buff.If its straight damage then 22 would be my guess.Destras are only REALLY dangerous if the halycon has its 22% bonus.So increasing its base damage to much will put them out of wack.Its upgrades are based off its base damage.

i think this is incredibly Imba. we already know the enforcers have been nerfed since day 1. their damage is lower than it should be based upon fleet slots. i propose to up its dmg to 23 and reduce its resource cost to 530. i think this will take the sting out of it.

As far as illuminators go, they don't kil caps that fast.  They work as crowd control.

Now back on subject...

What should happen without any upgrades is the Enforcer should win hands down.

Once you factor in some research buffs, you should have the enforcer winning by a decent margin.

Upon adding in all research buffs (and adding a Halcyon) the Advent should trump everything else.

I'd say that the enforcer needs a buff of damage to perhaps 21.75 (21.5 seems too low and 22 seems too high...)

volt no. just no. everyone knows vasari is the most technologically advanced race of the three. why put them on par with these races when they should obviously be superior in ONE thing.. give vas OP hc. its the only thing that will keep it alive.

If we normalize this based on their 12 fleet supply (21.75 * 10 / 12), we get 18.125.  In other words, the number you just said still leaves them as the lowest DPS HC on a per-fleet command basis.  This is before we account for the fact that it's likely they have fewer attack upgrades than the other factions do.  This is why I think 25 is a better number, even though it's very high.

Yeah that math is correct however let's not over do it. 25 is definately over doing it. Also you need to acount for that the test only calcalates pure HCs vs pure HCs. As in no support cruisers or or support caps. Adding overseers and a carrier cap will ahve a greta inpact on the battle. Not to mention Advent will benefi even more witha  gardian progen and halcyon combo. Advent synergies are so powerfull it's insane. Vasari synergies arent so bad and TEC absolutely sucks. So you need to factor this in to when makign a judgement of what to do. Personaly I thinka  scale back on the Advent HC would be needed.

i don't know if this is even relevant to this thread or not, but why do we want to make EVERY ships equal to there counterparts?  isn't it valid to the advent destras just be plain old better than the enforcers?  i mean, if every HC, or frigate for that matter was equal to their conterpart, this game would be boring, and only the abilites of each race would make them different from each other

We are not trying to make everythign the same. We are trying to bring thing more inline with each other. Corrently in the current build Advent dominates every thing as they should how ever the gap with wich they dominate is increadably huge. That gap needs to be narrowed some.

oh i see

dude. essentially it is the same. each race has something thats OP. vasaris OP got NERFED THE SHIT OUT OF. im thinkin its time for vasari HC to be given the crown.

Most people here seem to agree that the destra dominating after all its upgrades being researched is okay, but it's probably not okay prior to all those upgrades being researched.  I still stand by my initial gut feelings on the roles of these units:  the destra is a late bloomer with lots of high level upgrades, the Kodiak is an early bloomer with early upgrades, and the enforcer is expensive to upgrade but the best unupgraded.  The other two fulfill these roles beautifully, it's the enforcer that needs help.

Normalizing 25 (25 * 10 / 12) and we get 20.8 damage.  This isn't a lot higher than the destra's 19 damage.  After getting the first two plasma upgrades, the destra is dealing 20.9 damage.  I don't think this is over-doing it at all.  This is how much damage a destra is doing after one set of upgrades.  Because of their very expensive attack upgrades, I think the enforcer does deserve this.

I somehow don't see how comparing the guardian and overseer weakens the argument that the enforcer needs a serious buff.  Vasari's offensive synergies all revolve around phase missiles, so quite frankly a buff to the enforcer's damage isn't going to be over the top.

Totally agree on Advent; Halcyon is the dream-capital ship to lead a force of HC's.  Passive damage increase aura and the perfect ability to negate the only hard counter to HC's.  As for Vasari, their best offensive synergy is nanos with phase missiles.  This is why I think a damage bonus is in order for the enforcer, to make it comparable with that potent combination.  As for TEC, they have the hoshiko.  Also the Cielo, but despite the fact that it's a solid support cruiser it simply pales to the godly hoshiko.  Their capital ships aren't so much for fleet support, but their support cruisers are superb and tailor-made for supporting heavy cruisers.

I was going by fleet supply in comparison earlier...  Ultimately with synergies, the Advent should be the best.  When dealing with a lone ship (no synergies) it ought to be the enforcer.  Simple.

As far as that goes, 25 does seem high, but the only way to see how it changes gameplay is to mod it which would take all of 20 seconds to change one value...

2 more dps is a pretty big change darvin.Just 10 ships and that fleet does another 20 dps.In this test would be 50 more dps then before and i would say that would have a definate impact on results. WE DONT WANT TO GET CRAZY WITH CHANGES or we will be sorry.

These are crazy results.  I do think a substantial change is merited.

As I mentioned already, if Advent or TEC has two more attack upgrades than Vasari (a very realistic assumption given the level of their respective attack upgrades) then they're on equal footing. 

Secondly, Vasari have a huge bias towards their phase missile damage upgrade line currently, due to the synergy with nanos and their general awesomeness.  Because the wave attack upgrade is unique to the enforcer, this only makes it a worse investment.

The numbers I've thrown out would give Vasari the best unupgraded heavy cruiser by a longshot.  However, TEC gets their upgrades early, and Advent has more late game upgrades to make them stronger, plus Vasari have the worst synegies to support their HC's begin with.   This is why I think a drastic change is necessary.

If you want to normailze damage then it should be at least 24. Fleet supply cost 20% more

24/12*10 = 20

if you want it to equal to advent 19 damage then it would be 22.8

22.8/12*10 = 19

tbh if we give enforcer phase missiles instead of waves the synergy wouldnt be so bad. and i think it would help even out some of the problems we have here. now i know this wouldnt be implimented but im just saying itd be kinda cool.

No... Every HC has projectile weapons...  A pulse beam would be cool and sense it is on the capitals and this thing is halfway to that point, it would make sense...  Then again, the wave guns are pretty much useless...  Really I think bringin over some other ship to wave cannons such as the support cruisers...  That way, you get more use out of the upgrades...

Before we jump to sudden conclusions, we should take a look at broader picture.  Though the result may be the same, we should weigh the strength of the bombers each race posseses. After all you would not use homogenous force most of the time.  And countering one unit with the same unit type is just silly!  Though regardless Vasari HC could use some love, I can agree with that.  But they still perform pretty well in scenarios where they don't face other HC.  Their repair abiltiy is much more powerful when used while underattack by damage type that is not optimal vs their Heavy Armor.

That is true.  Unfortunately, this was not mentioned earlier...

When being fired at by something that doesn't get a buff against them reintegration becomes more effective as they lose health more slowly  Perhaps a better test would be HC's, LF's, and LRF's...  Using equal fleet supplies, one could determine how this would affect battles more effectively.  I would not recommend support cruisers or caps as the abilities could have enormous sways on the battle and add too many variables.  Even adding LRM's might be too much...  

So perhaps just LF's and HC's...  You would have to do just the LF's first so you can get a general feel for them...  For another thing, I recommend eliminating the LF abilities.  For the skirmisher, you would have to mod it to prevent it from getting reintegration...  Perhaps this test would work...

I'm saying it should be better than Advent, because Advent gets its attack upgrades earlier, and has more upgrades in the late game.  The only advantages Vasari have in this instance is earlier armour upgrades and reintigration.  This is why I say 25, which (if normalized) would put it at 20.8 damage, only a two points above Advent.  If Advent has a single extra attack upgrade, they're still dealing more damage.

If there is a candidate for this, it's the HC.  The only counter it has is bombers.  If you don't want to use bombers, your only choice is to out-HC your opponent, which is a viable approach. 

Moreover, looking at the larger picture the elephant in the room is Vasari's huge preference for phase missiles.  Fighters, bombers, flaks, and LRF all use this one attack type, and it's definitely one of the brutal in the game to begin with.  This instantly makes it more preferable for a Vasari player to focus all their damage dealing around this one weapon type.  I think the Vasari faction is in dire need of some diversification.

Changing other units to use wave attacks sounds like a good idea, but there are very few candidates in practice.  Support vessels deal negligible damage, and Vasari don't build enough of them for it to have much bearing on their fleet's overall performance.  Fighters, bombers, and LRF are distinctive phase missile users and shouldn't change.  That leaves flaks and starbases as the only viable candidates.  Neither one really suits my fancy.  I think it's clear that if Vasari gets a new frigate in the next expansion it should use a wave attack, but I don't see much room to give such a weapon to existing frigates.