Maybe it's the bombers themselves that need a nerf, not the Skirnatra.  If fighters and flak simply can't kill the bombers efficiently, then it doesn't matter if Scramble Bombers is nerfed slightly.  A carrier with all fighters or an equal cost in flak should beat a unsupported carrier with all bombers.  If the fighters/flak are losing, the counter system is broken and something needs to be looked at.

As it is the carrier caps are bound to be the choice, because they are far more flexible than the other caps, the only ability they lack is colonising.  It shouldn't have been a priority to buff the Skirantra in the first place, the other caps need help.  However, Deceiver's suggestion seems reasonable.

Why are the carrier caps allowed to kite anyway, when the carrier cruisers were specifically prevent from doing so?  Either slow them, or speed all the battleships.  With a little work the Kol and Kortul could become anti-carrier choices at the start.  The Radiance needs its Animosity redone anyway.  The battleships also seem too easily damaged by bombers, they might use a greater armour advantage- perhaps specific anti-bomber alterations to adaptive armour and the Radiance bonus armour?

If there were to be an effective starting triad of colony cap, carrier or battleship, then I'm not as bothered about the other two types not being as useful at the start, siege especially, because of the rush potential.   

Battleships need a buff, plain and simple.  The Kortul is probably the best right now as it can stop most things, but it has very offensive ability..  Battleships should get something along the lines of a 20-30% Hull/Shields buff while getting a 10-15% DPS buff.  They need more durability than they have..

Not only that, but we all know how worthless GRG is against anything with shields.  I still say Animosity needs to have some sort of offensive benefit..  Perhaps increase DPS>AM conversion by 50/75/100% or something and decrease cooldowns of abilities...  I don't know..  It needs something...

The Kortul's abilities are pretty much fine IMO.  VN could use some buffing, but other than that, I'd just take some health/DPS increases.

Think about phase missiles.With 20% or 4th lvl they gain a guesstimate of about 20 dps over conventional weapon ups.So vas have massive bomber spam and they do the most damage plus hardest to kill.Its these 3 that make them rediculous.Phase ups are low and cheaper in the labs too.

PMs ups have a variable effect though. Maxed out they have a 30% chance to do anywhere from 15% more damage to ~70% more damage to a target. So its kinda hard to balance that out. You don't actually get to increase the amount of damage they do until tier 6. Assailants and Bombers are tough little nuggets, but assails will still get shredded by HCs, and Skirantras aside, Vasari bombers are not terribly difficult to suppress with fighters. You're poised to lose some expensive shit (ie high priority FF targets) against phase missiles, but on a larger scale, they aren't incredibly overpowered. Also keep in mind that Vasari fighters, and Vasari sentinels using phase missiles do not get any kind of bonus against enemy aircraft (as they don't have shields) from the shield bypass research.

double post

I think you are on to something here.  I think the crux of the problem is that fighters can be effectively countered by flak, and also by other fighters.  But bombers essentially only have 1 effective counter - fighters.  Bottom line - fighters can be countered more easily than bombers, so the thing that the fighters counter (bombers) proliferate.

It isn't just with carrier caps.  Later game, under last patch and this one too, people spam carrier cruisers and load them with bombers.

I think MindsEye has alluded to some of these issues since last patch.

Some people think fighters should be buffed.  But that solution would buff carriers more, and we've been down that road.  I think the solution is to make flak effective against bombers as well as fighters.  Also, buffs to other caps, and their anti-strikecraft abilities (flak burst/jam weapons/TK).

This is a tough one, because on the one hand I think scramble bomber used to suck.  On the other hand, I really don't want an overbuffed, abused skirantra.  If we nerf SB, it sucks again.  If we leave it as is, Skirantra is the new Halcyon from last patch.  I think the solution is more in the other ideas (making flak counter bombers better, buffing other caps, etc).  lbgsloan is right - it's the counter system that needs work.

I don't like ideas to nerf the antimatter on SB - the antimatter was one of the main issues which made the ability suck before.  Halcyon doesn't need antimatter for 2 of it's abilities.  The cooldown is a better option - Skirantra needs antimatter for its heal.

I've always been for increasing the damage by flak to bombers a bit.  Not a ton, but slightly.  Just so that they can at least put some hurt on those blasted things.

Not quite...  They ultimately have a 30% chance to ignore shield mitigation which can go as high as 80-85%.  That means that you are only dealing 15% of your actual damage.  That is not +70% damage.  Try more like 467% increase.  That is basically 5.7 times what any other weapon would do to that same target.  Now, they only have a 40% chance of doing so (with the missile pact), so that means 2.2x.  That is a 120% increase in damage.  Though, without the pact, they are limited at a 70% increase.  Though you should not forget the conventional DPS upgrades at the end of the line.  With the pact and these upgrades, that is a 170% increase in damage while it yields a 104% increase in damage.  Not only that, but they also ignore shields, which save you time as well.  That however is impossible to gauge other than you know that Guardians (and the Advent in general) drop like flies against PM's.

All in all, Phase missiles are by far the nastiest weapons in the game.  One assailant has the same cap-stomping ability of three illuminators.  PM's should never be underestimated.  They take a weak early game Orky and turn it into this unstoppably powerful beast.  200 DPS for its PM's which 570 DPS for anything else.  They make the Vasari the most powerful race late game.  Do not underestimate them.

That said, they are no end-all-be-all.  They are good for stomping capitals and ships, but structures and SC are unaffected by them.  For that reason, Vasari bombers are incredibly powerful, whereas fighters are not.  Vasari fighters don't need them, and yet they have this otherwise devastating weapon.

Another test: Vasari Skirantra/SB rush against Advent HW.

As Advent I went Halcyon/ADA, dropped 1 mil lab, researched hangers, and dropped 2 hanger bays.  This was available to do with starting funds (neither of us colonized a roid or did anything economic), and no upgrades to tactical slots.  I went all bombers on the hangers (a "mutually assured destruction" approach).

First thing I noticed is something Darvin has complained about:  The hangers don't even start with enough juice to make their compliment of strikecraft.  This sucks.  The Skirantra was able to arrive well before all hanger strikecraft had built, and let me tell you, it was going to take a while.

Still, there was enough bombers in those partially-built squadrons to take out the Skirantra by a comfortable margin - I had about 1000 hull left on the Halcyon when the Skirantra bit the dust, and the Halcyon was also able to escape the grav well before the residual bombers could kill it.

RETROSPECT:

1) This was not a fair fight in terms of resources, so it needs to be retested.  Still, I think the results are telling.  Let's assume you give the Skirantra equal resources in Skirmishers.  I still think the Skirantra bites the dust (but I will test it).

2) The hanger bombers still had not finished building even after the Skirantra went down.

3) Unless there is some reason I'm unaware of, hangers need to start out with enough antimatter to build all of their squadrons.  PETITION TO DECEIVER:  Please add "Buff hanger bays to start with enough antimatter to build all squadrons" to your Patch Stat Changes Forum thread.

its starting to irritate me now....most people who play vas now are spamming 3 carriers, and the amount of bombers they produce are just amazing. I now have to produce 2 halys to even stand a change aginest them, as spamming fighters is pointless once they start spamming sentinals.

This is once again down to people who want to change units on a specifc race to make them better, and not caring about  how it effects balance. Many hardcore players on ironclad beleived that the skinatra was well balanced, as it could heal units, spam bombers ( which I beleived was ok, and not nerfed). I know agent kharma lost to 1 sova with 2 skinatra, and frankly that was his fault if he couldent counter it.

But all I see now, is Vasari players spamming 2 or 3 caps within 10 minutes, and to me, and winning battles with them, too me, that just aint right.

Some capital ships need rebuffing, but to rebuff capital ships which dont need it, is just plain silly. Many people will agree with me here, some wont. If you ask many of the Clan, or skilled members of ICO, they will say the same thing, it didnt need rebuffing, and it is now more annoying than an illum spammer fromprevious patcths.

It was the Halcyon last patch.  It's always something.  After the Skirantra, it will be something else.

Many people have the mindset that they just want to "win," whatever the cost.  Back in the "carriers ruled" patch, I never built a single carrier cruiser.  I knew they were OP, and I didn't want to win that way.  I lost a lot of games.  Last patch, I didn't play Advent, because again I knew they were OP.  I'll play them now, though.

Question:  Now that Advent has been nerfed down to something reasonable, do you still see 90% of ICO players choosing Advent?  

Answer:  No.

Question:  Why?

Answer:  Because Advent is no longer OP, so everyone is looking for the next OP thing to exploit.

Question:  Oh... so you mean they didn't play Advent because Advent just happened to be the faction that appealed to them, that had a gameplay style or theme that they liked?

Answer:  What the hell are you smoking, man?

lol Kharma.

Hopefully, with any luck, after the Skirantra the next big thing will be something thats actually reasonably counterable. I want people to choose races based on what they like, not what always wins.

Another test: Vasari Skirantra/SB rush WITH SKIRMISHERS against Advent HW with 2 hangers, Halcyon/ADA, all bombers.

cre met cry
950 200 110    advent hanger
750 60  80     mil lab
400 0   25     hanger research
2100 260 215   total

420 70  0      skirmisher     

Okay, 5 skirmishers total 2100 credits, so I used those number of skirmishers to balance out the advent hangers, lab, and research.

It was essentially a tie.  When the Skirantra died, the Halcyon had 50 hull points left, and died shortly after.  1 skirmisher was destroyed by the Halcyon, I believe.

OH CRAP... just realized that the above calculation is only 1 hanger.  Would need at least 2 more skirmishers to make this test truly fair.  Probably means the skirantra would win this, but would take severe damage.  And I need sleep, so....

I still play advent even though vasari are now overwhelmingly popular because thats what I like playing.  Skirantra didn't need buffed to begin with.  It was already a strong cap.  Carrier caps in general are OP which I have said on numerous occasions.  This game was most balanced when carriers were king and has jumped from one OP thing to another since carriers were smacked down.  Carriers could be countered easily enough then with LF but a few people(agent included) moaned and groaned so much about them that the developers caved.  Flak did need some help then but it went too far against fighters when flak were buffed and carriers nerfed.  I wouldn't mind the bombers so much if they could be countered better.  You can't really counter them with fighters because flak comes out right after the skirantra spam and flak against bombers sucks(points many others have made already).

[_]-Greyfox

Yep, happens in every RTS ever made.  There's always a 'flavour of the patch' cheese, and when it finally gets patched these people use the next chessiest stategy or just move on to another game.  These players don't actually want to play a game of Sins, they just want to win at something even if nobody involved has any fun.  You either cheese back, or just play with people you know who will abide by Gentleman's Rules.  You can try the third option, try to beat the cheese using raw skill, but from my experience this will just break you in the end and make you hate whatever game you were playing.

I didnt play advent becuase they were bugged, I played them becuase I like there style, and I still do now.

I think one thing we need is a dedicated Flak Turret for planetary defense.  Have it take up two slots and suck at ship killing but at least make it an option.  It's ridiculous watching small forces of bombers slowly whittle a healthy planetary defense system down to nothing because the entire darn planet can't find a single AA missile.  It would also allow defending fleets a little support against the accursed reviving bomber menace.  Flak could be made effective against scouts and colonizers as well which would make it a decent and realistic planetary defense weapon.

It is another of the peculiarities of the game that there should be flak frigates designed to protect long range frigates rather than the heavy ships of the fleet, compounded by the heavy ships also being unable to protect themselves against bombers.

This is just wrong in terms of history- though only a very limited timespan is applicable at all and it might not be especially relevant to space warfare.  However, it's also wrong in terms of design- if players were allowed to design their ships themselves, this isn't what they'd come up with.  Anything that can catch your expensive heavy ship easily and damage it is a highest priority threat.  Also, the qualities that make fighters more effective against bombers should make them ineffective against ships- any kind of ship.  Finally, it must be a very odd bomber that isn't far more effective against a large lightly armoured/shielded target than a large heavily armoured one, and any kind of ship is a large target.. whoever heard of a bomber without a variable payload?  Also, fighters haven't enough of a speed edge over bombers to make them an effective defence against a first strike.

Adjusting the counters system is easily accomplished with text edits, but new elements like flak turrets would require more work and it might be simpler to concentrate on making all the elements that exist properly functional. 

The objection might be that fighters are needed as a counter to LRF, and bombers won't be able to take over this role against both flak and fighters.   The solution is that LF and LRF should switch roles, with LRF with anti-heavy rather than anti-medium weapons, and LF anti-light/medium.  Then you have a more balanced counters system, with flak escorting capitals against bombers and light frigates escorting them against torpedo frigates. 

At the moment the vital capitals have no dedicated escorts, this is one of the fundamental problems of the game, and why players complain that there is no effective defence for their own capitals when one capital is perceived as too strong. 

Fighters could be given the role that Allied fighters in Europe had towards he end of WWII...let them provide interdiction.  They could be made more effective against scouts and trade/refinery ships for example. 

Another idea is the flak cruiser--the U.S.S. Atlanta in WWII in the Pacific was set up for this purpose.  A cruiser with some primary and secondary guns substituted with anti-aircraft weaponry.

It's just the idea that a teeny squadron can loiter over a low tech world and gradually blow everything up unopposed if a hanger base isn't built.

Another thought would be build in automatic air defense on colonised planets.  Make fighters and bombers take automatic damage (based on infrastructure?) up to a certain distance (similar to the effect of asteroid or gas giant damage damage mechanisms as a comparison).  this would simulate the easy capability of a a planet to posses cheap orbital range missiles to intercept small craft.

Perhaps carriers with fighter/bomber units being constructed onboard could take a higher damage in combat or have to deactivate their shields to build them.  Just some ideas.