Battleships ARE weak early on.  A level 1 Radiance can lose to non-battleships.  This changes at higher levels, where the Radiance will quickly drain all enemy cap AM while recovering its own with the passive bonus.  So in essence a battleship start IS an investment.  You're betting that the game will go on long enough for your battleship to become strong enough to surpass the earlier advantages of taking a colonizer.

It's Battleship, Carrier, Colony, Siege, and Support.

The Radiance and Phase battleship are both excellent against other capital ships because of their anti-antimatter abilities.

The Kol is a little different. The most useful general combat ability it has is Flak Burst, which can ravage enemy fighter groups no matter how big they are. But it's not much better than any other capital against enemy capital ships, since Gauss Blast costs so much antimatter and doesn't have any non-linear effects.

Something not widely known, even though it's in the description, is that the Kol gets splash damage attacks on its autocannons while Finest Hour is activated - 60 bonus damage to every target in a small radius on every autocannon shot. To put that into perspective, a level 6 Kol will do 35 damage on the front/right autocannons and 64 on the left/back autocannons. (Those facings are not typos.) So not only do the autocannons more than double in damage ability, that damage bonus applies to every frigate near their target...!

Flux field works well with Gauss Blast though.

Flux operates for 60 seconds, and Gauss has a 6 second cooldown. Taking into account practical problems, a Kol can get off 7-8 gauss blasts during that 60 second period.  With level 2 gauss blast, that's 3850-4400 damage; with level 3 gauss blast, that's 5600-6400. Mix that with Designate Target for great jusice.

Of course, to put that into perspective, a Missile Barrage does 3000 damage to every target and only takes 20 seconds. Lawl.

The Marza's greatest advantage is not 1 vs 1 combat against other capitals (although it does well at low levels because of it's high firepower), so letting a lvl 10 Marza loose against a lvl 10 Kol is just silly. Its abilities are all about killing hoards of frigates and destroying planets. You'd be dumb to waste MB in a 1 on 1 fight.

have to say...  vasari are not the ones getting the shorter end

overseer's ability is extremely usefull

I had the same thought when reviewing this thread. I wouldn’t want to throw a Mazra up against a Kol/Kostru/Radiance in a 1v1 situation. Sure, the missile barrage would shred the supporting frigate fleet (assuming it’s not interrupted), but the mighty Mazra isn’t quite as survivable.

I usually grab the Mazra first to get access to MB as quick as possible (vs. AI). It excels taking planets with the thing as it’s great to bring down the planet with its siege ability, but afterward it can make defending said planet a breeze while it gets its defenses set up (when in enemy territory). Gotta love watching the AI lose all of its siege frigates and whatnot the moment they jump in to the waiting Mazra.

The Kol (while usually my second pick) is still one of those ships that I try to have leading every fleet. It has a great field of fire, and still does appreciable damage while turning to bring the front beams to bear. Its abilities make it wonderfully flexible as well. It has an awesome tanking ability, can shred strike craft, and while not my favorite offensive ability, the gauss cannon does hit pretty hard.

The Kol is fun to watch in action. Missile barrage, while devastating, isn't nearly as cool to watch. The rail gun doesn't look that good in action, however. I think if it looked more like the Quake III rail gun effect, it would be much more visible and eye sastisfying to see. You don't even see the projectile; just the dissapating trail of ionized dust it leaves in its wake.

Also, navy blue on black is one of the worst choices for text out there.