Explained above

actually vasari gain 15% damage (2nd tier 6 upgrade) in their culture, the numbers are rounded up/down for display purposes, but each upgrade for the culture damage increases it by 3.75%.

Is it 15%? I might've confused it with something else. Still doesn't throw off the math much, just tack on 4% to the effective damage reduction Thanks for pointing it out.

As nice as the culture shift is, it can't quite compare. By simply novalith sniping planets and astroids in the enemy territory you are costing them rediculous amounts of money.

The loss of one planet to one or two 'lith shots makes you lose all tax from that planet, requires recolonizing, requires 2-3 population upgrades to simply break even and avoid negative tax. Due to population growth that planet will not be generating full income again for a full ten minutes. The crystal cost of redoing all those upgrades is rediculously high. Think the Kostura Cannon shuts down building? That's nothing compare to actually losing the planet.

The Deliverance Engine can help you gain an advantage for one fight, and even assuming a rediculous ~30% swing as if everyone is operating under maxed culture bonuses, you'll still lose plenty of ships even with a decisive win.

The novalith cannon cannot be stopped, requires no followup action, and absolutely no risk for the user.

You can't really ask, who is this faction balanced as a whole, when the achievement of one unit completely changes the way they are played.

Returning Armada and the Novalith Cannon both completely break gameplay and are in dire need of rebalancing.

And the Kostura Cannon is even more effective at clearing a battleground for the Vasari. Just one shot and the entire enemy uber-fleet is paralyzed for 3 minutes - enough to kill them and knock out a few worlds with your own fleet, or cruise past a chokepoint and take out their superweapon. If their squadrons survive the attack and try to fight, all you need are some fighters and some Sentinels to get rid of them. The Kostura would be especially effective at eliminating pirates - they don't use strikecraft, and their entire huge hornet's nest with all those Gauss guns would be reduced to nothing by a Kostura and a few Destructors.

BTW, TEC culture upgrades also give them a 38%(?) antimatter recharge bonus.

So the TEC novalith completely breaks gameply... (awesome weapon... had fun with that one)
The Advent... what was it, illuminators? what are illuminators? anyways I hear they completely break the game (I haven't played with them enough to know their really mean tricks, by my favorite is ascension... I rush it and get a huge fleet of capital ships that autolevel to level 4 for free, AND get 50% extra XP afterwards, meaning they are a several levels higher then the enemy...)
And the Vasari returning armada completely breaks gameplay... (muchu funo there... ships just pour out...)

So if each side has some high end abilities that completely break gameplay (IE, you get them you win...) how is it NOT balanced?
if the enemy got himself dark armada or novalithes all over the place then he won... If both players have it then what? Your dark armada vs his novalith barrage?
The novalith is by far the BEST superweapon... its supposed to be, the TEC doesn't have much of anything else that is really good...

Illuminators breaking gameplay?!!! They're just cheap long-range frigates, nothing more. Fighters and flak frigates could take them down without hassle. A Junsurak Sentinel could take on 3 of these and win.

Returning Armada + a few Kostura Cannons > Novalith Cannon spam

The TEC may have the best superweapon, but none of their ships or planetary weapons is the best of their class. The Sova Carrier can come close to matching it's counterparts, the Halcyon and Skirantra, but the strikecraft it carries are inferior to their Vasari/Advent counterparts.

I think kol and mezra do quite fine in comparison to the capitals battlecruisers/dreadnoughts of the other two races.

Ships are only disabled for 15 or so seconds, it's structures that are disabled for 3 minutes.



At those stages of the game it's not nearly as big of an economic issue as you make it sound. Unless you fit 5-6 Novaliths on a 20 planet map, by the time they get into play losing tax income of 2 planets for a little while means very little when you have 10+ trade ports feeding you credits. So you lose a planet in the heart of your empire, it doesn't matter because the enemy can't get there to capture it, so you just get it back and it doesn't gain anything for the TEC player. It's just an annoyance factor. Like I said before, there are different ways to bombard planets. There's only one way to disable 35 points worth of defenses, and only one way to give yourself an extra 20-30% damage reduction on a whim.

If you think 5-6 novaliths on a medium or large size map is an extreme situation you may be a bit mistaken. As I said before, the problem isn't so bad on small maps but medium and large maps it can get quite out of hand.

You are downplaying the economic penalty. On one planet it's not that bad, but each cannon will be sniping a planet everytime the cooldown is up, and there is not a thing you can do about it short of losing all your fleet in a suicide charge. Keep in mind that losing the planet will stop you from building at it better than a Kostura will.

Disabling 35 points of defense is another one of your ideal scenario's. It will not stop hanger defense, and that's the only one used if any defense is built at all. The 10% current hp damage the Kostura causes will be hull repaired by the time you finish phase jumping over to engage the planet. So most likely scenario you stop a repair bay or two and perhaps a couple turrets if the player felt like building some.

And again, your 20-30% damage swing for culture must be taken with a grain of salt. I'd peg it at about 15%. But even with that, a direct fleet confrontation is going to be costly on both sides.

The deliverance engine and kostura can be used tactically for a great adventage, but there is no cost or followup required for the novalith. A better fleet, micro, or warfare research on the part of your victem and the battle can still be a draw. You'll have to reinforce regardless. The Novalith though, there is simply nothing your opponent can do about it.

And don't bring up Returning Armada as a novalith counter, that ability is completely broken even more so than the 'lith.

I agree... Not only is the kol the cheapest capital ship (50 crystal less then all the others!) it is also the most POWERFUL capital ship in the game... with the advent I have to diversify my ships to get some power going... but 4 KOLs will win against 4 of any other combination... they are the most powerful "direct damage" capital ship in the game. Their armor stars the highest, and rises quickly with level (the advant direct assult cap needs to use the absorption upgrades for that, and it doesn't compare)
So the TEC has the KOL's raw power (and coolness too... times of war are upon us... this shall be our finest hour! :P) and the most awesome super weapon in the game.
The TEC superweapon WINS the game... it kills their planets... and if not it just destroys their money made from those planets...
The other two superweapons are meant to soften it up for attack, the damage of the kostura is 10% of CURRENT HEALTH (so 10 shots = 50% health or so, not death...)... its the DISABLING affect it has.. it disables ships for 15 seconds, and defensive structures for 3 minutes.

Sure kostura plus dark armada > novalith... you are comparing two tech 8 technologies working in tandem to a single one...
How about that level 8 ascension plue level 8 advent superweapon? also works wonders to combine two level 8 techs there... The TEC however have only ONE level 8 combat tech... they cannot go "as high" as the other ones in this regards...

I actually never ever used to the advent superweapon, they advant have a much MUCH better level 8 tech for me to rush for (which I have...) ascendancy... for 3700 credits and you got all caps auto leveling (at 1.8 XP per second I think) up to level 4... and a +50% to XP gained... A fleet of level 6-8 capital ships is gonna shred EVERYTHING. (And the advant has several impressive boosts, with their aread of effect shield regen of the mothership and their passive fire rate increase of the carrier). It pays for itself for the price of "upgrading" after only a few capital ships (since I always purchase their upgrades... more effective to buy two training upgrades then to build another capital ship)

You could disable defensive turrets, planetary shields, repair stations, antimatter recharge stations, all logistics structures, and(more importantly) keep chain-disabling enemy superweapons with the Kostura. Makes it more of a superweapon-defense system rather than a superweapon.

And BTW, the Advent could kill a Novalith or several Novaliths simply by spamming 25-30 Seeker Vessels, charging through fleet defenses like a battering ram, reaching the Novalith/s and ramming them with their special suicide attack. It would be cheaper than a Novalith too, since 30 Seekers only cost 6000 credits and no resources while 1 Novalith costs 8000 creds + so much metal + so much crystal.

I don't see why you would shoot a kostura BEFORE phasing into the system?

People said again and again that the damage is insignificant... those blast away while yours ships are THERE...
Your ships get disabled for 15 seconds (as well as theirs)... your fighters (And theirs) don't get disabled (lets say are "disabled" for less then a second).... defensive structures are now down for 3 minutes and you are already in the system...

Also the hangers being down mean no manufacturing new fighters... the hangers start with 100% full antimatter... so they can replace lost ones rather quickly.

Level 6 Kol Battleship with maximum technology:

Defense
Hull: 4761.6
Armor: 13
Shields: 2369
Hull Regen: 2.5
Shield Regen: 4.8

Damage-Per-Second
Frontal Weaponry: 9 Beam + 7.5 Autocannon + 9.4 Laser
Left-bank Weaponry: 13.2 Autocannon
Right-bank Weaponry: 7.5 Autocannon
Rear Weaponry: 13.2 Autocannon

Range
Beam: 5000
Autocannon: 5000
Laser: 5000

Abilities
Gauss Blast - Fires a Gauss railgun???
Flak Burst - Fires flak guns at nearby enemy strike craft.
Adaptive Shields - ?
Last Stand - ?

Strike Craft
1 Squadron - 5 Bombers
Damage-Per-Second: 4.1 Missile x5
Hull: 128 x5
Armor: 7.3 x5

Level 6 Kortul Devastator with maximum technology:

Defense
Hull: 4141.6
Armor: 11.9
Shields: 2777.2
Hull Regen: 2.7
Shield Regen: 4.8

Damage-Per-Second
Frontal Weaponry: 15 Wave + 8 Flash Beam + 7 Phase Missile
Left-bank Weaponry: 10.7 Flash Beam
Right-bank Weaponry: 10.7 Flash Beam
Rear Weaponry: Nil

Range
Flash Beam: 5000
Wave: 5000
Phase Missile: 5500

Abilities
Power Surge - Generates an aura which increases damage and decreases cool-down times.
Weapon Jam - Generates aura which decreases enemy damage and increases enemy cool-down.
Disruptive Strikes - Disables target's antimatter abilities for a while.
Volatile Nanites - Sets off a huge explosion when target is destroyed.

Strike Craft
1 Squadron - 3 Bombers
Damage-Per-Second: 6.8 Phase Missile x3
Hull: 173.6 x3
Armor: 9.5 x3
_______________________________________________________________________________________
These are all the raw stats needed for a Level 6 maxed-out technology TEC and Vasari battleship. As you can see, the Vasari are slightly more offensive than defensive and more anti-capital focussed while the TEC thing is an amazingly sturdy barge with misaligned but powerful weapons. 4-on-4 in a straight duel, the Vasari'd probably win because they would've damaged the hull before shields go down with their Phase Missiles and bomber wings and would be able to bring more weaponry to bear. And the Flak and Gauss guns would've been entirely cut out of the battle by Disruptive Strikes. The Advent's Radiance Battleship threatens to eclipse both of these, but I'm not going to waste more time processing that data.

But against a frigate blob, Cleansing Brilliance aside, the Kol would definitely be more effective than the Kortul with it's heavy asymmetrical broadsides, the Gauss turret, and it's very tough Repelon armor.

@Above Post,

You'd shoot the Kostura before entering the grav-well so that their ships get disabled and your's don't, giving you some 10 seconds of turkey-shooting.

Unless, of course, you've massed a huge carrier fleet, in which case you'd fire and then jump in so that the shot hits just after your ships enter. Then your fighters would duel with the hangar defenses and your bombers would make 2 attack runs before the enemy ships come alive. Useful for killing an enemy superweapon or knocking out a cap-ship or two before jumping out and repeating the process.

except the kortul's abilities are not as good as the kol, who has the best abilities of all direct damage dealers.

For the kol you need to ignore flak burst, its useless...
You get the following
1. shields
2. gauss
3. shields 2
4. gauss 2
5. shields 3
6. Last stand
7. gauss 3
8-10. flak.

The shields ability gives a large flat damage reduction AND a huge anti shield penetration bonus (it negates phase missles!)
So the vast majority of missles will not phase... the few that will do so little damage that they actually reduce overall damage, as now the hull can recharge simultanously.
Forcefield:
Anti matter: 40/50/60
Cooldown: 45/40/35
Duration: 20/30/40
Damage reduction: 15/25/35
Phasing missile negation: 25/45/65

And yes, at level 3 (which is what you would have at level 6) they actually last longer then their cooldown, so they are essentially always on, even if the enemy uses something to delay cooldown recharge it will still finish on time. (so, immune to delay?)

Finest hour:
Cost: 150 anti matter
Cooldown: 180 seconds
Duration: 60 seconds
Range: 1000
Damage: 60

Repair hall at 10/sec (for 60seconds = 600 hall repaired.)
Regen antimatter at 5/sec (60 seconds = 300 antimatter)
Improve ability recharge rates by 20%

Allows the ship to have splash damage... I think this means that for 60 seconds the ship's normal attack become splash if in 1000 range... i am not sure... its unclear.

Gauss is actually a direct damage, it does 300 then 550 then 800 damage per shot... problem is.. it takes more antimatter then the shields so the computer always uses the shields first and depletes all the antimatter... Can be used every 6 seconds. Costs 75 antimatter and has a range of 5000...

However in a 4vs4 battle I would disable auto cast of shields and cast them manually for the one ship that is being focused upon... it gets the shield bonus while the rest to 800x3 damage every now and then...
Ofcourse you specified level 6... at that level I would have had the 550 version of the gauss canon. last stand will be more useful. All four ships will be with last stand on (for regenerating antimatter) and one will tank it with shields... getting only a few shots of gauss... While the others will just gauss away until the kortuls to shreds...



The kortul ability to jam weapons says "enemy fighters"... That doesn't include capital ships right?
Either if so, you might have elected to have one of the four take it (and I said four only as a general number here...:P).
But generally their other abilities are better.
Power surge increases weapons firing rate... by 25/50/75%... so basically it increases damage done.
Nanite swarm causes enemies to take 30% more damage for 60 seconds, if they are killed during that time then they explode for 300 splash damage.
And then they have the nifty passive ability to drain antimatter and it has a CHANCE to increase recharge time of enemy weapons by 10/20/30%.

As I said before, direct damage dealers have little room for diversification. Some abilities are plain better. the TEC and Ves... aliens have 1 that is only useful against fighter craft (read, useless... pop their carrier and they die out anyways...) And advent has one that makes enemies focus fire on it.. sort of a support ability. I wouldn't decrease my power by getting it... so unlike with support caps where I diversify my abilities, the direct fire ones always go the same exact route.
Kortul:
1. Power surge
2. Disruptive strikes
3. Power surge2
4. Distruptive strikes2
5. Power surge3
6. Nanite swarm
7. Disruptive strike3
8-10. Disable weapons.

So here is the kicker... if you want to have ANY chance of winning you have to focus fire... on both sides one of the enemies is chosen and all fire is focused on it.

Now the big day arrives and our 4 KOLs fight 4 Kortuls...
A single target is chosen on each side because splitting your fire means loosing.

TEC: Disable auto-shield cast... Enable it for the one chosen as the target... it now has massive damage reduction always on (until out of energy)... Especially effective against the vasari phase missles! The others are now blasting away ALL their antimatter at a rate of 85 every 6 seconds for a nice 550 damage hit...
Finest hour is just icing as it allows them to fire gauss much MUCH more often...
Vasari: They cast nanite swarms... doesnt matter on whom. It does not damage in of itself, it just increases damage taken by 30% and does NOT stack... this almost negates the flat 35% damage reduction the KOL gets... but it does nothing to the 65% phasing negation... The kol will NOT die in those 60 seconds... but if on autocast then they might all repeat cast it and eventually it will come to be that it explodes... for a pathetic 150 or 300 damage (forgot which)...

The vasari will be using power surge... that should increase their firing rate by 75%... so its not only a 75% improvement to damage, it also means that the main weapons fire 75% more often, doing a chance of slowing down enemy fire and draining 12 antimatter per shot.

The thing is... played properly the KOLs will pop two kortuls within 30 seconds... and then be out of antimatter and without finest hour for 3 minutes.
The KORTULs will drain all the antimatter from their primary target, slow its firing rate down by 30%, and debuff it with nanites to ALMOST negate its massive shield bonus... and boost their normal damage by 75% for a few seconds... which will, together with the nanites add to much hurt... but not enough... Not when you consider that for the first whole minute of battle that ship gets 10 hall repair a second... If they even managed to breach its shields, it will be at almost full health. And healing fast while two vasari were popped already.

If you are NOT playing it smart (all abilities on auto use and you just let them fight)..
the KOLs will quickly run out of antimatter by ALL using shields AND canons like crazy while not engaging the finest hour. Most of their advantage would be lost but they will still win.
The vasari would probably not use nanites, and just blast away with their passive power drain and their awesome power surge ability will autocast as often as possible.

Overall the KOL have extreme direct damage ability, one useless attack, and two AWESOME personal buffs.
The Korul has one good self buff, one useless ability, and two debuffs...
The KOLs have the advantage since you have to focus your fire, and you have to turn to shoot at another target, and you can NOT use an ability on an opponent without switching to it as your target, and that either you waste precious seconds and chances by having autocast disabled or the computer will waste it all by casting the same debuff on the same target...

Its like the advant's direct fire "combust antimatter"... awesome ability, causes enemy antimater to explode, dealing it damage, disabling all its abilities, and draining all its antimatter... Except, its useless once the enemy is out of antimatter... you can use it once or twice in the entire battle... and if you have multiple ships then they are doing nothing...

And that is why a fleet of KOL will dominate anything else..
Oh and if you were really worried about a fleet of carriers with bombers... you could let one of them get the flak ability and take care of them all at once with area of effect... (or you could just let them all build fighters... at level 6 do they have 1 or 2 fighter bays EACH?).

BTW, I accept mixed fleets as opponents to a same number fleet of KOLs as well... I guess you COULD find a specific level, and a specific fleet combination, and a specific list of abilities, and a specific amount of capital ships... where pitting all KOLs vs that other fleet the KOLs will loose...
But even then the battle will be close... and the other fleet is especially engineered... the all KOL fleet is the easiet thing in the word to do... and it is a completely generic fleet that is good against ANYTHING... its also highly effective against pirates, and against frigates, and cruisers, and planetary bombers (Gauss canon can shred them...) And for icing, the KOLs are the cheapest of all capital ships... costing 50 crystal less then others...

I think it compensates for the TEC having only one level 8 ability. (dark armada + novalith might be greated then the TEC supercanon... but the TEC super canon and having the best capital ships make a balance)...
Oh and the TEC colonizer is the only one who doesn't give massive cost reduction to building up a planets infrastructure... but instead gives a pathetic useless free mining depo (which isn't used normally since the enemy planet dies before their miners)...
But it compensates by also giving a boost to damage of all surrounding craft, AND having the ion bolt, the most complete disabling of all, that can even prevent jumping (and escaping)... so its a mighty engine of war as well...

few corrections about disruptive strikes:
it doesnt drain (means your draining from it and giving to yourself) anti-matter, it depletes anti-matter from the enemy.
it doesnt decrease enemy weapons by 30%, decreases their abilities cooldown by 30%.

however your comparison is quite good.

thanks. I didn't mean drain into themselves, I meant drain as in go down the drain and into the sewage... aka, deplete... your term is better.

AlsotThanks for the correction about the 30% decrease... if it decreases ability cooldown and not weapons then... well I am not sure. I think it will be LESS effective in a multi capital ship engagement, but much more effective in a one on one battle...

Keep in mind the 30% ability cooldown stacks, and with the fast firing rate due to power surge, it stacks A LOT.

Also.. the vasari BS is by far the best at dealing with pure frigate spam thanks to it's level 6 ability, cleansing brilliance doesn't come close

As proven Here

I wish it usually worked like that, in my experience with most players is that once they see that glow they move the ships away from each other (some of them had no idea what it was, but just were afraid and moved the ships asap back) or from their other ships that are not glowing and try to delay the clash untill it fades, if it means delaying the fight by 60 seconds and losing a few ships, no biggie on their end.

it would possibly be that effective with things that immobolize the ships or make them extremely slow (involves other cruisers/caps).

The AOE is bigger then you might think at first, also, spreading out ships isnt as easy as it sounds, especially with fragile LRM's. They die before you can divide your fleet up by 4 even, worst case scenario only 1/4th of the enemy fleet instantly dies, and the ability still has time remaining. All the while the enemy isn't shooting at you as he's busy reforming his fleet. In any case it will severely hinder the enemies ability to focus fire, which is what players tend to do

some statistics about the range: the debuff is applied in a range of 2000 around the target, the 150 damage is dealt to ships within 1000 range around whatever has the debuff and dies.

what I meant about spreading is that he moves many in that area away, while keeping those who were not in the debuff still in their position and then he can decide what to do. the player doesnt have to start spreading out each individual ship..etc and in many cases can just move them back (even if its a whole fleet) and avoid a result as bad as the above one.

Lets say the battle is completely outside of cultural bonuses, like in an unoccupied star system or something. Your case seems to have the Vasari not microing right while the TEC are.

Why the hell would the Vasari open with Volatile Nanites, or even Power Surge? They could just go with heavy Disruptive Strikes and screw the Adaptive Shields and Gauss gun from within. They'd have their shields lasting longer(no Gauss) and their phase missiles working that way(no freaked out shields). All 4 Disruptive Strikes chain-attacks would k-o the antimatter abilities on all the Kols while the Kortuls still have some AM left. They get better reactor techs, for 25% more AM and 25% more regen, while the Kols only get 15% more AM and 15% more regen. So the battle would go on without interference from antimatter abilities. Should the other Kols ever try to pull a Gauss attack, they'd get more D-Strikes.

The shields of the Kol would be down and their hull would also be somewhat damaged before the first Kortul's shields are out, and once the Kol is down to 500 hp, it's go time for Volatile Nanites and Disruptive Strikes again. I.e, one Kortul would stick nanites on the near-dead Kol while the other Kortuls prevent the other Kols from deploying their Gauss guns and the next target from using it's 2 mega-buffs. Rinse and repeat until all are dead. The bomber squads carried by both the Kol and Kortul would simply act as extra weaponry.

And the Radiance... well, 4-on-4, it'd open by exploding the enemy's AM supplies and using it's nigh-impenetrable shields to gain a decisive advantage vs. the Kol or Kortul. It's finishing move for each enemy ship would be Cleansing Brilliance, so it would have a Volatile Nanites equivalent. A Kortul could still beat it with Phase Missiles, but I don't know how well the Kols would fare against such an optimized opponent as the Radiance. But in true R/P/S nature, a Radiance would be eaten up by a Vulkoras Desolator...

Regarding the Kostura it is a double edged blade in my opinion. Playing a round against a mate LAN was quite entertaining when he brought in his Armada and mistimed the shot so it hit after his Fleet was dancing mambo around my asteroid
Too bad I missed recording his deep sighs regarding my not disabled bombers shredding through a defenseless fleet ^^.
Anyways from the utility I think the Kostura is still the one that has the biggest advantage. The Deliverance Engine (I typed it wrong with 99% probability I bet)ranks close second. It can be a really usefull to pop it on a planet that you know will come under siege from the enemy to give your culture that little extra boost so he can't colonize straight away. I've seen it a few times that people just hang in orbit than, waiting, while you can bring up a defensive force and kick him out, reclaiming your planet ^^. Not to mention using it to spread culture to the enemy and spy a bit on him
The Novalith cannon is the one which is the most useless in my opinion. The only use it has is to cripple a planet a bit. If it would take out the ressource extractors and Trade ports, it would be different but the way it is at the moment you can just rebuild to your needs pretty quick again.
Most of the time I don't bother with superweapons though. In large maps the shots travel way too far and you can't have them on your front planets as you need to defend them.
On that note it is kinda ridiculous that with the in system phase jump artifact your forces are moving faster than one of the shots... Should be changed imo.

just to make some things clear.

disruptive strikes is a passive ability, with 35% chance to trigger, its not an active ability.

phase missiles:
the damage of the vasari battlecruiser at level 6 that comes from phase missiles is less than that of two assailants when power surge is up or less than one assailant when power surge is not.