The Marauder cap ship is my new favorite, I just got out of a game having used it.

First off, I have found what makes Subversion usefull, it stacks. I was able to get the enemies planet up to -270% ship and building production, and it lasts 10 minutes, also giving you line of sight of that planet. Now considering I've won a few defensive battles because of my ability to build new repair bays and constantly add new ships to the battle, making it take the enemy 3-4 times as long to build those seems like a definate plus to me.

Thats really what I wanted to say, that subversion stacks... but the other moves are usefull as well. The one for moving quicker is, as was said above, great for moving ships around quicker. It seems that neutral militia ships will instantly target a colony ship if one is present. What you can do is warp in a colony ship, boost its speed(remember, your ships only need to be in the area of effect to get the buff, after that they can leave it), and then fly it around in circles while the militia have to chase it, letting your ships blast away behind them. It also seems that players target cap ships first, ussually. So you can fly in, buff your speed, fly right past the enemy, make them have to slowly turn around, do a loop around the planet, and phase jump out. Then they have to slowly turn back around to begin shooting the rest of your fleet. It buys you a few seconds "free time" sort of.

The Phase Node summoning ability is good, if you have phase nodes researched and built. In the game I played, I snuck my Marauder around through my allies base and into the enemies base with his fleet. Then I created a phase node and warped in some Destructors(planet bombers) all the way across the map. It was a lot easier sneaking one(fast) ship in, than 8(slow) ships.

The Phase Out Hull ability, I think its the least usefull ability of the Marauder, really. I can see why people like it, but it just sucks away your anti-matter. I think it was said above that at level 3 youc an keep 5 ships phased out, which might be true. Unfortunatly after doing that for a minute or so, your fresh out of anti-matter. I just find it more usefull to use distort gravity to fly around making the ships turn to follow. I noticed that eventually my Marauder was up to 600 anti-matter, that is a lot of subversions/gravity distortions.


Also, the Assailiants get an ability called Charged Missles, this ability is good. At first I didn't know what to look for, and thought it was broken, but the AoE effect is actually the green beams you seem jumping around. The AoE damage might not kill enemy ships, but it leaves them weakend so that they go down faster when you bring the brunt of your guns on them. I still don't get why people say LRM spam is overpowered, my 14ish Assailiants with Charged Missles took out 35ish LRMs. Sure I was constantly feeding in more ships as they built, and I had a repair bay or two... but that is a considerably smaller force. As far as I can tell, when the Charged Missles ability is on auto-cast, that means the ability is on. It makes your assailiants move slower and turn slower. If you want to turn if off to speed them up(for say, chacing a fleeing cap ship) then turn the auto cast off. It'll take a few seconds as they I guess... switch over, and then they should be normal and swift again.

Assailants are LRMs. LRM is a term used for the Javelis LRM Frigate, Kanrak Assailant and Illuminator altogether. So 14 stronger long-range missile ships kill 35 weaker long-range missile ships.

Just wanted to say thank you for the feedback from everyone. This has been a very productive thread for me, and I visit it every day to study it. Trying to get everything second nature.

Phase out hull is so versatile and has got to be one of the best skills in the game. Using it defensively is great for saving ships from focused focused fire and screwing up your opponent's micro. It's also great for killing fleeing capital ships as it interrupts phase jumps. Throw in a whale with gravity warhead and there's no escaping you.

Charged missiles also work for the anti-fighter ship.
Its very nice to see this anti fighter ship hit 2 or 3 groups of fighters at the same time

Drain Planet is incredibly useful. Not only does it steal resources but does insane damage to the planet if you let its duration run full. It can easy knock out a 1500 hp planet it one go and from what i have seen does close to 2000-2500 damage over time. great ability. The evac is always my first capital hands down.

Another sneaky trick to do is once you have a good network of phase gates up and dark armada coming go on the attack. go for something easy on the out skirts off the enemies defensive line and that that planet. Once you have it immediately put down another phase gate. You can then ship units to the front line as you please. 1 jump from a phase gate to phase gate is MUCH better than phasing through 5 lanes to get to the front line of the battle. Same goes for the capital with the phasing ability. Super useful to bring in extra strike forces being built back at home.

it does 1350 damage for its full duration.