my list of 10 Advent questions

Not good enough for a tier 5 unit.  Low cost, so it's useful to keep a few around, but otherwise kinda weak.  Their healing is indeed weak, and doesn't stack, but it's the only mobile healing Advent has.


Just target in the middle of a big cluster of enemy units, and their damage is greatly decreased for the duration.  Excellent ability, at level 3 it will more than half the damage that the target deals.


Nope; it's single-target.  For most Advent abilities, they're limited by the fact that they don't stack or that they run out of antimatter, in which case guidance offers you nothing.

The only reason to build a Revelation is for Reverie.  Don't waste your antimatter on its other abilities.


No; doesn't deal enough damage and it has a stacking limit, not even worth researching.


Very useful; definitely research this if you have disciples.  They not only steal enemy antimatter, but also charge up your own units, which is very useful for your capital ships.


Sub-par.  If you have malice, it's worth researching.  Otherwise don't bother.


It's a matter of balance.  The low-level ones are worthwhile due to their low cost.  The high level ones are generally only worthwhile for larger fleets.  This can also be a good place to boost your fleet's combat power if you don't want to increase your upkeep.  I've actually maxed out all the different damage upgrade lines in multiplayer as Advent; plasma is actually very devastating when fully completed.


Agreed; very little reason to get these.


Depends on what the enemy has.  Generally people go bomber heavy, and there's a general consensus that the bomber is the better strike craft overall.


Try to get them so that all their weapons ports are firing.  Flaks should be in the middle of the battle with enemies on all sides.  The Halcyon, however, is the guardian angel of your capital ships and heavies.  Use telekinetic push to keep bombers away so you can close the distance with their carriers.  It's not uncommon to see an Advent fleet with 4-5 Halcyons if the enemy is very strike-craft heavy.


I think you're talking about resurrection.  Mass Transcendance is a technology that causes all capital ships to gain experience until they reach level 4 (effectively a free upgrade to level 4 for new capital ships).

The resurrection ability does not require the mothership to be in the same gravity well as the destroyed capital ship.  I've resurrected capital ships that died over 30 minutes ago with a Progenitor that wasn't even built at the time.  It's an awesome ability in long drawn-out games, and in the late-game an Advent player should always strive to have multiple Progenitors above level 6 so they never lose access to this ability.

Yeah I meant resurrection sorry. Wow I used it before but only when I thought I could resurrect the cap in question.

Good to know I can use it wherever and whenever ...   

how exactly do you use resurrection? i had autocast off on it and i was unable to use it on a halcyon that died a few seconds before my progenitor got in range, yes i did have another halcyon in the same well

if i set it on autocast, it just randomly casts it on my capital ships while theyre still alive, wasting antimatter

The autocast AI is broken on ressurrection.  It does indeed just waste antimatter.  Never turn it on autocast, always use it manually.  In fact, there are very few level 6 abilities you should leave on autocast.  Most are very expensive in antimatter and have long cooldowns, so manually activating them to optimize timing and antimatter consumption is important.

As to how ressurrection works, if a level 5 Halcyon dies, you can target any other Halcyon you own and it will instantly be promoted to level 5.  Obviously this is most useful when you use it to target a level 1 capital ship, and you should avoid using it on capital ships that are already high level (since they will gain almost nothing).  The ability is most useful if you have very high level capital ships (like 6 or 7), since it lets you keep powerful abilities in play.

 

Just a quick note about resurrection: the cap that died and the cap you use it on don't have to be the same type. For example, if someone bomber spams the hell out of your level 5 Radiance, you can build a new Halcyon and use resurrection to insta-level it up to level 5.

i see

i was trying to use it by casting on the debris of the dead ship *facepalm*

This is incorrect; if it's a Radiance that dies, it must be a Radiance that is promoted.  If you lose both a Radiance and a Halcyon, you can ressurrect both.  However, you must have lost a capital ship of the same type as the target to use this ability.

Let me tack on another question but this time for Vasari.

I am finding my hangars protecting my Orkuluses (Orkuli?) are constantly out of antimatter. Does it make sense to not build any strikecraft and just let phasic trap take over?

how do you keep caps alive and use them to support the fleet at the same time? they tend to get focus fired to death by human players with assailants and bombers (with scramble)

even when i had defence vessels and at least 9 fighters

if Advent: TK push for strikecraft, mothership for shield recharge, guardians, guardians, guardians (bubble + repulse)  and your own LRF or HCs depending on your state in the game.

If you are talking about early game in specific then lead with Halcyon(s) and kite as your strikecraft attack and hope your opponent is stupid enough to let your disciples attack his LRF untouched (yeah right dream on).

If Advent vs Skirantra in the hands of a skilled player, then your best bet is to duck and cover and kiss your *bleep* goodbye.

Also personally I think fighters are overrated unless very early vs enemy LRF. If the enemy has flak your fighters die. Period.

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If Vasari: overseers, skirantra repair cloud and your own scramble bombers, if far enough into the game subverters also. If early on, you could only be having this problem if you didn't open with Skirantras. And of course you wouldn't do that.

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To be honest Advent and TEC are underdogs vs Vasari right now online. My understanding is that Advent used to be way overpowered and so the devs nerfed them (illuminators and seekers). That being said their battle ball is amazing ... if you can get there. The vasari on the other hand have many ways to kill you, especially the Skirantra x 2 / assailant rush.

 

Fighters remain the most effective way to kill strike craft outside of abilities. The problem is that they are killed by flak just as easily as they kill bombers. Vasari bombers are particularly nasty to Advent targets once the shield bypass rate starts going up.

aaa11: Defense Vessels (and flak in general) are less effective against bombers than they are fighters - they will kill the bombers, but not as quickly as they would fighters. When you mention "9 fighters", do you mean 9 individual fighters (meaning 1 Advent squadron) or 9 complete squadrons? If it's 1 squadron, that's way too few fighters to make a significant difference (if the squadron goes after bombers, it frees the Assailants, and vice versa).

Definitely turn of strike craft production.  Hangers have very poor antimatter reserves, and the Vasari ones definitely want to save their power for this awesome ability.



Easier.  First of all, always keep the capital ship moving and turning at a slight angle.  This movement is hard to track and the enemy frigates will spin around and miss several opportunities to shoot.  Try to put distance between your capital ships and threats.

Ultimately, to keep capital ships alive you need to be able to output some serious firepower to bring down the threats that might otherwise take them out.  Combine with careful maneuvering to buy extra time (even 10 seconds is the difference between life and death) and you can pull it off.


Assailants and bombers are particularly nasty, keep lots of distance.

 

Are you quite sure? I've used this tactic many times.

i meant 9 squadrons

Sigh I still can't get Vertigo to trigger manually. Same goes for Volatile Nanites on Kortul. I have to enable the ability and hope it goes off and then disable it so it doesn't spam. I click on an appropriate target in range and nothing ever happens. Quite frustrating.

Vertigo works the same way as Radiation Bomb on the Marza - you need to select a target for the ability to affect, then it will work on the target and every other frigate nearby.

Volatile Nanites requires the Kortul to turn to face the target. If you tried to use it on a target behind the Kortul, it would have had to turn around and then use VN.

ive found that vertigo only casts on strikecraft if its on autocast

manual cast on frigates work fine for me though

Yeah I've tried all the suggestions regarding Vertigo ... to no avail.

I will make sure that the Kortul is facing correctly next time I do volatile Nanites.

Edit: The Kortul direction made the difference, Thanks. Now for vertigo ... grrr

1) Dominas are nice, but you should control them right. Good at taking group of high value ships (Subverters, for example). Also: they are compared with Subverter and Cielo, not the ships you mentioned.

2) Find frigates in a group close to each other. Targes you choose must be highly damage dealing, which gives the answer - HC or LRF must be targets, possibly flak, since advent are keen on strikecraft.

3) AoE, as I remember, not really good, but still useful on capital ships/ friendly repair cruisers.

4) Don't remember honestly.

5) Lethal on enemy support cruisers. Actually denies their ability usage, supports your own support and capial ships with antimatter + LF get a bonus when fighting SC.

6) If you dont know where to put your resources - you may try. But in that case you will find other useful research in MTT - just upgrading.

7) My count (except all points in lvl1):  credit cost of research multiplied by increase in percent = credit cost of all ships using that, it is nice.


8) Early game: 3F-1B

Mid game: 7F-6B

Late game: 2F-3B  

9) Just accustom a flak to a destra by telling it to move to destra. Nice)

 

10) Mass transcendence is a tier 8 military research. Automatically boosts your cap ship level to the border.

What you are talking about is ressurection, progenitors ability; The ship has to go where the other ship died.

A liitle correction - it will give the new halcyon the experience points of dead one, but you cant use it if targets level is similar or higher

Thanks for the feedback Phoenix.

You make a good point that a domina is really more about the disabling ability than the healing one.

I am not sure I understood your reply to question #7, could you clarify?

Also I am not sure what you mean by accustom a flak to a destra. Do you mean that I should right click each flak to a particular destra? Or a right click a group of flak to a group of destra? Does that make them follow the destra all around?

I'll try out your more balanced ratios of fighters to bombers. I think I tend to overload on bombers and while very destructive it means I rely too much on my TK push from Halcyons.

For example: if first level hull research costs 400/0/25 and gives a 5% increase in hull points, you should count like that:

(100/5)#400=8000/ It is useful if your fleet costs 8000 credits including resources spent. I count 1 piece of metal or crystal as 3.2 credits.

 

Each Flak to each destra. They will try to follow the destra all round while protecting it from strikecraft.

Also, think of situation. If enemy spams LRF, especially vasari, you WILL need fighters, especially on small maps. ON larger ones you will have to clear up neutral planets, fighters are more helpful in the beginning. When you start battling an enemy fleet, see what he uses (if he uses little fighters and lots of flak - don't try to oversquad him. Build bombers, they can take out flak if needed)

Thanks for the clarification. The each flak to each HC / destra sounds very appealing. Just to be certain. when I right click a flak to a destra it will follow the unit AND damage nearby enemies / strikecraft, correct?

Your units will automatically attack hostile targets provided they're in range and you have auto-attack on, whether they are executing a move, attack or ability order (and if that ability is non-channeling).

And, to say in general, air superiority (how vandal is sounds for a space game) is the key to victory in diplomacy.