Perhaps small buffs to the damage of the Disciple and Defense Vessel are in order? Disciple to fend off early caps a little, defense to help hold the line against TEC (So long as they get a late game) and help against Vas SC. Not sure how Disciple fairs against anything else. IIRC, it's got low survivability so would be kind of a glass cannon.

Both of these units are excellent as is, already the strongest of the three faction equivalents.  We shouldn't expect the disciple to carry Advent against LRF rushes, and the flak frigate has never been able to carry the entire fleet on its own.  The issue is that Advent fundamentally has no counter to LRF.  If we're just going to toss in a scalar buff and call it a day, the unit to look at is the Illuminator. 

I believe the larger problem is that the game has become highly LRF-dominated in the latest version.  With the scout nerfed, heavy cruisers unavaiable until later on, and carrier cruisers requiring a critical mass to be effective, there's really no answer to it.  Oh, you can countered massed LRF, but a large body of LRF with appropriate support is pretty well optimal, which severely punishes Advent without a servicable LRF.

I'm not going to reopen the scout debate (that horse has been beaten into paste), but the removal of scouts as a combat unit has left all factions without any strong way of dealing with LRF until later in the game.  This means TEC and Vasari are primarily fighting rock with rock, but Advent has no such option with its now weaker illuminator and just gets thrashed.  IMO, something needs to take their role.

Huh, somehow I was thinking Cobalt was toughest LF. In that case, perhaps the Illum needs a slight buff or other lrf need a slight nerf? Perhaps a build time nerf? Advent need to be able to stall long enough to get Illums out and in sufficient numbers to not get rolled by superior numbers.

Lordy, it's been so long since I kept up on the balance of Sins. I don't know where anything is anymore and what needs fine tuning at the moment.

Course, when I faded out, Jam Weapons was still UP cuz it only delayed SC...

Kinda off the original topic anyways. My gut reaction for TEC is to buff armor research, Maneuvering Thrusters, Insurgency, and Kodiak. Though I recall Kodiak being strong already. Read elsewhere that Maneuvering Thrusters didn't actually make a noticeable effect until stupid high numbers like 1000%.

I feel like a noob again.

It's a 5 command unit; the Disciple is a 4 command unit.  It's weaker individually, but overall it's about the same in terms of durability as the Cobalt (typical for Advent, less hull more shield).  Where it is superior is its damage output, which is almost the same between the two units despite the Disciple being cheaper.

Some things change, some things don't.

kodiaks are the cheapest hc and have high hp and a good speed burst upgrade, i don't really see where you can improve them

I agree with Darvin, the game is too focused on a singular unit, the LRF, and that just happens to be the weak spot of the Advent...Advent have the best LF, and best anti-SC when it comes to frigate fighting (I want to say sentinel is better against SC once it has its ability), and the second best SC and HC...guardians with repulsion are very powerful as well, even against PM wielding vasari...

If the only change you are going to make is to buff the illuminator, one possibility is making more of its damage frontal...illuminators are terrible for FFing as only about half of their DPS is frontal...even with good micro, that side-damage is absorbed too easily...later in the game, you might have enough illuminators where the side damage can still be devastating, but by then you've either already lost or you're banking on Destras and bombers...

Does anyone happen to know how much additional DPS the illuminator did when it was bugged?

Once PM's are maxed out the Sentinel is definitely better, but "out of the box" so to speak the Vasari units are all bottom of their respective classes.

Funny, I've never actually heard a solid number backed up by data.  I've heard as low as 25% and as high as 70%.

The problem with HC as it stands is the bomber spam particularly from vasari.  Going to HC against a vasari is foolish with skirantra the way they are.  It is not much a better thing to do against TEC but somewhat better.  Fighters are easily squashed by flak so once flak shows up in even small quantities, bombers become the mainstay and thus it is foolish to play right into your enemy's hands.  Bombers are going to be spammed anyways with the skirantra. 

The early advent problem is multifactorial.  They have no real answer to vasari except hoping you have enough time to get out a few carriers with bombers and illums or other units to get a cap before it jumps out to repair.  If you go illums then all they have to do is plop down a SB and that fight is done with skirantra repairing and picking off units with a few spare assailants or fighters.  Illums do shit against SB since they are lacking frontal damage of TEC and vasari.  If you go discs and scouts(only marginal with a scout nerf and I hated that tier 0 spam anyways so I am certainly not advocating a return), thats somewhat manageable if you can take out enough assailants so they dont rape your discs but still its iffy.  If the advent goes flak, again all the vasari has to do is plop down a SB and you just wasted your money.  Carriers are a possibility but they don't get a critical mass in time to do the job(since there is an obvious lag between building the expensive carriers and actually having firepower in squads).  That and the skirantra is obviously better at doing the same thing.  They are mainly just a defensive tool as well since if you DO get to go on the offensive.  He will get hangars with phasic trap to completely negate them indefinitely.  There is an extremely small window mid game when and if you can get to repulse.  You can use it to trap skirantra and take them out if you are lucky AND good.  The vasari are still superior though as the assailant spam that has built up will quickly take out the guardians with phase missles and longer range than push.

[_]-Greyfox

it is possible to get a starbase up and running if you have sovas sucking your credits away, though you are fighting a losing battle that will inevitably result in needing lots of feed, running, or needing support. Since the TEC are getting all the income they are sucking away, you have NO chance unless by some miracle you have a hidden neutral stash that the TEC don't know about and that a vasari player hasn't fought you for (which is practically NEVER! lol).  

When facing equally skilled players this early match up can be the deciding factor and push your team to lose.  Sovas just rape advent, since advent don't have any economic advantage early on.  spamming disciples does you no good (yes even with their tech level 3 upgrade), since the TEC can and will spam lrms to support their cobalts.  Since it is far easier for TEC to get their lrms, the advent player already lacking in economy cannot react to this, especially since going defensive early means that the starting roid is up for grabs (so bye bye logistics slots, HELLO incoming enemy fleet spam on HW).  Also, spamming scouts won't work effectively since economically you are at a large disadvantage.  You won't have enough Illuminators up to really deal with the enemy, and since illums suck at focus fire anyways you won't scare those sova's away.

and we are talking about a close quarters TEC player still.

Oh and Greyfox good post!

I would add to your post that advent don't have an early economic advantage at all when compared to the other races.  The progenitor ability doesn't do enough really, and in a lot of games I find that if I don't go Halcyon i don't have a chance!

This could help to rebalance advent.  As to what that economic advantage would be when compared to the other races economic advantages (sova's, low cost economic tech for TEC, Vasari upgrade efficiency and tech 1 LRM, LRM cost reduction via slavery to make kanrak spam cheaper than illum spam, and easy neutral control), I have no idea. 

Edit: Here is an idea! (also a possible answer to your post below Darvin3)

Another way to go about dealing with this economic problem is to have advent Fighter/bomber structure cost about half of what it does currently, either through a tech lvl 1 defense upgrade, or have it inherent.  This would really go a LONG way to making any rush against advent in the early game much more difficult to pull off.  Also, reduce its tactical slot requirement if needed(again either inherently or via the upgrade).  It also makes sense for advent to have a cheaper fighter defense structure because that's what they do best, fighters and defense.  Advent are Defensive in a lot of ways, the enemy shouldn't be able to get a foothold so easily on your HW.  This would counter sova/LF spam and give you killing power while you slowly build up your fleet.  This could also counter 2 vasari carriers with a starbase on your HW (once scramble bombers is fixed). Also, you could reasonably defend your asteroid with these improved fighter defenses, though it would still be much weaker than your HW.

This is not overpowered, because you wouldn't be able to then ADVANCE your fighter defenses to be used against your enemy.  You would have just made yourself a heck of a lot harder to hurt.  This wouldn't be overpowered in the end game because the enemy always has Kostura's to get rid of a heavily fortified advent base.  As it stands, Advent should be the hardest to rush because they are such a defensive race.

And yet, what other choices do you have?  Disciples get slaughtered by assailants, scouts are a joke now, carriers get countered or run down, illuminators are only really good against LF (which Vasari doesn't use much) now, and capital ships get murdered by phase missiles.  That leaves you destras and defense vessels; you literally don't have any other options.

A mid-game Destra push is probably Advent's best chance, and it's still a longshot.

70%?  Dear god...

Honestly though, I have to wonder how Advent would still compare if the illuminator was still bugged...sure it would be more powerful, but LRMs and Kanraks would still have more FFing ability well, it's still a lvl 3 ship...

This is why playing advent against vasari sucks.  Your few choices are not good ones and its a lot easier for the vasari than the advent

[_]-Greyfox

They might be disadvantaged in close-range sudden death scenarios, but once they got out those illums it wouldn't matter.  They could run down Skirantras with ease and easily maul massed assailants until PM research was maxed.  Vasari would be forced to either lean (heavily) on Sentinels and hope he can suppress any disciples the Advent brings out, or put up starbases and try to drag out the game.

The only significant changes in 1.19 were the scout nerf, the illuminator bug fix, the skirmisher/enforcer damage buff, and scramble bombers.  The scout nerf isn't going to impact the mid-late game, and the skirmisher and enforcer are not major units in the Advent vs Vasari matchup.  I do not think scramble bombers on its own would fundamentally change the Advent vs Vasari late-game, which was actually only slightly Vasari advantage until Kosturas came out.

There seems to be unanimous opinion of the current state of Advent vs Vasari, even if there isn't agreement on what to do about it.

I agree that scramble bombers won't change the late game much, but in the early game it is still overpowered.  I would amend your post and say that the vasari have a significant edge against advent in the late game, primarily due to fleet mobility and the inability of any non vasari fleet to trap a vasari fleet effectively.  Repulse only goes so far, guardians are slow and can be easily outflanked, and are usually a primary target.  The Vasari have an enormous advantage in being able to change their fighter/bomber configuration quickly with little antimatter cost.  Also vasari fleets have an antimatter advantage in that a properly placed nodes and use of the marauders ability as well as starbases allow the vasari fleet to hit ANY weakpoint in an enemy defense while still being one jump away from being able to defend their entire empire.  Add in subverter spam to lock down a fleet while the vasari fleet is en route to defend and the phasic traps that will neutralize advent air support for a decent amount of time, and the vasari are almost IMPOSSIBLE to attack.  All the while they will be able to hit deep into your empire with impunity as they won't be phase disrupted.  Then, if the advantage wasn't enough, you can just lock down an enemy fleet with some subverter spam and defend/attack it with just kosturas.  Quite a one sided trade. 

Lets see what advent have on vasari shall we? 

culture cannon of crap.

repulse, which is easily countered and dependent upon antimatter, so an attacking advent can't attack with the speed of the vasari fleet because attacking without antimatter is suicide.

A strong starbase and strong defensive capability, yet NO fleet mobility advantage whatsoever. 

Good antifighter/bomber defenses with the halcyon that only exist when proper fleet formation is kept.  Since advent benefit from being clumped the subverter is the perfect weapon to lock this down and the advent advantage only lasts as long as they can support their fleet with guardians and maintain their antimatter.

The vasari fleet does not need nearly as much support so it is unfettered and maintains its mobility.

We were speaking, hypothetically, if the illuminator bug were still in play, which changes matters substantially.  As it stands right now... good luck buddy.

Well I'm apart of the conversation as well and if you read the posts I am not discussing the illuminator bug.  Mostly I talk about TEC, but since the subject got changed to advent vs. vasari i'm game to discuss that as well.

The illuminator bug is gone, and the multitude of problems with the advent that it hid are now having to be dealt with.

Advent at the core suffer from lack of economic options in the early game, it truly doesn't matter what unit does more dps in the endgame scenario if there will be no endgame when you get double sova/skirantra rushed.

As far as scramble bombers getting fixed, I would say that it has a very reasonable chance of getting fixed because these forums are alive with discussion about this very problem. 

Merry Christmas!

Stardock is having a hell of a hard time with Elemental...half the reviewers refused to even look at the game and give it a rating until at least most of the bugs were fixed...there's talk that Stardock will do something for sins in the future, but honestly I'd be surprised if they do anything anytime soon...with Elemental having so many issues and the next big Stardock game (Gal Civ 3) using the same engine, I'd say sins is probably way on the back burner, if even that much...

Even if Stardock does release a patch, I wouldn't hope for much change...a few balance issues like scramble bombers may be addressed, but many of the unused elements of the game probably won't be revitalized...LRMs, bombers, and carrier caps will likely still dominate, and TEC will still probably have a poor late game...sure, you can make the 3 factions balanced even if 2 ship types dominate, but I think they should be able to do better...

The real issue isn't whether stardock is willing to release a better update, but whether they can afford to...Stardock has a tradition of continually patching their games and using their fan base's comments/forums...upholding that reputation is very important, and while another sins patch may seem conducive to that, fixing elemental and making it the game it should be is far more important...

Stardock is a small company...I don't know all their stats but I do know they don't have the resources a lot of major developers do, and after elemental (and possible downsizing) I just don't know how well they can deal with elemental, prep for Gal Civ 3, and try and work on an expansion for sins all at the same time...and yes, I say expansion, because if Stardock is going to do much of anything with sins they probably need to get paid for it...

Unfortunately sins is a dying market with a small online community...I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of sins owner don't even know there is impulse or expansion packs...

I would agree that sins is currently a dying market, but the sheer SIZE of the player base that stardock has let slip through their fingers should give them pause, the online community COULD and SHOULD have been much larger, and ICO should be updated. 

Blizzard wouldn't have had the success they had with Starcraft if they hadn't invested so much money into a good online multiplayer server.  ICO should be their version of Battle.net.  Currently ICO doesn't compare to it, and that is one reason people have been turned off by the online multiplayer game.  Battle.net is the standard to look too, anything less will annoy people.

The developers have promised us an update, and they are seeing whether they should add a third expansion. 

I haven't seen anything saying they have made a decision about the expansion, but then you seem much more informed than I about Stardock's financial troubles and decisions.

Also, releasing trinity with an extra mesh file was a disaster for the online community.  How did this escape the QA guys? all you would need was a simple file count to make sure it was shippable...

I have bought 3 copies of SOASE Trinity for friends this Christmas, so the online community should BOOM! lolz. 

Thanks for the thoughtful reply!

I don't think anything official has been released...however, from a business prospective a micro expansion may be worth the effort...there may not be a lot of sins players but the ones who do play and play online will probably be willing to buy expansion packs if they are affordable...

In the grand scheme of things, releasing a patch for a game that uses a download client isn't all that hard...yes, it takes time, but only a handful of .entity file changes would be necessary to reduce the most OP elements of the game...

I'm not entirely sure on this, but judging by the change logs and forum posts surrounding it, I believe the last Twilight of the Arnor (Gal Civ II, 2nd expansion) patch was made entirely by one, maybe two people...clearly autonomy of one programmer is not an issue at stardock, so I really am puzzled why another patch is taking this long, especially when there is overwhelming consensus on issues like Scramble bombers, Advent's early game, and TEC late game...

There may not be consensus on how to necessarily fix those issues, but as a current sins modder I'd say a couple afternoons would be more than enough time to implement, test, and finalize a few changes...

As for Ironclad, they still seem to be completely engrossed in their next project.

Most Sins players (who only play single player offline) probably don't have a sophisticated enough knowledge or understanding of the game to ever notice those kinds of issues (which really only show up against human opponents).  So, they're probably happy with the game as it is.  It doesn't make much financial sense to release a patch that only about 100 people (the amount who still play it in online multiplayer against human opponents) are going to notice or appreciate.

I suspect that Sins is a finished project at this point.  If we receive any further patches it's a bonus.

What's kind of sad is that Ironclad's lack of communication about Sins or any further involvement with it leads me to feel like they want to wash their hands of it.  That's probably not true, but that's just my sense of how they feel about it.