Please don't nerf the Vasari

It's ok--they are just taking the space ponies away from them.

If they are conclusively "the best" (which I agree with) then they probably deserve a nerf for balance's sake. Or the other factions need buffing.

Only on very large targets. Vasari has the weakest fleet-wide repair systems.

Sure, phase missiles are cool... but the LRM usually packs a greater punch than the Assailant, and even to Vasari a large cloud of enemy Illuminators will be even scarier.

A strong Vasari AI is about as strong as one of the newer steamboys on ICO. In other words: not strong at all. If you're looking to realistically test something challenging, test it against a (human) Vasari player who knows what he's doing

I'd actually call the Vasari one of the easiest races to play, at least in the early-game in cramped conditions.

The Nerf Bat Cometh!

Ai's are silly--testing purposes-not actual balancing.

My ships just don't die easily-from constant hull regeneration from carrier caps, overseers and self repair. 

The only thing about Vasari that definitely needs a nerf are phase missiles.  They're just too strong against capital ships. 

50% effectiveness instead of 75% against a new Capital Ship Armor?

The problem is not the base percentage damage modifier, the problem is the results of "+5% shield negation" every time a PM upgrade is researched - every time a PM upgrade is researched, an enemy capital ship will take about 15% more damage from Phase Missiles. So at just tier 3 PM research you can have basically increased Assailant and Sentinel damage vs. caps by 57% (significantly more if the caps have leveled up).

What do you suggest?

Maybe a capital ship secondary shield generator that is designed to deal with Phase Missiles. Tech based so you can get it tier 4 maybe or some other time frame. Advent being both the most vulnerable to Phase Missiles and being the shield experts can get the greatest effect from it with Vasari next and the TEC last. Their armor helps a lot versus phase missiles. The effect can't be 100% (obviously), but we can play with the numbers until the Vasari are not so overpowering but still nasty.

Edit: Who knows? Maybe the devs have something coming with Rebellion.

A simple reduction to researchable shield negation would be sufficient, I think.

Caps are the only ones that should be protected better.

Solution: Each shield upgrade receives "+x% phase missile block on capital ships".
Fixed. Advent are most screwed my PMs because they're so shield-heavy, but they also have the biggest number of shield upgrades so it will even up.

Frankly, I have never understood why LRFs deal so much damage to caps. LRF damage vs caps should be nerfbatted over the head with a sequoia.

Great idea. Sounds fine to me.

Well, something needs to do a decent amount of damage against caps in the early-game. But caps also need to be much less vulnerable to focus-fire later in the game, so that they're more able to use their abilities up close without being attacked and killed or scared off almost immediately. I think that's part of the reason why carrier caps are so popular - they don't have to be in the thick of a frigate battle in order to do much of their damage.

Going along with your idea of shield upgrades giving a special bonus to capital ships, perhaps hull and armor upgrades could do the same? Eg. an upgrade might give +5% hull to all units, plus an additional +5%? hull to capitals? And armor upgrades could do something similar.

I think Cap Ship Specific bonus upgrades are the most logical, feasible and balanced approach to make Caps more viable late game. All of the above ideas should be greatly considered. They also make perfect sense from a lore standpoint, wouldn't any race continually maximize the effectiveness of their biggest and baddest ships?

Personally i find the TEC as the best but they need some more strong stuff. I know that the LRM's are really powerfull but the cap ships for TEC frankly suck. So i think they should bet better abbilities or stonger lasers and stuff

Well (in competitive games at least), Embargo can be devastating early-game against an opponent who isn't prepared for it... and the Sova being able to drop what are essentially temporary LRM frigates is useful as well. And the Akkan can help trap and kill enemy capital ships with only a moderate supply of LRMs to support... the Marza can wipe out planets extremely quickly... TEC capitals aren't too shabby.

Note that I'm considering competitive games against decent players, that is, on ICO.

Its more than 15%, in the range of 200%-400%. When a Phase missle bypasses shields it bypasses Shield Mitigation.

That way LFs have a purpose early game (they would be relatively efficient vs caps) and you would need LRFs to protect them, but just a lot of LRFs would not be efficient against a cap... which forces the LRF spammer to do something else. 

Right now, in my opinion, LRF efficiency against caps is the biggest screwup in early game unit balance.

You spam LRFs and counter EVERYTHING except flaks and fighters. You make flaks yourself, maybe invest in an anti-SC ability on a cap. Fixd. Now the only thing the opponent can do until heavy cruisers is spam the ridiculously inefficient flaks, not because they are good but because they just don't disappear that fast. How dumb is that.

If my suggestion passed, this is how it would look: 
Your cap ship knocks on the opponent's door and he wants to kill it. The opponent makes LFs. You counter with LRFs. He counters with fighters. You counter with flaks. The opponent has to make more LFs - a loop, which means that the person who tweaks his composition better and/or has a better economy will win, as it should be.

If an upgrade granted this capability to all missiles, then you'd be right.

I think you're absolutely right on this. here + 1 karma for you 

Reducing LRF effectiveness versus capital ships is long overdue.  Particularly in the case of LRM in the early-game and Assailants in the late-game, they just torch capital ships way too quickly to be countered effectively.  This leaves many capital ships non-viable simply because they die too quickly.

Ability: Transfer all remaining power to hull-plating ( good old star trek to the rescue)? 

5 anti-antimatter/ sec

Increases caps weapon cool-down by 50%

Reduce Strike craft number by 50%

Boost hull regen by 50%

Armor + 5

Duration: Antimatter dependent

Cast: Manual  (on and off)

Immune to ability interrupt:

I see this issue as a combination of two things: Phase Missiles are much more effective against large targets than they should be, and capital ships in general are too easily destroyed (by anything) past the early-game. I don't see a LRF-nerf vs caps as necessary if phase missiles are fixed and if caps are made to be more durable later in the game - which could be somewhat accomplished by my idea (piggybacking off of N3rull's) that each hull research upgrade could also give an additional +5% or +10% hull points to capital ships.

What do you think?

The hull bonus ability is to delay your eventual death and escape.

Whats funny about this is fleets > Caps. This PM debate is once again irrelevant, We cant tackle the weapon type itsself to solve the problem because sufficient fleets of assailants even when a Nerf is in place will still blow a cap to pieces. Why delay the inevitable.

The one thing that needs more attention is counters to LRM and Bombers: < Fighters

I've heard the upcoming changes to vasari include an "auto-retreat ability" that forces them to flee a gravity well when fired on.  It allows them to keep their awesomeness but not be able to abuse it.

...tee hee.