Kol Battleship

The Kol is a brick.  A very stubborn brick.  A very stubborn brick that refuses to die.  But that's all it is.  Flak Burst is only useful against TEC or Advent SC, and that's if you have multiple Kols.  GRG is marginally useful by default and only becomes something of use once you get a level 6 Dunov because of Flux Field.  The Kol simply can't do anything to support it's surrounding fleet and as such is a poor choice as a general rule unless your enemy is doing nothing but spamming light carriers.

The Kol is built around the Finest Hour ability.  GRG and Flak Burst can be spammed for a full minute while it's active.  Also, combined with a couple Durnovs the Kol can dish out a lot of damage without having to worry about it's low antimatter.  It usually ends up being the tank that soaks up damage while my carriers, Kodiaks and LRM's dish out the pain.

Problem is getting actual players to target the Kol. Any smart player would just ignore the Kol and aim for the more vunerable Dunovs, carriers, and repair cruisers in the back.

I dont even upgrade the flak ability, I spam fighters to take out other fighters. Kol is just there to take a pounding and dish out some damage with the railgun

See, I have barely even touched the multiplayer yet.  I take a look at the ppl online playing against "unfair" ai and i'm like.....  How about no?  And I did play against another player once and got creamed in less than twenty minutes.

So the AI (On normal) will usually go after the Kol.  Idk if this is what they do on harder difficulty settings.

However, I do get the point.  Kol is bad for MP.

Kol is bad period.  There are simply better choices under most circumstances.  You get a L6 Dunov?  Get a Kol.  Going against Advent spamming bombers?  Get 2.  Most other options?  Get something else.  Only reason it seems good in SP is because the AI is stupid and wastes it's precious DPS on it.

Which is exactly what I just said.  The Kol strategy works fine for SP because of dumb AIs.  Multiplayer not so much.

Question, does anyone else think the Kol looks almost like the Sulaco from aliens?? Seriously search it in google, either it was deliberate to make the Kol like the Sulaco or it was based on a similar design. Anyway I think it's one of the coolest looking TEC ships and is a real 'tank' flagship early game when going for a rapid expansion.

I think the Kol is awesome...it is one of the best capital ships in the game, probably 2nd only to the marauder or revelation...my biggest problem with the kol is that I don't think it has quite the firepower that a battleship should have...I'd personally advocate some more lazers...also, the engine trails are a little lame, nyan engines would be more appropriate....

I also think Unity mass should do chaining damage...

You may be interested to know that there are pictures of the alpha design for the Kol floating around somewhere (in fact the SoaSE logo comes from the front of it)...not familiar with the Sulaco, but you may be interested in comparing it with the earlier kol design as well...

Doesn't matter. If you want a tank, the Corsev does it better, and it steals ships and does AoE damage. Want an early game damage dealer? The Sova does it better, and it can cripple your opponents economy. Want to blow a lot of ships up? Get a Marza, it does it better, and it will blow up your enemies' planets too. What type of game you're playing doesn't matter. The only thing unique to the Kol is destroying strikecraft. There are better caps for everything else. The only difference is making a bad choice in single player doesn't kill you. In multiplayer, it does.

Of course, if you really like how the Kol looks, no one is stopping you from building one. Just keep in mind you're basically getting all looks and no substance. And yes, we'll keep trashing it until the Devs make it better, so if we call you insane for building one don't take it personally. Its for a good cause.

Edit: Dang it Seleuceia, if you can leave one type of thread alone from your trolling, make it Kol threads. If there is one thing this community should be able to agree on and teach the new comers, it should be never build a Kol, despite all the iconography telling you otherwise.

Hey, at least I haven't told people to send their save files to SD support after losing planets to novaliths....

I know, you aren't as bad as mecha. Though I wonder if there should be a yet at the end of that.

No, he said "the only reason it SEEMS good". It's not ACTUALLY good. It only seems that way because you can get away with making bad choices in single player. Just because it 'works' in single player doesn't mean that you wouldn't be performing better with another ship anyway.

Goa already replied with sufficient points, but just to reiterate to any new player or devs listening: the Kol is crap. Every other TEC capital performs better in every aspect except for the anti-strike craft role.

In all honesty they could probably fix the Kol by simply removing the anti-matter requirement for GRG all together.

Provided the Kol has adequate AM it deals relatively good damage to single targets with GRG/beams/lasers. However needing to spend the AM on Flak and Shield make the ship's dps drop to levels where it is completely negligible. The upgrade levels for the GRG should still provide damage increase. 

Then if the AM requirements for the other three abilities could be increased if necessary.

This would make the Kol versatile, as you could then have reliable dps from a heavily armored brick. Or anti bomber platforms or a mix of the two.

It should be noted that the current cooldown on GRG is entirely fine, and does not really need tweaking at all.

The Kol actually does a very good job against Titans that deal AOE damage. Consider the durability coupled with flak burst to keep fighters off your bombers and you have an effective attack against these titans. GRG also does decent damage even if mitigated which is important if you get a titan down to low health and need to add the finishing touch.

Of course it still pays to have a Dunov or two in the exact same situation, but when it comes to dealing with Titans with AOE you want capitals and bombers so the Kol actually isn't a bad investment in that situation.

I'm inline with others if adaptive shield was passive and rebalanced to compensate (i.e. nerfed some as it's always on) the Kol would be perfectly fine.

I don't know Zombie... why wouldn't I just build another Dunov or Marza in the same situation? Dunovs especially you can never have enough of with titans, and once they're drained the titan of antimatter, you can switch the rest to healers.

You know, the kol is not that bad.

It slaughters militia early on with nearly the speed of a sova, it owns low level caps easily, its flak burst is very very helpful against advent swarms (even if you only have one, the burst will take them down to half health, thus giving your own fighters a field day).  And its base damage really isn't that bad.  A level six kol with finest hour going can actually dish out serious damage.  A kol can fire in every direction.  It's maximum base dps is about 500 if its firing in every direction and if you put one in the middle of an enemy fleet, it can cause massive damage to them using its finest hour(which everyone seems to forget is aoe).

It's a lot more versatile than most people give it credit for.  People just don't like it because it doesn't do anything quite as well as the other caps.  It's a handyman.  That doesn't mean it's not an integral part of any fleet.

I'm just pointing out what I've actually seen in some MP games. I'm not necessarily advocating this, I'm just pointing out I've seen this used effectively in MP games.

A kol can do much more damage vs a titan than a marza can.  Three kols spamming grg with flux field and finest hour is a powerful, near-impossible-to-destroy-without-concentrating-firepower-from-an-entire-fleet, titan counter.

It is very true that he Kol with GrG and finest hour deals a considerable punch. But how many times do you see a group of 3 or more Kol's at level 6+ in a fleet?

Meh, ship's probably fine anyway, if something were terribly wrong with it I'm sure there would be 30 something threads about it... oh wait.

I'd doubt it, carrier caps with bombers or a Kortul is about the only thing I trust to take out gravity wells with heavy cruisers on their own, and the Sova's missile turrets probably do more damage than GRG even if the Kol really can do it.

I'd put money that the Marza, Radiance, Kortul, and Skirantra could beat a same level Kol in a 1v1 fight (at least below level six), and I'd say there is a chance the Sova or even the Evacuator could too. Base damage should never be the reason you get caps, frigates is what you build for raw DPS. I know finest hour is AoE, but it doesn't have the stopping power of even radiation bomb, and its a level 6, so you could have had missile barrage instead.

How is sucking at almost everything make it versatile? I'd say its the least versatile out of the TEC roster. Adaptive Forcefield is a waste of an ability by anyone's standards. GRG only damages one target. Finest Hour only buffs itself. Flak burst only damages strikecraft and corvettes. Even if it were a good idea to have a capital ship mediocre in a lot of things, the Kol really doesn't do a lot, and what it does do doesn't even fit together, unlike the Sova or Akkan which start out doing one thing (early expansion) and can shift to another role (embargo rush or fleet support) with levels.

I always have three kols in my fleets and since it's very hard for them to die and no one shoots at them anyways they usually get to level six easily.

Goa... *sigh*

Are you saying that kols should not be built at all?  

1.  against bomber spam they are absolutely necessary 

2.  You always need a tank.  

3.  It wins against a sova easily.  With 15 health restored per second, increased firing speed, 60 seconds of grg, and unassailable hull, a kol will slaughter a sova in a 1v1 fight above level 6 and will give it a long, hard fight below that.

4.  Did i ever say a word about adaptive forcefield?  NO!   

I'm saying bomber spam is the only reason to build them, and even then its a gamble, since mass bombers can kill anything pretty easily.

Corsev is a better tank hands down outside of a 1v1 (which never happens), and it is more versatile. And I personally hate the Corsev. It doesn't win compliments from me easily.

I said below level six in my post. Any ship that needs an ultimate to be decent is at a severe disadvantage. Why do you think the Vasari Loyalist titan isn't as feared as much as the Ragnarov or Eradica? The maw is awesome, its just by the time you get to level six often time the battle is decided, or you could have built something else to win earlier. Needing 4 level six caps to do anything is ridiculous, especially as TEC when they have the awesomeness of missile barrage. If nothing else, the opportunity cost of not having another cap at level 6 is what kills the Kol.

I'm just saying few caps have an ability as useless as adaptive forcefield. Its hard to be versatile with an ability you'll never get a point in.

I realize I'm sounding harsh on the Kol. I actually like the ship like everyone else, I even used it as one of my mods hero units. But it really deserves all the criticism it gets, and I hope one day the devs will actually listen and change it so it might have a more useful role when you're actually trying to win a game.