Hosiko Counter?

well they can't repair without antimatter. Massed cobalts with Sabotage Reactor, or a Dunov with EMP could hurt them.

Are u using focused fire? 'Cos I never had trouble w/ those guys, whenever I see alot of 'em in an enemy fleet I know I'm gonna have an easy time.

They don't do much unless the opponent completely turns off the repair and goes straight for reducing your units' effectiveness (I've only seen this done with the Vasari sabotage.). The best counter is to kill them. They are weak and do not repair fast enough.

Two solutions: use focus firing to destroy them first, or use abilities that can reduce their anti matter. As mentioned by silverace, your two best choices there are cobalts or EMP charge from a Dunov. Personally, I prefer the EMP charge route, but cobalts are also effective at destroying support cruisers quickly, so that's definitely a viable counter to them.

The problem with sending in a Dunov is that it is slow and your opponent will focus fire on it. EMP charge can be effective, but make sure there are not too many heavy cruisers, or you will lose your expensive capital ship.

Advent counter is disciples with absorb antimatter, very effective.

Advent have an easy time against Hoshiko cruisers because Iconus Guardians and the shield restore ability outdoes Hoshiko repair and Dunov shield restore ability, so they win by attrition easily. No special planning required.
Vasari have the hardest time, as the hull is often repaired while the shield is still in place, negating a big chunk of the damage of Vasari phase weaponry. Use light frigates against support cruisers and you should be fine.

@The_Regicide : hmmm wouldnt generalise here, depends who has more. if fought excatly this scenario. ~25 kodiaks backed up by ~12 hoshikos. Very hard to stop. The only real deal is to deplete the hoshikos antimatter.

I think 25 Destras with 12 Iconus would win, because Hoshiko repair is not very potent against focus fire, and Iconus can use repulsion whenever their shields get low. Meanwhile, Destras pump out an almost ignore-worthy AOE DPS that can add up and cost the enemy much antimatter on repairs. The Advent are enjoying about 82% shield mitigation in the meantime.
If they both have equal resources and equal ratio of HC-to-DC(Heavy Cruiser to Defense Cruiser), I think Advent would win. Convincingly.

Where do you get 82% shield mitigation from?

Sum up all the bonuses like Advent extra mitigation research and Iconus 33%(which basically amounts to mitigation).

Use light frigates with sabotage reactor. Do not send them in if he has too many LRMs. If heavy cruisers chase your light frigates, run the frigates behind the enemy fleet and force some of his heavy cruisers out of the fight. Then use your own against his support craft.

Its not 33% mitigation. That would be 33% damage reduction. Instead the Iconus absorbs 33% damage inflicted to any unit in the field with its own shields.

When regarding the target, it kinda boils down to mitigation, doesn't it?

Nah, example: 50% mitigation, 100 damage a sec.
50 damages to the shields, 50 damage puff no effect cause of the mitigation.

33% shared means 33 of the 100 damage is taken away and put on the Iconus shields. The target actually beeing fired on would recieve 67 damage, reduced by shield mitigation of course, 33,5 damage to the shields.
then the Iconus would take 33 damage, using his shield mitigation reducing the damage (lets say 20%) and then getting 26.4 to his shields.

I dont know if the damage is shared before mitigation has a effect or after. It would change the numbers but this is just a example to clarify the difference between sharing and reduction.

Let me correct myself (about 180 degrees ). Yes it is that way for the target, but i wouldnt say it that way.