I was disagreeing that the backweighting of the ability meant that it was too weak at the lower levels: just because it is backweighted doesn't make it weak.

Compare it to Heavy Strikecraft.   Is that backweighted in the same manner?  Why shouldn't the supposed weakness of ADA apply to Heavy Strikecraft?  ADA was fine as it was, Heavy Strikecraft is fine at is is. 

Could you write up your figures?  L2 ADA is currently +14 strikecraft based on 7-craft squadrons, or up to +18?  As the old extra strikecraft ADA it would be +8 strikecraft..?  That isn't catching up, in terms of sheer numbers?

The problem with the Halcyon is that it has too many squadrons, yes.... Under the old system a better player was rewarded for keeping their strikecraft intact.  We shouldn't support poor play.  ADA is not balanced, because it rewards Halcyon users too early, and rewards poor play.  Heavy Strikecraft is balanced. 

I'm not advocating that we revert to ancient versions of the game.  The progress has included steps forwards as well as steps backwards- on the small scale the improvements to Skirmishers and Enforcers were very welcome, on the larger scale no-one would want 1-squadron carrier cruisers.  However, altering the Illuminators to standard lrf was a move against variety.  There's also useful capital abilities that were nerfed in the past but wouldn't be too strong compared with the capitals we have at present.

Has every change really been correct- up to 1.19?     

Yes, heavy strike craft is backweighted, but the problem there isn't quite as significant as it is with the Halcyon because the added longevity it provides gives the Sova much needed staying power in the early-game.  Once you start taking casualties, classic ADA offers no additional staying power.

I'd love to see a change to heavy strike craft that would be similar to ADA's transition from 1.17 to 1.18, but I just don't see any way to implement that.

Bombers (7 / squad):

Fighters (9 / squad):

It appears my earlier numbers were off (I didn't save the file, so I don't know where my error was); the 1.17 ADA only provides more strike craft than an equal level of the 1.18 version in a select few cases, all of them requiring the capital ship to have 8 squads. 

First and foremost, capital ships need to offer rewards early or else they don't get used.  Case in point is the Kol, a capital ship that is rock solid if you can get it to level 5 or 6, but a piece of shit until then.  It almost never gets used, because for every one Kol that reaches those high levels, there are two or three that die along the way.

The Halcyon currently offers a neat balance of different skills, some of which help it more early and some of which help it more late (both in terms of levels and game stage).  This makes it very versatile and interesting.  ADA will always be an early-game ability simply because it doesn't scale as your fleet gets larger, but right now it plays its role very well of allowing you to spec your Halcyon as a fighting unit.  I think that's balanced because you're sacrificing your progression in its fleet support abilities which will shine later.

Now as for "rewarding poor play", I disagree.  Units will die, and fragile unshielded strike craft are no exception to the rule.  The key, if you want to keep your numbers up, is to keep your casualty rate lower than your replacement rate.  What ADA does is it ups your replacement rate and allows you to take riskier gambits or stay afloat in fierce firefights for longer, but on its own it's not going to prevent your SC from getting shredded if you're careless.

To reiterate my position, I believe the problem is with the strike craft, not the carriers.  I think ADA is a fine ability as is.  It's supposed to give you a punch in early-game battles, and if other combat-centric abilities aren't doing the same then they need to be buffed up to its level.

I believe it was a very sensible move; the illuminator makes a lot of sense as a LRF counter and it fulfills that role very well.  If any units should fulfill the anti-capital role, it should be LF, HC, and other capital ships (more or less as is).

i knew these were comming, 80% pulsegun upgrade... yes, because we need vasari more powerfull.

no one uses skirmishers or enforcers, not because they are weak, but because there is simply no point. any unit with phase missles simply does more damage, even against things they are not nessasary supposed to counter.

look: skrims, at max upgrades do 2.057 dps/supply base... assailants do 3.77 dps/supply base.

the ONLY armor type in the entire game that anti-heavy gets a higher multiplier than antimedium is against heavy armor. the appropriate numbers for that are 150%, and 75%.  multiply everything out, and we get:

2.8275dps/supply for assailants

3.085 dps/supply for skrimishers

that is less than a 10% advantage for the skrimishers.  (and assailants get charged missles, which puts them back ontop, by alot, very quickly)

SO: be honest. would you ever seriously put money into a unit type that does 9.1% more damage, against a single armor type, and about 1/2 the damage against every single other armor type?  So, even if your enemy army has nothing but flack, carriers, and support cruisers, in the mid-late game, skrimishers should only back up your assailants, thanks to thier interference ability, but assailants will kill an army of even nothing but anti-heavy faster than an army of skrimishers.

enforcers have the same issue.

and both units were buffed.

I highly, highly doupt they need to be buffed even more, instead, phase missles need a tweak in the downward direction.

well, lets see here... ya, thought so, your looking at unupgraded damage, i was looking at upgraded (for both skrims and assailants)

upgraded... cobalts are at 2.28, and javilis at 3.575

ratios... thats 1.83 for the asailant to skrim, and 1.56 for the cobalt to javelis.

now... unupgraded...

1.4473 for cobalts/javs

1.26388 for asailants/skrims

so ya, i see your point. (i wonder how cluser missles, and charged missles change this)

and unupgraded... asailants are much worse that skrims for taking out things with heavy armor.

so, perhaps the devs did a good job there, but it still doesnt change the main issue of this thread... which is phase missles vs capital ships.

nono, i did read your post fully.

I just also know that such sweeping changes are not going to happen. these include:

new abilities

weapon type change

now... i could see the pulse line and the beam line beint merged in some way.. but not above 30% for either weapon.

I dont see the vasari as king of dps. that goes to the advent (look at their shit, for flack, lrms, LFs, HCs, all have higher dps/supply than the other races... preety sure strike craft too, but too lazy to do the math on that atm)

I see the vasari of the king of, picking exactly where and when the battle will be, under thier terms, and i have won a game, as a vasari, picking that i just wont ever fight that battle.

When the vasari were very far and few between... many people were calling for buffs to them,... and so forth...

I always said that Vasari will always lose in a fair fight... so, if your vasari, dont fight fair.  Now they can win that fair fight... and have all thier nasty tricks to go along with it.  

these tricks include:

gravbomb+phasejumpinhibitor

phasic trap nulifiying an unlimited number of strike craft instantly, and, with two hanger bays, forever untill the bays are destroyed, the strike craft scuttled, or the carriers leave.

Subverters. nuff said.

sneaky starbases.

the ability to bring a starbase from 100 hp back to 10000 almost instantly by warping in a dozen overseers.

kostura cannons.

phase gates.

and my fav... kostrua cannons+phasegates.

and there are many smaller ones, but these are the ones that are simply not comparable to the other races.

now, please, dont be offended. i did read your post all the way, all i was saying, is that i knew it was coming, and i knew it would be unbalanced. all i want (for now, at least), is a 20% nerf to phase missles vs capital ships, and a skirantra that doesnt do over 9000 damage. (over 3 min, for every lv3 scramble bomber activated... before phase missles)

seriously... each vasari bomber does 5.7dps... *3 per squad *3for 3squads, *180 seconds.... its over 9000... for 50 antimatter. now... that isnt entirely fair see you, cause those bombers are not holding positon, and can die (oh wait, hold position+repair cloud... zombie bombers!)... and it doesnt take into account phase missle research... so... with max phase missle research... against a lv5 capital ship... one press of scramble bombers will do... *drum roll please*

4235 damage before armor. the KOL (the ship with the highest hitpoints of all) has 4250 health at level 1.  (or, since that damage was against a lv 5 cap ship... 5270 hp.

comparison: for 75 antimatter, an egg does 1125 damage... to that lv5 cap

and for 75 antimatter a kol does... less than 300 to that lv5 cap.

good thing capital ships have passive regen, huh? oh, wait, disrupter nanites.

I was under the assumption that there could be one day a community based patch.  Under those conditions, WC's could receive a special ability and the researchables could be reconfigured in the way I suggested.  My idea would still help as it would effectively nerf fighters and bombers by taking away their precious PM's while at the same time buffing an underused unit.

Now if you are going with what the devs could do for one final patch, the best they could probably offer is a 20% redux.  They aren't going to do the changes I suggested, but I could.  In fact, I could incorporate my suggestions in one afternoon.  None of them are particularly big, but they are definitely beyond what IC would do for 1.20.

Also, I said damage, not DPS.  This was to include all the nasty toys we use that you went on to list, but not necessarily DPS itself.  My changes list was to stop SB from wiping out everything in its path while not going too far.  It was also designed to buff two unused ships.  You can't say buffing two ships that are completely unused right now is a bad thing.  But if what I said is still a nerf overall, I don't see why you are disagreeing...

But greg, tell me..  Which deals more damage?  A fully upped Assailant or a fully upped Enforcer.  The answer is the Assailant.  More damage for less.  Its common sense to ignore the Enforcer unless you want an expensive meat shield.

If you want math, here it is.  Enforcers have 20 DPS by default.  Once fully upped, they are 26.  Assailants start off with 13 DPS, but have PM's which have a virtual buff of 200% to 39 DPS in addition to the ability for most of that damage to bypass shields.  On average, PM's can take down a ship with about 40-50% of shields left, which makes the total effective power of these things at around 400% plus the missile pact which bumps it up to nearly 500%.  Need I say more?  Tell me, which is the bigger number: 65 from the Assailant or 26 from the Enforcer?  Your choice.

Honestly though, I was thinking about it and I am really starting to like my idea of WC's negating their own mitigation increases.  That would make these things devastating and would be a different route a Vasari player could take.  This would mean that Enforcers could be a bit of a forward force group.  If you mixed them in with other weapons then their ability would be negated, but if you made monster Enforcer fleets, you could really put the hurt on someone.  Perhaps as a distracting force.  Sure, they would be easy to counter, but you still are going to take losses as they are HC's.  It would force the enemy to make counters.  I don't know, maybe it wouldn't work, but eh...  its an idea...

No.  You completely misunderstood my post.  I am not talking numbers of ships.  I'm talking DPS of each ship!  Assailants have an effective DPS of 65 while Enforcers have a DPS of just 26.  That is more than twice the damage from a ship that comes at tier 1! Assailants and their beloved Phase Missiles are king.  Period.  Flak, despite its hardiness, falls to PM's just like every other ship does.  If its got shields, its gonna die.  Now, if you start talking about supply, the difference is even more pronounced.

oh, and 45 flack WILL NOT KILL 65 assailants. equal quantities of flack and assailants (as far as fleet supply), the flack barely win. if nothing is upgraded... add in phase missles and charged missles, and the assailants would win.

Perhaps i did misunderstand you ....... but you are comparing assailants which are tier 1 but they have full phase missile upgrade which is tier 7 (might be 6 not sure here) with ship that is tier 5 and has no weapon upgrades???? That's how I understood you.

Perhaps 1 v 1 ship wise they do do more damage but in game wise i think its more useful to spam some heavies into your fleet.

In my opinion its not just about comparing 1v1 ship statistics. That way you can find all sorts of problems. I bet you cen find one on tec side with LRMs and kodiaks as well. LRMs fully upgraded probably do more damage than kodiaks. They also get buff (think its 40% not sure though) with tec pacts. 

Its the way whole race mechanic works. If it was so easy you would have never seen enforcers and kodiaks in the game. Yes you can see LRM spamming at start but if the game is sort of even teamed sooner or later you will get heavies and carriers into the equation. Also keep in mind multipliers. And (i have chart in front of me) heavies have 5 types of armor with multiplier 100 or higher when LRMs have only 3 types and 2 of those are with 100% damage multiplier. All but one (medium armor) heavies have equal or higher multiplier than LRMs.

Another thing that just slipped into my mind is rate of fire. Don't have stats for that but lrms without upgrade fire very slowly compared to heavies and so are fighters and bombers if you don't put them into a ball. But if you let somebody ball your frigates or capitals????? Well...... If you do upgrade to fire quicker (lol don't know name as well) then there is penalty for turning rate and if ships are not in firing angle they don't fire. Now if they don't fire there is no damage. There is also HP shield and armor difference. 

Now I know you are not talking just about assailants and i know fighters/bombers are for free but once AM is gone so are fighters and bombers and carriers are sort of sitting ducks. It just takes some skill to drain AM from them. So again in my opinion its all about balance of research and fleet composition and phase missiles are part of this balance.

Other than skirantras bomber spam and pacts races are pretty well balanced in my opinion. Each has weaknesses and each has strengths and each has a way its supposed to be played and phase missiles are one of strengths and ways to play for vasari player. 

I know Pbhead that u are great player and more often than not i loose against you but I we seen with my own eyes assailants fleet ripped apart by flak counter and once player that was spamming assailants sees that other guy is spamming flak he usually tries to go for skirmishers to have counter for flak.Why is that? And skirmishers don't have phase missiles. Probably has something to do with the rest of game mechanic not just damage points.

Well ships counts weren't so high but if you go against 30 lrms 20-25 flak is enough to kill them. Again we are talking microing (turning rate ability to fire from all 4 sides etc). And if you are adding research you need to add right research on flak as well. Hull Armor .... area of damage  

You are saying that one assailant does 65 dps. I think your estimates are way wrong.

If it was so if you get 1 assailant at the time against cap ship until you reach same hp level that cap ship has with assailants cap ship would die. Didn't test it and I won't but I think I know the answer.   

phase missles get a bonus of 2.04 (not 2.4) against a tec lv5 capital ship.

now, volt, your wrong, but... you can get those numbers easy if you throw in a missle pact.

45% shield bypass.

ya.

lets see here... against a lv10 advent capital ship, max research in its own culture... vs phase missles with misslepact...

uasually, damage would be reduced to .15 of the dps on the card. (85% mitigation)

426% effective damage boost above unupgraded phase missles.

if i did my math right... by the time you have done 500 damge to the shields... you will have done ~3000 damage to the hull. *pop*

well your wrong. First:

45+65 =110%

45+55=100% (durh)

if you threw 100 missles, 45 hit the hull, 55 hit the shield... not 45/65.

when i said the 500 damage to shield, i believe my calculater said somehing like 533.333,

ok... 30% shield bypass, 85% shield mitigation.

30% of the time (.3) we do damage of 1. 70% of the time, we do damage of .15

we compare this to 100% doing .15...

so... .3*1+.7*.15 = .405 << that is how much damage you do in comparison to the infocard (not including armor modifiers)

*1.2 (for NME warheads) = .486.

we no divide this by non-upgraded damage... (.15) to get 3.24... or 324% base damage.

45% shield bypass, 85% shield mitigation

45% of the time (.45) we do damage of 1. 55% of the time, we do damage of .15...

so... .45+.55*,15 = .5325   *1.2= .639    /.15 = 426% increase in damage (the exact same number i came up with before)

Now, i understand how your getting your incorrect numbers.... 666%*.3*1.2... ya, see that incorrectly multiplies the damage boost of the NME by the unmitigated damage vs mitigated damage.  the correct way, there, would be (6.66*.3+.7)*1.2 = 324%

in the same way... (6.66*.45+.55)*1.2 = 426% damage boost.

Ok... for our ship with 3000 hull and 2400 shields... and...  lets give it some armor... a maxxed out radiance has 12.1 armor... 12 is simple and nice and round.

Now: 1 phase missle does 78 damage.  this is in the raws.

78*1.2 (for NME) = 93.6 damage. but, antimedium gets a .75 multiplier against capital armor.

if that missle hits the shields... it will do 78*1.2 *.75*.15 damage. (after shield mitigation has gone up to max)

10.53 damage to the shield.

now... if that missile bypasses the shields... it will do 78*1.2 *.75*.625   (.625 is how much a weapon does against 12 armor vs 0 armor)  or 43.875 damage the the hull.

Now... if we multiply these by the numbers by the chance of the missle hitting either the shields or hull... we can get an average of what our single phase missle will do.

so: on average one phase missle will do: 10.53*.55 = 5.7915 damage to shields, and 43.875*.45 = 19.74375 damage to hull.

now... if we have 3000 hull to eat through, we divide that by 19.74375 to find out how many phase missles it will take...

151.94.... 152 phase missles. those 152 phase missles will do 880 damage to the shields. (more, actually, due to shield mitigation ramp up)  the ship will have around 1500 shields left.

(yes, that means if you have 150 assailants you will get refrackingdiculously close to 1hk0ing a maxed out lv10 advent capital ship.)

NOW... to find out the damage bonus... we need to figure out how many phase missles it would take to pop that capital ship WITHOUT upgrades...

so... each phase missle now does 78*.75*.15 damage... or 8.775 damage. agaisnt the hull, it does 78*.75*.15*.625... 5.4854 damage. so... 2400 shields/8.775 273 phase missles to drop the shields... 3000/5.4854...547 phase missles to destroy the hull.   820 phase missles.

we now divide this 820 by our 152... and we find that the upgraded phase missles kill the lv10, advent, 12 armor capital ship 5.3948 times faster... or simply, are 539.48% more effective than unupgraded. 

I will now redo the entire calculations... but this time, i will use the ACTUALL hull and shields of the radiance... and i will throw in a single subverter using shield disruption.

a maxxed out radiance (no pacts) has 4381 shields and 3913 hull, and 12.1 armor.

a subverter manages to get close enough to cast disrupt shields.

that radiance, in its own culture now has 75% (65+10(forlevel)+10(forresearchandculture)-10) max shield mitigation, and will have to face 30+15+25=70% phase missle bypass.

78*1.2 *.75*.25 = 17.55 damage per phase missle that hits the shields.

78*1.2 *.75*.6230529595 = 43.7383 damage per phase missle that hits the hull.

on average, each phase missle will do 5.265 damage to shields, and 30.6168 damage to hull.

127.8 phase missles.... 128 assailants to 1hko a maxxed out radiance. it will have slightly less than 3708 shields left when it dies.   (assuming exactly 70% of the phase missiles bypass the shields.)

so:  to prove i am right... who wants to get a lv10 radiance for me to pop? I cant just use volt, cause i need a tec ally to give meh missle pact... and help feed a radiance to lv10.

Now... continuing on... unupgraded phase missles wil ldeal 78*.75*.25 damage to shields... and 78*.75*.25*.623053 damage to hull (14.625, and 9.11215)... to eat through 4381 shields, we need 299.55 phase missles, and 429.4 to breach the hull. 729 phase missles. we divide by our 128, to give a 569.52% increase in the effective damage due to the phase missle upgrades.

without the subverter, it would take 1215 unupgraded phase missles to kill the lv10 radiance.

so... not including regen, repair bays, guardians, shield restore or perseveriance... the difference between those 128 assailants (768 supply) it would take almost 60 seconds for the assailants to kill the radiance, without the subverter, and without the upgrades.... vs instapopping. (due to the cool down of 6 seconds, thats where your 1000% inprovement comes in... (well, slightly less)... actually 949%.

point is... volt... in order to reach the rediculous numbers you a comming up with... I have to add on another modifier you never accounted for.. in this case subverters. (last time it was missle pacts)

THERE ARE NO MORE MODIFIRERS. well, wait, i guess you could have a ceilo using designate target... but thats just reaching even higher levels of rediculous.

So: please! devs! all I am asking in the OP, is to please please please make it take 154 assailants to instapop the lv10 advent capital ship instead of 128! just reduce the modifier of phase missles vs capital ships from .75 to .6... and .5 to .4... its still rediculous! just slightly less so.