Novalith Cannon Feedback and Bugs

Its a half hour.

Just got done playing a 10minute speed x8 game against the TEC loyalist with me being Advent loyalist. Once I had half my own system colonized all I hear is "An ominous force has disrupted the balance of the galaxy" I counted about 4 of them. The Novalith's one-shotted my planets and and didn't even bring anything in the gravity-well under 95% HP.

I know you said don't make this a "nerf the nova" thread, but it is WAY to powerful as it is. I tested this against my roommate over LAN and within 20 minutes he won due to the cannons, these things just hurt WAY to much.

80 minutes in more than enough time to get novaliths. And you can keep them from destroying your planet with the axillary government upgrade on your starbases. The AI is just a bit too fond of them at the moment...

Just had a thought: shouldn't novalith's duration scale down based on the game's resource speed? As it is in faster speeds it actually causes greater economic damage then in slower speeds(more resources lost).  Considering that the cost of researching and building a novalith is constant this seems like an oversight.

True, but having a starbase at every one of my planets beats my economy into the ground. And It was a 10 minute game against the AI and a 20 minute one against my roommate, I mean if they really wanna keep the Novalith's like this then they should buff the Deliverance Engines to where it drops a planets allegiance to 5-10% per shot or just go for gold and fully allows you control over it.

Well it works on a percentage penalty, the -40% trade income is reducing fewer resources on the slower game.

At 8x speed thats a pretty big handicap on yourself against the AI, they can issue orders much faster than you. The Deliverance engine has always been the worst super weapon, and its a bit better in Rebellion as culture is militarily more significant for the Advent, but I really don't see that happening. The Novalith might get a duration or damage nerf, but that's about it. But lets not hijack this thread any further.

That's exactly my point.  Because it's percentage based for a static number of resources spent to build the cannon in all speeds it can cause the opponent to lose more credits in one speed setting then another.  The result is that the Novalith "pays back" it's cost in economic damage to the enemy faster inthe faster game settings then in the slower ones, leaving the opponent a smaller window of opportunity to destroy it before it's a net gain for the TEC player.

Just irks me a bit that in 'faster' economic settings a single shot to a terran world costs the enemy 7137 credits in tax income over 30 minutes, which is more then a TEC loyalist pays for the damn thing(and that doesn't even take into account the trade penalty which will probably bump it over 8000).  Whereas in the lower speeds the cannon has to fire twice before it's a net gain for the TEC player's economy relative to the opponent's.  That's an extra 6 minutes during which the opponent may blow up the cannon.

Just a thought- I stumble upon a number of things which I think should/shouldn't be changed by game speed settings.

Dude even I am fond of them at the moment. If I have the chance I build at least 3 of them, I love going eco so I do this strategy where I go eco like normal provide my partners, and invest towards teching for novalith dereg. You can also opt to turtle up for if you start to build novaliths the enemy tends to like to bline it to you if they have the proper positioning. Then you place 3 novaliths, in the eco position this is actually very easy to do. hitting the economy of multiple planets is just amazing.

God I love the Novalith Cannon<3333333

All bias aside because I used to be on the other end. The Debuff timer needs a nerf, 2 minutes of lack of trade/growth seems reasonable to me. And after that, hardened cities needs a buff. And the Vasari actually have multiple indirect ways of countering the Novalith such as Fortification specialist and that one upgrade that increase planet growth by 40% I believe, they may not be able to mitigate the damage(I don't think they have a planetary defense) but they have the easiest time settling back in.. The TEC have the best method of mitigating its damage from planetary shield.

Actually as a Vasari player myself in Diplomacy shooting at my planet with a nova is a very bad idea, because you'll just piss me off lategame wich will lead to me hotdropping some carriers with marauder in your novalith systems. In short i think Vasari can very counter Novas in many ways.

Advent seems to have the hardest time against Novas since they can't really do something against the cannons other than building SB's just to get planet insurance and go offensive.

I Also agree that the Deliverance Engine needs some buffs it's effect in culture is considerable weak and can be completly negated if you build more than 1 Broadcast center since the warheads don't stack.

I just thought that a vasari player can Kostura the planet and drop some of his fleet in there to kill his novalith. And phase jump out the same way.

Together with the new culture buffs a delivarence hit is quite strong combined with a fleet attacking. It doesn't just bring your those buffs and the 25% damage increase, it also takes away any culture advantage the enemy had at that planet. TEC loyalitst can deal with this a bit better than other factions, thanks to the nature of their new reseearches. But in my little experimenting I found that TEC rebels fall like flies to it, and Vasari will probably be similar (although I admit, I needed more than 1 super in order to keep the pressure up).

I don't bother building novas when playing versus my friends. We all use aux gov, in order to be effective you'd have to spam large numbers of them for any useful effect. When trying to push back an enemy both the Vasari and the Avent superweapon are better... unless you manage to hit a planet or asteoid that has not been fortified yet.

Read my post above^^

Its gimicky but its efficient and works for me.

I read it. I still don't use it. In the time I invest to watch that gun shoot enemy planets I could have gone and eradicated them myself.

Except when it doesn't, and that's the greatest weakness of the thing. Sufficient local culture generation completely negates this aspect of it.

Since unlike the other two it's at its strongest when firing where your fleet is, you're probably going to be hitting border worlds more often then back end worlds with it, and a decent culture game there prevents it from working effectively.

It's unquestionably the weakest of the three Superweapons.

Like I said this is if I am in eco position, I am protected by my team mates, and you can feed them while investing in the novaliths.

After reading the replies I ask everyone this.

Should an advanced researched super weapon based on culture be hampered by an itty-bitty building that needs very little research?

Comparing the Deliverance Engine to the Novalith Cannon and the Kostura Cannon, both cannons are immensely more powerful then the Engine. Even with the Kostura's limited in-system shots all you have to do is colonize one planet and pour your fleet into whatever enemy planet you shoot. Along with the disabling effect of the shot the Vasari could dominate the game, that's if the TEC don't build Nova's and one-shot the Vasari planets from another system of course

Now we come to the Deliverance Engine. This weapon is wonderful if you build 5+ of them and set them on manual fire, and you're willing to park your fleet in neighboring planetoids while you wait for your target to get hit. But to be hampered by a simple broadcast center is a bit bleh as opposed to the other 2 where there is no way to counter it.

The same could be said of the Sova's embargo or anything else that does that. Sure its draining more absolute resources but your total resource rate is also higher. As a percentage of your total income its draining the same.

That's exactly my thoughts bloodmoon8989. There's no real counter to the Novalith's economic effect at all and the non TEC counter to losing your planets isn't cheap (Starbases). The Kostura seems to have no particular defense at all. The Deliverance Engine's effects are almost entirely stopped by a couple of broadcast centers.

IMO it should disable local culture generation on top of applying yours. That would bring it more in line because the planet you target wouldn't be able to negate it so easily.

You do have one counter. Scuttle the planet!

I posted that already, see my post above.;) Actually as a tip a marauder with that hotdrop is usually a good addition because it pretty much guarantees a save retreat (stabilize phase space and inhibitor negation).

To the Nova in late you almost always build SB's as Vasari personally I think it's the best of the 3 SB's since it can move and assist any fight with it's massive guns going Aux Gov is almost always worth the investment even if no Nova spam occurs.

You can counter Novas to an extend with Aux Gov upgrades it just comes at high cost.

The Kostura is the only one  you can't counter and in my opinion it's by far the most powerful of the 3. I'm not sure but i think you can actually fire it to other solar systems just phase stabilizer jumps only work between nodes in the same system.

The problem with the Advent weapon is that it only works with a fleet to assist an assault for everything else it's pretty much useless.

Now back to the Nova since this thread was supposed to be Nova feedback.

Regarding the strength of the other super weapons how long do you think the debuff should last or changed to bring it in line with the other 2 or should it be changed at all?

As i stated above right now the Nova is not that op but thats considering the bug that the trade debuff isn't working at all at least it had no effect in my games (checked trade income /sek on all planets affected by the debuff still got the same amount). But i think that a 30 Minute debuff is to long especially with a -100% Trade component since the Nova has a 6 minute cooldown would be op.

Edit: i need to change something just found out the debuff is working  in the game i'm currently playing and it reduces the trade income of the planet by half. Still 30 minutes seems pretty long for me a bit too long.