General balancing/military doctrine in late game:
TEC: Unrivaled economic power, unrivaled production capabilities.
They can throw more at you than you have in your entire star empire and replace it without concern - and they know it.
Poor shields, but strong hulls and thick armor in combination with average firepower, perfectly suited for wars of attrition.
Advent: Unrivaled Fleet synergy, powerful abilities
The Advent battle ball in full synergy is a frightening sight to behold on the battlefield. Posessing both devastating firepower and deadly synergising abilities it is capable of inflicting terrible losses to the enemy.
Very strong shields, but weak hulls and unimpressive armor. Above average firepower to kill you before you get past their shields.
Vasari: Unrivaled mobility, a very powerful fleet and some of the nastiest abilities in the game.
When it comes to brute power, the Vasari fleet is second only to an Advent Battle Ball in full synergy, without having the heavy reliance on alive support ships.
Descent shields, good hulls and heavy armor. Not as though as TEC but with more firepower to make up for it.
Military power ranking - Late game:
1. Vasari
2. Advent
3. TEC
Economic power rating - late game:
1. TEC
2. Vasari
3. Advent
General Balancing:
TEC VS ADVENT:
Against the might of an Advent Battle Ball in full synergy, TEC has little answer. A loss ratio of 2 for 1 is no uncommon occurence and yet there is hope for the TEC. Advent Economy remains lackluster and as such a war of attrition does rarely end well for the Advent. They may killing you 2 for 1 but they cant afford half your losses in the long term. And a war on multiple frontlines will bring their synergies level back to bearable levels. Although of course, it is little comfort to know you are outproducing them in the long term, while they are ravaging your worlds.
ADVENT VS VASARI:
Although considerable more powerful than the TEC fleet, the Vasari fleet is still inferior to an Advent battle ball in full synergy. And as such, initial losses are quite high, too. But unlikely TEC Vasari have plently of abilities and phase missiles that can and will destroy that synergy quickly. Once it is gone/brought down to low levels the tide of battle turns drastically in unfavour to the Advent. Without its synergy Advent ships are at best equal to TEC ships.... just without the large numbers and without the thick armor. And as such losses are severe for the Advent , which brings up another issue. While the Vasari no doubt will have some heavy losses, too, he actually has the better economy to replace them. Advent will not only be military wise inferior, but they will be outnumbered too. By that time, fleet engagements between Advent and Vasari are more like an execution... with the Advent being the victim. Advent will be limited to Capital ships no higher than Level 4.... while Vasari probably will have more and more surviving higher levels one, further increasing the disadvantage. With Phase missiles at the current power level and advent phase missile block technology being nearly worthless, there is nothing you can do to keep your badly needed capital ships alive for any reasonable amount of time. Even your Titan dies in no time.
TEC VS VASARI:
With TEC being in trouble against an late game Advent fleet, one would expect that this is even more true against an late game Vasari fleet - who happens to be Advents worst nemesis. So it is not without irony, that the primitive technology of the TEC proves to be far more difficult to overwhelm for the Vasari. Phase missiles, the bane of any Advent fleet are far less effective when dealing with large TEC fleets. Thanks to strong hulls and layer over layer of thick stubborn armor it takes considerable more time to destroy them. For Advent, loosing half their capitalships or even Titan within one minute to phase missiles, may mean that half of their offensive power is gone, due to lost synergy effects. For TEC, loosing half your capital ships not only takes considerable longer, but has far less effect negative impact on overall fleet performance. TEC Titans are particulary hard to kill, the Ankylon will just sit through all but the most vicious
of barrages, the Ragnarov might be more vulnerable, but with a bit of support it is durable enough to live for several minutes..... in which it will nail every single Vasari Capital ship foolish enough to be in range. With Hoshikos and Dunovs, TEC can avoid excessive casualties and so in time they will easily outnumber the Vasari, should he not be capable of making a decisive strike somewhere. As Vasari dont have many damaging area of effect abilities... sooner or later the TEC will just steamroll them.
Argonevs are far better than a Transcenia in protecting your backward planets from Kostura jumps... as BRB can threaten a Vasari Capital fleet far worse than Meteor storm, because Meteor Storm needs a while to kill capital ships.... the starbase might not live that long. Of course, better eco helps too. Finally, using the Novalith unlike the DE, will at least distract your enemy... all time in which he cannot think about where to phase jump in next.
TEC VS ADVENT and TEC VS VASARI is mostly at least reasonable balanced.... however ADVENT VS VASARI is heavy in favour of the Vasari.
Vasari have the SECOND BEST ECONOMY and the BEST MILITARY
Advent have the WORST ECONOMY and the SECOND BEST MILITARY.
That is the problem... simple said.
Possible - general - solutions:
Make Advent military more powerful
DISADVANTAGE: Advent are already ruthless against TEC.... buffing them further and we will have no TEC players anymore.
Make Advent economy better
DISADVANTAGE: With eco closer to the Vasari, Advent can have larger fleets.... again bringing TEC in deep trouble whos only help against Advent is considerable numerical superiority.
NERF the Vasari
The Vasari have just a few to many to nasty toys to play arround. That most of those toys are especially deadly against Advent doesnt help matters, either. Generaly, besides fixing the holy OP Disruptor Nanites the Orkulus could use a speed reduction by 50 %. It would still be moving but you would have a better change of running from it, or to catch the phase jump capable version of it, preferably before he kills every orbital structure from the frontline back to my capital. Ohh, and please NERF the phase jumping starbase.... HARD. Dont bother with a further damage reduction..... unless it is a huge and long reduction.... it wont make a difference. The main problem of the Rebel Orky is the incredible durability.... 35 armor...... thats WAY to much... not to mention all those hullpoints. So... for a phase jump it needs to be lighter.... please remove the last 2 armor upgrades too in combination with the speed reduction.
Dont get me wrong, I have no problem that for Advent it is more difficult to defeat Vasari instead of TEC.... I am quite fine with that, its fits the lore of the high technology level of the Vasari. I however do have a problem with a Vasari being vastly superior to Advent in about every important field, once the late game has been reached. As Advent, you BARELY can hold the line against an attacking Vasari... attacking him is out of the question.... your losses are many times to high at the moment.
BUFF Advent in a way that does only help against Vasari:
The developer did realize that phase missiles are just way to mean against Advent and so they introduced a phase missile block a while ago. The problem is..... it to weak. It doesnt make much of a difference at all. And this is under total cultural domination.... if you attack the Vasari, he will have 6 % damage increase = 6 % phase missile damages increase and you will have nothing. Unless you spent a huge amount of money in the worthless culture upgrade and built a Deliverance engine..... at which you still only have a marginal block.
Buffing the phase missile block ability of Advent does not affect TEC VS ADVENT balancing. So this is a very elegant solution.
Reasonable block levels imho: (Maximum research done)
Advent Loyalists: (still need love)
Within own culture: 100 phase missiles.... 95 impact shields.... 5 impacts hull directly, 95 % block.
Within hostile culture: 100 phase missiles.... 90 impact shields.... 10 impact hull directly... 90 % block.
Advent Rebels: (have awesome Eradica... slightly lower)
Within own culture: 100 phase missiles.... 90 impact shields.... 10 impacts hull directly, 90 % block.
Within hostile culture: 100 phase missiles.... 85 impact shields.... 10 impact hull directly... 85 % block.
Before the Vasari Lovers out there scream in agony, please consider that right now 30 from 100 phase missiles bypass shields. And that is way to powerful.
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
Any changes to wail or the Eradica should be VERY carefully considered. The Advent Rebels are and always have been in a very odd position balance wise- Wail and the Eradica are a bit OP without a doubt- But here's the thing: they are also the only reason the Advent Rebels are competitive.
When it comes down to it, under the surface the Advent Rebels suffer from pretty much all the same issues that have made the advent loyals underpowered. The chief differences has really been that the Advent Rebels have two absolute bombs(Wail & the Eradica) that more or less cover up their deficiencies. Frankly if these two tools were actually perfectly balanced the Advent Rebels would not be competitive.
All that said as I've said before I'm not principally against nerfing Eradica/Wail- No faction should be left leaning on a crutch forever. But nerfs to these things should be handled with a light touch and ideally be accompanied by buffs to the less powerful advent rebel techs.
What it really comes down to is while they possess somewhat OP tools, the faction overall isn't really OP. Changes should focus on spreading out and redistributing their strength so that they don't need those OP tools to be competitive(of course accompanied by reasonable nerfs to those tools)- they should not be focused only on said nerfs.
The Advent suffer from many weaknesses, but that they have NO ANSWER to phase missiles is by far the worst. This does effect the overall game play hard: And that FORCES the Advent to go MASS BOMBER SPAM ONLY. Because they really have no other reasonable option:
ILLUMINATOR VESSEL - nice against light ships.... but once the big guys start playing they loosing their usefullnes.... perhaps a slight buff is in order? I realize they were once very powerful... but that is long ago... and was in a game without Titans. What about a general range increase for example?
- excellent coverage
- poor focus fire...... incapable of dealing with hard targets
- not enough range to be save from BRB.....
- without any change against even a mildly upgraded Orkulus Starbase
- require large packs.... to have enough focus firepower.... for that to expensive in terms of not builded carriers.
DESTRA CRUSADER - are worthless to build against an human opponent.
- against TEC Starbases.... BRB.... BOOM.... all your Destras die....
- against Vasari Starbase.... it has PHASE missiles.... the Destra is a durable ship.... but much of that durability comes from the shield..... entire fleet lost..... and starbase destroyed... if you are lucky....
SOLANUS ADJUCATOR - to slow, to expensive and far to little firepower to deal with a upgraded orkolus before it kills them
I think that the Vasari need to be nerfed in some areas. I played my 5th EVER MP game with Vasari a few days ago..... and I survived against a player with Advent who had 2 times the fleet and was a considerable more skilled...... I am a descent Advent player an so I knew all their weakness and exploited them merciless...... I have played 60 games... he had played 150.... he should have crushed me.... instead he was having serious trouble getting past my border. Add Kostura cannon and he died in the end.
It was fun stripping his capital...mind you.... but I think we all agree, this should not happen that way normally.
Advent need some serious help against Vasari Late game.... once they have gotten that.... we can talk about changes to Wail and the Eradica. Because right now those are the only 2 things that keep Advent alive.
