Though you claim Advent are beatable if played poorly- and only by TEC!-  this can't be your concept of balance?  Balance might be achieved when talented players can meet each other on equal terms with any faction?

From the original thread it seemed that Illuminators had about a +25% dps due to the bug rather than the +200% dps your someone mentioned.  Though its possible that I am mistaken, about +25% dps is how I experience them in the game, producing the impression that Illuminators also need a nerf, as was widely expected before the balance patch.  Otherwise we will just return to the previous levels of imbalance with Illuminators. 

Raging it would be great if you could produce a replay of you defeating a recognised player 1v1 TEC vs Advent.  Flak can defend against Illuminators to an extent, but they can't kill caps or make much progress against repair...?  Also with 1v1 only having phase inhibitors at tier 4 can hurt, and your trade routes are very chancy.  TEC might have tier 2 trade but culture is needed against Advent, so the advantage is moot... culture might even allow more return for less early investment? 

Normal start offers more time even against the seeker/disciple rush, time to anticipate it and set up defences.... with a cap factory and extractors having to be built thats about 9 seekers less from the start..plus a slower rate of building?  Also the far deadlier 2 cap rush variants are hindered.  The more information available to the defending player, the easier a rush is to counter.

If you make the Seeker like the TEC scout it doesn't help improve variation among the factions.  I'd opt for large buffs to the Skirmisher and Enforcer of about 33% health and dps, with the Skirmisher at 6 supply, and a minor buff to TEC by reducing the Cobalt supply to 4.  Then the weakness of the Jikara in combat might be compensated by the strength of the Skirmisher.  Also, I've long asked that hangars and turrets should be more cost-effective- once these can be afforded in larger numbers there would be far less of a problem with early rushes.

A more radical solution might be to allow Jikaras to also function as constructor vessels... or an upgrade to Vasari turrets that allowed them to roam the gravwell..?  And also... Free the Returning Dark Fleet!

When did I say Advent is balanced?  I totally agree their overpowered currently.  My point is that they are not absurdly overpowered.  It's only when all their strengths are taken together by an experienced player (or conversely, one of their strengths isn't countered properly by an inexperienced player) that there's a problem.  Once scouts are a little less durable, the illum damage bug is dealt with, and repulse is somehow brought into line, I don't think there will be a major outstanding issue with Advent.

So?  The Advent also has more time to size you up and counter you.  Even on quick-start, you usually know when you hit the Advent homeworld what's coming.  Two hostility labs almost certainly means illums soon or now.  No labs or civic labs means disciple/seeker and possibly illums later.  It's more predictable than TEC where two military labs could mean LRM's, or perhaps flaks, or it also could be a fast-tech to hoshikos or carriers.

Double-edged; Advent's 2-cap rush is pretty strong, but Advent is also the most vulnerable faction to 2-cap rushes IMO, so I think there's zero net advantage here.

Funny, I thought of that a while back myself, being based on the fact that their starbases can move.

The current Vasari turret upgrade is by far the most powerful of the lot.  They'd actually be TOO strong if they could move on top of that.  That ability is good enough that I'd happily accept it as a capital ship ability.

A cost decrease of turrets in general might not be a bad idea, though this would probably necessitate some sort of nerf to the solo colony-frigate strategy.

To add some sanity to this post, althought noone will probably read it....

EMP charge is AOE, and it WILL hit guardians. You basically have to target an illum that is near the guardian/s since the illums will always be infront of guardians it shouldnt be a problem.

disciples have a decided advantage over cobalts?? hardly. 3 more damage for 1 more ship slot, cobalts and tougher and more expensive, its really apples to oranges. If the arguement is about spammability, I would agree that disciples are much more spammable, but cobalts get weapon armor and health at T1. without crunching the numbers I'll just leave you with that chunk of wisdom.

in a 1v1 of all game sizes I would say repulse is the least effective. In that situation their are so many more opportunities to choose your fights, split your fleets, and attack on many fronts. Also, unless they have alot of AM upgrades, making him chase you for a few jumps will suck those guardians dry. It should be your duty to make it extremely difficult for someone to abuse repulse on you.

It pains me to see how easy it is for everyone to hop on a bandwagon about how overpowered Advent is without considering strategy to be the best counter you could ask for.

on a side note: I think the so called damage bug on illums is a result of jj's excel estimated results of a fight between an illum and a assailant. And since I have not seen the data myself and no dev has come forward, I am personally declaring it as a rumor. Unless anyone has proof for me????

The advent scout is mathematically "overpowered" but this is much more a problem for vasari than for TEC or the advent mirror match since assailants are so expensive and the vasari fleet is pretty reliant on them. I am kind of on the fence about whether or not they should be tweaked.

And there you have it....

~Krath

same here

nah dun use dunovs , use cobalts and research their sabotage reactor . a pack of cobalts wit that thing on is something any advent players aware of oh well wit many ppl dun know how to play tec and unleash their true strength no wonder

well mish, looks like many ppl OVERESTIMATING advents and UNDERESTIMATING tecs eh?

TEC does have more chances against Advent when Advent ignore Guardians, and refrain from building Illuminators or repair until the TEC has Kodiaks, as if Illuminators and repair were Tier 5.. or from building phase inhibitors at all.  It also helps if they squander caps by advancing them solo into entire fleets... I'd still like to see a replay of a TEC player defeating an equally talented Advent.

Repulse outranges both sabotage reactor and EMP, and bugged Illuminators destroy both Cobalts and caps, especially weaker ones.  Repulse even outranges EMP including the area effect at the lower levels, though as the Dunov no longer has to turn to face the enemy to use it, level 5 EMP can theoretically affect a Guardian by casting it on a closer Illuminator.  I suppose TEC should just make more effort.  Have you managed this feat?

Disciples get weapons, shields and health at tier 1?  I realise that Advent don't often feel the need to research upgrades, but they are there, honest- feel any wiser?  I suppose it being Advent, it was inevitable that there should be an 'Illuminator bug denier'!  The bug was confirmed by the developers in JJ's thread. 

Superior numbers win fights because of fire mechanics.   The Disciple has superior numbers.. because they are more spammable.  7 Disciples to 4 Skirmishers (supply) is laughable, thats 56dps to 40, and when each side loses a ship its 48dps to 30dps.  Cobalts fare better, but Disciples still have an advantage.  

1v1 is usually a choke game on a restricted front..?  Any decent 1v1 Advent has phase inhibitors before Guardians, why would they chase? 

Advent needed a nerf in the balance patch and got a huge boost, thats why the game has degenerated as it has.  Seeker/Disciple spam by itself might not be enough of an advantage to defeat TEC, but with Illuminators Advent can defeat both rivals easily.  

Advent don't have armour upgrades.  Armour upgrades are by far the best type of upgrade, and it's one of TEC's primary advantages that they get those upgrades early in the tech tree.  The fact that they have to wait for 6 labs to even touch armour is actually one of the biggest weaknesses of the Advent faction.

Advent received hardly any buffs in the patch.  Most were universal changes that affected all factions.  It's more that the universal buff to light frigates and carrier capital ships helped them out since they already had the strongest units in these classes to begin with.  However, everyone got these buffs, so they were hardly Advent-specific.

How is it possible to believe that the Illuminator got a 3x damage boost on its forward beams- in a patch that was supposed to boost everyones light frigates- and still deny that Advent got a huge advantage from v1.041??

You may have to explain further, but as shield takes damage first, don't the shield regeneration bonuses mean that shield upgrades are the best sort of upgrade?  Armour is just improved defence, without any improved regeneration?

However, Advent are hindered by their later armour techs, though its more of a mid-game effect when TEC have shield and Vasari armour.  If the Illuminators are debugged and then nerfed, then Advent might have to be more cautious at the beginning.  Repulse would still be a problem... perhaps limiting the range would be a solution, nerf it to 3000 with a restricted cone and no cap effect and the Guardian would take more skill to use. 

A Seeker nerf doesn't seem any solution, as a slight dps nerf wouldn't achieve much... with side beams Illuminators will always be by far the strongest LRF against scouts, and even if the Seeker dps was lowered they would still be more effective against other LRF than enemy scouts were against Illuminators.

Why have Advent got the best flak...?  All the Advent frigate types just seem to be the most effective?  Still, at least this means that a general decrease in the cost of all factions early defensive structures would hurt Advent most... as long as the dps of their frigates wasn't also mysteriously tripled- or +25%...!! 

Advent just have hidden strengths that aren't used any more because they aren't needed, like Animosity to draw fire from Guardians.  The faction has to be nerfed just so that it is played to its advantages, so that it can even start to be balanced.

Can't you and Raging play a series of 1v1s Advent vs other- and provide replays to demonstrate your points? You're both effective communicators and very experienced players, and it might do much good?    

While I could be wrong, I believe the Illuminator bug was present before 1.041. Its just that it was proven to exist in the current version.

Read up on the thread about armor values, they really are extremely useful. Shield Mitigation is better, but only the advent in friendly culture can get a bonus to this. Shield regeneration is really only an average upgrade.

Most people's complaint about the seeker is the amount of health it has, not really the DPS. Of course by surviving longer that does mean each seeker can dish out more damage.

This is the Illuminator bug thread, it is stated that the higher damage is because of a change in damage type introduced during 1.04:https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/367162/

However JJ was testing the Illuminators because he believed that the previous versions were too strong, this was how he identified the bug.   Even if the obscure Kodiak change has had any effect, it can hardly have altered the Illuminator combat with Enforcers.  Many players expressed doubts when the devs failed to implement an Illuminator nerf, the optimism was due to the carrier caps and light frigates being improved.

From the armour thread, each point of armour is about 5% damage negated, in effect a 5% boost to both shield and health- because of the shield being some sort of projection of the armour?  However one tec doesn't equal one extra point of armour.. two shield tecs would get you +10% shield and regeneration, two TEC armour tecs would get you +7.5% shield+health, two health tecs +10% health and regeneration....?  Once you realise that it doesn't just affect health, armour does have an edge- but no more than that? 

Seekers 400 health 425 shield 3 damage, scouts 450 health 175 shield 3 damage, Jikaras 425 health 225 shield 4 damage (3 supply).... so for 12 supply Seekers 4950 shield/health 18 damage scouts 3750 shield/health 18 damage Jikaras 2600 shield/health 16 damage... So of all the Advent frigates that are the best unit of their type, seekers are the bestest? At 80% of their current shields/health they would still be the best scouts- and Jikaras could use a 25% boost just to remain the weakest, but not as off the scale?       

Mitigation is much better than a % in hp just like darvin says.

Armor also has an advantage with regeneration abilities. For example, lets say you have a repair bay that heals 20 hull per second, and you can research 1 point in armor or 5% increase in hull & hull regeneration. Assuming the ship has no shields, both will increase the damage the ship can take by about 5%. However, the increase in hull points means it will takes the repair bay longer to full repair the ship. Armor on the other hand doesn't change the hull values, so you basically get a 5% increase to all artificial regeneration abilities as well. This means the repair bay is restoring the equivelent of 21 hull/sec of the unupgraded ships hull. This is especially important for the TEC as their robotics cruisers allow them to restore hull points pretty much anywhere and more often than the other races, but the Vasari and advent get the benifit from this as well.

Advent doesn't get a mitigation bonus until they max out the shield upgrade line, which rarely if ever happens.  Regular shield upgrades are arguably the worst of the three "longevity" upgrades.  Armour and hull are definitely both superior.  The reason is that hull gets damage reduction from both armour and mitigation, while shield gets only mitigation.  Combined with the fact that Advent is the only faction that has a reliable way to "heal" shields, this makes it pointless to focus on anything other than hull as TEC or Vasari.  I virtually never research shield ugprades as TEC or Vasari, and as Advent I only get them to unlock guardians and the shield mitigation upgrades at the end of their tech tree.

- the dunovs awesome 750 instant shield regen   and i was talkin bout the armor miti too not the shield.

Okay, Dunov can restore shields but in practice that will only ever be used on capital ships.

Thank you darvin, I couldnt have said it better myself.

Armor > all

one important thing to consider when theory crafting the strength of units is that 1 point of shield is NOT comparable to 1 point of hull, hull points are more valuable even for advent, but especially for TEC. Reason being, as Darvin said, because of double mitigation. I'll get bored and do the numbers to factor the correct absolute values of these ships, and T1 TEC upgrades, I suspect that will tell a very different story.

Ran into these much-hated advent scumbags again last night.  Yeah, I totally understand why TEC exiled these FREAKS.

One late game advent was beating 3 maxed-out late game TEC fleets at once, all a the same time.  His battleball was in the center, he had tons of illums and guardians and bombers and capships.  All 3 TEC fleets were being pushed away by repulse and beaten at the same time, even though they outnumbered him 3 to 1.  He was killing their capships and leveling his own like crazy.  The remants of the 3 TEC fleets finally had to break off and run away.  The advent started taking planets, and there was nothing my teammates could do except hunker down.

I was in eco position as vasari.  I fleeted up and tech'ed subverters.  Also built 4 kostura cannons.  Took what little fleet I had along with my subverters and made my way down to where the lone rampaging advent player was killing us.  I jumped into the grav well he was assaulting, and manually cast each subverter onto his damn guardians.  Just as I had shut him down, all 4 kostura strikes arrived back to back.

In the immortal words of one of my subverters, it was...

LIGHTS OUT!!

Fighters that block out the sun. Gaurdians, Bombers, and Illums cant touch them.

That's what Halcyon is for...

only thing possible would have been to get 3-4 lvl 6 marzas. he cannot counter so many missile barrages at once!

Well, he would have gotten at least one Radiance in the meantime, probably more as the threat accumulated.  There's no way out, Advent is a tight military package and the only unit in the whole game that throws them for a loop is the subverter.

The problem with useing Subverters to counter Advent is that they fully come together at 6 military labs while the advent have about all they need at 4 or 5.

Yup.  Another problem is that subs are exceedingly frail.  I mean, 2 passes of a fighter and the sub is toast.  Yet another problem is the extreme level of micromanagement you have to use with them.  Honestly, I can't use them correctly.  I don't think anyone can.  When they work, like they did with me this particular game, it's luck.

The typical late game Vasari fleet has 2 Kortuls with jam weapons (meaning you have permanent coverage against fighters and bombers), about 4 or 5 Skirantras spamming repair cloud (nothing dies), about 20 or 30 subverters to bring down the bulk of the Advent fleet, and then is filled out with whatever damage dealers you deem most appropriate.