Racial Balance

Tier 0 spam, tier zero spam, and more tier zero spam.  I was able to defeat Kzm and ilihc with pure unit spam and good fleet coordination.  I pressed KZM and took out all his constructors and frigate factories with my scouts and disciples (my halcyon was destroying his ice planet...he went eco against me!), and when he spammed lrms i moved disciples out but still had scouts in the grav well.  Right when i had Kzm on the ropes ilihc came in with 3 vasari carriers and took out my roid and proceeded to my HW.  I did as much damage to Kzm as i could and then i recalled my fleet to defend.  I pursued his capitals relentlessly.  He did a decent job of avoiding my fleet, but I was able to kill one of his  carriers in his retreat.  I had been able to slowly build an illuminator force to deal with anything KZM was going to throw at me in the short term, and I kept fighting until I had regained my asteroid.  My fleet had sustained few losses, while having thinned both enemy fleets out substantially.  They were able to take out my halcyon, as KZM almost had it killed but the ilihc's bombers finished off its last 10 hp.  It was a brutal fight, but this will show you what the power of the tier zero spam has in store for advent.  It is very strong!  If you can build illums, do so, as your fleet will be much more effective.  Researching the disciple antimatter leech upgrade will help you neutralize pesky capital ships, and any hoshikos that may be built.  Just remember, every second you aren't spamming tier zero or illums might mean that you will lose.  If you EVER notice your fleet starts to take some losses you should retreat it, as you won't be able to beat a war of attrition with the TEC.  If you can avoid getting your fleet thinned, you will win.

Tier zero spam requires constant pressure, if you give the enemy time to recuperate and tech up, you might lose.  I would go so far as to say that advent tier zero is a bit overpowered, but then, it is the only real option for advent in the early game.  Developers need to expand the early game (with corvettes, I assume) and then think about reducing the power of this spam slightly.

We probably just need a small buff for Illuminators.

Agreed here. They were nerfed hard due to their bug. then when the bug was removed they were nerfed even harder. They have the shortest range of all the LRFs plus the lowest damage period. They need help.

Perhaps iluminators just need ability that can select where weapons fire all banks or all damage from forward banks (if that is possible at all)

Nope

Illums still have the advantage when matching LF and LRM fleets.  I would say a small buff to their side cannon's damage output would be all that is needed.  I like that illums are different from other lrms, they aren't as effective as a focus fire LRM. With a side beam damage buff they would instead be more effective at their "zone of destruction" that they make.  They still tear TEC LRMS to bits without the buff, and do quite well against kanraks as well.  They don't have as much use as the other species individually, but for fleet cohesion they work well in providing that extra punch to support advent tier zero spam.

I wouldn't be against buffing illums but it needs to be contingent on other things happening...

First of, seeker vessels need to be seriously nerfed...the total HP of a seeker vessel needs to be comparable to that of an arcova...

Only after that would I consider then buffing illuminators...there are several possibilities though the most crippling issue with illuminators is their inability to focus fire on caps/SBs...increasing only the frontal damage or shifting some side damage to the front may help this somewhat, though that seriously changes the intent of designing a ship with sidebeams...

Something needs to be done with illuminators certainly.  I loathe using tier 0 spam but I find myself using it a lot.  It needs small damage buff at least.  If further nerfing of advent scout is to be done(which I do not currently suggest), then buffing the advent scout ability martyr needs to be done.  TEC timed explosives has its uses and vasari neutral grabbing definitely does.  Martyr sucks terribly as is.  Tier 0 spam happens because it is the most effective thing to do early game.  If there were better alternatives then they would be done.  As has been mentioned, illums sucks against SB or caps(SB being the one that makes a bigger difference).  There are very few options to counter a defensive vasari SB for advent considering phasic trap is still needing adjusting.  Starfish are terrible still.  They need to be able to use their 5 weapons all against 1 target or at least more than 1 so that they are at all useful against a starbase.  As is, they get killed before they do much of anything.  They are not effective in doing what they are intended to do unlike ogrovs which do a good job at killing SB or any structure.

[_]-Greyfox

Overall, if LRFs were not as powerful and seekers were nerfed and illums were slightly better, I think Advent would be fine early game...they have best LFs, fighters, flak, carriers, and decent early game weapon techs...that they are crutched because of one poor ship goes to show just how dominant LRFs are...

In my 2000(?)+ games against human opponents, I don't think that I have ever seen anyone use the Martyr ability in a game.  I've never even heard of it happening.

The biggest problem with martyrdom is the stacking limit...if that was removed, then multiple seekers could do damage within a short period of time...

The other issue is the AI use time...currently it only autocasts when the scout ship is at 50% hull...if this condition were removed (technically, set to zero percent damage), that would go to great lengths...

With those two changes, all you need to do is select all your seekers, right click martyrdom to set it to autocast, and then give a move order on an enemy target...they will all hurl themselves at the ship and do a lot of damage very quickly...

Of course, the real strength of this ability lies in how useful the seeker is to begin with...currently it is very important for the Advent's tier 0 spam...the irony is that by the time you have 3 labs to research martyrdom, you'll want to have illums instead of seekers...