Buffing the Advent

Well I'm hardly an expert as I'm just getting back into the flow of Sins from a bit of a hiatus. But it seems like the greatest deterrent to playing them is how slow the Advent are to start up. I remember the Illuminators being pretty badass, but since they got nerfed I haven't seen a whole lot of love for them throughout the forums.

I guess for the Advent to see any real play time, there early game is going to have to get some tweaks/buff done to it. The Advent seem to hit their stride in the late-game.

It will be interesting to see how much culture will changed, for as you said, in the Q&A they did discuss buffing it in some way.

Edit: Not to be a forum nazi since I'm new, but it would seem that this topic is in a odd place in Sins Diplomacy... but I could be wrong and I certainly don't mean any offense. I think this is a good topic and would like to see it get a lot of good discussion.

@Whisker_Fish:

You're not being a forum nazi -- you're just being helpful and trying to follow the forum rules, for which I give you karma.

That said: I didn't see any OTHER place to post this discussion -- it's not TECHNICALLY a suggestion for Rebellion, it's more like a discussion designed to reach a consensus on what suggestions to make.

Regarding the slow economy: I agree.

Call me crazy, but am I the only one who thinks that the Advent's T1 research, 'Knowledge Aggregation' (which improves research speed) should ALSO improve research cost?

I mean, it's T1 and it's cheap, but getting it at T1 isn't worth it because you don't have the economy to back it up (in other words, your income is insufficient to support such rapid research).

Consequently: if it reduced research costs by 5/10/15% (or even 10/20/30%, to keep pace with the speed upgrade), it could be considered a down payment on all future research, making it easier for the Advent to acquire their economic start.

This change alone could speed things up immensely for the Advent. What say you?

I've actually noticed the Advent perform noticeable better (though still the weakest) in mods like my Expanded 4X Mod where culture was buffed enough to make it useful. That way their early culture is a worthwhile economic investment that tends to kick in right where they would be the weakest (when everyone is starting to build tier 2-3 fleets). It can also be used to make teching up to Desdras or hitting a critical mass of carriers earlier.

Sadly since the buff seems to only be for the Advent I doubt that it will be sufficient enough to make it. One more bonus for them is not going to make it worthwhile if the basic mechanic is worthless, unless its totally overpowered like invincible ships.

I basically did this for a new race in a different mod. Its certainly worth while to get right away but I doubt it will make a big difference unless its substantial bonus that would unbalance the game later on. As mentioned the Advent do not need much help late game, its the mid game that they need help with.

I was just thinking, why is it the Advent have to wait the longest for their LR Frigate at this point? From what I've read over the forums, it seems like that once the Illuminator got nerfed/fixed (As I understand it, it was doing something it wasn't suppose too, like counting all three beams as one forward or something, feel free to correct me on this) the Advent just lost their luster. Is there a way to buff the Illuminator so that the wait is worth it? Or on the other hand, if it isn't that much more better than the other LR Frigates, how about just move it down a tech level. (Never really understood why you would want beams firing three directions instead of one... I mean if your surrounded, don't think the three beams are really going to help at that point.)

Come to think of it, if there was ever case to be passive-aggressive, or at least being defensive.. it seems like this would be the race that needs to do it. Perhaps finding ways to allow them to survive longer, perhaps buffing their Starbase in some way?

I always felt it would be nice if the Illuminator's side lenses were actually free-floating drones (Anima-controlled, of course, for those loremasters out there) which could be toggled between fixed forward mode and free-aim mode (allowing them to hover around the ship and spit beams at whatever target they liked. Not only would this be useful, but it also opens the door to add a third or even a fourth beam drone at later research tiers.

THAT would kick the Illuminator up a notch!

What say you?

The strong illuminator just masked the Advent's real weakness during the mid game, just as the strong Skinatra and quick start currently masks the Vasari's weak early game. You could make them better by buffing it, but I would prefer a more creative solution. I don't find it a good thing that every race's military strategy is basically the same until late game. The Advent already have the best light frigate, scout, flak frigate and probably heavy cruiser and carrier cruiser. I fear making that even making the illuminator as good as the LRM or assailant would be too much.

Goa you hit on a point I was wondering about the other day. In getting ready to dive into multiplayer, I've been trying to read as much as I can on Sins, both here on the forums and on wiki. And it seems like every race focuses on LRM spam in early-mid game, then go for mass bombers in mid-late game. Again, I dont have much experience on the multiplayer side, but as you said, there doesn't seem to be much variety between the races approach to winning.

The only exception to this is that the Advent (or at least the few that do play them) probably do not use LRF spam. I don't think the Illuminator is terrible but more than the rest it should only be used to counter fleets with lots of LF, which are probably not around by the time you actually research it. The only player I've seen regularly play Advent is Auqia, who seems to expand with the "tier 0" spam of LF and scouts, then quickly gets defense vessels and with his awesome micro skills runs circles around LRF fleets.

The other big difference is with the support cruisers. Fairly early on you'll see decent numbers of repair cruisers from the TEC because well they're an awesome unit that goes with anything. Vasari players will likewise later bring out a few overseers for their caps and maybe even quite a few subverters if they get to 6 military labs for distortion field. Repulse theoretically is a gem for Advent carrier fleets but I've only done that in a modders only game, more than likely you won't live that long in a game with pros.

But otherwise yeah, its build a few LFs to take your roid, get LRF as quickly as possible, maybe beat an opponent or two with that, and if the game goes on long enough whoever gets the most carriers wins.

Speaking of the Culture idea, I wonder if there is a way that you can implement a sort of "Conversion" system. I haven't really seen a culture get so overpowering enough that it causes a system to revolt, But I'm reminded of Civ IV and how big a role that culture could play in it.

My idea though plays to what the Advent is and that is religious zealous. I suppose in a sense that is what their doing, but I just wish their envoy could play the role of like a priest from Civ IV and convert you or something. Probably a bad idea, but it's my crappy idea!

@Goa:

You bring a lot to the discussion. Mad karma for you!

I think the phenomenon you're describing derives from a combination of factors that isn't strictly limited to the Advent:

• LRFs are low-tier and trump light frigates, owing to their much longer range and much higher damage.
• Flak frigates + bombers trump LRFs

I recently created a thread to discuss addressing bombers (my suggestion: point defenses on capital ships, in addition to buffing fighter acceleration, deceleration, turn rate, ROF, and durability against flak frigates to make them better able to act as screens against bombers). That would open up the playing field somewhat.

In addition, perhaps light frigates need a buff so that they're not immediately trumped by LRFs?

Of course, it's possible that corvettes will balance things out a bit, but I have no idea what role corvettes will play. They might even make it worse. =(

Advent air superiority is short lived, and easily countered by light frigate spam, more so then any other race.  This is because the illuminator takes the most cash/logistics to tech up of the three races and therefore there will always be an advent "shortage" of illuminators when compared to the spam of other races.  This makes carrier spam for advent a bad idea because you will literally be facing too many Light frigates for your illuminators to kill. 

Considering flak is the standard illuminator counter, it also means that your air force will be facing heavy flak concentration and advent strike craft are very weak.  Even bombers get quickly cut to shreds.  That is why pure tier zero spam is advent's best, early option. Spam scouts to counter LRF, spam disciples to counter their carriers/flak.  If they are like KoK and go straight for Heavy cruisers THEN you counter with bombers.  That is pretty much the only situation where advent needs to bomber spam. 

An early bomber spam vs vasari isn't advisable as any player worth their salt will immediately spam their LF to snipe those carriers.  I've only had higgy/quar do this to me, but with equal resources the vasari actually win this war because of their LF self heal upgrade.  So don't be tempted unless you know the player and know they won't think of it.