Cap Ships with Interrupt abilities

From the last patch:

Psionic Scream (Discord Battleship) will now interrupt.

Whip, I can't believe you don't know these. The following 3 are also essential in battleing Titans because these abilities are also one of the few abilities that effect Titans!

Advent: Radiance - Detonate Antimatter, both removes AM and interrupts.

TEC:      Dunov - Magnetize, EMP Blast interrupts and also removes AM to potentially stop casting.

Vasari:   Kortul - Disruptive Strikes.

see purple print, Pinned Cap Ship Ability post: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/335807/page/4/#3386342

also old discussion of best interrupt: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/382988/page/1/#2639389

Nice - I didn't realize Detonate Antimatter interrupted abilities either.

Thanks guys.  Guess I've spent too much time playing and not enough time reading the forums.  I think I'd much rather have a Discord over a (useless) Revelation.

That's a very nice guide, btw, Sagewon.  It's obvious you put a lot of effort into it.

Will a Radiance "freeze" a missile barrage?  Because that would be my top pick.  As far as I know it just detonates antimatter but won't freeze an ability that's been cast.

Hmm, this sounds like a question for a modder!

First of all, in the code there are two different versions of interrupt; interrupt and ultimate interrupt. The only difference is ultimate interrupt will hit through "Disable Immune" ships, I.e. ships being healed by a Domina. So technically a Marza Dreadnaught using missile barrage while being healed by an allied domina cannot be stopped by Ion Bolt, but it can be stopped with Phase Out Hull.

The following are all of the abilities in Rebellion 1.80 that have interrupts on them, though not all of them can target capitalships if preventing missile barrage is your intention.

Advent

• Detonate Antimatter
• Reverie
• Psionic Scream
• Suppression

TEC

• Armistice (Ultimate)
• Disruption Matrix (Ultimate) 
• Ion Bolt 
• E.M.P.
• Magnetized
• Sabotage Antimatter

Vasari

• Disruptive Strikes 
• Phase Out Hull (Ultimate)
• Interference
• Distortion Field

Other

• Star Neutron Star

The Interrupt on detonate antimatter occurs right when the ability is fired. So if a Marza is already using missile barrage and then you use detonate antimatter, it should stop. Considering it also disables abilities once it is applied you shouldn't see missile barrage at all while it is in effect, again save in the rare case the Marza had the "Disable Immune" buff from an allied domina.

I can't remember if psionic scream requires you to face the target...isn't it a frontal cone?  That is a significant liability if trying to counter MB...

Detonate AM is, IMO, the best counter to MB...you are best off hitting the marza as soon as you can to whittle down it's AM and prevent it from being able to use MB in the first place...only weakness is that the cooldown time is longer than the duration, so there is a window where MB can do some heavy damage...

Ion bolt can prevent the ship from moving/jumping and thus is more useful for actually killing the marza...depending on the circumstance that may be preferable to detonate antimatter...it also gives the akkan the opportunity to reposition so that it can follow the marza and make sure you always have an interrupt ability in range of it...

Armistice is a good safeguard but of course has the obvious drawback that once used, you can't immediately attack the marza without some seriously good micro...reverie and phase out hull have similar weaknesses...in the case of PoH, you can't attack the marza at all...in the case of reverie, the disablement is canceled once the ship takes too much damage...

Magnetize works well and has a good cooldown to duration ratio....problem is it is very limited in what it can do....combining with EMP does well but you have just increased the necessary micro and AM needed to get the job done...akkan would be a lot easier and a lot more effective in killing the marza...

Disruptive strikes is good but finicky....you have to hit the marza with a flashbeam, so it's not something you can fire on command...in my experience there have just been too many times where the kortul doesn't give you the results you are looking for when trying to interrupt MB...much better at simply draining AM from titans, etc. over time...

I would also seriously consider shield regeneration as a counter...lvl 3 shield regen is pretty damn good at protecting your fleet from MB and usually you can withstand a full lvl 6 barrage provided you have the AM on the prog...even if you can only fire it once, that may be enough time to kill the marza...I've successfully countered MB in the hands of a skilled player several times with shield regeneration, but it does require good micro and certainly not the "safest" counter...you can pull it off with lvl 2 shield regen but you are going to have to kill the marza fairly quickly -- doable, but incredibly risky...if you only have lvl 1 shield regeneration, don't even bother...if you are facing a lvl 8 marza, you MUST have lvl 3 or lvl 4 shield regeneration as well as enough AM for multiple uses....

Just an fyi about these...detonate AM, EMP, magnetize, and disruptive strikes can affect SBs while ion bolt, phase out hull, and reverie cannot...this is important when dealing with mass disorientation and red button...armistice DOES protect you from RB, contrary to some people's opinions...magnetize and detonate AM will NOT interrupt or disable abilities on titans, though they will drain AM or suck in SC (respectively)...

The Radiance is by far more efficient in this field than any other capital ship because DA's AM cost is low, the cool-down is low and absorptive armour converts damage to AM reserves. 

I sometimes open with this cap for laughs and it performs insanely well.

I've been using it some lately and it does seem like it interrupts abilities or at least freezes their activation.  Does Cleansing Brilliance in its current state do anything?  It doesn't seem to do much.

Detonate AM interrupts and disables abilities on everything but a titan...

CB is meh...takes too long to set up if you are trying to hit a fleet...really only useful for FFing...FYI, if you interrupt CB, the beam effect will continue but the DPS will not...

Very tantalizing words but I think they are not accurate. 

1. I don't think you can interrupt redbutton with detonate AM, EMP, magnetize, or disruptive strikes. There is the three second delay but I don't think it is a 'channeling ability' that you can interrupt. You can indeed do a good thing with armistice to save your ships but you have to be very attentive to graphics to time it just right (extremely micro intensive and high rish). The few times I have tried to do this the starbase did not have redbutton on it or the player did not try to use it and I just killed the starbase; in all of my games, I have only had one player use armistice against me and a redbutton. 

2. Regarding mass disorientation, this is not a channeling ability, it is a buff on target ships (I believe). So once your ships are disoriented there is no way to get an early release. All you can do is keep the SB at low enough antimatter so that it cannot use mass disorientation, front shield deflectors, or meteor strikes in the first place.

Any disagreements with me on these technical statements?

You're right that you can't interrupt it once it fires off, but Magnetize and Detonate AM might buy enough time to get your ships out of there or destroy the SB, although it sounds quite risky as well.

Mass Disorientation apparently is interruptible although it isn't channelling. I guess the issue is getting your interrupt ship close enough to prevent it firing off since MD's range is 8500/12000, so you may not be able to prevent the first casting.

It isn't a channeling ability but as stated previously by agaricus, you can still prevent the ability from being used...DA is okay at this, but you'd need 2 radiances to keep it disabled indefinitely since the duration is shorter than the cooldown...with magnetize you can keep it up as long as you have AM...Vasari don't have a good disabler in this circumstance...

As for why armistice isn't used against RB, that is probably because a few pro players have spread nonsense that it doesn't work against RB...

Channeling and interruptible are two different Booleans in buff files...channeling just means that any successive orders (such as move or attack orders) will end the buff...interruptible means that a buff performing an interrupt will stop it...most abilities that are one are also the other, but there are exceptions, mass disorientation being one of them....after all, you don't give move or attack orders to an Advent SB so I guess they figured making it channeling would be pointless...

Heh. I'm going to nitpick and say that L4 DA has a duration of 20.7 versus 20 cooldown. So you can just about do it with a single L7 Radiance + micro. 

Ah. So if something was channelling but not interruptible, does that mean you couldn't interrupt it, but the ship itself would still be inactive while using the ability?

Channelling also inhibits weapon fire and other ability casting, so it would probably make the ability more of a liability rather than a help.

On the topic of redbutton [above]

Interesting thought; I hadn't thought about this combination before. But I don't think the radiance can use its stuff on the TEC starbase, right? That is, doesn't the DA ability require that the target have antimatter? And isn't the TEC starbase devoid of antimatter? Or am I wrong about this?

DA can target units that have an antimatter reserve, even if the actual capacity is <1. DA will however only do damage if the unit physically has antimatter. Un-upgraded starbases appear to have a (near) zero reserve, although I can't find a specific reference that says exactly how big this reserve is.

There is nothing in the files to suggest they have a nonzero AM reserve to start with...in fact I don't think you can even adjust the starting AM in the starbase file..I'm guessing it must just be the fact that they have AM upgrades...

Yes...