In the last patch, it was dual halcyon (if not triple), and dual sova.  People will go for whatever is the easiest, cheapest, or cheesiest bang for the buck.  In particular, onliners prefer an early bang for the buck, vs. a mid-game or late-game bang for the buck (no surprise there, since these are rushers playing on rush maps).  This scramble bombers ability provide an early bang for the buck, so....

Of course I've noticed a preponderance of vasari players since the new patch came out, too.  I think some of this is because there were a lot of vasaris sitting on the sidelines last patch, chomping at the bit just waiting for a chance to play vasari again.  I myself had quit playing vasari, and I was an exclusive vasari player.  I didn't go to the advent cheesefest though - I tried my hand at TEC.

People will certainly abuse whatever they can abuse.  Advent abuse was rampant last patch.  If there is something to be abused in the skirantra now, you can bet your bottom dollar that people will abuse the living hell out of it.  If that abuse is taken away, people will look for the next thing they can abuse.

I though the whole idea was to limit the abuse of things. I.e illum bug fix. To cut down on abuse of illuminators. Or Marza nerf (just took a slight tweak to it) to cut down on marza abuse. RA nerf to cut down on RA abuse. Etc. Etc. Etc. The whole idea of balancing the game is so it becomes difficult to abuse overpowered things. And if you agree that skirantra is being abused in this patch, than you must agree that the is a good reason behind that abuse- i.e. it is too powerful. Like I said Im not wanting to nerf it back into oblivion, just a slight tweak to it so its a little more difficult to abuse.

I'm thinking that dual halcyons was fueled by the domination of the illuminator and seeker, even though many dual halo strats didnt even use them.  It was the idea that, "i'll get massacred by seekers and illums supporting those cap ships if I go lrf", and of course one would. This patch, not so much. The big threat to me now is the skirantra and its swarms of super tough, super deadly, phase jumping, whole squad generating, plasma storm flying, low cost upgrading, cap ship murdering bombers.

I got a new patch stat changes forum up looking for bugs (if any of you have seen any besides the obvious desync ones). This topic will go on there, but I think I'll wait awhile before I post it, just to let the strategy sink in to the MP community and start pissing people off, and also see if any viable counter strategies emerge. 

No.  I don't, I instead agree with the second clause in your last sentence.  Give it time.  Let's see what happens...

But, let's think about this..  What are the counters to bombers?  Fighters and to some extent flak.  This means that you have to have both.  Now, he will obviously have flak to defend against fighters.  This gives him the advantage.  Here is the combat triangle for defending against this ability:

Capitals<Bombers<Fighters<Sentinels<LF<Assailants.

All you have to do is break the chain.  Prevent one of his units from countering you.  For the advent, you can stop it at the source with Tele Push.  The Vasari can either mirror or go for Jam Weapons, neutralizing the extra SC being used and causing them to just be a giant waste of AM.

The TEC are going to have the hardest time with this.  Obviously, you'll need a Sova with buffed Fighters.  Next, you'll need flak.  Lot's of flak.  Your flak will be shooting at two things it shouldn't normally: LRF and Bombers.  But it will have to do.  You have to break the chain somehow.  Also, throw in some scouts to try to break the chain from the top down.

Tele push will not kill 20 squads worth of vasari bombers before the Halcyon is dead.  In all likelihood most of those 20 squads will still be intact by the time the halcyon is dead.  Tele push doesn't do enough damage for that to happen.  Jam weapons stops damage for a short time but it does nothing to remove the SC themselves.  It isn't AM wasted because those bombers are still there and the skirantra can trigger scramble again for even more bombers.  The bombers don't poof after a certain time but instead they stay there and are available until they are destroyed.  Plus skirantra can heal SC with their AE heal.

[_]-Greyfox

Sure.  Actually, I wrote a reply to some of your points yesterday, and essentially agreed with them.  But alas, the reply just disappeared.

The last thing I want to see is the skirantra become the next "old patch's halcyon," or vasari the next "old patch's advent."  I guess the questions are 1) whether this skirantra deal is "reasonably counterable" or not (more on that phrase in a moment), 2) under what circumstances it constitutes an imbalance, and, 3) at the end of the day, whether the imbalance should just be lived with or not.

1) On "reasonably counterable," people can almost always argue that something imbalanced (even horribly imbalanced) is counterable.  People argued that the missle barrage was counterable.  Sure it was, but that wasn't the point.  The point was how much time and energy the marzabater was putting into the equation vs. how much you were to counter it.  The point was what kind of position he was putting you into in order to counter it.  The point was the ease with which he fielded a marza, then picked his nose while pressing MB, vs. the difficulty you had in countering it.  The point was what kind of an advantage he was gaining in forcing you to counter it.  Ya, anything is "counterable," but the question is, is it REASONABLY counterable?  So... is the skirantra "reasonably counterable?"

2) If the skirantra is imbalanced, is it just on crowded rush maps, and early game to boot?  If so, should the whole rest of the game be balanced around a few people playing MP on crowded rush maps?

3) It was decided that the marza imbalance should be lived with.  People say that repulse is imbalanced, but it has apparently been decided that it should be lived with.  If the skirantra it is imbalanced, is it any more imbalanced than either of these examples?  Should the imbalance just be lived with?

Ya, I know.  I congratulated you on this on the post that disappeared.

At any rate, I plead guilty that I'm an old vasari man who was pissed as hell about vasari last patch, and slightly willing to "look the other way" on skirantra this patch just because vasari have been so weak for so long (they just got buffed... you mean you already want to re-nerf them again?!?!).  I can't play MP right now because I'm currently in asia and the pings are just huge from over here.  But I'll fire up single player and do some testing (want to help, Volt?).

(What I worry about with scramble bombers is that it might be a "knife edge" ability.  Nerfed just a little bit, it becomes sucky.  Buffed a little bit, it becomes OP....)

I said cap ships in general should be a centerpiece of your fleet.  These things cost as much as 6 HCs, and even more when you factor in the expensive cap ship slot techs.  Like any RTS with 'hero' units, they're supposed to be the biggest threat.  Why shouldn't 2-3 cap ships be just as dangeous as 30+ LRFs?  And as others said, there has never been cap variety in this game.  It was go colonzier or go home for most of Sins lifetime.  Now it's the carriers.  What I'm trying to say is buff the other cap ships so everything is at the level the carrier caps are now.

While Scramble bombers may need a small tweak, I think a large part of the problem is that people are just used to cap ships simply being part of the background instead of being a major threat.  It wasn't long ago that getting a fast second cap ship was considered a good way to lose.  Now it's actually worthwhile to get a second cap ship over spamming more frigates.  Make the battleship and support caps viable, and Sins early game strategy will finally open up again instead of every faction having one build.

No, TP won't kill them, but it will damage them enough that your flak/fighters should have a much easier time taking them down.

As for the Kortul..  You seem to forget how resilient this ship is.  At level 10, this ship can ignore any damage below 250 DPS.  It heals itself, wipes your AM, wipes your frigates, and neutralizes your SC.  The Kortul is the only ship in the game that can counter any type of threat.  See a level 6 Marza?  Send in the Kortul.  See a Radiance?  Send in the Kortul.  See an SC swarm?  Send in the Kortul.  The list goes on.  It passively stops abilities (such as repair cloud) and rips away your precious AM without breaking a sweat.  Sure, you may not kill the SC, but if you can stop Repair Cloud and/or Scramble Bombers [passively], then you are likely to send those Skirantras heading for the hills.  Make sure you have some Sentinels and Assailants on hand as well to keep the pressure on the Skirantras.  If they leave, so do the SC.

Also, don't forget that you have the defensive advantage.  You control the planet, and therefore have no excuse to not engage within range of repair platforms.  You do that, and your Ships are unlikely to die any time soon.

This concept extends especially to TEC.  They may have the hardest time countering it, but they can also receive 60 HPS through Hoshis and repair platforms which is equivalent to about 190 DPS on frigates and about 375 DPS on capitals.  Good luck punching through that.  The TEC will have a long drawn out battle, but the answer is simply to pump out Flak and LRF.  LRF their Skirantras and Flak against bombers.  It will be a long battle, but it would be incredibly hard to lose it.  The TEC excel at defensive warfare, better than any other race.  Throw in an Argonev and your ships will absolutely refuse to die.

Sure, just tell me what you want tested.  If not, I'll find a few things to try.  By chance, this evening should be free for me to test ideas, so I'm open to them now.

@Sloan: I agree with what you said about the other capitals.  They really should be buffed.  The Rapture, Kol, and Antorak [especially] deserve buffs, but in general non-carrier/colonizer capitals should be buffed.

Karma-

Well I appreciate your agreement. And I agree, things should be looked at as reasonably counterable. But Ive yet to find someone who can even counter the skirantra rush without help from another.

As far as liveable imbalances-

Missile barrage was nerfed to make it easier to counter (or actually just a little less destructive if you're paying attention)

Repulse was also nerfed to make it easier to counter (not to mention illuminators arnet quite as deadly from inside the bubble anymore)

Skirantras aren't just problematic in the early game rush scenario. I played an ffa today where I was able to build a really nice economy and pump out 6 skirantras (upgraded them all to lvl 4). When I attacked one of my opponents, he retreated and built up flak and fighters (half my skirantras reached level 5). I attacked his homeworld which was being guarded by around 50 fighter squads from hangars, carriers, sovas and an SB and 30 flak, but through out the entire battle, his fighters could not suppress the bombers (I had no fighters or flak fighting back either). Squad hp would hover around 60-70%, but the actual number of squads never fell below 50 (was hanging out around 54-56). Thats ONLY from the skirantras. I had no air defense and no carrier cruisers of my own. My skirantras never ran out of AM either, and most of them had enough to cast repair cloud if I needed it. Granted the guy wasnt very skilled, but when I jumped in i thought to myself "oh dang, my bombers arent going to last very long in this", but I was dead wrong.

I played an SP match early this morning (couldnt find anyone to play with), where I beat an unfair Ai by just colonizing my roid and spamming skirantras. nothing else, just skirantra, skirantra, skirantra, skirantra, skirantra, game over. Yeah Ai is dumb, but come on should it really be that easy?

Even attacking those pirate turrets with flak burst, the bombers would take a beating, but would just keep on coming.

I just think 35 seconds is too short a cooldown for such a versatile and powerful ability. Keep it versatile, keep it powerful, tone back how fast you can cast it.

I actually even want to modify the autocast of it to cast when theres enemy units in the gravwell (currently it autocasts when the skirantra is taking damage) make it easier to use and all. I love the ability, I just want it to be a iittle more on the fair side.

-Lbgsloan

Totally agree, battleships and support caps could use an early game buff to make them viable choices. I want it. I want to see Kol+Dunov be a viable early game option (anti carrier cap anyone?), and I want to see Radiance+Rapture kick some ass with those synergies. But alas, you rarely see those caps until the late game if at all.

Okay, did a couple of baseline tests just to get started.

1 Halcyon vs. 1 Skirantra.  Both carriers constantly kited, both stayed on opposite sides of the grav well.

1st test:  Skirantra SB/all bombers.  Halcyon ADA/all fighters.  Skirantra wins.

2nd test: Skirantra SB/all bombers.  Halcyon ADA/all bombers.  Skirantra wins.

Volt, I guess you can test Halcyon with TP (and whatever else you want to test).  You can test all fighter and all bomber, but my guess is all fighter might be the best chance?

What would be the next line of tests?  Trying a Radiance with mana burn?  And then I guess its on to frigs?

Actually i ran into a guy who had some luck with a level 4 Kortul. Disruptive strikes kept the am on 2 of my skirantras too low to cast anymore bombers (though theyd already launched several). Maybe combined with jam weapons a Kortul might win a 1v1, thats if it can keep within weapons range of the thing and out last the initial surge of bombers. And probably only if the skirantras normal squads were all fighters. I dunno thatd be worth a test.

Well we already know vasari vs. vasari is balanced... how could it not be

Eh just looking for options so its not "who has the most skirantras".

True.  I think the best counter to Skirantra rush would be Kortul+Skirantra+Sentinels+Assailants.  Honestly, if you had 2-3 Kortuls, you could just chain Jam Weapons all day long and eventually just kill any amount of Skirantras by chasing them around the gravity well...

But, I have no doubt in my mind that a properly prepared TEC could outlast Skirantra rushes.  Just be sure to scout so you know if he's coming.  If so, quick tech to flak, Hoshis, and Repair Platform upgrades and draw a line in the sand (I mean this literally... Desert worlds are the easiest to defend).

The real issue is Advent, who thanks to the recent fix, are not omnipotent early game.  Telekinetic Push is going to hurt SC, but without Defense Vessels, it will not work unless you match Skirantra numbers with Halos.  Though, I must say, that even Vasari SC would have no choice but to die at the hand of 3 Halos chaining TP.  So, in that regard, it makes them more powerful with higher numbers.  One is not enough; two might be; three is deadly.  Three Halos is a death sentence to any amount of SC (below critical mass bombers of course, but that is more like 150-175 squads, not 50-60).

Another option of course is to try to use a Radiance to kill AM.  That could work, but by itself it won't.  A single Skirantra's SC must be matched by a Halo.  Period.  End of Story.  The key is to multitask.  You have to keep his SC at bay at all costs while slowly bringing down his capital.  For the Advent, I recommend Radiance with Det Am at level 1+ with a Halo at level 3+ using ADA (level 2) and TP (level 1+) on all fighters.  The Radiance knocks down AM (making the fight easier in the long run) while also dealing heavy damage to the target and disabling abilities.  It must be followed by a Halo using TP whenever possible and having its fighters take down the enemy bombers.

Also, use repair platforms if need be.  If your Radiance runs out of AM, park it by one or two and let it heal while it regenerates AM.  If the Halcyon runs out, you must also park the Radiance as it is doomed without the protection of the Halo.

Use Defense Vessels to compliment your defense force.  They will be needed to help take down the bombers.

Victory will come when the enemy runs out of AM.  Once that is accomplished, its just a matter of knocking down enemy health.

I wonder if a Dunov might work against dual-Skirantras. EMP Charge kills antimatter and Magnetize completely disables abilities. So if a level 3 Dunov and Sova w/ Heavy SC just might be able to keep at least one Skirantra completely unable to use SB, and both with depleted antimatter. Besdies, Skirantras have the worst DPS of any ship in the game (21 DPS, ten of that side-firing), so they wouldn't be a threat with their Bombers neutralized.

Thing is Volt, you can't be expected to field multiple caps, flak, repair, blah blah, just to take out a skirantra, or the thing IS unbalanced.  Both sides have to expend roughly the same amount of resources.  I have started my analysis with 1 cap vs. 1 cap.  From there I will proceed "even Steven," i.e. if the vasari is given dual skirantras, I will use the same amount of resources to go dual halcyon, single halcyon plus frigs, single halcyon plus repair, etc.

Post back here with your test results.

Actually, magnetize will kill all the strikecraft if you can get a good one off.

Well, I just finished the test, and let me say, the results are very encouraging.

Advent:

Halcyon: level 3, 2 ADA, 1 TP, all fighters

Upon Leveling: Second level of TP

Radiance: level 1, 1 Det Am, all fighters

Upon Leveling: EAA, Second Level of Det AM, Second Level of EAA

Repair Platform: 4 uses on Radiance, 0 uses on Halcyon (manual use when the Radiance went below 200 hull)

Vasari:

Skirantra: level 3, 2 SB, 1 RC, all bombers

Upon Leveling: Did not level

Skirantra: level 1, 1 SB, all bombers

Upon Leveling: Did not level

Result: Both Advent ships survive.  Radiance at 230 hull. Halcyon at full health.

Description: When I began the test, I discovered that if I set bombers to hold position, they would not reengage after their death.  For that reason, I switched them to traditional attack styles.  Also, the bombers would target the Radiance by default, though had they attacked the Halcyon, the result would have been the same.  The interesting part here was that it was incredibly easy to stop the bomber spam.  7 squads of fighters was able to pick off bomber squads very effectively, thus leveling the playing field drastically.  Of course, they were helped by a level of TP, but the point remains.  They worked, and very well at that.  The Halcyon did one thing only, defend the Radiance.

It should also be noted that the AM on the Skirantras dropped incredibly quickly (and during this time, the Radiance leveled up the first time).  While there was quite a few issues at the start, once AM was depleted (which happened within about a minute), bombers were no longer as much of an issue.  The Radiance was however getting weak at this point.  In fact, the very moment the level 3 skirantra dropped to zero AM, I got a warning saying that the Radiance's shields were down.

After this, the health of the Radiance continued falling as did the hull of the level 1 Skirantra.  Somewhere within this time, it leveled up due to the exp generated by dying SC.  The second level of Det AM was a huge buff to attacking the Skirantras.  Doing so more than doubled the damage dealt by the ability, causing health on the first Skirantra to plummet.  Bombers were still taking their toll on it though, and during this time, I had to use the Repair Platform three times to keep up with incoming damage.

Then the thing I had been waiting for: BOOM! The level 1 Skirantra was dead.  With only half the bombers to kill, the 7 fighter squads quickly overpowered them and gained air superiority, though I was forced to use a repair platform once more.  Eventually, this led to all bomber squads dying and respawning one at a time.  Due to this, I sent all my fighters in range of his Skirantra to deal some damage between bomber spawns.  Also, the second level of Detonate AM yielded a dramatic drop in his hull.  The end result was a victory for the Advent.

Analysis: While I was forced to use four uses of a Repair Platform, that is not out of the question for an actual battle.  Doing so would not be hard to come by at all.  A single use regenerates 300 hull over 10 seconds, which means that the Radiance needed an additional 1200 hull to survive the onslaught of bombers.  Once again however, I would like to point out that any person who has scouted ought to know that his enemy is coming with dual Skirantras and as such would of course put up defenses such as RP's anyways.  What I did was nothing out of the ordinary, but instead showed what would happen in a real battle.  Skirantras die.  Its simple enough.  Advent won, Vasari lost.

I may do other tests later such as a Sova/Dunov combo, but not right now...  I'm not good at TEC due to the fact that I never play as them so I would not know which abilities to go with...

Further Analysis/EDIT: I meant to post this earlier, but it should be mentioned that the goal of this experiment was to see what it would take to keep both capitals alive while destroying both enemy capitals.  If I would have not used any repairs, the battle would be expected to have been a tie as while one race would have died first, the other would have been killed off by the SC of the first before the automatic death of SC.  If one chose to use any number of repairs, the Advent would have certainly won.

I myself conducted two more tests as well, and am here to report.

Test1: 1 Radiance mana burn vs. 1 Skirantra SB/all bombers.  Radiance was slaughtered, but this wasn't because of the buffed SC.  It would have lost regardless.

Test2: 12 disciples (3000 credits, more than 50 supply) vs. 1 Skirantra SB/all bombers.  12 disciples were maneuvered to the exact spot the Skirantra was jumping to, in order to give them the best chance to kill it.  Skirantra won, all disciples were killed, Skirantra even leveled up once and was able to get repair cloud.  Repair cloud was used once.  Had I used additional SB instead of repair cloud, I believe the Skirantra still would have won.

Summary of all of my tests so far: Skirantra 4, Advent 0.

Volt, could you give a few more details about whether you bought levels for any of these ships?  Or did you just let them level naturally?  I guess you had to drop 2 labs plus expend research to get the repair platform, plus you had to actually drop a repair platform.  Is there any test we can do where the Advent can tie or win and the resource expenditure is all even Steven?

Um volt. Not to be an ass or anything. But why would any self respecting skilled Vasari player engage a radiance with a skirantra in its own repair platform. Any smart person would draw it out or just sit far away from it and bomb it to oblivion with bombers. Thats the whole point of bombers, and carriers for that matter. To kill things from a safe distance. Realistically I find your test somewhat invalid because of this. Try using it a real world situation and see what happens.

The Halcyon was purchased to level 3 as was one of the Skiratras.  All other leveling was due to experience.

Well, we could try PM upgrades for bombers.  Two levels of that, and two levels of hull upgrades ought to be sufficient to balance the costs...

It should be noted in real world almost always is flak with the skirantras to kill fighter.So unless its a total rush you will have about 10 flak with lrf following.Once flak is established fighters no longer kill bombers and in my experience is why you must go all flak to counter skirantras.I would estimate a level 1 sb at 10 flak to keep your cap safe before it dies.At level 2 and up you will need progressively more flak to keep yours safe.Kortul can help in defeating 3 or more skirantras when they r fielding tons of bombers I have tried this.It is much more risky since if you lose kortul which is very liekly(you wont have a level 10) then you lose.The problem is the phase missiles. People always upgrade them and they really destroy caps.

If it is extremely difficult to counter the skirantras, then it probably needs to be toned down a little bit (either that, or other caps need buffs).  Maybe Deceiver's idea about having the antimatter usage start a little higher and then get lower as the thing levels?  Or was that cooldown?

Tested Dunov with magnetize vs. Skirantra.  My idea was to close with the Skirantra and magnetize it when the bombers were coming in for a pass to hit me.  The problem was, the Skirantra kited me to death - I could never really get in range to get a good magnetize off.

For my tests - Skirantra 5, all others 0.

I think am should go up as it levels.Maybe start a little higher too.

Kiting a carrier cap makes it pointless to try chase it down with another cap. It just won't work. That's one of the most expoitable things in the game to this day. Ships simply can't chase their targets without constantly letting them out of range. The attacking ships should better synchronize their movement with the target.

I would like to see a wider variety of starting caps as well. Seems like a no brainer the carrier caps are OP.

Lets take a look at some of the raw data.                        (more than lvl 1 skirantra lol)
                                                                                      V
 A single Vasari bomber with no upgrades:          140Hp     5 Armor     6 DPS 

Now working out the total possible DPS of a single:

Lvl1 Skirantras Bombers:    6 DPS X 3 SC/Squad X 6 Squads = 108 DPS
Lvl3 Skirantras Bombers:   6 DPS x 3 SC/Squad X 10 Squads = 180 DPS
Lvl5 Skirantras Bombers:   6 DPS X 3 SC/Squad X 14 Squads = 252 DPS

Thats Just 1 Skirantra, with all bombers. OK how about this.

Skirantras baseline Lvl1 AM = 250. It restores AM at a rate of .8 (maybe more) per second.  

The amount of AM it actually consumes per cast can be read as  AM COST - (COOLDOWN X RESTORE RATE) because the vessel is restoring its AM reserves as the cooldown is expiring.

50 - (35 X .8) = 22 net am consumption.

That means a skirantra with full AM can cast the ability 11 times before it runs out of AM. 11 x 35(cooldown) = AM that lasts for 6 minutes during a battle. 

6 minutes(360 seconds) x 108 Damage per second. Unlimited Range. For 1 lvl 1 capital ship.

Lets take a look at the HP as if all the squads represented a single ship.

140hp x 3 SC/squad x 6 Squads = 2520 hp
140hp x 3 SC/squad x 10 Squads = 4200 hp
140hp x 3 SC/squad x 14 Squads  = 5880 hp

Now with the Ability alone factored in (no SC build times) every 35 seconds a new squadron is created. Thats like healing for 140 x 3, or 420 hp every 35 seconds.

So now imagine a single ships thats stats are like this:

108 DPS  2520 HP  5 ARMOR That heals 12hp/s (420hp/35seconds) 

180 DPS  4200 HP  5 ARMOR That heals 24hp/s 

252 DPS  5880 HP  5 ARMOR That heals 36hp/s 

Food for thought.