I've been playing this game for a couple weeks and love it but i have a question about the novalith cannon. Does it just destroy the structures on a planet or does it destroy fleets and orbital structures?
I think it's a planet killer only... I don't recall being able to target anything other than planets with it...
im too lazy to research and make the room for these weapons...
It just takes out the planet HP and population. The damage is 2500 per shot. So any upgraded planet is "uncolonized" instantly with one hit. 2 Hits will take out pretty much any planet. Fleets and orbital structures remain intact.
Interestingly, the Kortul Cannon for the Vasari does do structure damage (not sure about the orbiting fleet) but doesn't do damage to the planet itself. It also disables the structures for a period of time beside damaging them.
The Novalith is one of the few advantages the TEC have... Of all three races, it's the only superweapon that's worthwhile. (The Advent's and the Vasari's are almost worthless.)
The Kortul does damage ships as well, 10% of base hp every shot, AFAIK. It disables structures for I think 3 minutes, but ships for much less.
Ha, not sure why I picked up your typo, it's the Kotsura, not Kortul. Anyway..
Alrighty, thanks for the information.
After you fire it, must you wait in orbit at the planet for the shot to have effect? Or can you fire it, leave before it gets there?
yes you can leave. But it isn't going to damage your ships so I don't know why you would want to leave
whats the point any way... it takes too long to research to and wastes crucial recources whereas the gause defence cannons are brilliant, i have been developing defencive techniques to reduce or atleast hold off an invading fleet just until my reinforcements arrive.
Well when I get to late game I have so much extra resources and time on my hands so I decide "hey why not research/build the cannon of doom, it looks cool and me likey giant planet nuke.
i don't know what most people have against the advent cannon, if you time it right you can go into the planet with the cultral advantage. sure it is only 6 shield minigation but still better than the defenders having the advantage. not as powerful as the nova but still an advantage is an advantage.
Deliverance also gives your ships a 15% bonus to damage output temporarily... it's like having both the Advent's +6% mitigation and the Vasari's +15% damage at the same time.
No where on the boards is Kostura mentioned... search function gave 0 results. So how much damage does one shot do on orbital structures? The disabling and damage on ships is nice bonus if it's true!
The cannon does 800 damage to structures, and disables them for 3 minutes:
numInstantActions 1instantAction buffInstantActionType "DoDamage" instantActionTriggerType "OnDelay" delayTime 0.000000 damage Level:0 800.000000
numEntityBoolModifiers 5entityBoolModifier "DisableAbilities"entityBoolModifier "DisableConstruction"entityBoolModifier "DisableModuleFunctionality"entityBoolModifier "DisableRegeneration"entityBoolModifier "DisableWeapons"numFinishConditions 1finishCondition finishConditionType "TimeElapsed" time Level:0 180.000000
It does 200 damage to ships, and disables them for 15 seconds:
numInstantActions 1instantAction buffInstantActionType "DoDamage" instantActionTriggerType "OnDelay" delayTime 0.000000 damage Level:0 200.000000
numEntityBoolModifiers 6entityBoolModifier "DisableAbilities"entityBoolModifier "DisableRegeneration"entityBoolModifier "DisableWeapons"entityBoolModifier "DisablePhaseJump"entityBoolModifier "DisableLinearEngines"entityBoolModifier "DisableAngularEngines"numFinishConditions 1finishCondition finishConditionType "TimeElapsed" time Level:0 15.000000
Thank you a thousand for the fast reply.
Now I see why people don't use it... Even the most basic structures have 3000 HP, most having above 4000 HP. Novalith on the otherhand "kills" planets with 2 shots, and they are hard to destroy usually. Wiping structures can be done with your regular fleet, and a lot faster than destroying a planet. That is just idiotic... Although, a VERY heavily defended place can be taken more easily with the 3 minute disabling ability... Seems like a small confort though.
By the same token, 2 Kotsura shots on a planet defended by a full fleet + defenses means 1600 damage to buildings, which isn't half bad, and 400 damage to ships (though this is mitigated by shields) which puts a serious enough dent in more brittle ships like LRMs. Disabling a bunch of repair platforms for 3 minutes definitely helps break that defense.
The thing with the Novalith is that lots of things can destroy planets. But more often than not, you have to destroy their fleet eventually, and the Novalith is useless for that. This is of course unless you can build enough Novaliths to take out all of the opponent's planets at once, which is quite expensive. By contrast, the Kotsura and the Deliverance Engine greatly help you destroy the other guy's fleet, at which point all of his planets become easy pickins, and you need much fewer of them built than you do Novaliths.
In multiplayer of course you usually don't get to the point where empires have 20+ planets and maxed out fleets, so the Novalith is a lot more attractive since destroying 2 planets out of the empire's 5-6 hurts a lot more than 2 out of 20. But when you get to a face-off with 2k vs 2k fleet point fleets, the Kotsura and Deliverance Engine give very noticeable advantages.
The Novalith is great for killing a well defended planet that you don't want to commit your fleet to taking yet. The fact that the planet now has to be colonized again by the opponent means he has to spend time and money getting the planet back up and running (especially if it is a Terran world, ooohhh that sucks).
Unless he's an Advent with a Progenitor, making their upgrades dirt cheap.
Still takes time to get the upgrades and pop back.
Both of which are usually irrelevant in the stage of the game where Novaliths come out in play, since losing income temporarily on one planet is a minor nuisance at best, if the opponent can't capture it anyway because of your fleet. It only matters if he can knock out a bunch of planets, but as I said earlier that's a whole lot of expensive Novaliths
One aspect im not seeing considerd here is culture. If your trying to colonize a planet to get a defensive bulwark in an area populated hevily by your oponent (especialy if they are tec or advent) a the TEC and advent super's can be very usfull. By knocking out a planet entirly or having it start promoting your own culture it give you that gap of time you need in order to colonize that planet. You would otherwise have to wait what may be a very very long time for the presense of your Caps to push back the spread of culture (if ever). I also found a great strategy of using one of the advents cap ship powers to spy on enemy planets, identify where one of thier major brodcast planets is and hit that with the advent superwepon. pick the right planet and you can cause revolts on several enemy planets reducing thier income and making them easier to conquer. I have found the Vasari super somewhat usefull as a prelude to one of my fleets aproching a heavily defended planet as somtimes that extra time to posittion your ships and get of some cap ship abilities before the enemy starts shooting can tip the balance in a close fight. But its not nearly as usefull as the other two supers. And you do have to be in a pretty long multiplayer fight to ever get to the supers, but they are fun to use against the ai.
Unfortuantely, from all I've witnessed, the actual generation of your culture from a planet hit by a Deliverance Signal will equal 25.0/sec - enemy broadcast rate. Should the enemy's broadcast rate be greater than 25.0/sec, then you're just slashing that planet's culture generation...
Culture seems to have a tendency to have relatively high spread rates from planets with only one phase lane connected to them... once a Deliverance Signal on such a planet caused my culture to be generated at 50.0/sec. In another instance, prior to taking an enemy desert planet with one lane in and out, it generated 77.0 culture/sec with 7 (TEC!) Broadcast Centres... I then placed 6 of my own culture centres (i.e. the Vasari's Media Hub), and then saw the planet generate culture at a rate of 72.0/sec.
I like Novalith Cannon, in those situations;
When there's a Culture Clash, and I'm winning, I simply destroy their planetary structure and population, and my culture reserves that planet to me
And just bombarding planets across a star system, however I do not recommend that you use this cannon across a star system (it makes its way like in 3-4 minutes at least (I am having fps lags, so don't know the actual time) and I know I hit my planets after taking them.
Though, planetary shields do greatly reduce the effect of this cannon, can't remember the exact value but it was 500 (damage) I think
Which level of planetary shields? First level is at Tier 5 (which is included with getting the Shield Generator) and levels 2 and 3 are at Tier 7. Maxed Shield Generators can mitigate a TON of damage, rendering siege frigs (a favourite ship for the AI to employ in raids) next to useless unless in ridiculous numbers.
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