I totally support buffing caps, as I've said before.  However, as counter to conventional wisdom as this may sound, I think caps currently go down far too easily to FF to be able to fulfill their role of supporting the fleet.  As such, I just build the first one these days (a colonizer), and just keep it out of all battles.  Yes, even though multiple carrier caps are all the rage, that's what I do.

Since people are so fanatical about focusing and killing caps, I wonder if something like the brick might not be a little more useful than it seems?  Get The Brick, give it the shield ability, and let the other player pound on it while you hit his frigs?  Maybe even better if you back it with a Dunov, and/or hoshis?

You might say "well what idiot would sit there and focus a Kol?"  My answer, based on my experience with online play and people's mindless single-minded dedication to focusing and killing caps, is "plenty."  Thing is though, after a certain amount of fleet has been built up, either in lrf or bombers, even the brick will go down ridiculously fast, so this strat might not be so viable, but its something to think about.  Could also try it with the Kortul, as that's a tough ship.

The Radiance has to have an ability dedicated to getting players to focus it, so it might be more difficult to get players to focus a Kol.  The battleships seem slightly low on health and armour for their fleet role though- I suspect that they get larger increases than the other caps?  The Kortul is good fairly quickly, it's not often valuable to focus a Kortul.  I suppose with an Advent fleet you just want the best multiplier in order to wear the Guardians down. 

I had hoped that the sync bug fix would also revert the Skirantra buff.  Scramble Bombers v1.19 seems absurdly powerful compered to the Halcyon level 6 ability Anima Tempest, where you get the equivalent of of 7-8 squadrons for 75 seconds?   You could have 9 bomber squadrons up with the third level of Scramble Bombers, with a duration ranging from 50s to 120s... how is that balanced?  The antimatter cost is the same, and Anima Tempest has a cooldown of 180s, whereas in another 35s the Skirantra can add another 3 bombers... I might add a revert of Scramble Bombers to the original four abilities mentioned, along with Guidance.  

Weren't both Volatile Nanites and Cleansing Brilliance nerfed at some point?  They used to be the battleship answer to frigate hordes, it might be useful to have the original abilities restored?  I still prefer to have the Railgun on the Kol as the passive ability, as its the one that needs adjustment in any case.   

Thanks (that's what I figured).  Now I don't have to bother trying it myself.

This isn't a comment on the skirantra either way, just a general comment on the devs and balancing.  They are just damn, damn slow with it.  Let's just assume for a minute just for the sake of argument that the skirantra scramble bombers does need a little nerf (not saying it does or doesn't).  In this case, I knew the adjustment wouldn't be coming this patch.  The question is... why?

Why does it take them years to balance this game?  Why does it take them months to tweak a stat on a ship that obviously needs it (not speaking of skirantra specifically, just any ship in general)?  One might say "because they have to rewrite code and test it, blah blah."  But they don't.  All they have to do is open a text file and change a number or two.  One might say "because balance changes are more difficult than you think - changes propagate throughout the game and have unintended effects that one might not foresee - this all requires months of deep thought, testing, etc."  Sure, sometimes.  But in the case of the skirantra (again, ASSUMING there needs to be an adjustment), this doesn't apply.  We already know what the state of the skirantra was before buff.  We know what it is after buff.  We know what the state of the game would be if we reverted.  Finally, we can also conclude that putting the skirantra somewhere between where it is now and where it was before certainly couldn't BREAK the game.  At worst, it still isn't in the sweet spot, at best it is, and on average one might think it would at least be better than what it is now.  How much testing would this take.. a couple games?   Okay, maybe a dozen at worst case?  They really lack the time to throw a couple devs together for a day and play test it?  Then open a file and change a number or two?

How long have other adjustments taken?  How long did carrier cruisers remain ridiculously OP?  How long did the illum remain ridiculously OP (yes, because of a bug, but this wasn't a difficult, elusive sync bug, it was something they discovered the source of rather quickly because they made a post about it).  How long were lrm ridiculously OP (and in my humble opinion they are STILL OP, just not as ridiculous as in earlier patches)?  On and on.

Okay, we know that the devs are bright enough chaps, so they aren't too stupid to do balancing.  I guess they just don't care enough or can't be bothered because they have other priorities?  I could actually understand this somewhat, and be willing to cut more slack if we were talking severe rocket science here.  But again, some balancing tweaks seem easy and obvious, yet they still take months, if not years.

Put me down.  Due to a recent move, I don't have the greatest connection in the world at the moment, but that will change within the next 2 months.  I can still playtest now though, I just might be laggy.

I agree with this.  My impression is that balance has improved greatly since the inception of the game, and continues to.  I give the devs credit for this, and credit for supporting the game far in excess of what other gaming companies would have done.

All that Darvin's suggestion does is actually implement the intention of what animosity is supposed to do (make you target the Radiance), it just doesn't actually force you to target it.  You could run away, for instance, or do something else.  It would need some slight tweaks... for instance you wouldn't want the other ships in the bubble around the Radiance invulnerable to, say, a Kostura strike, or mines that had been laid.  You wouldn't want them invulnerable to Subverter strikes either, it seems.  You wouldn't want them invulnerable to ships that were firing from outside the range of the bubble, if that's possible, and you wouldn't want it to affect Ogrovs or Adjudici (which aren't even allowed to target ships).  Other than that, though, I would support Darvin's idea as something that implements what the dev's intention seems to have been.  I also like my idea - just dump a certain portion of the damage being taken from all ships in a radius around the Radiance onto the Radiance.

Now, an entirely different issue is... do you think that the original intention of the devs with this ability is flawed from the get-go?  In other words, if the Radiance actually forced you to target it (as it does against the AI), without you being able to retarget, it would be broken, OP, etc?  Is that what you (and possibly lbgsloan) are saying?  I haven't examined that issue, but it might be possible.  My issue has just been that the ability doesn't do anything at all against a human opponent.

If you are asking for a lore-based rationale, I have none.  I have never cared for lore when it comes to balancing any game.  I suspect that a sufficient lore could quite easily be constructed, as Volt saw when I proposed another solution to something months ago.  But for me personally, this is unimportant.

But if you are asking the rationale for why the ability should dump damage to the Radiance (the rationale for how this would implement the currently unimplemented "Animosity"), that's easy.  The original intent (which doesn't work) is to have 100% of the damage done to the fleet redirected to the Radiance.  My altered version does this - it directs the damage done to the fleet onto the Radiance.  The percentages?  Completely debatable.  100% would work exactly like Animosity is supposed to work now.  Less would work somewhat differently.

I could see at least 3 different ways to approach this.  One would be to have the ability level up based on percent of damage redirected to the Radiance (33%/50%/66% or whatever).  Another would be to have the ability redirect 100% of the damage, but level up based on time (4/6/8 seconds or whatever).  Yet another would be to mix both percent of damage redirected, and time.

One criticism of this approach was that this functions "too much" like the shield guardian ability.  Not that I care, but for those who do, my reply is that this would also direct damage to the hull of the Radiance when shields are gone - something that doesn't occur (to my knowledge) with shield guardians.  I would also say that this being similar to the shield guardian ability also means it would be easy for the devs to implement - they already have the existing functionality in the code (largely).  Finally, I would say that the similarity of it functioning like the shield guardian is really just a matter of perspective (its all in your mind).  What it really functions like is the intent of animosity.

As far as arranging time to work on balance issues, just PM me when you need help and we will arrange something.

EDIT:  It would also be possible to have both my ability, and Darvin's ability, be channeling, therefore interruptable.  This would probably be more desirable in the case of Darvin's suggestion since people worry about it being an "I win button."  This would also give someone reason to build an interupt-dealing capship to counter.

With the current implementation of Animosity, what happens to the left and right banks of weapons of affected ships- are they silenced, or are they free to fire at other targets?  I'm still not happy with the concept of invincibility for the accompanying fleet, unless there was some method of restricting it so that it applied only to enemy ships within the area of effect.  Damage transfer seems to remove all the synergy of Animosity with other abilities, as well as allowing a much better damage multiplier for fire on a cap?  A defensive buff for surrounding ships, rather than invulnerability, might avoid these issues? 

The weekend is approaching- anyone else want to help form a group to test play balance?  We'd need about 6-8 at least. 

One of my objections to the Skirantra buff as well as any proposed Egg colony buff is that up to v1.18 the Vasari had the most balanced set of capitals in the game, good battleships and siege as well as one situational capital ship that still had a few problems but which had been improved.  It was the other factions that had problems with variety.  The Marauder is the only Vasari capital I'd alter further, after a revert of the Skirantra buff. 

Though many players select the Kol as the worst capital in the current version of the game, there are other outstanding contenders.  After all the problem with the Kol is that its antimatter usage is prohibitive, not that the abilities themselves are poor.

The Radiance is another battleship that doesn't function in the current version.  The Kol has more chance with Assailants and strikecraft, all that the Radiance has is its passive armour, the antimatter drain isn't effective against frigates.  

The Revelation would be my choice for worst capital.  Before level 6 both the Marza and Vulkoras are effective siege capitals with a secondary ability that can strike several smaller ships at once.  Whatever you make of phase missile swarm- and it is disfavoured compared with radiation bomb, as well as being peculiarly named, why not just let it shoot phase missiles then?- it will damage enemy frigates in combat.  The Revelation lacks any ability to deal extra damage to attacking light frigates.  Guidance just uses up antimatter faster on other capital ships if you have any (are there stacking problems with some abilities?) and Clairvoyance isn't much use after battle begins.  Also, the Revelation is considerably less durable than either of the other siege capitals, it ties with the Antorak as being the weakest capital in the game, without the Antoraks speed to get it out of trouble, and heavy on shields to make it even more vulnerable to phase missiles.

However the worst feature of the Revelation is that it just doesn't fulfil its primary role.  It has no extra siege ability until level 6- and even then the ultimate isn't especially useful against asteroids, volcanics and ice planets where the population is low.  This means that Advent players can justify their endless stream of colony capitals and Halcyons on the basis that they need more capital ships, because they effectively have no siege capital.   

I would have put the Marza ahead of the Jarrasul, but at any rate, that is pretty much what I think as well.

Yeah, the reason for this is the use of the Kostura as a delivery method to take your ships deep into enemy territory.  For this reason, it needs something.  Perhaps have the build rate increase by 33%/67%/100% and/or add 1/2/3 extra constructors (isn't this how the ability was originally?)

That's what I proposed, as well - check my post here, if you're interested.

I suspect that Warlord Mike's concept is more likely.   You can't be sued for repeating someone else's suggestion if its adopted in a game, can you? 

The problem with the Egg is as much about the initial Vasari advantage with neutral extractors as about sheer combat power, though buffing the 4th/5th best combat ship would be worrying by itself....  If there's a flak buff it'll affect the dominance of the carrier capitals- as will the longed for revert of Scramble Bombers.  Buff the worst capitals first, and lets also see if we can get away from the lurching between LRF and strikecraft superiority that has hampered the game to date.

The Egg's ability seems to be more aimed at the fast construction of defences than financial expansion.  Vasari have an advantage over neutral extractors anyway.  I would find it very difficult to justify improvements to the Egg.  As well as nano, the other two abilities are extremely good in the later game- what rank is the Egg in terms of sheer siege power?  Not a priority. 

There's been some very dubious discussion of the Skirantra and Scramble Bombers on other threads.  The buff to the first level of Scramble Bombers was very slight, so I can't understand why anyone would want to discuss low-level Skirantras at all, there's scarcely any difference.  The real problem is that at the third level the ability is from 50% to 100% more powerful than the Halcyon's very similar ultimate ability.  The developers seemed to buff the Halcyon's ultimate in v1.18, with no other reason than to keep pace with the Skirantra, then entirely abandoned this very justifiable practice for v1.19.... and I'm not claimining that the Halcyon's ultimate needs a further buff!

I suppose that the point for this thread is that perhaps suggested amendments to abilities should be related to other similar existing abilities- like Animosity becoming a version of Armistice, or comparing any adjustment to Gauss Rail Gun to other direct damage abilities like nano, Radiation Bomb and Disintegration.  This might avoid the Scramble Bombers issue in future.