Okay. I wanted to try TEC. So if you are a fan of the TEC maybe you all can help. I have a couple of questions.
1.) What ships and combo of ships do you focus on? What does you TEC fleet looks like?
2.) Economy. What do you research. In what order? What do you do to get that economy roaring.
3.) What do you do with diplomacy as TEC? If anything?
4.) I keep hearing that TEC is a fast starter? How so?
Any help will be greatly appriciated. I stink at TEC.
Indeed, as Darvin has suggested before, Adaptive Force Field definitely needs to be passive instead of being yet another AM drain on the Kol's already feeble reactor, and Gauss Rail Gun needs at a minimum another debuff, because speed just doesn't cut it.
If Adaptive force field gets passive AM problems for kol would definitely be greatly reduced. Make flak burst use 2/3 or 3/4 of am it uses atm and this ship is ready to rock.
I would like to see Flak Burst buffed considerably so that at level 3 it can function well without a second Kol backing it up. Then at least the Kol would have a decent ability carrying it instead of one that needs to be invested on two ships in order to be effective.
Making adaptive forcefield passive works...I know this from experience because I've played with a modded version of the kol where this ability no longer was sucking up antimatter...however, if this ability is passive I would not decrease the AM cost of the other two abilities...if they aren't powerful enough, then the ability itself needs to be more powerful (not simply cheaper to use)...
So far my favorite secondary debuff with GRG is a shield mitigation penalty...makes it useful against SBs and capital ships, though picking an actual value can be tricky in terms of balance...biggest problem is finding a happy medium with what the penalty actually is and then its duration...stacking limitations is another issue (should it stack? should the same kol be allowed to stack with itself?)...I have yet to find numbers here that I'm happy with...
As for flak burst, the problem is that its a very high risk ability because you get only one shot and its AM expensive...I'm fine with the AM cost for level 3, but I think the ability needs a bit more utility to substantiate it at lower levels....I would be okay with AM cost reduction if it were only for level 1 and level 2 (say 80/90/100)...increased range or a faster cooldown could certainly help though I don't know if that's the way to go...
A consideration is to make the ability do damage over time...the disadvantage of that is that the enemy has time to react and get their SC out of their before they take too much damage...the advantage is that because it is over time, you could allow for the total damage to be much higher than it currently is...the biggest problem is making one kol useful without making two kol's overpowered....two instances of flak burst can conceivably be OP when only one instance is underpowered...
Level 3 right now does 60 damage...but what if instead flak burst did 15 DPS for 6s? Then the total damage would be 90, not 60...furthermore, this would allow you to increase the range without two instances of the ability being OP...
What exact numbers to put here would require thorough testing...however, I do believe damage over time could be made to work...though in theory it gives the enemy time to get their SC out of their, in practice I think that'll be easier said than done...if the DPS is high enough, you'll probably do more damage overall because your "window" to hit SC increases as well...15-20 DPS for 5-6 seconds is pretty powerful and it's unlikely your enemy will be able to do much evasively in that limited time frame...
Strike craft moves around a lot which means that if u keep 15dps for 6 second it would receive only 2-3 seconds of damage before they get out of the weapon range. Less AM and shorter cool down times would work imo. You should be able to fire 4-5 shoots in rapid succession before you run out of AM. Such a thing would be hard to set up for auto ability because it would drain AM really fast.
Would it be possible to add condition to ability that it fires only if amount of enemy strike craft in range of ability reaches or exceeds certain percent of total enemy strike craft in gravity well.
I haven't cracked open the coding on this but intuitively I would see this type of AI Use condition as very memory intensive. This would mean that this single line of code would essentially have to ping the coding of all gravwell objects every second in order to ascertain the exact # of strikecraft and then force an ever changing calculation of the required # of strike craft to trigger the ability. Much simpler and less intensive to use an If/Then statement to code as in "If X # of strike craft are in range, then use ability Flak Burst." Keeps the game running much more smoothly.
I like the DPS idea but keeping a portion of the burst component. This would also make it more inline with what flak actually is in reality. The initial burst of the flak ammunition is the equivalent of a Frag Grenade in space but further more this creates a cloud of sharp metallic objects that you are colliding with at reasonably high speeds if you are a SC. So to me, to bring it in line more with the highly effective TK Push & Jam Weapons/Phasic Traps, I would have it do something like the following:
25/35/45 Pts damage on initial burst. 8/10/12 DPS in the Flak range for 5 Seconds.
Or you could have initial damage with DPS on all targets that were hit by the initial damage to more accurately portray the lingering damage flak has on a fighter type aircraft which again is more inline with historical uses of Flak. This would be similar to the Rad Bomb where there is initial damage plus DPS on the target. I think either of these changes would make Flak more useful but not OP.
Either of these suggestions obviously would be subject to testing and change but the real purpose has to be equalizing the ability of the Kol to handle SC on the order that is handled through TK Push or Jam Weapons. Right now TK Push does good amounts of damage, debuffs to speed & response time and after each push, the SC are so far out of position that they are effectively shutdown for 5-8 per incidence of Push. Jam Weapons completely destroys SC ability to bring damage on Target giving, at level 3, 35 Seconds of SC immunity over a decent range of your fleet. With 2-3 Kortuls alternating JW, it's easy to make SC almost a non issue against Vasari. And then you have FB, which cannot shutdown SC, Cannot destroy them instantly and cannot removing them from combat for decent chunks of time. It needs a buff, not cheaper, not lower cooldown. A true buff. Burst Damage+DPS makes the most sense to me or Burst Damage+non-stacking Armor Debuff would also be interesting to toy around with as well.
This is a valid point, but likewise you are also completely missing some SC when you fire with single shots...the problem is that where the SC squadron icon is and where the individual SC are located are two very different places...you may think you have all the squadrons in range but in reality many of the SC might actually be out of range....as a player it can be almost impossible to determine how much of your enemy's SC is actually in range of flak burst....
Because FB doesn't disrupt SC bombing runs, I think it needs to have greater range so that it provides more of a threat...the problem is that since two kol's with flak burst could kill SC outright, a range increase could make a double kol combo too powerful in terms of SC cover...damage over time could potentially make one kol more useful without making two kol's OP...
FB is inferior to the other two abilities inpart because it doesn't provide "cover"...it simply helps fighters/flak kill enemy SC faster (but doesn't do anything to reduce the damage of enemy SC until they're completely destroyed)...a DPS effect with much greater range would certainly grant some sort of cover...it wouldn't be OP because you don't lose all your SC with one use of an ability, but players who choose to keep their SC over your fleet would eventually start losing SC...
Imagine that flak burst did 10 DPS over the course of 30s...in that time frame, SC could suffer as much as 300 damage (which is enough for a complete kill)...even if they were only in range half the time, that's still 150 damage which is enough for a kill if you have any fighter or flak support...so, while a player may be willing to take 2 shots of level 3 flak burst (120 damage total), they most certainly will not let their SC be in the area (presumably rather large) for 30s lest they outright lose all that firepower...
I will agree that too short of a time interval would probably yield less damage overall...but I think there comes a point where if the DPS is high enough and the time interval is long enough, the enemy will definitely lose his SC if he doesn't get them out of the way (and a range increase would make this harder)...
100 AM is expensive, but appropriate for the possibility of killing an infinite number of SC...I would be fine with a cheaper AM cost for lower levels (80/90/100), but nothing more than that...since I'm also advocating making adaptive forcefield passive, I think 100 AM is reasonable...
Reducing the cooldown certainly would make the ability more useful but I think range is really the limiting factor here...you simply cannot protect necessary assets from SC with the Kol...TK push has a range of 4200m and JW has a range of 6500m...Flak burst however has a range of 3600m...JW covers an area 3.26 times greater than that of FB and eliminates SC damage output...
A hybrid between DPS and single shot salvos certainly has an appeal...probably would be harder to reach consensus on good values but overall probably the most effective solution..
You know, you just gave me idea. Thinking about flak, I'm pretty sure I would be kind of distracted if I was flying at high speeds through a cloud of sharp pointy metal and furthermore, wouldn't it cause a bunch of reflected/scrambled readings from the directed energy sensors of the SC weapon systems? Why not make FB cause temporary weapons accuracy penalty in addition to the damage? Like 50% accuracy loss for 5/8/10 seconds after shot? This would greatly increase the utility but not be OP IMHO.
Oh, and range increase is an absolute must. I cannot understand the rationale behind having it at a lower range than TK push.
Not that any of you really cares, but FB is only anti-SC ability used extensively in late game MP. TK push is nice early to mid game, but later on lack of good repair ship and fact that Halcyon is made of plastic makes it pretty useless. FB on other hand is meh early game, but gets very powerful late game, not only because it does nice dmg to bombers but because of TEC insane repair (hoshikos, slighty OP rep bays), forcefield ability and armor upgrades. 2 kols, some flak and you can kill unproportianate amount of bombers.
JW is another story. It doesn't actually kill anything so sooner or later you'll make micro mistake and it'll get blasted. Not useless late game, but more situational and takes more skill to use. Early game it's shitty.
Bottom line is if you buff FB/Kol to make it viable opening cap you will likely make it too powerful late game. There are far more underused caps than Kol, pls stop asking for a buff because it's trademark Sins ship and looks nice and try to be more objective.
Some unrelated numbers to make my post look cool:
011011000110010101110011011100110010000001101101011011110110010001100100011010010110111001100111001000000110110101101111011100100110010100100000011100000110110001100001011110010110100101101110011001110000110100001010
less modding more playing
Nerd:)
The power of binary, complete gibberish to the average person, but to a nerd it is a language. I guess I am not much of a nerd since I couldn't read that.
Halcyon isn't any more or less vulnerable than any other capital ship other than the three battleships, so its "vulnerability" isn't really an issue here...
I don't know what MP games you are playing, but TK push is most certainly useful late game...it is easier to micro than JW yet provides the same effect by disrupting bomber runs...FB doesn't do anything to disrupt bombing runs...early game that isn't so much an issue, but late game a single bombing run can wipe out a capital ship, and TK push can give your battleball, SB, or whatever asset you choose significantly more time to survive while fighters/flak whittle down enemy SC...
Flak burst cannot do that...at 60 damage per use, it would take 3 successive shots to kill a Vasari bomber (150 HP), and that isn't even considering the +5 armor that Vasari bombers have...if you consider the armor as well as tech upgrades, 4 shots minimum would be required to kill a Vasari bomber late game (where you argue FB is strongest)...that is 24s before the Kol is actually reducing any damage done by enemy SC, whereas TK push and JW are instantaneous....
The problem isn't that FB isn't a great opener (TK push and JW aren't either)...the problem is that late game FB still is outperformed by TK push and JW...one Halcyon with TK push or one Kortul with JW are significant assets late game...one Kol with FB is not nearly as useful, and if an ability depends on you having two of the same capital ship in order to be useful, then its not a very useful ability....
You realize that when someone makes a mod, they generally like to play it, right?
Advent have their anti-sc ability on carrier cap instead of a battleship like other 2 races. Besides most of it's hp is in shields, repair bays repair hull. Thought it should be obvious.
You can't balance FB by comparing it's damage to TK push (besides, bomber range>TKP range). You're taking it out of context. TEC has crazy tanking ability while Advent has next to none. EVERY TEC player spams hoshikos and repair bays. It's hard to kill skilled players Kol and it's ridiculously easy to kill halcyon.
Do you ever, I mean ever, see Advent player spamming halcyons late game to get TK for sc defense? Of course not, they'll get bomber or lrf raped. So while on paper TK push may seem awesome, it's not so late game because it's easy to kill cap itself.
As for Kortul, only reason why JW is usable is overseer. Caps do get focus fired, you know? Reason why FB is ok is NOT that ability itself is good, it's because it fits well into TEC fleet. Keeping it alive still takes a little game experience but that's the way it should be.
Most people with good knowledge of Sins game mechanics and various game values usually don't have time to play ICO, prefer SP/comp stomps or just get their kicks from modding etc. Whatever floats your boat , but it means they're e don't really know what works in game and what doesn't. I just don't recall most of you playing 5s on ICO.
Understanding general balance doesn't mean much if you don't know typical strategies used, what works in reality etc. Theory!=Practice. Sometimes I just fear devs get their ideas from general forum opinions
Neither Radiance nor Kol are capital ships I'd even consider in the early-game. You have far superior options in this critical juncture. Back in pre-1.18 the Radiance was pretty good in the vs Vasari matchup for disabling the Jarrasul, which was a big threat to the standard Progenitor opener, but that's ancient history now.
While this is definitely a possibility, it is not my favoured approach. I quite like the concept of the Kol as a ship that juggles three abilities, each of which has incredible power but is limited by that tight antimatter reserve. As it stands right now, flak burst is the only one of the three that meets that edge.
Cooldown is pretty quick as is; I think an antimatter buff is all that's needed on this ability. It's the gauss railgun that needs the real attention.
Against Vasari, sure, but against TEC or Advent you can have 3 or 4 Halcyons working in concert which usually does the trick. Because they're competitive carriers on the side, that's an investment you can actually afford.
I find jam weapons is superb late game against strike craft heavy enemies. Sure, you may lose your Kortuls if you run out of antimatter or fall out of formation, but capital ship deaths are normal in these late-game battles. Against enemies who have a substantial amount of strike craft, shutting down this much of their firepower can be game-winning.
I still see a strong case for buffing flak burst on lower level Kols, and I think the Finest Hour nerf has opened a little more leeway with higher level Kols, but I'd agree that a high level Kol with flak burst is performing quite well. More emphasis needs to be placed on its other abilities, particularly the gauss railgun.
First off, bomber range is significantly less than that of TK push...TK push has a range of 4200 while bombers have ranges of 2400...even if you account for the fact that some bombers will penetrate that range (4/9/14, to be exact) before the ability is activated, that still is a great enough difference to prevent most bombers from firing a single shot...
As yes, I can compare FB's damage to that of TK push...FB does 30/45/60 while TK push does 20/30/40 damage and completely disrupts bombing runs and costs 90 (instead of 100 AM)...so for less AM I get far better SC cover and slightly less damage with TK...I'm seeing a clear winner here...in fact, both even have comparable cooldowns (10/9/8 for FB vs. 10s for TK push)...I'm sorry, but FB just doesn't compare to TK push...
Oh I agree its hard to kill the Kol...in fact I think it's the hardest ship to kill...but it's pretty much worthless until level 5 in terms of utility whereas a level 1 Halcyon has high utility immediately even in the late game....obviously if you don't think TK push is a good ability then you won't see that (but if you really doubt TK push's effectiveness then I'm really wondering what types of games you play)...
Even if you recognize the inferiority of FB, you could argue (as you have) that TK push is irrelevant because a Halcyon will get killed...you're right, it will...in fact, any low level capital ship will easily get killed (and the Kol is no exception)...at low levels a Kol isn't going to be that much more resilient than a Halcyon but it will be far more useless...
Even if you argue that the Kol has great potential because it's very potent at level 5 (and its more likely to get to that potential since its harder to kill), I would say that a level 5 Halcyon is still a much better ship...all three Halcyon abilities are very useful (AA being more an early ability) while the Kol has one useful ability, flak burst (which is inferior to the Halcyon's equivalent at all 3 levels)...
ALL Advent capital ships have more shields than hull...fine, put TK push on the Radiance, it still is going to be just as easy of a kill for Vasari bombers/kanraks as any other Advent capital ship (the armor from energy absorption might buy you a little time, but not much more)...the problem here is Advent's weakness to PMs and not the utility of advent capital ship abilities....
TEC "tanking" late game is a complete joke unless you are only talking about against Vasari...Advent battleballs with repulsion, shield projection, shield regeneration, and TK push are exceptionally difficult to tackle with anything less than phase missiles, and Vasari overseers can give a ship thousands of HP in seconds...hoshikos are great early on but as the game progresses TEC do not have the ability to protect caps like the other two factions...
TEC "tanking" only exists if you compare completely unsupported ships which is just plain illogical...early game your argument stands (mainly because support ships other than hoshikos aren't common), but that doesn't matter because Kol's are useless early game...late game (when Kols allegedly are more useful) both Advent and Vasari are far better at keeping capital ships and SBs alive unless PMs are involved...a well supported Kol is the only exception to this rule if it is a higher level Kol....the logical fallacy commonly made here is equating late game with higher level...capital ships die, they do, and there is no guarantee you'll have high level capital ships late game...every capital ship starts at level 1, and needs to justify its existence at low levels because there is no guarantee you'll get it to even level 5...most times that I see a fleet with several high level capital ships, that player has already dominated and won so of course any capital ship combo may work for them...
Now, that little caveat unless PM's are involved is important because it would be a little unfair to write off an entire faction...furthermore, I do agree there is something to be said for having a more resilient capital ship that's arguably harder to lose...so let's make a fair comparison, a Kol with FB vs. a Kol with TK push...I would take the Kol with TK push any day, it is more powerful at level 3 and certainly more useful at level 1 and 2...
And that's the main point here...as an ability, FB simply does not compare well to TK push...even in modded versions where FB was buffed, I failed to ever find it as useful as TK push or JW...I tried, I really did...I played a match and built two Kols and got both to level 6 and put level 3 FB on both of them...this modded FB had greater range and a faster cooldown than what is implemented now yet it did not serve me well at all...
The most memorable battle was me vs. a massive Vasari fleet...it was late game and I was outnumbered a little in fleet size but was on defense with an SB and was comparable in number of SC (which is what is relevant here)...despite 2 Kols spamming FB as much as they could (which by the way was easier because adaptive forcefield was passive) I hardly made a dent in the Vasari SC because two skirantras were spamming repair aura...FB simply did not succeed in killing any significant amount of SC (even with fighter/flak support) and that was with 2 Kols using buffed versions of FB...
Obviously you have no reason to believe me since I don't have that replay (and I wish I really did), but nevertheless it's not just high minded theory that makes me question flak burst...
I don't advocate the Kol being buffed out of sentiment or because "it looks cool"...I have consistently advocated buffs to all underused capital ships...but seriously, the Kol is near the bottom of the pack...there are only two ships, the marauder and the Revelation, that I would say are more underused than the Kol...that's 2 out of 15, and why can't I advocate improving all ships that need improvements? Kol just happens to be one of them (and also happens to be on topic while the revelation and marauder aren't)...
If u can't master tec u definitely need to go back to the basics. .. basics win battles: pick your ship complements, research well and repair your ships. Tec are powerful.
Advent- well let me tell u a simple killing game changer move developers could do: Domina Cruiser & Perseverance at hostility temple 3, and Suppression at 5. Iconus should have been temple 4 because ships are equiped with high level shields already. This translates to: Bye bye vasari, bye bye tec.
Think they did the maths and said u kidding me, spaming dozens and dozens of scouts and desciples plus a dozen repair clouds after 3 temples is extreme.
Hi
I've followed countless threads discussing how to buff the Kol, and frankly I'm sick of the constant back-and-forth regarding the subject. I say the devs should just scrap the current form and redesign it from the ground up (even though I like the current model).
Personally, I'd drop the beam cannons, change the "railgun" into its primary foward weapon, convert several of its auto cannons into flak cannons, and take the abilities from there. I always thought of the Kol as a flagship, so maybe some kind of fleet buff or something.
Just my two cents.
Well...I suppose you could make adaptive forcefield a fleet buff...that certainly would make the Kol instantly a popular choice....
hey i always use a kol for openers and it works awesome, the gaus rail gun can effectively snipe out the weak militia on planets and that give it more exp. quickly. I personally love using kols, just spam like 8 or 10 of them with sovas and dreadnoughts and you rule the map
That might work vs the AI but vs skilled human opponents it's a poor choice.
Yeah, if you're playing decent opponents, Kols are pretty ineffective unless you really know how to use them. Its most powerful ability is Flak Burst, which can take out very large numbers of enemy strike craft quickly. If you aren't building it for that you'd be better off starting with a different capital ship.
To be honest, any sort of opener can work well if you're only playing AI.
The Kol either needs better abilities or it needs a much larger antimatter pool and possibly a speed buff.
Flak burst is the only thing that isn't useless on the Kol since by the mid-late game you can rest assured that the emeny has quite a number of carriers both frigate and capital thus they will have a considerable amount of strike craft. Gauss cannon and adaptive forcefield is too high an antimatter cost to keep it in use so it has no real effect.
Though in all realities after the Akkan I actually perfer the Dunov as my favorite TEC capital ship. Akkan is just fun especially with you get armistice. Dunov if worked with at least 2 will boost your fleet surviablity considerablly and maybe with this could you get the Kol to work that is if you can get flux field (with all AM upgrades) and hoshis around. Never tried the 2 Dunovs and Kol combo online bc you will rarely get the chance to level your Dunovs to that high for flux field.
I actually think that, when used by skilled players, the Kol isn't all that bad. Sire in particular really knows how to use it, well. A couple level 3 Kols with level 2 GRG, combined with a moderate supporting fleet (a few HCs? LRM?) can pretty easily take out an even slightly damaged enemy capital ship, especially in combination with the speed nerf GRG applies and with good pursuit micro. Even with my cap at mostly full strength, I know I probably have to run quickly if I see a couple enemy Kols closing in and want to survive.
And Finest Hour's splash damage can completely shred enemy fleets: the Kol's durability is also quite impressive.
It's not that the Kol is bad or underpowered, it's that newer players have no idea how to use it halfway decently, but build it anyway because they hear "BATTLESHIP".
The Dunov combined with other capital ships works well against the AI, but if you're getting the Dunov for Shield Restore, you'll find that it doesn't really help as much as you think it does. +250 shield points is almost nothing. +500 is something but will still be negated after a couple seconds of concentrated enemy fire. Level 3's +750 can definitely help large targets survive for a few more seconds, but really, it doesn't help enough to be worth the cost of a level 5 capital ship.
And then there's the problem that Shield Restore doesn't self-target... the enemy may well just target your Dunov(s) and kill them or make them run so they're useless. Dunovs built for Shield Restore are not worth it.
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