Can anyone please point me out in a right direction?
I convinced 2 of my friends, who i occasionally play Supreme Commander 2 with, to buy Rebellion on a winter sale, so they can play with me. Obviously, against AI at first and possibly even later, but thats not really important.
The thing is, i am trying to teach them how to play a game, both at once during a match, and its a bit difficult, as i am not that familiar with the factions of their choice. One of them chose TEC Loyalists (with bit of my help, as he wanted TEC and considers himself a strong economy/defensive player (plays SupCom with no units whatsoever bar engineers, just builds gigantic bases across half the map with trillions of artilleries and superpowerful eco to bomb enemy players into oblivion), so i thought Twin Bases, early Novaliths and Pervasive Economy might be good choice for him. The other guy chose Vasari Rebels right away...
Now, i can teach them basics, build colony cap at first, few frigates, send them to nearest planets to colonize, build lab or 2, upgrade civilian infrastructure on newly colonised worlds asap to stop wasting credits, research Ice/Volcanic habitats if needed...i can explain Black Market, Pirates, Fleet Logistics and tradeport chaining to them....but then they still come with questions, what to do next, what to research next?
As i played both of their factions maybe once or twice each, i really dont know the answer. I mean, i know, what are these races about, about their specific techs and strengths and weaknesses, so if i played them myself, i would probably know what to do. But as i dont and i dont have their respective tech trees in front of me, its kinda difficult. Even for the Vasari Rebels, myself i play Vasari Loyalists and its basically about the same for me every time, going as fast as i can toward ShipBoard Labs, Phase Stabilisers, Enslaved Labor, then Dark Fleet Beacon and finally SttC and voila...build a fleet/Titan and go on rampage, But obviously its completely different for the Rebels and i dont really know what to suggest him to him. Obviously Phase Stabilisers, but what else? Should he concentrate on the Empire tree, as i do with Loyalists, or better on the Military one? Or even the Manipulation, for their special Diplomatic related Stuff (even if teams are locked?)
TLDR: Can you please post some loose description of your way of playing TEC Loyalists and Vasari Rebels? Specifically the order of techs you tend to research most of the times, which do you feel are essential/most worth to get at the beginning of the game.
Thanks for your responses.
I think someone once said that you go to war with the Titan you have, not the Titan you wish you had.
So from the beginning you seem to be saying "I am going to play TEC Loyalists, here's how to use the Ankylon". Which is fine and good, and perhaps more suited for this topic. But it doesn't change the fact that in a serious game, it is nice if all the factions are more or less on even ground. The TEC in general are good, but the Rebels have a lackluster research tree but an awesome titan, while the Loyalists have a lackluster titan and a good but late and expensive research tree. Which is a bad thing in multiplayer, as games are usually decided before the major late game advantages the Loyalists have can be deployed. That is why it is hard for the Loyalists to compete in a serious game, as the Rebels advantages happen to come about at the most vital time in the game, and why many players and myself want the Loyalists and especially the Ankylon buffed so it can better compete with other factions.
I think that is a good way to play them, but that does not make them a good faction compared to the rest. The late game Advent and Vasari factions are just as good as the TEC Loyalists if not better, and they do not suffer as bad of a middle game weakness as the Loyalists.
You should never be afraid to compare to other factions. You maybe using other means to achieve victory, but for a serious game you must ask "Could I have a better chance of obtaining victory" another way? If other factions have strategies that give them greater odds of success, you must be totally honest with that possibility, and realize you are fighting an uphill battle.
Well that depends. If the goal is not to get blow up, maybe. If the goal is to actually stop the enemy from inflicting serious damage on your other ships or infrastructure, you ultimately have to destroy them. Just enduring does not help that much, especially if the enemy is using corvettes or strikecraft (and they will if you're team is using titans) as they can simply run away and bypass your titan (of course these units can easily just kill your titan if its totally unsupported).
I must caution you here. Sins inherently greatly promotes quality over quantity when it comes to capitalships and titans. Command points are expensive to research, and the whole point of capitalships and titans is their abilities, not their stats. The fewer caps you need, the faster they level up, and they unlock more powerful versions of their abilities that lets them do their intended role better. With titans this is even more important as they get rebuilt at the level they were destroyed at, so leveling up your titan quickly is of vital importance and is actually a lasting investment. While in a few cases like Dunovs or Kortuls with titan AM draining abilities might be an exception, in general you should only build capitalships after your current ones reach high levels.
I should also point out you cannot count on having the resources to spare to purchase levels. The only time it was widely used was to rush an devastating level 2 Embargo rush. If you're winning the battle you might have the luxury of being able to afford them as a luxury, but if you're losing that is not a cost effective way to reverse your fortunes.
First of all I agree that defensive stat bonuses are underrated, as they affect all your units versus those that only have the given weapon type. And no, I did not think you were saying to get that ASAP. But one thing players new to serious play run into is that unlike 4X games, research does not win you games. In most games I do not seriously invest in stat bonus research. If you do it should only be because you do not want to upgrade your fleet supply and have resources to spare. Again if you are fighting for your life you cannot count on being able to research such things, so it usually only applies in games you are already winning.
Again, you should never be afraid to compare with other races. Nano Disassembler is an effective single target killer because it does damage that bypasses shield mitigation and as a secondary debuff reduces armor. And it is amazing. Gauss Rail Gun can be viewed as a single DPS bonus while the Kol has antimatter, and for raw DPS frigates will be caps the vast majority of the time, probably all the time if you factor in cost.
Actually it is, it just takes longer. Docking booms is not often purchased as an upgrade, unless you have dual starbases that can support each other, but that is extremely late game.
Yes, but again, you don't build capitalships for raw DPS. You get them for special abilities. And an ability that only adds DPS has to be amazing to be worth the importunity cost of the more unique abilities other caps have. It is very rare single target DPS is worth more than AoE damage.
But how often do you actually want high DPS against a single non frigate? For starbases you have bombers and Ogrovs, titans you need Dunovs, not Kols. And in general its easier to kill other caps with massed frigates, not TEC caps.
Totally false. The Kol and Marza have the exact same speed and maneuverability stats. In fact all caps but colony and carrier caps are the same.
Marzas and Kols are both the wrong weapon for killing titans. Bombers, Corvettes, Dunovs and your own titans are. However, a level 6 Marza is extremely helpful even in this case for its ability to ensure the enemy fleet cannot support the titan without taking heavy losses. And this capacity is far more important than a Kol with Gauss rail gun is EVER.
Not really. I doubt a Sova takes significantly less punishment than a Kol without adaptive forcefield, and even if it does the Sova's better antimattter efficiency, strike craft and mobility (it can deploy turrets and get out while its strikecraft pound from afar, which can be a more useful form of durability in many cases).
Again I believe it is. There is no situation except antistrikecraft that capitalships should be used for that a better TEC capitalship isn't available. If you believe otherwise, try it against other people, and see if it works as well as you think once the incompetence of the AI isn't allowing you to get away with it.
Again, what is the point of this discussion? If it is "I want to play TEC Loyalists, how do I win?", it is sound. If, as most people want, it is "What is the best way to win in Rebellion?", the best methods do not involve TEC Loyalists. That is a shame, as I think that all factions should have roughly equal chances of victory in a serious match.
Goa's pretty much right on every point.
Anything will work in single player against AI sure, but against realy players who know what they are doing, massing capitalships, overinvesting in research, or choosing capitalships poorly will make you lose. If you are vastly better then your opponent in micro & scouting you may win, but you are putting yourself at a substantial disadvantage.
Overinvesting in static defenses is also a mistake players new to MP tend to make. Turrets should rarely be used for defense and hanger defenses are luxury defenses for the late game and niche other uses. For a vast majority of the game your defenses consist of Repair bays and a few well-place frigate factories(to quickly build reinforcements), with the occasional starbase where needed.
And btw the Kol is pretty much accepted as being one of the bar-none worst capitalships in the game. it has a few little tricks, such as using flak burst as a last resort SC defense, and certainly combos well with a dunov if you can get both to level 6. But by and large it's a bad capitalship to build- and it should never be built early-game.
The TEC has more strong & viable capitalships then any other race(Akkan, corsev, & Dunov are bloody amazing, Marza pretty damn good, and the Sova is decent) so use them. The Kol is pretty much the Only "bad" TEC capitalship. of course some shine in areas more then others(Akkan or Marza are usually the best starting caps).
But when it comes down to it, frigates are the main workhorse of any good fleet. You get a ton more firepower per cost from frigates then you do from capitalships, not to mention less capitalships means your titan/caps level faster.
As you say a bunch of level 2-4 caps will kill 1-2 level 6+ ones. of course this is the case, one fleet costs a lot more then the other. But 4-5 capitalships level 3-4 will get utterly trounced by 1-2 high level capitalships combined with 13000 credits worth of just about any frigate.
Well first, my line about going to war with the Titan you have and not the Titan you wish you had was intended to be a humorous reference to a famous line by Donald Rumsfeld. Guess it needed an emoticon for full effect.
Second, however, I think your comment in turn is funny because this thread was supposed to be precisely about how to win at TEC Loyalists. That is in the title, and in the original post by Timmaigh he specifically asked for advice to give to his friends who were going to play "against AI at first and possibly even later".
He also asked the same question about Vasari Rebels, but no one stepped up on that one. I guess they don't engender the kind of stubborn hope-against-hope that TEC Loyalists do.
What can I say, I'm not a Rumsfeld fan. And yes, emoticons are great for that.
I realized the irony myself; Incomitus' answer is indeed a great one to the OP. However, generally such things turn into balance discussions, and I think any discussion of how to use the TEC Loyalists needs to acknowledge that they are likely not the best race to play as if you just want to win. Especially when he's also asking about the Vasari Rebels, which are probably the best faction in the game. The contrast is just too great.
I enjoy immensely reading this discussion and opinions and it does not matter at all, if it is beyond the scope of the OP. Keep up!
BTW, how would you rate the factions strength-wise? Apparently Vasari Rebels are the strongest ones, is it purely because of the Starbase Mobilization? If anyone has opinion, how to play them the best, comp-stomp or PvP, i would like to hear that as well
Anyway, who is the next in the pecking order? Vasari Loyalists, Advent Rebels? Clearly Goa thinks that TEC Loyalists are weak, but are they the weakest in your opinion? Or do the Advent Loyalists trump them, who i suppose are still considered to be one of the weaker factions?
Regarding the way of choosing the faction, its true i kinda recommended the Loyalists to my buddy... but i think for him to play the faction, who he feels has the qualities he admires (economically/defensively oriented in this case), is more important than winning at all costs. Especially if we play just against AIs. But who knows, maybe he decides to try something else next time and finds out, it suits him even better...
Finally, HLT, Twilight Storm, Incomitatus... more power to you! for choosing TEC Loyalists as your fav faction. I cant see myself ever doing it, not when i can choose things like Vorastra, Dark Fleet Beacon and full mobility (and this choice was made before the game was out and purely based on what i consider to be cool and close to my heart, not whether its OP or not), but its always interesting and great to find out that someone else can and will without hesitation, as his preferences are totally different...makes then for some great conversations like this topic turned out. Simply, diversity is just wonderful thing.
I do put the TEC Loyalists at the very bottom competitively, but despite all I've been saying, I really don't think they are super far behind the Advent Loyalists or TEC Rebels, they just need to make the Ankylon better and to give them a little something to make the early/mid game easier so they actually have a chance to get some use out of their late game goodies.
Here's my ranking for multiplayer, though some might actually switch Vasari Loyalists and Rebels just for the titan.
1. Vasari Rebels (Starbase Mobilization, nano leach and dissever make their titan hard to kill and hard hitting, best phase missiles. Technically they're also very late game focused but unlike the TEC Loyalists their late game goodies can be devastating if you rush them at the expense of everything else).
2. Vasari Loyalists (Strong Vasari base faction, the Vorastra is probably the most dangerous titan in multiplayer as it is the only one that can easily handle carriers, hard to corner and defeat with the Vorastra setting up phase stabilizers everywhere. You don't see striped to the core much but they're still great).
3. Advent Rebels (Really just because of the Eradica and Wail. They are better than AL in other ways but none that matter much in MP. Weak Advent Eco is the main issue with them, as well as that some hosts will ban them due to wail).
4. TEC Rebels (TaR can be amazing if you have the right map setup, the Ragnarov is a great titan, best for those new to MP. Besides TaR tech tree is probably the worst in the game, but that isn't as big a deal in MP, and is another reason why they're the best for new comers as they teach you to invest less in research).
5. Advent Loyalists (The Coronata is actually alright now, and AL fleets are really hard to kill when properly formed and researched, and slight eco advantage over AR, but too much investment in culture techs kills them. Add in the fact that the strongest factions are Vasari that already have a big advantage over the Advent, and its an uphill battle.).
6. TEC Loyalists (Mediocre titan, all great techs save counter deployment come too late to influence the game in most cases. Early Novaliths can be very helpful, but otherwise none of their techs are potentially game ending in themselves if you get them early unlike Vasari Rebels.).
I would argue that in games against the AI, Advent Rebels and Vasari Loyalists should be switched as you'll rarely need the mobility advantage of the Vorastra as the AI won't be smart enough to use carriers and corvettes, so the better damage and durability of the Eradica puts it over the top in a slug fest.
VL > VR
My proof? Hosts are starting to allow VR....and people are picking VL over them....
Personally, my fav's are either VL or AL.
Are you guys saying that you don't use kols? Because i would be angry.
In my opinion, The kol is not a ship of the line. It is, however necessary to have 2 or 3 in any TEC fleet due to flak burst (has saved my titan many a time). In addition, a group of 4 kols is in my opinion an amazing tool for raiding. A group of kols can easily sneak in through wormholes or around the sides and survive a lengthy amount of time. with grg, they can easily ambush any capital ship coming off the assembly line and blow it to shreds in seconds. This in itself is not particularly useful, but the fact that in order to destroy a group of kols, your enemy will have to recall a section of his fleet IS. In addition, a group of four or so kols will easily take down eco starbases without breaking a sweat.
of course this doesn't work anywhere based on chokepoints, like twin empires...
I know, I made mention of that fact, but I can only imagine it is because the Vorastra can hit carriers with micro phase jump and can counter corvettes at level 1. Once desperation is (hopefully) fixed to no longer work on Corvettes, we might see that stop.
Only for flak burst against carrier spams.
Again, what are we talking about here? In a serious game building 4 capitalships period is not often used by anyone except the Vasari Loyalists, let alone such a limited cap like the Kol. And again, you do not use capitalships for raw damage. If you want to raid, use carriers or Ogrovs, for 200 fleet supply and over 12000 credits, you get far more bang for your buck even in single player. Only the Marauder, Sova, or siege capitalships should be used in the same sentence as "raid", but either with the goal of supporting a frigate force to do most of the damage or quickly sieging an undefended planet, not actually killing targets by themselves.
Probably...it'll still be a good titan for wiping frigates (possibly still the best if they don't nerf the actual damage desperation does) but the superior phase missiles of VR combined with mobile SBs I think will beat out SttC...
I have always been a Kol skeptic and almost never build them. However, I have always had a nagging suspicion that there was a really good use for them once you stray outside of the normal MP game parameters (primarily the 1-2 hour time frame in which MP games usually get resolved). So I did some testing...
My working hypothesis is that the Kol would be a great ship if it had enough antimatter. So I setup a scenario where I had a choke point defended with a starbase with Docking Booms to restore antimatter. My enemy was a Cruel VL AI player. For the test I brought 4 mid-level Kols (level 4-5) to the choke point and waited for the Vasari attack. All for were set to auto use Gauss Rail Gun. I also did all the antimatter research and culture research to maximize antimatter regeneration.
What happened next blew my socks off. The Kols very quickly shredded the VL titan and all the Vasari capital ships - primarily with the Gauss Rail Gun. The combination of Docking Booms, culture antimatter regeneration, and passive antimatter regeneration gave the Kols enough antimatter to keep the rail guns firing for well over 2 minutes continuously and then allowed them to get a shot off every 10 or so seconds after that. Once the capitals were destroyed, I switched to Flak Burst and cleared the skies of the 50 or so strikecraft squadrons buzzing around.
What I learned from this test is that if you can keep the Kol (or really a group of Kols) supplied with antimatter, it can be an absolute beast. This makes it a great compliment to a TL defensive setup with Docking Booms, great in combination with level 6 Dunov, and great in battles at a star (with the extra antimatter regeneration). I think Incomitatus really hit on something as to the late game usefulness of the Kol. It is definitely not an early game or even mid game ship. But once you get your Titan and 1-2 key capital ships leveled up, building a pack of Kols and buying them to level 4 may be a great way to add focus fire to a TL fleet.
I do want to stress though that MP games are usually over well before this point in the very late game is reached.
Oh my... so much to respond to, but I'm not up to it tonight. Gentlemen, if I may be so bold as to offer free non-game advice: take care of your gallbladders. Granted, there's not much one can do to take care of one's gallbladder, so maybe I should say hope and pray (if you're religious) that you never have trouble with yours.
Aye, the Kol has always been strong in the right set of conditions. those conditions however pretty much never occur in a multiplayer game against someone who knows what they are doing.
The classic examples would a couple mid-high level kols suupported by a level 6+ Dunov. Flux field+gauss railguns results in a ton of single target focusfire damage, flak burst gives great resistance to the natural capitalship counter(bombers), and between adaptive forceshield Finest Hour and the Dunov's shield restore the Kols are absolute bricks. To top it all off once they hit 6 the Kols do AoE damage.
The problem is that for the combo to actually work you need multiple high level capitalships, all of which have extremely weak early games. Additionally the whole combo is necessary to become powerful- a standalone kol or a scenario where only one of the ships is high level results in a subpar fleet.
The period of vulnerability setting the combo up is utterly fatal in a multiplayer scenario- and frankly it;s not even worth the risk as it's not like this combo blows conventional fleets that lack this period of vulnerability out of the water.
Incomitatus, i will only say, wow. i haven't played in a while and your posts really put things back into perspective for me. especially the first capital ship being the akkan (been going with the sova).
however, being someone who likes the sova so much, i have to say, it is FAR from useless.
while the the other capital ships are important, aside from the boarding one (forget the name), i find the fighter/bomber support of the sova evens itself out. you say you need lots of carriers to avoid bomber spam, but the sova kind of negates the Percheron carriers in my opinion.
i haven't delved as far in as you have, but believe i need 2 main fleets as a tec loyalist. One is for offensive maneuvers while the other is mainly for defense. ships can be swapped out when damaged so as to maximize their durability and keep more resources in store for research and even more ships. the defensive fleet moves around the empire as needed from front line base to front line base while the offensive one strikes enemy bases.
anyway, back on topic with the sova. the heavy bombers upgrade increases the durability of the sova's strike craft (i believe all of them). the missile platforms behave and can act like extra units and unless micro managed, or with the proper units, enemy ships will treat them as relatively high priority. the embargo ability helps when raiding enemy territories mid game, as you said to keep them off balance while getting yourself to the end game with research. and the rapid manufacturing, the level 6 ability which allows for instant, or almost instant rebuilding of strike craft (cant remember off the top of my head) is incredibly important. with a Sova screen in combination with garda flak frigates, enemy fighters are easily killed by the flak frigates and the bombers are damaged, and the Sova's upgraded fighters can easily finish them off while quickly replacing lost units. when combined with much of the other strategies you've mentioned, the sova becomes a powerhouse that you should bring at least one of with your fleet. by constructing one or two sova carriers, you basically negate the need to bring numerous Percheron carriers, which cost a number of supply which can go instead towards more heavy frigates, flak or LRM ships.
not saying its the right or only way to play, but i find using the same fleet supply on a sova carrier with a couple of flak frigates to outperform 3-6 Percheron carriers if you put the points in correctly by level 4-6. i tend towards 1 embargo point, 1 rapid manufacturing and 2 each in missile platforms and heavy strike craft at level 6. in combination with properly placed and upgraded garda frigates (armor and damage upgrades), the Sova's fighters can handle usually 2x as many enemy fighter/bombers with relative ease.
again, thanks again for all those very informative posts. appreciate it as a loyalist player, especially as one who hasn't been delving into the pluses and minuses of each ship's abilities used in concert or playing much since rebellion came out.
also, a bit off topic, but quite a while ago, TEC was the way to go for early rush type battles, able to create strong (relatively), cheap and durable ships and overpower opposition. is this now relegated to TEC rebels specifically, or another empire altogether? i ask simply for curiosity's sake as i play with a friend and cousin against various difficulty opponents and find a sova with support frigates and LRMs seems to still overwhelm all but the cruel and viscous AI in a quick rush game.
The Sova is a great first choice capitalship, but if you get it you're basically commiting yourself to rushing. Yes it can clear out militia faster than the Akkan, especially terrans and deserts, but the Akkan's colonize with the extra resource extractors and rate means it will always provide a better economic return. So with a Sova you should plan on attacking the enemy's homeworld sooner rather than later to hit them with Embargo (which can be quite profitable it its own right).
No one should say the Sova is bad, but it just becomes much more limited later in the game as none of its attacks scale up to larger fleets.
I'm not a huge fan of the Corsev either, but it is actually pretty good if you choose to use it, and it can be useful in any stage of the game. Much more useful than the Kol. And as a loyalist player you should be extremely interested in any of your capitalships with good AoE attacks, that is Demobots on the Corsev and Missile Barrage on the Marza, to supplement your titan.
On a fleet supply basis, carrier capitalships can indeed out perform an equivalent group of carrier cruises after a few levels. It's especially nice as they replenish strikecraft without using antimatter. However, there are some issues that kill this in competitive play.
1. Expense. While carrier capitalships may beat cruisers on a fleet supply basis after only a few levels, factor in the large cost of capitalship research and higher cost of caps, and carrier caps must be near level 10 to be more economical that carrier cruisers. And again, in competitive play its not common to get level 10 caps and titans, and certainly not a whole fleet of them as you can get with the AI.
2. Experience. In order to out perform carrier cruisers, the caps need to gain a few levels. However, the XP sharing systems mean the more caps you have, the longer it takes them to get those few levels. So it in effect takes quite a lot of time to get a several caps to say level 4 unless you buy the levels, which just makes issue number 1 even more pronounced.
3. Scale. Strike craft are most effective in large numbers so they can overwhelm flak and get in a few passes before the fighters can finish them off. You maybe able to substitute a few carrier caps for carrier cruisers, but if you need 50 squadrons, its hard to scale up capitalships to the required numbers. Carrier cruisers on the other hand are much easier to build on a large scale, as any frigate is.
4. Opportunity cost. You can easily have fleets of hundreds of frigates, but you only can get 16 capitalships. For each carrier cap you get purely to offset building carrier cruisers, that's one fewer Marza, Dunov, Akkan or Corsev you're not building. And in the vast majority of cases, several mid level Marza's are better than several mid level Sova's, if only because they are so close to getting missile barrage. And having several Marza's with missile barrage is often a game winner.
The days of Sova rushing and using embargo are pretty much over....if you are 1 or 2 jumps from the enemy HW, well sure some embargoing may do wonders....but that's extremely unlikely...
Sova rushing now is basically a double Sova start with missile batteries on each sova (heavy SC is your secondary ability)...with 3 squadrons of SC and lots of missile batteries, Sovas will provide far more raw firepower than any other cap at this stage of the game...you need 2 though so that if one is driven off to repair you still have another one spawning missile batteries at the actual battle site...
It is a risky strategy but it can be very effective if done well....just don't lose either sova or you're pretty much hosed...
Minor question: When did Group Shield start affecting the Ankylon? I just played a game and it jumped in first, immediately targeting itself and gaining the damage reduction from it....was that a glitch or did I not notice a patch?
-Huzzah!
most recent patch.
Doesn't matter a whole lot though, as among titans there is no better antimatter-drain-then-gnore candidate then the ankylon- though the ankylon is now certainly one hell of a hard-target.
It seems the Ankylon and Kol have much in common....
I do kinda wish the AM cost for GRG didn't scale up with its level. That +10 per level almost negates the extra shots you could be getting from the bonus antimatter you gain from levels. Keeping it a flat 50 would go a long way towards making it an early game ship. BUT, if the Kol were viable in the early game, it would be an absolute God in the late game using the strategies Icomitatus explained earlier.
I still won't admit defeat for the Ankylon though. Might be personal bias on my part, but it is definitely bias against it on the part of the MP community who want all titans to be dps.
Now, here is a thought however. How about making Furious defense much weaker, but applying it to the whole fleet in a radius around the ship, similar to the Skirantra? (I'm talking something like 20/30/40/50 or 20/25/30/35 repair per second to HP only.) Would that alter anyone's opinions of the Ankylon? And don't give me a bs excuse like repairing that many ships would be OP. If Ragnarov can Space-Shotgun a whole fleet, Ankylon should be able to repair as well.
Thoughts?
Aye, reducing the AM dependancy on GRG would certainly help. it would also help a great deal if Flak Burst were useful earlier game, or without requiring 2-3 Kols.
An idea I had awhile back was to have Flak Burst Straight up Destroy maybe 2/3/4/5 nearby squadrons. it would guarantee some usefulness early game when there aren't very many squadrons in the Air, guarantee the ability reduces the enemy's firepower each cast at least a bit at all stages of the game, and best of all does all this without making the ability godly late game as a damage increase or debuff added might.
I don't think a defensive titan is an inherently flawed concept. But there are a few very significant hurdles that need to be overcome for it to work(which the ANkylon does not meet either of):
1). if the titan relies on a fleet to deal damage as the ankylon does, it need to be able to actually keep frigates alive through enemy titan AoE. Group area shield means frigates will generally survive the first round of titan AoE, but the first round removes frigate's shields(something the TEC have no reliable way of recovering in the 30-40 seconds before the next titan AoE comes out). And when the second titan AoE comes out, even 84% damage reduction isn't enough to allow frigates to survive a high level titan AoE with just their hull points(even at max hull).
2). Needs some sort of strong passive ability or antimatter recovery tool. Defensive titans are extremely prone to being antimatter drained then ignored, since they can't frontload damage/casualties before they run out of AM like an offensive titan can(not to mention they likely have weaker weapon systems). Less offensive titans are additionally less threatening to the capitalships that drain AM, so chasing the Dunovs/radiance/kortuls off will be harder. At present no other titan is as easy to AM-drain then ignore then the Ankylon.
3). This is really an extension of #1, but a defensive titan that relies on it's fleet needs some form of countermeasure against other titan's level 6 fleetwiping abilities, most notably The Maw(to a lesser degree the Ragnarov's 3000+ damage overcharged AoE
Again at present the Ankylon doesn't meet any of these prerequisites and as a result can't support it's fleet well enough to justify the lack of offense. Frigates supported by it die quickly to titan AoE just like every other race, and once it's AM is drained it contributes just about nothing to the battle.
Now, here is a thought however. How about making Furious defense much weaker, but applying it to the whole fleet in a radius around the ship, similar to the Skirantra? (I'm talking something like 20/30/40/50 or 20/25/30/35 repair per second to HP only.) Would that alter anyone's opinions of the Ankylon? And don't give me a bs excuse like repairing that many ships would be OP. If Ragnarov can Space-Shotgun a whole fleet, Ankylon should be able to repair as well.Thoughts?-Huzzah!
And idea I've been playing with for awhile is having Furious defense heal the surrounding fleet when ankylon has at least 95% of it's hull points(at a lesser value of course), then switch to self-healing whenever it drops below 95% hull. The engine can definitely do it as per the Eradica's ult and this would be an easy way to give enemies a reason to actually focus the Ankylon.
Another idea I've played with which would do alot to directly hurlde 1 as discussed above would be fore either group Area shield or Furious defense to restore the shields of nearby allies. even 10-15 shield/sec would make a huge difference in frigates being able to survive the second round of AoE as with hoshikos they could recover most if not all of their total hull+shield points in the 30-40 seconds between blasts.
And of course Inspire and Impair continues to be a total mess- a dedicated late game ability(level 6 on a defensive titan) which doesn't affect either of the quintessential late game units(titans & strikecraft). Affecting friendly strikecraft may be too strong(insane focusfire), but it should at least affect enemy strikecraft.
I do not find the TEC Loyalist Tech tree reasonably more impressive. Only good thing I see is Militia and Novalith Deregulation. However both those tech suffer from being highly situational. As does Twin Fortresses who isnt that good because most things that can kill a starbase will kill 2 just as easily.
On the other hand, while certainly not awe inspiring, the Rebel tech tree offers some additional weapon upgrades, that are not situational. Especially as they affect strike craft, the main source of focus fire lategame firepower. Yes, thats right, TEC Rebels have better fighters and better bombers as TEC Loyalist. And that advantage works everywhere.
What major advantages do you see with them? By the time you can actually "spam" Novaliths you are not going to make more then a dent in their economy. That leaves a high level Titan + supporting fleet that has major trouble against 1! lightly supported starbase.
Yes, as long as its antimatter is not drained/depleted the Anklyon is close to impossible to kill, once it is on higher levels. It also helps a bit in the hectic of combat if you can click the large ship to use it.
The Ankylon really needs some kind of Anti-Antimatter draining ability. Perhaps Furios Defense could also regenerate antimatter? Or give 200 antimatter when it is cast?
For Ankylons that are not drained this would not change much, by the time it runs out of AM the battle is usually decided. However it would finally not fall victim to one pathetic medium level Kortul.
Well, it certainly is a fact that playing the "badass" ships is a lot of fun. Flying arround with your 20 kilometer long rail gun of doom and hear it say things like "I put the laughter in slaughter" while it utterly decimates the remains of what had been a mighty enemy warfleet less than 1 minute ago is fun. There is no denying in that. So the Ankylon also needs to be competivly fun wise. Being - nearly - invulnerable can be very enjoying. Believe me, I speak from experience.
Back the in the first Beta, the Ankylon was close to invulnerable. Even at level 1 and without ANY researched upgrades, you could sent it right to pirate base and let it stay there. After a while, all pirate ships and turrets were dead. The Anky just took the tremendous firepower like it was nothing but pesky flies. Entire enemy fleets focus fired on it... to no avail. To deal with it you needed firepower capable of killing a fully upgraded starbase in lets say... 10 seconds? You could send it to the enemy capital, with enemy fleet + Ragnarov there. Guess who won? (back then)
That was very fun. It slowly grinded the enemy fleet while said enemy was more and more desperatly trying to find ways to do more than scratching the paint job.
Of course this was - justly - nerfed. The Ankylon can still take unbelievable ammounts of punishment. but it has little going for it besides that. And that makes smart players focus fire anything else first. And deal with it afterwards. And contrary to the beta now a large fleet +Titan will reasonably kill it.
Now, that means to truely be capable of enjoying the Ankylon we need to things:
1. Ankylon needs to be very very very hard to kill = achieved already (Level 10 Ragnarov in a neutral Gravity Well after 5 minutes non stop fire on the Ankylon "Oh, look, we scratched the paint job. A little". (However, no AM drain was used)
2. Ankylon must give the enemy incentive to fire on it = not achieved Only then its high durabilty is truely helping. All firepower that is directed at the Ankylon cannot hurt your fleet.
Interesting idea.
QFT
Someone on this forums said once:
The Kol is a brick that the enemy stumbles over. The Ankylon is the wall the enemy slams into and shatters.
Now we just have to find the necessary changes to make above statement a reality.
The reason the Anklyon is inferior is not its defensive role. The problem is that it does not futfil this role good enough. So naturally against offensive Titans that do futfil their offensive role very good, it fails.
I think the following changes would go a very long way to make the Ankylon competivly:
And since we are at it:
General TEC Loyalist changes:
This has been a very interesting discussion so far. Lets keep it up, so that in a not to distant future, all factions are well balanced and our enjoyment of the game is perfect.
Rebellion has come far already, not a remote comparsion to what it was at release or in the Beta stage.
Disruptive nanites doesn't disable abilities, only passive regen....
No antimatter regeneration for 5 entire minutes pretty much makes it that way.
Yes, alone the turret is no threat, but it happens to be "escorted" by Hangar Defenses and a lovely maxed out Orky. Not to mention the Vasari Main fleet is probably less than 2 minutes away from joining in... if you are lucky. Stabilize phase space FTW.
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