Typo; fixed now.

Bombers do not get taken out by flaks 1:1, especially with a capital ship churning them out.  You need more like a 2:1 ratio, and if you want to clear them quickly (without fighters) you'll need 3:1.  Flak isn't nearly as effective against bombers as it is against fighters, and micro'd bombers can be a real pain in the neck.

And "bombers are expensive" is exactly why a carrier capital ship first is such a great investment, you get that kind of firepower as part of your capital ship package.  Capital ship strike craft are superior to cruiser strike craft for another reason; they don't require antimatter to build.  This means that a cruiser can become depleted (little more than an expensive paperweight at that point) whereas a capital ship will never become so depleted.  In early-game battles that can get drawn out by repair power, that's a big deal.

Hard to take you seriously there.  I can understand all the other relative rankings, even if I don't agree with them, but ranking the Halcyon and Progen so low makes you come across as either a joke or spiteful.  You're talking about two of the most powerful capital ships in the game.  They're practically carrying their otherwise gimped faction currently.

I agree that most abilities should be used manually, but I can't say all capital ships need the same amount of micromanagement...

The Skirantras scramble bombers simply is...you can leave this on autocast and more or less get the full effect...this isn't the only ability...Kortul's Power Surge, Kol's Adaptive Forcefield, Skirantra's Scramble Bombers, Halcyon's Telekinetic Push, Sova's Embargo, Progenitor's Shield Regeneration, all these abilities work well on autocast...I'm not saying manual use isn't better, but autocast works very well...might I note that of these 6 ships, 5 of them were listed in your top 6...

Some abilities however, are often not used on the best target when set on autocast and therefore require micromanagement to be even close to optimal use...these include Radiance's Detonate Antimatter, Jarrasul's Nano Disassembler, Dunov's Magnetize, Rapture's Vengeance, Antorak's Phase Hull, Revelation's Reverie...of these 6 ships, 5 of them were listed in your bottom 7...

Abilities aren't judged just by how powerful they are, but how efficiently they can be used...some abilities simply aren't used to their full potential unless manually controlled....other abilities work pretty well even when left on autocast...Carrier caps are excellent not just because their abilities are good, but because they don't require micromanagement...sure, you could micro embargo, or scramble bombers, or telekinetic push...but your manual control isn't going to be much better...

The less time I spend microing a battle, the more time I have to manage my resources...sure, you can stockpile, then que up frigates, stockpile, que of things, and repeat this cycle, but the more continuous and smoothly you use your resources, the more efficient your empire...really good players who are serious about the game can manage a battle while doing everything else with hotkeys and the empire tree, but even a good player can benefit from having to do less micromanagement...

If you were to take the typical MP game setup (usually quickstart, 4v4 or 5v5, large or huge single system) and simply put the speed on slow or normal, then yes, I'd agree with you...but I'm not talking about just a change in game speed...

If you reduce the number players, meaning there is more room per player, then colonizing capital ships become more powerful relative to carriers...in addition, rushing no longer becomes a feasible early strategy, weakening the power of carriers even more...also, more expansion combined with slower gamespeed means your flagship will see more combat with militia before you face a real enemy...lvl 5 and lvl 6 potential becomes more relevant, and this is where the non-carrier capital ships become a bit more competitive...you also have a lot longer to scout your enemy and prepare for whatever they are doing...this means that more, shall I say, unique ships become more useful...for example, most everyone would agree a marauder as a first choice is suicide, but on a map with more room, the distort gravity would allow you to rush a core enemy world when normally such would not be a possibility, even with a carrier cap...

Slow/normal games also tend to result in more frigates and less capital ships...at first this may seem like picking the best capital ship is even more important, but what if you combine this with the fact that fewer players means more room and the first skirmishes take place later?...if you were to play a 2v2 or 3v3 on a large or huge single system map, its likely that players are going to have carriers, anti-SC, and maybe even support ships (at least hoskikos) by the time of the first skirmishes, and HCs may follow shortly...the number of strike craft on your cap ship becomes less important, making carrier caps less significant...

I'm not saying these settings make other cap ships better choices than carriers or colonizers...I'm saying that more room and slower game speeds make non-carrier caps more viable (key word being more) than they'd be on typical MP games...

Ditto to that...unless really unlucky, a TEC/Vasari player should be able to wipe out an Advent player every time...illuminators are too little too late, and Halcyons simply aren't as good at rushing as a sova or skirantra...hell, with kanraks and LRMs both much better than illuminators, you're almost better rushing destras and forgetting LRF's entirely...

Sorry PheonixStormcrow, but I have a hard time agreeing with your list...Progenitors and Halcyons in the bottom third? 

Darvin has a pretty good list...given the extreme importance of rushing in many MP games, I'd be tempted to put the sova 2nd or 3rd, but overall Halcyons are better for most battle situations, and that's really just a nit picky difference...you can argue the order or switch them around, but I think he's got the top 6 nailed pretty good...

If I had to rank them this would be my list:

1) Skirantra

2) Halcyon

3) Sova

4) Progenitor

5) Akkan

6) Kortul

7) Jarrasul

8) Radiance

9) Marza

10) Dunov

11) Rapture

12) Revelation

13) Kol

14) Antorak

15) Vulkoras

I think the Dunov and Revelation deserve a little more credence, and the Vulkoras and Kol a little less...

All 3 Dunov abilities can, in certain situations, be very handy...it doesn't have one really good ability, but its got three that provide good support and versatility...Revelation I also gotta put a little higher...reverie and clairvoyance can just be too useful in certain situations to put that ship any lower...

I don't really see the power in the Vulkoras, but maybe I am missing something?

Kols I personally like because of their resilience, but from a practical standpoint they don't provide any support to the fleet, and I feel like 5 HCs are better unless that Kol is high level...

Nevertheless, good list Darvin, and definitely a solid top 6...

As someone who often enjoys singleplayer and non-competitive play, a part of me died when I put my 3 favorites at 10th, 12th, and 14th...

 

If you're doing a surge/strike build, sure.  If you're doing a surge/jam build, you want to go manual to conserve antimatter.


Nope, gotta ration antimatter on this beast.


Sure, though sometimes you'll want to go manual to conserve antimatter for repair cloud.


This is a poster-boy for abilities you should never put on autocast.  Period.  Telekinetic push requires careful timing and placement to be effective.


If you're going embargo/heavy ctrike craft, sure.  If you're doing a missile platform/embargo build, you want to go manual to conserve antimatter.


Sometimes, but certainly not all the time.

Beyond special abilities, however, there's the matter of maneuvering your capital ship in battle to use it effectively and keep it alive.  I find this is the bulk of your capital ship related management.




I can name five high-micro abilities from the top seven, as well: Telekinetic Push, Malice, Ion Bolt, Gravity Bomb, Nano-disassemblers.

Antorak, Revelation, Radiance, and Vulkoras are in the bottom rankings because they're all one-trick ponies that really only do one thing well.  The Dunov doesn't pack enough effect for an expensive capital ship, while the Kol runs out of antimatter and doesn't get the job done.  The Rapture... is actually pretty strong overall and I'm considering revising the list to put it higher (I think #7, bumping back the Jarrasul)



Not reason you can't do this at the same time as you fight battles.  If you're quick enough you can do both at once.



I'd agree with you there, but the choice still is still colony vs carrier with the expected distance to the nearest enemy as the deciding factor.



Untrue; it's harder to attack, but it's also harder to defend, and a decisive push may be impossible to reverse.

While having more room does make carrier caps less important relatively, it does not make them less necessary.  You can get away with building a colony cap(maybe) in a 2v2 or a 3v3 where there is more jumps before hitting enemy territory.  Vasari you can about guarantee will still build skirantra anyways.  I will still have to build a halcyon to keep up at some point.  Map definitely makes a difference in what you can do.  Game speed I am less sure being a factor in taking carrier caps as first but it has effects in other ways certainly. 

One of the problems with sins MP is that they are very rigid in the ways they are willing to play.  I tried hosting a game(a 5v5 that was filled) with fast resources rather than faster with everything else faster and standard settings and was basically insulted to varying degrees(Howthe? comparing me to King of Kings/Sire of all things) by some of the other skilled players in the room who left and hosted their own faster game taking all the players with them.   My reason for fast being that it makes resources slightly more sparse and less of who can throw the most units/skirantra up fastest.  That and it cuts into vasari advantage somewhat with neutrals.  The only way it doesn't end up 5v5 random single is if there aren't enough on to play that.  You can't even think of trying to play a pre-made map rather than random if you want the regulars to get in it(which is kind of sad since some of them are fun).

 

[_]-Greyfox

Heh, missed your post, Selecuceia (must have popped up while I was writing mine last night).  Another list to look at.  Yeah, we're mostly on the same page, and with two exceptions all our rankings are within 1 point of each other.

Dunov and Vulkoras are the only capital ships we disagree on by any considerable margin.

For Dunov, the problem I have is that all its abilities are in fact good, but none are outstanding, and none are fleet-support.  This gives it a very narrow role in battle, but at the same time it lacks the redeeming features of many of the lower-tier.  I have  a hard time finding a role for the fragile Dunov.

Vulkoras is basically a planet-buster and nothing else.  It does this job extremely well from level 1, and if you don't have a level 6 Jarrasul it's actually a very good investment.  If siege frigates got a buff proper, it'd be dismissable, but in the current version of the game it's the best planet bombing weapon available to any faction.  



Someone's gotta be down there.  Even if there's another mass-buffing of capital ships as in 1.18 and we get excellent balance, some capital ships will end up on the bottom rungs.  Right now, we don't have any useless capital ships in the game, which means even #15 on the list will be seen on occasion.






Yeah, I don't get the community sometimes.  Sure, I can understand preferring one setting, but there's very little that would cause me to walk out on a game (unlocked teams is all I can think of).  A little variety isn't a bad thing at all.

The two abilities I like on the Dunov are EMP and Magnetize...in the early game and mid-game, magentize can wipe out almost all of the enemy SC in one or two uses...requires micro, but is definitely well worth it because the SC are destroyed and most early SC are from Caps and get built too fast to effectively wittle down any other way...seeing how powerful and how common carriers are, putting magnetize on one of them can really take away their advantage...

I also like EMP because its area of effect...I'd prefer detonate antimatter if I was taking on just one cap or a starbase, but the EMP can affect multiple caps, and when fired in a group of carriers or support ships, can be a lifesaver...as of right now, EMP is still in my opinion the best way to deal with subverters or hoskikos, with steal antimatter on disciples a close 2nd...

As for microing abilities...all the abilities you mentioned (such as malice and ion bolt) that require microing are usually the 2nd or 3rd pick ability on those ships....except telekinetic push, which I still think works well on autocast, remember, I'm not saying manual isn't better, just that autocast works well...the abilities that work the best on autocast (best as in better on autocast than other abilities on autocast) tend to be 1st pick abilities....

I used to manually control Telekinetic push, but I've found that the autocast still works fairly well...ironically, autocast works better against human players than against AI because humans will focus fire so often their SC are tightly grouped together...I don't find it very common in MP that the Halcyon fires telekinetic push on a stray bomber right before 20 bombers come in range to do a bombing run on the halcyon, but that's just my experience, maybe for others it does...now, for multiple Halcyons, manual control is definitely better, since autocast tends to have all of them fire the ability at once, leaving gaps in time where enemy SC can wreak havoc...

This is a very micro-dependant ability, both for you and the opponent trying to counter-act it.  Between kiting and the Dunov's own fragility and I'm not as big a fan of this ability, but it is a good ability.  The problem I have is that it isn't a great ability; it needs good micro to work well, and the best-case scenario is that the enemy loses one of its capital ship features, but the capital ship itself and all its other features are still working normally.  The Dunov, which revolves around its special abilities (these are effectively its only features), needs more than this to really work well.

EMP is definitely the Dunov's best ability; again the enemy can micro to mitigate its effect, but its a bit more versatile than magnetize a generally strong ability.  The problem is that this still is only a good ability; on a capital ship whose only decent features are its special abilities, merely "good" isn't good enough.

 

Malice is an alternate pick to shield restore.  I personally prefer SR, but malice is completely viable.  You can say the same thing about the Rapture's vengeance; I usually go for vertigo/concentration and don't touch vengeance.  I personally find vertigo one of the most underrated and powerful abilities in the game, greatly cutting enemy damage output.  As for ion bolt, I usually pick that one up at level 2, and that doesn't take particularly long to do.

Anyways, I don't think micro is at all the deciding factor in these lineups; if the capital ship is more powerful, people will put forward the effort to use it and crush the enemy. 

 

Maybe it doesn't happen that often, but when it does happen that's a huge slipup, and you can't afford it on an ability with a 90 antimatter cost and a significant cooldown. 

 

thanks for all the help guys but the alt-click doesnt appear to work on ships in different gravity wells, it only selects the ones in the same well. is there any way to select all ships of the same type on the entire map, because its frustrating to manually select them

when i scroll up or down on the empire tree to add ships to my hotkey group (shift click), the scroll bar jumps back down and i have to scroll up again to select another ship. sorry if this doesnt make sense, its a little difficult to describe

also, what should i use (besides capitals) as the backbone of my fleet, i used illuminators earlier but they died pretty easily so i didnt build many ships other than capitals and some destras and defense vessels

No, though I wouldn't know why you'd want to.  If you're using the units together, they're almost certainly going to be in the same gravity well (or at very least the same control group).  I personally keep all large forces control grouped at all times for quick and easy access.

Known issue; when ships phase jump, their entries on the tree change, and this can cause the tree to jump around a bit.

Destras, illuminators, and defense vessels are all great choices as combat units.  You might also enjoy carriers.  Disciples should be used to hunt down unescourted support units (like carriers), and you should avoid using them as your backbone.

Use capital ships sparingly.  As a general rule of thumb, your capital ship crew upgrade should be less than your fleet size upgrade.

 

alright, thanks

i switched off deep space skybox but i still haven't found the light blue background. what are some of the maps its on?

The skybox's shouldn't be tied to maps (at least I have never heard of this happening)....

If memory serves me correctly, there are these colored skyboxes:

Purple - Almost entirely purple, very nebula/cloud like background, and my personal favorite

Light Green - Almost entirely green, similar to the purple with a very nebula/cloud like background, though there is an area that is mostly white (probably the center of the galaxy)

Dark blue - Almost entirely blue, again very nebula/cloud like, but this one has a significant area that is bright white, likely the center of the galaxy...the blue in this one is pretty dark, much different than the other blue...

Light blue - Mostly a bright blue, but the entire "horizon" is a thin brown/gold band, and there is a small area with more white, again likely the center of the galaxy...this blue is pretty light, so it shouldn't look like the other blue background at all...

Orange - Varies between red-orange patches of cloud/nebula and brighter orange-yellow background

Red - Similar to orange, but less variety; more of a consistent red-orange sort of wispy cloud/nebula background with a few patches of bright white...

If you are unable to get one of these to appear, there are likely two reasons...

One, you confused one with another...the two red/orange ones are similar to someone that isn't an aesthetic, and the blue I suppose might be confused, though they are fairly different

However, the most likely possibility is seeding...I'm not a computer expert, but I know randomness is created in games by generating a seed and then using that seed to simulate randomness...the seed is likely generated when the game is started, and if there are long streaks in that seed, then you may generate the same backgrounds over and over with little variety...

If you simply toggle the colored skybox checkbox under effects enough times, you should eventually get to any background you want, even with a bad seed...if you've clicked the checkbox a million times and still have not gotten the background you want, I suppose you could restart the game, but this situation seems really unlikely...

I have noticed that when changing the faction of an AI player, it stays with a certain picture set (one different picture for each race)...toggle off the player, then back on can change the picture set, however I will say that no matter how many times you do this only about 3 or 4 of the 6(?) or so picture sets seem to be useable for each player slot...I don't think this is done for skybox's (there's only like 6 colored ones) but I could be wrong...restarting the game should reset the seed...

As a note, skybox is tied to each individual system, not to a game or map...therefore, if you play on a map with multiple systems, you can have multiple skybox's on the same map...also, you must be zoomed into a system to see the skybox, zooming out will just show black space...

 

 

 

Each solar system has a random skybox.  If you play often enough, you should find it.

i see, thanks again