Surely that should be "My other titan is an Orkulus Rex"

How did people deal with illuminators in diplomacy after the bug was fixed (and then after the damage buff)?

Who opens with illums and lives to tell about it? 

Answer: No one.

 There too expensive , need micro management and continue to be a late game addition to advent fleets. 

Advents strength is always its corvette, disciples and defense vessel. These are the three primary units you see being fielded on the battlefield in greater numbers before illums come. It is absolutely impossible to mass as many as 30 illums  early in the game and the dwindling numbers produced get wiped out by enemy corvettes and flak.

 Seleuceia is aging so I don't blame his way of thinking but blame time itself. It is a no brainer that the advent beams lock on to any frigates/Cruisers and can take down any fleet of ships regardless of armor type. There is no producing only 1 Unit Type with the Advent: They make Battle-Balls-Synergetic configurations. 

It's such an intriguing inter-connected way to play the game so breaking one units ability when its already hard enough to field in numbers is stupendous. We are talking about nerfing illums at a stage of the game where corvettes are non-existent and obsolete to Flak. What's the bloody point?

The way you say things sounds smart but at the same time you mis-interprete these units..

For testing purposes only use 1 cap:

Open with a rapture and Corvettes.. Vertigo and Concentration Aura is your abilities: 

Vertigo then stacks with the Acolyte Corvettes abilities and increases hit-chance to over 50%.

This benefits your fleet in many ways-- the stacking effect ensures massive damage negation by the time your at level 3 on the cap.

. When the fight drags on you have already started adding defense vessels...from which point i jump to Crusaders and a few carriers. By this point you have many bombers, a dozen crusaders, dozens of flak, dozens of Corvettes. You can't loose and guardians in numbers of 4 or 5 in their own fleet make for an unstobble wrecking ball- add suppression in the mix and well- game over. You will loose those Corvettes but its hard to loose flak, carriers and Crusaders with the damage debuffs.

This is why AL is scary-there debuff ability make there beefy units seem impossible to kill.   The end game picture is  crusaders in great numbers that just don't die to a point where each titan they counter is sniped in seconds.

Destra flak has been used by Masterial and i have a broken replay for that.. 

Illums are whatever a players chooses, LRM or HC + Flak. This debate about the Kanraks does not take into account that that unit is designed to kill everything except corvettes while supported by Vasari's resource economy. Opening with illums is a fail.. so wen you say that you need breathing space to build them means its very situational. If you don't have breathing space then illums are hardly on the battlefield. Masterial adds them last after corvettes and flak.. some add them second only to fail against flak-get my point? Flak can be fielded in greater numbers than them, is bulkier and an effective illum killer.

Whoever prioritizes illums in a no breathing space situation will fail.. nerfing them is the wrong approach.

Kanraks fair worse than illuminators against flak and corvettes, and aren't as effective against LFs...the only advantage they have is their FFing ability...that's a substantial advantage but kanraks are far from being a "do everything" unit...

If microed properly flak can beat LRFs, but flak has lots of disadvantages that LRFs don't have....flak costs slightly more per fleet supply, take a hell of a lot longer to build, and has even worse FFing ability than the illuminator...and if you aren't constantly microing it, forget about it countering LRFs let alone illuminators...flak is in the same boat as corvettes: they can beat illuminators, but not nearly as well as vs. other LRFs and only if going against pure illuminators...any smart advent is going to have a small amount of disciples or defense to deal with any flak/corvettes you try to counter with...

It's not very situational, frontliners have opportunities to amass units all the time, even when losing a planet you can still amass units for the counterattack on your other worlds...

Really early game, illums are not a great choice and I never said they were...but find the time to build 20 or so (which doesn't take all that long) and you are set, you can spam them as much as you want, needing only some flak or disciples as back up if you enemy goes all out on corvettes or flak...

I am with Ekko on this; prove that your hypothesis is an actual issue and not just virtual armageddon.

Actually, the more I stare at these test results, the more I think this was a massive troll post (which would be kinda funny actually).

Test 1: 30/80 corvettes survive and kill 40 illums. Think of the price of 40 illums and the point in the game where you have these. Think of the price of 50 corvettes in comparison.

Test 2: Same thing. Cost of 50 illuminators vs. 60 corvettes. Astoundingly bad loss in terms of cost for the Advent player.

All this means is illums don't get decimated quite as easily as the other LRFs. Corvettes are still very much a good counter to them though. Considering downsides of illums and the later timing, I'd say working as intended.

What don't you do vs advent fleets? build lots of corvettes.  You should build flak and lrms. Lrms kill disciples and can do a quick kill of a paper tissue armored advent capital, and the flak will clear the skies of the pesky, poorly armored advent corvettes.  You may lose a few structures to corvettes, you may have some difficulties, yet you will win the war of attrition in a straight fight.  Even a corvette cloud moving through your fleet to retreat will net a nice few kills, work on learning how to corral corvettes, and work on scouting.  9 times out of 10, poor scouting results in you getting pwned.

What I find funny in multiplayer is how many players think that spamming corvettes + LF is necessary for all races...  This is simply not the case.  Rebellion is a great iteration of the game, if the developers could get the solution for some of the larger serious balance issues it will be a 1st rate multiplayer experience.  

sorry seleucia, but your soap box doesn't hold your weight.  

Illuminators don't need a nerf, corvettes aren't the end all be all unit they were in the beta.

Illuminators aren't a godly unit, even with this 'crazy strong advantage' you report, I still don't see them being that useful in my week to week play.

Seleuceia just leveled up his troll experience points.. Mecha has some serious competition.

To put things into perspective, here are some survival rates for other hard counters...all battles lend 180 fleet supply to each side, about how much you'd have with one fleet upgrade, minus your cap and a few colony ships...the percent to the right indicates the survival rate for hard counter unit (the unit that's supposed to win by a lot)...assume that any flak were heavily microed...

LRMs vs. Disciples - 69%

Cobalts vs. Defense Vessels - 81%

Kanraks vs. Disciples - 53%

Skirmishers vs. Defense Vessels - 62%

Any Flak vs. Any Corvette - ~98%

As you can see, TEC hard counters Advent LFs and flak around the 70%-80% range...Vasari hard counters Advent LFs and flak around the 50%-60% range...all flak counter corvettes around ~98%...now let's see some results involving LRFs and their counters...

TEC Corvettes vs. LRMs - 50%

Gardas vs. LRMs - 56%

TEC Corvettes vs. Illuminators - 28%

Gardas vs. Illuminators - 36%

Against Vasari Corvettes, Illuminators outright won, and against sentinels it was a close toss-up, with sentinels winning sometimes and Illuminators winning sometimes...

As you can see, Corvettes do not counter LRFs nearly as hard as the other hard counters...in particular, Illuminators are vastly more resilient against their counter units...the point I'm trying to make is not that illuminators are an I WIN button, but rather that there is a huge disparity in how effectively they are countered vs. the other two LRFs...you could do these same battles using cost instead of fleet supply as the equalizer, but the same results occur: Illuminators vastly outperform LRMs and kanraks when going against their counters (corvettes and flak)...

I'll reiterate that my proposed change would affect all LRFs, not just Illuminators (though I feel it would affect Illuminators more)...

Another major advantage of Illuminators people are forgetting is the build times, which I find to be more the bottleneck than resources even if using 2 or 3 frigate factories...consider the following "total times" needed to produce 120 fleet supply's worth of units:

• 20 Illuminators - 580 seconds
• 20 Kanraks - 560 seconds
• 30 LRMs - 750 seconds
• 30 Disciples - 680 seconds
• 30 Defense - 1050 seconds
• 40 Corvettes - 600 seconds

Illuminators build 30% faster than LRMs, and 80% faster than flak...corvettes and LFs are comparable, however more fleet supply of LFs or Corvettes is generally needed to achieve the same "effectiveness"...from both experience and from analysis, I would argue that amassing Illuminators is much easier than pretty much any unit other than Kanraks (which are about the same)...it's not just about cost, fleet supply (which incurs maintenance) and construction times also must be considered, and it is in those two areas where Illuminators really shine: for your time and for your fleet supply, they are an extremely efficient unit...

Some FYIs:

• The cost difference per fleet supply amongst Illuminators, Kanraks, and LRMs is within 2%...
• Defense vessels are about 5% more expensive than Illuminators...
• Garda's are about 6% more expensive than Defense Vessels

No RiddleKing, you are misinformed...defense vessels cost about 5% more than illuminators and would take about 80% longer to build...flak in general is the most expensive and time consuming frigate to build in the game...

Let us consider two battles, using cost as the equalizer:

20 LRMs + 20 Gardas vs. 31 Disciples + 38 Advent Corvettes

Fleet Supply: 160 vs. 238

Cost:  25,150 credits vs. 25,110 credits

Build Time:  1200 seconds vs. 1252 seconds

Results: Advent wins with 10-11 Disciples and 6-7 Corvettes surviving (26% survival rate in regards to fleet supply)

24 Cobalts + 36 TEC Corvettes vs. 31 Disciples vs. 38 Advent Corvettes

Fleet Supply: 228 vs. 238

Cost:  24,840 credits vs. 25,110 credits

Build Time:  1116 seconds vs. 1252 seconds

Results: TEC wins with ~14 Cobalts surviving (31% survival rate in regards to fleet supply)

My MP experience tells me that trying to throw gardas and LRMs against an early Advent fleet is a really bad idea, but I tested it just to make sure...you are much better off just matching the Advent LFs and Corvettes with your own...

I'd like to consider two other battles inspired from the two immediately above...let us again use cost as the equalizer:

24 Cobalts + 36 TEC Corvettes vs. 14 Illuminators + 19 Defense Vessels

Fleet Supply:  228 vs. 160

Cost:  24,840 credits vs. 24,535 credits

Build Time:  1116 seconds vs. 1071 seconds

Results:  TEC wins with ~9 Cobalts surviving (20% survival rate in regards to fleet supply)

Compare this to the "opposite" battle of LRMs + Gardas vs. Advent Corvettes + Disciples...In both cases, the LF+Corv. fleet was was superior to the LRF+flak fleet, with the disadvantage of requiring more fleet supply...however, when the Advent won, it was with a total survival rate of 26% while the TEC won with a survival rate of 20%...

21 LRMs + 18 Gardas vs. 14 Illuminators + 19 Defense Vessels

Fleet Supply: 156 vs. 160

Cost:  24,405 credits vs. 24,535 credits

Build Time:  1155 seconds vs. 1071 seconds

Results:  Advent wins with ~3 Illuminators (21% survival rate in regards to fleet supply)...as for the flak, there was ~18 Defense Vessels (5% losses; near full health) vs. ~16 Gardas (11% losses; near zero shields)**

**LRFs are all destroyed first, at which point the battle becomes a Flak vs. Flak that the Advent eventually win...since you aren't going to have just Flak vs. Flak (players would continually reinforce with LFs or LRFs), the final tally of this battle is meaningless...therefore, I chose to highlight a more interesting point, the time when one side loses all their LRFs...I'll reiterate that the Defense vessels walked away with hardly any damage while the Gardas left with hardly any shields remaining....

Thus we have 4 battles of TEC vs. Advent (I omit Vasari since their fleet is inferior to both)...in the LF+Corv. vs. LF+Corv., the TEC clearly win with survival rate of 31%...in the LRF+Flak vs. LRF+Flak, the Advent clearly win with 21% survival rate of Illuminators at moment all LRMs are destroyed (additionally, Gardas take more losses and are much more damaged than Defense Vessels)...in LF+Corv. vs. LRF+Flak, the LF+Corv. fleet always won....however, Advent won their battle with 26% survival rate while TEC won their battle with 20% survival rate...

I'd now like to add some additional "realistic" considerations to these battles that would potentially favor one faction over the other:

• No capital ships were involved in these battles:
• Early game, Advent are likely to have at least 1 if not 2 of the following AoEs: Malice, Fracture, Psionic Scream, Energy Aura, Shield Regeneration...TEC on the other hand are only likely to have Demolition Teams...if both players just use colonizer cap, then only Advent have useful AoEs (Malice and Shield Regeneration) that would tilt these battles more in their favor...if both players lead with colonizer cap and build a second, Advent are very likely to have 2 or 3 AoEs while TEC at most will have 1 (Demolition Teams)....
• Advent Fighters and bombers do more damage than TEC SC...relevancy depends on # and type of capital ships...
• None of these battles considered the effect of reinforcements...in general, units of same class (LRMs, Illuminators, and Kanraks) differ in cost per fleet supply by less than 2%...however, build times are not comparable...as an example, Illuminators build 30% faster (per fleet supply) than LRMs while Disciples build 13% slower than Cobalts...TEC/Advent corvettes and flak are the same...
• Advent early fleet needs only 2 weapon technology lines (Lasers and Beams) while TEC early fleet needs 3 weapon technology lines (Lasers, Missiles, and Autocannons)...
• LRMs do 67% more frontal DPS than Illuminators...

Do what you want with all this information...I still believe that in a real game where cap abilities and build times matter, the Illuminator is the 2nd easiest ship to amass (2nd only to kanraks) and the hardest to counter....

As a final note, I'll reiterate that my proposed change is to reduce the effectiveness of Antimedium weaponry against Very Light armor...this is a change that would make all LRFs more vulnerable to their hard counter (though I think it would affect Illuminators more than LRMs and Kanraks)...you can think of it as a nerf to LRFs, or as a buff to Corvettes, I don't really care...

What I do know is that Corvettes have little use mid and late game, and I believe there are 3 reasons for this:

• Titan and Cap AoEs shred them
• They don't counter LRFs fast enough, you are better off with flak and HCs
• They take too much fleet supply to be useful...not a problem early game when maintenance is lower, but more problematic as maintenance levels increase (each additional percentage point of upkeep becomes more taxing than the last)

Not claiming it is enough, but the proposed change would be a step in the right direction...you see LRF spam and bomber spam frequently after the early game, yet the ship that allegedly counters both has virtually no appearance beyond the early game...I think LRFs' and particularly Illuminators' resilience against Corvettes is one part of the problem....

I also still stand by my belief held since diplomacy that Anti-very light weaponry should be slightly less effective against light armor but have a better chance to hit against bombers (basically, flak isn't as good against LRFs but equally good against bombers)...I say this to demonstrate that my goal isn't to nerf LRFs into oblivion, it's to make their supposed hard counter, the Corvette, actually do it's job without the need of HCs and flak...

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