Ok I'm back..anyone remember me?

You might want to leave the Advent (unless you are hardcore) as the Vasari and TEC are fighting for the top spot now.

I remember you.  You're Apollo's dad!

You're not gonna like what happened to the Advent...they got nerfed.  It was discovered that the Illuminator had a bug that gave it extra damage it wasn't supposed to have.

Yes. And TEC or Vasari are multiplayer top dogs, but it's still the case that if you leave an Advent alone too long, they're going to win.

Wait a second... so it's a known fact that Advent just isn't competitive and there has been no patch to buff them?

They have attempted and it helped. A little. The phase missiles from the Vasari are just murder on a shield based race.

It will be like this for some time till they change the mechanics of Phase missles.

*Cough*Needs to affected by migitation*cough*

The Advent have always been annoying whores.  They make good targets for my AC's and phase missiles.

I'll enjoy mercilessly crushing you in multiplayer, as advent.

Again the Vasari were the least chosen race once apon of time with Phase Missiles behaving exactly as they do now. Its a huge advantage they have but it doesn't explain why the Vasari are so strong now. I think there are better ways to make the Advent more competitive without directly changing them.

Further, I advise that the Devs add custom map sharing to Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

Just because something has always been powerful doesen't mean it was always popular. When something gets nerfed, something generally gets much stronger. Im talking of Moba balance and anyone who has played league of legends understands what I mean *morello*

I fully agree, all I'm saying is that phase missiles directly weren't the thing that put the Vasari over the top in the last few patches. Which to me means that the balance problem can be fixed without touching them. In fact now that the TEC is actually pretty good it seems that logical thing to do is just to buff some of the widely considered subpar Advent abilities to make them more competitive.

Granted, nerfing phase missiles would also help the Advent relative to the others as it affects them so much, but I feel this is the lazy solution to the problem, and could easily swing to far the other way.

Further, I advise that the Devs add custom map sharing to Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

Its not so much as a nerf thats its a game flaw, IMHO.

Phase missiles are the only weapon type to bypass mitigation. So what the point in have mitigation when 85% of Vasari ships use phase missiles?

All I would like to see is it be affect by the same mechanic as the rest of the weapons in the game. It just doesnt seem right that with not going through mitigation its like a 400% increase in damage.

Phase missiles remind me of critical strikes in other games. Which is fine just not 400% critical strikes.

Just let it be affect by mitigation...even partially will have wonder for balance. While not nerfing PM to death, or Vasari.

Or lets Beam and Autocannons bypass migitation

Phase missiles don't automatically bypass the shields.  It's an ability that has to be researched in increments of a 5% increased chance of bypassing the shields.  After the first increment is done, 95% of all phase missiles will hit the shields.  After the second increment, it's 90%.  Even at the highest level of research (military tree level 5), 70% of all phase missiles hit the shields.

If phase missiles get nerfed, then you've just nerfed the Vasari and changed the game balance to where 90% of all players will want to play TEC.  Perhaps Advent needs a small buff to Illuminators and/or more Hull points and/or more Armor research and at lower military levels.  The Advent armor research is up at military level 6-7.  Maybe they should give Advent an armor research at level 2, and lower the second tier of armor research to level 4 or 5.

In keeping with Advent's general reliance on shields rather than hull or armor, what do you think about instead giving Advent ships a significant boost to total shield points? Something like 25% or so? They're definitely too fragile at the moment, but I think that can be fixed somewhat without changing their general shield-reliant feel.

Since 100 points of shields is worth significantly less than 100 points of hull, then given that Advent have relatively more shields and less hull, they should also gain more shields in exchange for the hull points they lack.

Maybe we'd start to see Advent ships frequently die to fully upgraded PMs in the late game despite having shields left though...