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.

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...

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.

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.

less modding more playing

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.

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  

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)...

Hi

Well...I suppose you could make adaptive forcefield a fleet buff...that certainly would make the Kol instantly a popular choice....

That might work vs the AI but vs skilled human opponents it's a poor choice.

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.