My only wish in regards to the caps is that there is a level of ship above them because despite their reputation cap ships are not all too impressive in battle. Although their skills and comparitvely large amount of shield and hull points are generally quite great and useful but it just doesn't live up to expection.

In addition to cap ships I would love Behemoths or something along that nature. 2 or 3 times as big and many more times the firepower. Pretty much a starbase being a ship instead of an immobile structure (with exception to the Orkalus). So you could organise your fleet thusly;

1 Behemoth

10 Caps

A hundred or more frigates

Now that's the kind of thing I would like to see fielded. Hell, I might as well make that itself. I'm going to go download the mod tools.

So?  Level ONE nanos will do this.  Not instantly, but fast enough.

We have only four single-target damage abilities in the game:  detonate antimatter, GRG, nanos, and disintegration.  Since detonate antimatter is first and foremost a disabler, and disintegration is an ultimate, the only ability we have to compare with GRG is nanos.  Fact is that you will run out of antimatter before you deal critical damage, whereas nanos just keeps racking more and more damage.

Having played and helped build the Distant Stars mod which does incorporate a lot of the ideas we are talking about (we are considering buffing the GRG) I can honestly say that the battleship caps need this boost, and it wont make them OP. We gave the battleships a 60% increase of DPS and they are now very effective. You need a stong balanced fleet or another strong cap to take them down now. No spam for these guys, its like steriods to them. Flipside a strong use of bombers can still bring these guys down (though it can take longer), but when you consider that this is true in real life I don't have an issue with that.

Adaptive Forcefield should be a passive ability on the Kol. AM problems solved, more useful cap available.

I would rather have af be pretty good and cost am.If you made it passive you might have to reduce its stats.35% damage reduction passive would be hardcore.Anyways when I use a kol I run out of am without even using af so it wouldnt make much diff.You only get 2-3 shots from either fb or grg and its poor after that.The problem lies with grg and fb not af.Its a good ability for the cost the other 2 arent.

You don't want to overbuff it, either

Yeah...  And I know its rare, but I still want FF+GRG to work and be worth while.  I want to keep the AM cost high, so I will say again the solution to the Kol is a damage increase.  

If want something other than that, I would say something that degrades the shield mitigation cap of the target by 8/16/24% for say, 10/12/14 seconds.  That would make the Kol suddenly worth while.  Such a devastating attack could mark an enemy ship for death.  Forget the damage boost or making AF passive.  That sort of an ability late game would be a death sentence.  Essentially doubling the damage you can deal to an enemy capital or starbase.  That is huge boost.  

And in all reality, firing a slug that size would disrupt the onboard computers attempting to  neutralize damage, and you would also be destroying much of the shield so suddenly the computer would have a fraction of its shield mass to work with.  That would degrade mitigation quite a bit.

Also, if anyone says you can't do this as there is no buff, there is a buff that you can apply.  It is in the research tab.  The Advent can research higher mitigation via this tool.  Also, in a mod I am working on, there is a ship called the Eyron which specializes in shields.  Whether its draining them, destroying them, or sacrificing its own to blast another ship out of existence (the level 6 ability btw), it still deals with shields.  Its other ability is a passive similar to the Halcyon's AEA.  Only in this case it amplifies shield mitigation slightly.  Not much, but a bit.  So my point is, the devs would not have to create an entirely new buff.  And honestly, if they don't put something in in the next patch, I'm sticking this in my mod unless I see an idea I like more.

Bomber-laden Sova with heavy strike craft can already do this, plus it's using embargo while it's there.  Egg with level 2 nanos can solo an unupgraded starbase.  Marza with level 2 raze planet can bring down a 1500 HP planet before help arrives all on its own.  Any colony capital ship can lazily roam across the solar system, colonizing planets as it goes all on its own (Akkan and Egg are really good at this).

An ability on this level is hardly out of place at all.

If anything, but buffs to flak burst should focus on the lower levels, since it's low-level Kols that are weak.  Once you're in the 6+ range, the Kol is fine; any buffs should focus on GRG and low-level Kols.

Aiieee!  The Kortol can only be destroyed by the power of Satan!

Seriously though I see where you are coming from Volt.  The TEC having a synergy is good, but that only pops up with at least one high level cap, but here we are trying to improve the Kol's performance at low level/early game (although some late game boosts wouldn't hurt) so it becomes a viable first/second choice cap to compete with the revived carriers.  I suppose a mitigation dampening effect would definately help the Kol hurt other early cap ships among other things, however GRG still needs a cost decrease otherwise FB will always be the first choice ability due to the lethality of carrier caps, and the fact the Kol doesn't really have enough antimatter to make both work for their cost.

That might not make sense.

Of course that is the bear minimum to deal anything to it...  All the same, xenocidal alien battleship that happens to be destroyed by 666(.6666666666) DPS..  Coincidence?  I think not!  Seriously though I just thought it was odd...

@Crazy: I understand it..  I still don't support buffing it through AM reductions.  I still say buff its damage or give it some special.  I know AM on the Kol is in short supply, but I like it that way...

The problem I have with 15 flaks early is that if the enemy disciple or cobalt spams I'm in trouble.  Assailants are easier said than due because any competent enemy will have scouts on standby (and he will just keep them in reserve until the assailants show up).  As I said, I intend to give the Kortul another chance, but the challenge is to make a battleship work in what is clearly (at least for capital ships as of this version) a carrier's world.

you know, the manual says the Kol is "a pure bred battleship with many direct combat abilities"...

um... GRG is one and Flak Burst is only half because it only affects SC... AF and Finest Hour only apply to the ship itself (sure, slightly higher dps and splash damage but meh...)