Revelation Battlecruiser

The Revelation Battlecruiser is the Advent's Heavy Assault Ship.
Official Description: Immense arrays of powerful PsiTech project through the hulls of the Revelation Battlecruisers, allowing them to amplify the natural skill of their Battle Psintegrae up to a planetary scale. While such power occasionally finds benign use, the Advent show little hesitation using it to channel their wrath and inflict chaos upon the hapless populations below. 
==Tactics==
Serving as the Advent's Siege Capital Ship, what the Marza Dreadnought is to the TEC, the Revelation Battlecruiser technically is to the Advent. However, only its "ultimate" ability actually improves its siege performance; the remaining abilities make it more of a regular fleet support ship.
The first of the Revelation's abilities is Reverie. This ability temporarily keeps a random ship from attacking your forces. However, you must be careful not to cause too much damage to the disabled vessel; otherwise, the ship will come back online. The duration on this ability is quite long, and significantly longer than the cooldown. This means Reverie can be used to permanently disable an enemy capital ship, making it a fearsome ability.
Guidance, the Revelation's second ability, reduces ability cooldowns on all frigates, cruisers, and capital ships (not structures) within range by 25-40%, depending on level. (Note this excludes the casting Revelation itself.) This can be a powerful support ability, assuming you have the antimatter to make use of it. As such, it is probably most useful in defensive positions, where you can have Temples of Renewal built and your antimatter hasn't been depleted by phase-jumping.
The Revelation's Clairvoyance allows you to silently observe a planet, regardless of affiliation, for a considerable period of time. It's best used to view planets deep in enemy territory that cannot be reached by conventional means. Further development has made it so you do not need to be around the star you wish to observe. (However, stars themselves cannot be targeted.) In competitive games, this ability is best used sparingly, when you actually need to see a particular planet, as dedicating an expensive capital ship to scouting duty makes little sense when Seeker Vessels cost so little.
Once the Revelation reaches level 6, you can use its "ultimate" ability that finally grants it extra bombard power - Provoke Hysteria. Over the next 40 / 50 seconds, you'll reduce the target planet's health AND population at a rate of 1% per second. As the damage output is a percentage of total (maximum, not current) planet hit points, this ability works best on high-health planets. Planets with few upgrades (or low maximum HP) will take much less damage than conventional weapons would do over the same period of time. Be careful, as it is a channeled ability, and thus can be stopped by certain attacks.
Ship Type: 	Capital
Primary Role: 	Siege/Support
Shield Power: 	Very High
Hull Points: 	High
Armor Level: 	High
Armor Type: 	Capital
Antimatter: 	Low
Weapons (Fore): 	2 x Heavy Plasma Cannons /Ship-to-Surface Kinetic Bolts
Weapons (Side): 	2 x Heavy Pulse Laser Turrets (Starboard / Port)
Squadrons Supported:	1 - 3
Crew Complement: 	3,300
== Using the Revelation ==
Reverie makes a solid offensive ability, as it will disable enemy capitals for a fairly long duration at higher levels. It only affects a single target, which you might want to pick manually. However, at higher levels you can keep up to 3 different ships disabled indefinitely (as the cooldown is that much shorter than the duration), which can make a serious dent in enemy offensive power if you choose your targets well. However, keep in mind Reverie will be canceled if the target takes enough damage. It should be used to "save the target(s) for last", not to destroy them first.
Guidance is a support ability best used from behind your offensive / defensive line - while an active ability, it is AoE, meaning it will shorten the ability cooldowns (at higher levels, rather dramatically) of all ships in range. (And the range is quite large on all levels.) However, it doesn't affect structure cooldowns, meaning that you cannot, unfortunately, use it to keep Mass Disorientation permanently active with a single starbase, nor to improve the DPS of Meteor Storm. Like most AoE abilities in the game, Guidance does not stack with itself, although having multiple Revelations can help you cover an even larger fleet, or keep the ability active at all times.
Clairvoyance is more convenient than it is necessary - scouting can instead be performed by cheap, disposable Seeker Vessels. In a competitive game, building a capital ship only to delegate it to scouting duty is usually a waste of resources. However, if you can afford it, Clairvoyance makes galaxy exploration a fuss-free undertaking. The ability does not even need to be leveled beyond 1.
If using it exclusively as a glorified scout, simply park the ship ideally near a Temple of Renewal (or, if you don't have that yet, some Disciple Vessels with Transfer Antimatter) and leave Clairvoyance on autocast. It will preferentially explore unknown planets and, with the short cooldown, will chart even a large galaxy in fairly short order. The ability can see into other star systems as well.
Once you have a complete map of the galaxy, you can scuttle the ship in favor of something more useful if you do not wish to use its other abilities and / or use Clairvoyance tactically. (I.e., to get live vision of planets you are about to attack / worried about being attacked from / etc.) Note that if not stopped, Clairvoyance will cycle through already-explored planets indefinitely (possibly wasting antimatter that would be more useful elsewhere) once unknown planets run out.
The Provoke Hysteria ability is a suitable capstone for the Revelation, and is the only ability Advent has to boost bombard damage. Its ability to quickly deplete heavily upgraded planets is useful for breaking through delay tactics, but its lack of secondary effects means it's not going to win any rewards.
However, if you are playing Loyalist, planet bombing might not be an issue as soon as you have a level 6 Coronata titan (whose Repossession ultimate will simply flip planets to you upon casting). Since Provoke is also available from level 6, the window in which you can use it but don't have Repossession yet is likely to be short, if any, and in any event as Advent Loyalist it usually pays to wait with large-scale conquest until you do have Repossession, if you can.
When playing against the AI, Revelations tend to be among the highest-priority targets of enemy focus fire, possibly even before other support capitals. Since the ship isn't very tough in a stand-up fight, make sure it is protected e.g. by fixed fortifications, a Progenitor Mothership's Shield Regeneration, Iconus Guardians, etc. Beware of AI-controlled Ragnarov titans, which like to Snipe capital ships in general and Revelations in particular. (However, these will generally follow their Snipe target single-mindedly, even if it means running into Mass Disorientation or a defending fleet.)
== Fighting the Revelation ==
If you spot a Revelation on your screen, it's best to remove or neutralize it quickly (EMP Charge and Phase Out Hull will do the job just fine) - the Reverie ability can leave your capital ships sitting ducks and very vulnerable to attacks, while Guidance can make the Advent's strong ability combos even stronger when supporting a large and diverse fleet (assuming the fleet has enough antimatter to make use of it). The Clairvoyance ability is of little consequence; it's not a combat ability and can't really be helped, anyway. Though Provoke Hysteria is a powerful move, it's also easily countered - smacking the ship with Ion Bolt, Phase Out Hull, or your own Reverie will interrupt its channeling, and thus waste the cast. 
The Revelation is a fairly light-weight capital ship and easily destroyed in battle. It has little lasting impact if you can evict it out of the gravity well, since its abilities deal no direct damage and the targets it disables cannot be attacked (at least not without cancelling the effect of Reverie). As with other Advent support capitals, focus-firing the ship (ideally with strike craft swarms) to get rid of its powerful support abilities is a viable tactic, if you have room to utilize it. If the Advent fleet also has carrier capitals, consider switching to corvette swarms, which cannot be stymied by Telekinetic Push. As with other Advent ships, it is particularly vulnerable to Vasari Phase Missiles.
== Development History ==
In early versions of the game, Guidance was a single-target ability, making it of low value and effectively making the Revelation a one-trick pony (with Reverie). Based partly on player feedback regarding the ship's comparative uselessness, Guidance was completely overhauled into an area-of-effect ability, greatly improving the ship's overall utility.
Category:Advent
Category:Heavy Assault Ships