Domination

Ability User:	Rapture Battlecruiser
Ability Type:	Active
Target:	Targets enemy frigates.
Antimatter Cost:	150 ->112
Cooldown Time:	60
Duration:	N/A
Range:	6000 -> 7500
Effect(s):

Note: Values in table are current as of Patch 1.90.

Overpowers the minds of the crew aboard the targeted frigate, forcing them to serve this ship's empire. -Extracted from the game

Tactics

When using this ability, the targeted frigate or cruiser permanently joins your empire, effectively giving you free ships. (If the Rapture Battlecruiser is in a fleet, the flipped ship also joins that fleet.) Unfortunately, any upgrades that the previous owner had researched for it do not apply. This means that you cannot use the secondary abilities of support cruisers, and you cannot gain the overpowered late-game pirates, since they will revert to their un-upgraded base forms. If you capture an enemy Advent unit, it will gain any applicable upgrades you may have for it; in most cases (all cases if the enemy is also your faction, i.e., Advent Loyalist / Rebel), such ships will be fully equivalent to ones you built yourself. (Note that ship abilities available without research will still be available to flipped ships, of any faction.)

The second level reduces antimatter costs quite significantly and extends the range somewhat. Cost reduction may be significant if the Rapture is in an offensive fleet that loses antimatter to jumps and generally isn't supported by Temples of Renewal, and / or if you wish to maximize the use of this and / or the Rapture's other active skills. A longer range, on the other hand, will give you a better "selection" of enemy ships to flip without having to advance the rather vulnerable Rapture up to the front lines. Thus, if you plan to use this ability frequently (particularly on autocast, which spams it whenever possible), and if you have no other abilities you absolutely want on the ship, it is probably worthwhile to level it up.

If on autocast, the ability selects reasonably good ships to flip, but in pitched battles (or if you want a particular ship from another faction that you cannot get otherwise), you may instead wish to pick manually. Keep in mind that neither of the other two flipping abilities (Subjugation and Coward's Submission, both Loyalist only) can be targeted, so if you are looking for e.g. a Sivuskras, Hoshiko, etc., and do not wish to rely on blind luck, you will need to go through the Rapture and turn this ability off autocast. Likewise, if you are primarily going for economic damage, you might wish to manually pick the most expensive ships to flip. (Although the AI tends to prefer them on autocast, price is not its only criterion.)

Ship Farming

If you are at your current fleet capacity, flipped ships still join up and your fleet cap indicator goes into negative numbers. Thus, in theory, Domination can be used to attain an unlimited number of ships. (The same is true for the Advent Loyalist Coronata titan's Subjugation ability and the researched culture ability Coward's Submission, also Loyalist.) However, you will not be able to build new ships of your own until your fleet capacity is back in positive numbers - i.e., in the theoretical scenario where you have dozens or hundreds of captured ships over your fleet cap, if you lose any ship types of your own, you will not be able to replace them.

Considering how much the Advent rely on ability synergies and combos for late-game power, a huge but ill-matched fleet of captures might not be the best course to take, even if you could amass it. Perhaps even more significantly, you would be unable to rebuild lost capital ships due to the above mechanic, and capitals cannot be captured with either Domination, Subjugation, or Coward's Submission, meaning you would be ultimately left with a swarm of mostly-random frigates. This essentially prevents these abilities from eventually making Advent players invincible.

Furthermore, you need to be in combat to use this ability, meaning you will likely be taking casualties. Successfully "farming" to increase your fleet size is usually only possible once the enemy is so weak that victory is already assured, at which point you no longer really need extra ships. However, you can "farm up" on nearly-defeated foes for future battles against another, stronger opponent, if playing against multiple. If Pirates are in the game and still active, they make a great source of effectively unlimited ships, although the "selection" and stats available on Pirate captures are rather limited.

Even so, even if you do not wish to use all / any captured ships, you can still Scuttle them for the usual resource gain, meaning the skill (as well as Subjugation and Coward's Submission) is still worthwhile in the long term due to the economic benefits. (Keep in mind Scuttle gain is proportional to ship health; i.e., ideally repair captures before scuttling them.) In combat terms, of course, the gain is not only immediately receiving an extra (often undamaged) ship, but also depriving the enemy of the use of the same -- thereby shifting the balance of power by two "points" at once.

If you are using all three ship-flipping skills available to the Advent Loyalist, the general gain in ships over time can be quite significant, particularly against the AI (which generally doesn't take any steps to avoid losing ships to flipping) and / or if you fight the Pirates often. (Note that Pirates "just passing through" your gravity wells on their way to raid someplace else will get flipped by Coward's Submission...)

As the Advent Rebel, you do not have access to the other two ship-flipping skills, but on the other hand, you can use the Eradica titan's Purification with ships captured by your Rapture(s). This avoids the issue of disrupting your (presumably carefully selected) fleet composition by Purifying (i.e., destroying) your own ships, and as a bonus resolves the fleet capacity overflow issue where you would be limited by it.

Development

Patch 1.1 reduced Domination's cooldown from 90 to 60 seconds.

Rebellion added the second level, as part of the general capital ship ability leveling overhaul.