Vasari Phase Lane Gates

Phase gates are awesome, but they are not even close to the same league as Jumping Starbases. They are an auxiliary feature, powerful but they do not help you win a fight directly. If you are outclassed militarily phase gates are not going to help you a whole lot, unless you are just trying to be annoying.

Even with a Kostura, the attacking fleet will get stuck at the planet they're attacking unless they have a Vorastra, level 6 Antorak (lol), or a Orky (which we'll probably see less often with the nerf) to create another node for them to get back. And if you really are that far a way, why not just finish your offensive? If he's mounting a major attack on your territory from behind your lines, that means his fleet isn't defending his territory. So do enough damage to his Empire while building up defenses around where he jumped in at and you'll either

A. Force him to jump back to defend his Empire

B. Win the game because you took his territory faster than he took yours or

C. Lose the game because he blitzed your territory faster than you could his.

In all these cases, whoever had the stronger military is likely to win, unless your Empire was so hollow he had virtually no resistance. In which case that is probably a strategic error on your part, as any player could have just bypassed your frontline defenses and done much the same thing.

Overfortifying every planet shouldn't be the solution either, and putting starbases everywhere still does not save you, as Vasari bombers are very strong so you threw extreme amount of resources out of the window.

That's not really what I was suggesting either. Once you get a superweapon construction warning from either a Vasari or TEC player I starbase my homeworld if it isn't already. Once he fires it I know what planet he's heading for, and can start building up defenses there or on the adjacent planets. They're just for stalling until you can attack something important enough to force your enemy to come back and destroy your fleet.

Also, I'd argue that says just as much if not more about Vasari bombers than phase gates.

Apparently, you haven't been the guest of a full fleet of Vasari Loyalists paying a visit to your homeworld via a gate.

I could superdefend a sector, but a fleet of bombers, capital ship, and Titan will reduce all of your system to rubble in about 5 minutes.

To be honest most multiplayer games I've played are more or less decided before we see hundreds of bombers and Kosturas. The games that I've seen go that far the gates are only a huge deal for the Vasari Loyalists, and more because they like to play hard to get and just jump all over the map at the first sign of real resistance, rather than how much damage they do (and Maw of course, but that is a different issue).

But lets say I am wrong, and they do need to be nerfed. How exactly are we going to do that? The only way you could get the gates to only work every half an hour would be to give the gate ability a cooldown like the Antorak or the Orky, and having multiple gates would get around that restriction. It also wouldn't help in most cases with the Vorastra, since usually it only creates a gate when it needs to run across the gravity well, and the ability would of course be able to fire instantly the instant it spawns.

I haven't played an extreme amount of 5s games online, maybe 10-20, but on several occasions I saw opponent Vasari Loyalist fleet go insane, and noone could catch it, even though we were winning he was unstoppable and ruined half the map. Only God can stop a full Loyalist fleet....

You miss an important VL feature, they don't need planets and don't have those important stuff you are talking about. You attack his homeworld? VL will have brutal bombarding power (if he went capital ship heavy), and will kill every planet in 1 minutes, so your homeworld too, he won't even be slowed down if you build defenses, you may have 3-4 minutes to build up, and that's not that much, need starbase constructor to get there, starbase upgrades to complete, etc. By the time you get near he jumps away, or decides to face your fleet, he can easily win an 1v1 fleet fight, even worse if you are Advent, you can't simply win (one does not simply destroy a full strength late game Vasari fleet), maybe only with a 2 times bigger fleet.

So you were winning but eventually lost to single VL player as only "god could stop him?"

Or did you win, but you could not enjoy the victory, cause he "ruined half the map" first?

It was a 5v5 where many players were defeated, we had a slight advantage but we couldn't stop a VL player (one of the well known players, can't remember his name) we decided to leave as it would have lasted too long to catch him, and he destroyed half of the map with STTC and would continue to do so. Denying players from his own planets is a very cruel way of winning, I never saw a strong VL player get defeated, although I already said I haven't played a million 5s games.

Let me know when the "VASARI ARE OP" thread devolves into a "BUFF THE ANKYLON" thread...

1. While 5v5 is popular is it not by any means the only game mode played online.

2. On larger single star maps, the ability to Kostura to any location on the map within 1 minute is easily the most powerful thing in the entire game. Add SttC and guranteed return with the Vorastra and Vasari are unstoppable.

How to crush any and all resistance as Vasari Loyalist:

1. Fortify your border worlds
2. Kostura jump to the enemy homeworld
3. Bomb and strip enemy homeworld... laugh your ass off while his fleet is desperatly trying to be there in time. Until his fleet has arrived, strip 2 or 3 more planets... depending on resistance level.
4. Should his fleet actually catch up one day, either destroy it with your superior fleet or jump back.
5. When you are back... attack the next of his border worlds..... his fleet is at his capital after all. Another world for the Empire....
6. Rinse repeat
7. Wait until he ragequits or is dead.

The moment the Vasari fleet is powerful enough to handle even fortified systems there is nothing you can do. While all other factions have to fight their way trough heavily defended border worlds, the Vasari can strike with absolutly impunity.

If you face a Vasari and you are afraid he might make it to late game..... choose a multi star map..... on a single star map the Vasari is close to unbeatable.

Even if there is an enemy fleet capable of taking down the Vasari defense... 1 minute and your fleet is there.... and that is the end of any enemy assault.

Pretty much when facing the Vasari, it's a race to rush them out make sure they don't get to the late game.

The way to stop it is to buff the anky with the ability to block all phase gates within 10 jumps of it.

We like to play a lot of 10 player FFA.  Vasari are so OP with the phase gates, roving starbases, and planet muncher that I am the only person that plays anything OTHER than Vasari.  I usually dominate all my opponents until some knucklehead gets the jumper, then it's gg.

I love the Advent.  I truly think that they can stop the Vasari.  I don't have spreadsheets, none of us are skilled players, and we just mess around and have fun.

But I digress.  Here, in my limited scope of endurance, are things that should be given in different forms to each player to fix the imbalances.

1) Moving starbases:  Let them all move.  VR can jump?  No worries.  You can research an ability that reduces enemy structures damage/health upon hitting your culture for Advent.  Terran can research a shockwave that will shutdown enemy starbases for X amount of time inside it's owned planets.

2)Kostura Cannon:  Eliminate the extra phase gate.  Allow it to keep it's ability to shut down planetary defenses (did you know it also destroys all fighters in the system?)

3)Give each race the ability to reproduce enemy tech once you capture ONE of the enemies' planets, as long as you hold it.  That would solve all balancing issues.

4)Phase gates:  30 minute global cooldown after using one.  Tech 8 ability to lower the time by 2 minutes for each of 3 upgrades.  Allow each opposing race a system defense that would block phase travel within 2 sectors.

5)For crying out loud, give each race some bomber defense like Vasari's hangar bay phase lock, whatever that is.  

6)Every race has a powerful superweapon except the lonely Advent. Nuclear cannons, planet defense shutdown, RAWR.  Culture gun.... squirtfail.  

"ADMIRAL!!!  THE TEC HAVE ASSAULTED THREE OF OUR PLANETS WITH NUKES!  Loss of life is total, we've lost the systems!"

"Lieutenant, return fire with the all powerful Culture guns!  Maybe we can get them to switch to our side in an hour or so!!!!"

/end rant

Actually Advent are a disadvantage to Vasari since, Advent's main form of defense is shielding. And rely heavily on antimatter abilities and synergy which the VR Titan will suck the life out of you.

Guess what Vasari have PHASE MISSLES! Shields? What shields? Also phase defense against Advent's strikecraft heavily composition at times.

TEC would be your best bet to rush hard and fast with strong eco/cheap units and really tough armor. At least in 5v5 scenarios.

In my experience, the single greatest threat of the Vasari are their titans...even if you completely removed the kostura, Vasari would still be overpowered...to be fair, they have a variety of OP stuff (Orky, PMs, etc.), but their titans are the worst, especially the VL titan...

In most 5s games, VL are dominating with Orkies and titans long before kosturas or mature phase stabilizer networks are out...the kostura is simply icing on the cake that makes their inevitable victory come sooner rather than later...

Nerf the Vasari titans, consider nerfing Orky (obviously the VR one) and PMs...kostura and phase stabilizers do not need any nerfs...

FYI, I'd rather be advent when going against Vasari late game...it is true that Advent are very vulnerable to phase missiles, but the TEC titans are useless against Vasari fleets and Advent have repulse and mass disorientation, two very handy abilities when dealing with a powerful titan...

Ugh, I suppose I'll join the Zerg Horde and play Vasari.  If you cant beat them, join them.

Everyone has made great points.  This thought occurred to me while discussing something with a friend.  

If all races could research a tech that would grant them defensive traps against strikecraft in large numbers in some fashion, it would not invalidate the usage of corvette strategies.  Since the NPCs rarely use strikecraft in zergomg numbers, but could employ the defense on their hangars, this would allow casual compstomp to enjoy a higher level of complexity, while simultaneously allowing "turtling" players the defensive strategy of holding back carrier units in their OWN systems to prevent the abuse of phase gates AND prohibit the use of strikecraft in wtfomgroflcopters numbers in offensive operations.

What do you think?

You cant strip shit, if there is strong enough enemy culture. 

Too bad there's no way to counter culture...if only Vasari caps and titans could do it....

Oh wait....

Too bad, it actually takes some time for them to counter it. Not to mention, you need certain critical number of caps to overthrow the effect of several culture centers on neighbouring planets - AFAIK it wont happen at all, if you dont have enough of caps, unless you remove those centers.

And that kinda matters, especially when this is all about, how you can easily strip the planet and 3 others before the defending fleet arrives.

And who stops the Vasari fleet in doing that? It can easily divide and take out 2-3 adjacent planets, and very soon you will push enemy culture out and colonize, strip, and leave. having 3-4 culture centers at every world is not an option I think, just an annoying thing for the Vasari, you won't buy enough time for yourself if you are like 10 jumps away.

The starbases/hangars protecting those culture centers will stop the Vasari player from dividing his fleet to attack more planets at once to deal with culture faster.

Additionally you assume he has big enough fleet to allow splitting it into several smaller groups.  Why should we not assume then, the defending player (TEC, Advent) in this case has a fleet of comparable size himself? And if that fleet is 10 jumps away, as you say, its clearly way more logical to force the Vasari player to retreat by not trying to move your fleet back home to provide protection, but attacking his territorry instead. As Goafan suggested in his post. OFC he may decide not to retreat, in which case it becomes a race, who can wipe enemy empire faster. 

What if when Vasari opened phase gates, it created a temporary phase lane for everyone to use?

While Vasari has an extreme advantage, he will be able to reclaim planets, you will only be able to get asteroid fields or dead asteroids back.. If he went capitalship heavy, he will surely be able to kill planets faster than you, and I often see many Vulkoras in VL repertoire to be more efficient in bombardment.