IF it turns out that the Vasari need more anti-structure capabiiity, I don't want to see the sort of flat bonus the OP was asking for.  That's because I'm pretty comfortable with how the Vasari are balanced currently; any outright boost would have to come at the expense of other things.  That being said, here are a couple of the suggestions I've seen that I liked:

> Give Vasari hangars (defense structures, starbases, capships, and carriers) a third option besides fighters and bombers: cruise missiles (one-shot kamikazes, heavy damage to single targets).  Implemented sort of how the Advent homing mines work, this'd allow Vasari to jack up their anti-structure ability but at the expense of their fighters and bombers.  (And losing some of your bombers would definitely hurt.)  Due to the time needed to replace the destroyed missiles, the overal DPS would be far below an Ogrov.

> Rebalance the researched "charged shot" missile power of the assailant and flak frigate to do heavier structure damage, making the assailant into the poor man's torpedo cruiser for the late game.  These ships just aren't used in fleets much in the late game as they lack the survivability of the cruisers, but with this sort of change people will bring them along anyway.  It's a tier 3 upgrade that has two prerequisites (the ship types that use it), so it'll come early enough to be used but cost enough to not always be a high priority.

Are you saying the enemy can have more than one SB?  Hmmm... right now of course they are limited to one per player per grav well. But i have seen the entry in the planet.entity file and it may possibly be modded to change that. (dont know i havent tried it yet)      But that would be Very Very Interesting!    Fleets of SB's 6 or more, and they can phase jump from one grav well to the next?  Then why would i need anything else?  I could field fighters/bombers and tweak my shields, well.. that last part isnt possible now, unless i go to the research and tweak it there.

Sounds Interesting!!   I dont play multiplayer, but it would probably give the guys heartattacks to see a fleet of Sb's when they warped in to invade!!!   haha.   Take care,

-Teal

Tools?

You that you can take starbases out of battles for quite a long time, giving you the chance to disable the defenses first? Yes, the marauder has its uses after all not only by jumping behind enemy lines to bring up a phase node [it doesnt even need to survive, just long anoug so your fleet starts jumping] but also disabling whatever annoys you the most. For example a starbase. Phase it out. No more Regen spam from the argonev, no more stun field and meteor spam from the Advent Base (Transcenia yes?) and the vasari mobile starbase can mobile its arse to another phase. Very good at breaking channeling abilitys too. Stop a missile barrage dead, keep motherships from doing anything and have a nifty movement speed bonus. Yes, not much of a fighter but then again: What vasari capital is.

Subverters can knock out both ships and defensive structures and with proper micro do it for a long time giving you an ende in defense, offense and general fleet combat. As expensive and late tech as they are, they are woth it.

Everyone who is saying to build a starbase to assault a starbase- this method is fundamentally broken. You need to invest in an escort fleet for the builder, jump into the well, take some losses to get out of range, pay for your starbase. Then assuming you win, what do you have? You have a starbase stuck in a well that you are hopefully going to blow right through now that you've pierced their front line.

It's a TERRIBLE strategy. It costs you more than it costs them in resources, takes a stupid amount of time, requires leaving yourself open to attack on another front while your entire fleet is there protecting your building starbase, and leaves you with a nearly-useless structure in the end.

I'm not asking for bombers to be as effective as missile cruisers. That would be stupid. I'm asking for them to have SOME use and for the Vasari to have an option to take out starbases that doesn't rely on some end-game tech (remember how early Starbases get build) to disable them or bypass them.

CAN the maurader phase out a starbase? I've never tried.

Don't get me wrong. If the devs can come up with a way to give Vasari the mobility to bypass starbases (and thus be a bit different), this is unnecessary. Right now, though, they just can't, or at least not any better than any of the other races.

The main issue I have with the Vasari Starbase being an offensive weapon as well is that in beta 2, they take FOREVER to build.

I can warp in a fleet of ships as TEC/Advent and attack pretty quickly with the torpedos. With Vasari, I'm sitting there for minutes waiting for the SB to build.

The time penalty for building in hostitle territory may need to be removed for Vasari, because they don't really have as much of a choice to do it.