Kostura Cannon » Forum Post by Chancellor Maximus

Kostura does the following things: Damages every ship and structure in orbit of the planet hit, disables them for a set time and lastly, opens a temporary phase lane for a fleet to use at any phase gate.

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The last part is only in Entrenchment. I spent a bunch of time, money, and research to get the cannon, phase gates, and faster phase gate travel, fired the shot, and nothing happened. When ordered to the affected planet they tried to make the ~7 planet jump i was trying to avoid due to the only choke point being heavily fortified on both sides.

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Kostura does the following things: Damages every ship and structure in orbit of the planet hit, disables them for a set time and lastly, opens a temporary phase lane for a fleet to use at any phase gate.

That explains a lot. In a recent game I couldn't figure out how my ships were able to skip halfway across the galaxy to the targeted planet.

This is what I've noticed: 2 or 3 shots from some Novaliths are usually enough to wipe out an enemy coloney, whereas 4-7 shots from some Kosturas are enough to remove all ships/defence platforms around a coloney (not including SBs, or occasionally a tradeport/refinery). I like timing my Kostura's to fire right before my fleet arrives, so all enemy defenses are gone (or at least disabled) when I come out of phase space.

The Kostura is actually one of the main reasons the Vasari are my favorite. I find it more usefull strategically than the Novaliths (though the Novaliths are still great fun).

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Quoting Taranabug,

reply 3

Kostura does the following things: Damages every ship and structure in orbit of the planet hit, disables them for a set time and lastly, opens a temporary phase lane for a fleet to use at any phase gate.
That explains a lot. In a recent game I couldn't figure out how my ships were able to skip halfway across the galaxy to the targeted planet.

This is what I've noticed: 2 or 3 shots from some Novaliths are usually enough to wipe out an enemy coloney, whereas 4-7 shots from some Kosturas are enough to remove all ships/defence platforms around a coloney (not including SBs, or occasionally a tradeport/refinery). I like timing my Kostura's to fire right before my fleet arrives, so all enemy defenses are gone (or at least disabled) when I come out of phase space.

The Kostura is actually one of the main reasons the Vasari are my favorite. I find it more usefull strategically than the Novaliths (though the Novaliths are still great fun).

If I only build 1 superweapon this year it'll be the deliverance engine. Why?

A. I play the Advent the most as they have maximum cool points

B. If I can build several superweapons (like multiple kostura's) I probably don't need the superweapons to win.

C. In a serious situation (match is undecided), there is a rare chance i'll get to build a superweapon, but probably just 1, b4 the odds tip or I need to rebuild my fleet.

D. IMHO if you only have 1 superweapon, the Deliverance engine does the most for you. A deliverance shot will scout the planet you are about to attack (combined with vision of the faithful) It will then proceed to grant your fleet their culture bonus deny the enemy their culture bonus AND give your fleet a generic combat bonus in the upcoming battle. Suddenly combat odds are very much stacked in your favour. And as a side benefit it'll drop someones allegiance and lower resource extraction rates for a while.

This compares with: 1 Novalith Oh noes some people died! I guess the TEC will lose credit income for a bit... like it mattered...

1 Kostura, the jump gate is cool, as is the long building stun (screw you repair bay) I think however that the damage done by 1 kostura shot is less than the benefit gained from being hit by the deliverance engine. Especially as the kostura does bugger all to starbases... with the deliverance i get all my buffs making star bases go down MUCH more easily.

Anyhow yeah, don't play Vasari: Join the Unity!

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uncle sam aunt raging samantha wants YOU!

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Quoting ilovedawkins,

reply 4

Quoting Taranabug, reply 3
Kostura does the following things: Damages every ship and structure in orbit of the planet hit, disables them for a set time and lastly, opens a temporary phase lane for a fleet to use at any phase gate.
That explains a lot. In a recent game I couldn't figure out how my ships were able to skip halfway across the galaxy to the targeted planet.

This is what I've noticed: 2 or 3 shots from some Novaliths are usually enough to wipe out an enemy coloney, whereas 4-7 shots from some Kosturas are enough to remove all ships/defence platforms around a coloney (not including SBs, or occasionally a tradeport/refinery). I like timing my Kostura's to fire right before my fleet arrives, so all enemy defenses are gone (or at least disabled) when I come out of phase space.

The Kostura is actually one of the main reasons the Vasari are my favorite. I find it more usefull strategically than the Novaliths (though the Novaliths are still great fun).

If I only build 1 superweapon this year it'll be the deliverance engine. Why?

A. I play the Advent the most as they have maximum cool points

B. If I can build several superweapons (like multiple kostura's) I probably don't need the superweapons to win.

C. In a serious situation (match is undecided), there is a rare chance i'll get to build a superweapon, but probably just 1, b4 the odds tip or I need to rebuild my fleet.

D. IMHO if you only have 1 superweapon, the Deliverance engine does the most for you. A deliverance shot will scout the planet you are about to attack (combined with vision of the faithful) It will then proceed to grant your fleet their culture bonus deny the enemy their culture bonus AND give your fleet a generic combat bonus in the upcoming battle. Suddenly combat odds are very much stacked in your favour. And as a side benefit it'll drop someones allegiance and lower resource extraction rates for a while.

This compares with: 1 Novalith Oh noes some people died! I guess the TEC will lose credit income for a bit... like it mattered...

1 Kostura, the jump gate is cool, as is the long building stun (screw you repair bay) I think however that the damage done by 1 kostura shot is less than the benefit gained from being hit by the deliverance engine. Especially as the kostura does bugger all to starbases... with the deliverance i get all my buffs making star bases go down MUCH more easily.

Anyhow yeah, don't play Vasari: Join the Unity!

I think I'll have to agree with you on the point that by the time you are able to mass kosturas in most games(AI or MP) the game is pretty much over. The old AI pre-entrenchment had a different strategy with their fleets that made multiple kosturas more worth while though. They would often not attack your planets and hoard their fleet into huge super fleets. Large amounts of kosturas were worth using then.

One thing I don't like about the deliverance engine is that it doesn't benefit from multiple shots, but the kostura does.

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1 Kostura, the jump gate is cool, as is the long building stun (screw you repair bay) I think however that the damage done by 1 kostura shot is less than the benefit gained from being hit by the deliverance engine. Especially as the kostura does bugger all to starbases... with the deliverance i get all my buffs making star bases go down MUCH more easily.

It doesn't hurt starbases very much, directly, but it does make them considerably less problematic, since it lets you skip their systems without taking the %-damage, zeroing-antimatter penalty -- making it more important for an enemy to either have highly mobile defensive fleets within the backfield, or to be very aggressive against you so you're too busy defending to be raiding. Simply defending chokepoints and letting the backfield go full-econ won't work as well against Vasari as it would others.

You might have to be careful not to be suckered into a long jump into the wrong place -- as with any other phase jump, you can't abort while you're en route, and it takes time. Problem is, it can be a much, much longer phase jump than others, and you don't necessarily have an easy way back (unless you're jumping to a friendly system with a phase gate, or maybe have a second Kostura to open a gate another your arrival in case the first one's closed before you get there?) so your potential "oops, screwed" time might be bad.

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Quoting leejaywu,

reply 7

You might have to be careful not to be suckered into a long jump into the wrong place -- as with any other phase jump, you can't abort while you're en route, and it takes time. Problem is, it can be a much, much longer phase jump than others, and you don't necessarily have an easy way back (unless you're jumping to a friendly system with a phase gate, or maybe have a second Kostura to open a gate another your arrival in case the first one's closed before you get there?) so your potential "oops, screwed" time might be bad.

is it just me, or is the prospect of a level 6 marauder opening a phase gate so the rest of the fleet can escape and then being left stranded in hostile space a bit epic!

Also... Deliverance engines do derive benefit from working in pairs, it is possible to keep a planet saturated in your culture for ever if you keep shooting 2 of them at it with the right timing this will kill the planet after a bit and prevent anyone but you claiming it as long as you keep the barrage up.

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is it just me, or is the prospect of a level 6 marauder opening a phase gate so the rest of the fleet can escape and then being left stranded in hostile space a bit epic!

No. ONe of the abilities is the Maurader to speed up/accelerate/ignore PJI's. Chances are that your cap will be able to survive a jaunt through hostile territory. Usually though, this ability is used to bring in reinforcements to the battle, not to withdraw.

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Eh, didn't know the Visari super weapon made a temporary phase gate now. IMO, that pushes over the other races; it damages and stuns all buildings AND gives you a backdoor attack. Being able to bypass a choke point seems like a game winner to me.

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vasari is OP in entranchment its not funny, anything new?

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more like OR (overrated)....there are so many tricks for advent defenses its sick...nothing that i know of can ignore repulse...so throw down 150 homing mines at the edge of a grav well...and park some guardians around where you know they have to come out approximately...even if they use kostura, they still have to come into a specific part of the system...again...repulse

mass disorienation's level2 range is 12000, which only ogrov's with targeting uplink can outrange.

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kostura is a bit overpowered...because it only hits hostile fleet,and when you shoot into system you are battling in - opponent is fucked (o:

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pre-entrench it hit your own ships too.

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