kosatru cannon

yes. Same duration as ships.

confirm. was on the receiving end of several blasts. kosturas are far from useless.

I looked at that replay the other day and actually counted...we hit that one world with about 25 strikes over the 30-40 minutes of our assault.  Starbases hold up pretty well, but nothing else does.  Which is all we really wanted....  

well, maybe we can repeat that some day. with beta 2 fairly well working and stuff I try to plan more mp games. I already saw several things I could improve for next time.

Kostura's are mainly good for the stun especially if anyone's trying to leave the gravity well.

I think you're missing out on a crucial part of what a kostura cannon can ALSO do which is... open up a temporary phase stabilizer node to the planet you just fired on. Good strategy: Scout the planet you want to attack. Fire cannon, disable either factorys or starbases, launch your fleet from a phase stabilized node to the NOW stabilized phase node enemy world. result? fucking ownage. gawd I love vasari. lol.

It's great for when you know the position of the enemy fleet... and you can just send your fleet to ANY of their planets... and when you have that tech so that you can see ALL phase jumping, its hilarious watching the enemy scramble their fleets, jumping from planet to planet trying to get to where you just fucked their shit up. that is, if they are advent, tec, or a noob vasari player with no phase stabilizers on his planets.

What version of SoaSE are you playing Metalphor? I never been able to use the Kostura cannon to create a temporary phase node on an enemy planet.

How are you able to do this?

entrenc

Entrenchment

Woooow   Thats a good reason to play the micro expansion in itself.  Thanks for the info JohnJames.

Entrenchment. You should get it.

If they did that to the Kostura in Entrenchment, did they do anything to the Advent Deliverance Engine?

On the map Gateway I had a lot fun with Kosatru Cannons, using the temp Phase Nodes to raid several rear planets at the same time while my main fleet tackles the enemy main.

Interesting to note, contrary to the description, it CAN target planets on other star systems.

Absolutely!  All the endgame cannons can be used on planets in other star systems....but it is not usually practical to do so, especially on larger maps.  The shots take a very long time to cross interstellar distances.  One time on a multstar, the last enemy was holed up in one star system.  My allies asked me to wait for them to be ready before I attacked, so I got bored and built a lot of Novalith and started firing while my allies built up for a good 30 minutes.  The Novalith strikes actually arrived AFTER the last star system was 50% conquered....but they were handy in that we didn't have to do much planetary sieging. 

Also, you can accidentally take out a world belonging to an ally or yourself very easily if someone re-colonizes it before the Novalith strike arrives, so don't forget what systems you shot at...on really big maps, it will probably be over an hour before the shot arrives.

lol that temp phase stablizer sounds rigged lol. but i havnt played entrenchment so it's just SOUNDING rigged from my perspective, unless there's some kind of downside

The problem is the 'freeze' time is only like, fifteen seconds, so you'd need four or five of the damn things, or impeccable timing.

As it is, the best part of the Kostura cannon is the temporary phase stabilization. Nobody bothers to reinforce the planets they have at the ass-end of their empire, and the... SNEAK ATTACK OMG. Since that's usually where you'll find all their labs, you can CRIPPLE the enemy like this.

Plus, if they're NOT Vasari, it'll be AAAAAGES before their fleet gets there to stop you. You can easily wipe out their capital and then some before you have to worry about anything. Plus, if you brought a Marauder with you, you can escape and retain most of your fleet (you'll lose the Marauder - small price to pay if you ask me for the ultimate 'fuck you').

That's only true if you're looking to get a complete lockdown.  Kosturas are VERY useful even without that; my fleet attacks a well-defended system and engages an even-match enemy fleet.  Normally this'd be risky, with a lot of losses, but if the planet is hit by two or three kostura strikes spread over the course of this fight, things swing WAY in my favor.  For those short periods his ships aren't moving or firing, his capships aren't activating their annoying specials... only the fighters are still doing anything during that period.  While his ships are stunned, I'm focus-firing his capships to death, and if he tries to run, another shell will stall his ships again; if I decide to withdraw a wounded capship during one of the stun periods, he can't do anything to stop it either.  Plus the damage is nice, of course; it might not do much to each individual target, but it hits EVERYTHING, making it far easier to quickly wipe out the dinky frigate helpers with AoE attacks (desolator missile swarm!) and strike craft.

They're also great for a general annoyance, which is why I put at least half of mine on auto-targeting and only save a few for direct assaults.  The enemy's trying to shuffle his fleets around, run a trade ship network, etc., and suddenly random back-line systems will be frozen for short periods, incapable of doing anything?  And if he happens to have just started construction on something when the shell hits, it's blown up and has to be rebuilt (at full cost)?  Over time that adds up into a big economic advantage.

plus, now in Entrenchment, you also get the temp PS.  And as many have mentioned earlier, you can now effectively bypass all set defenses on the outer lines.

Wait a minute. from your post sounds like your own ships don't get hit by the cannon effects?  I thought everyone gets hit.  Is this also true for your allies ships too?

As far as I know, the cannons have never affected your ships or allies ships.

Just got done playing a Beta 2.5 game with the AI, I warped my entire fleet into the AI's home planet.

The AI responded by sending his fleet in to defend (large force with frigates, cruisers, and cap ships)

7 kosatru cannons fired at once.

All that was left of the AI's fleet was 3 level 7, 9, 10 cap ships (all the cap ships took major damage on the sheilds, not much damage to the hull though)

My fleet was not stunned, nor suffered any damage.

Side note: all of the structures on the AI's home planet were destroyed.

Friendly ships are not harmed. 

Now you are seeing the magic!  It does take about 6 strikes, but as you are seeing, multiple strikes in rapid succession will destroy just about everything in the gravwell except starbases and capitals.

When I use the Kostura I set it on Auto fire and just tear the enemy up. Its great

Just out of curiosity, how are you supposed to counter something like that?

You don't.

Samurye.

You can fire your own cannons and invade they're planets.

Here is my question.  If you are playing Vasari and you have researched the show all phase jump activity tech, does it show incomming cannon shots from your enemies?

Umm...it takes a few minutes to cycle, so I'm not sure how useful this would be.  The best use is to have multiple cannons shoot one after the other as your fleet is attacking.  After this, the world should be yours and you should be aiming at the next world.

You counter it by killing the enemy first...or at the least, getting your ships out of the gravwell if you see multiple strikes incoming.

Anyone can see the shots moving across the system.  However, they are pretty hard to find moving between stars until they get close to the next star system.