Go Big or Go Home

From a Vasari perspective I think your line up is slightly wrong.  The Skirantras are a waste, most of their good abilities buff strike craft and you wont have many SC to worry about.  Their repair cloud is good as an AOE heal but it's pretty useless at keeping up single targets and your caps are going to get focused.  You would be better off creating some repair planets near the front.  I probably wouldn't take any Skirantras.

To deal with enemy Strike Craft you might want to take more Kortuls.  The Desolators are great so having many of them is a good idea.  I'd build caps in this order:

Space Egg

Desolator

Kortul

Kortul

Desolator

Maruader

Space Egg

Kortul

Desolator

Maruader

Then just build Desolators and Kortuls.

I'm doing this as TEC right now, against 4 unfair AI (FFA, but locked teams). My setup is 5 of each Marza/Kol/Dunov, and 1 Akkan. Going against a fully researched Vasari is suicide without at least 5 Kols, I would say. Even with the Marzas' Missile Barrage, those bombers with the phase missile upgrade can plow through your capitals and you have no way to repair their hull, so you need those Kols and Flak Burst. The Dunovs were very necessary until a couple of the Marzas got to level 6. I lost 3 out of the 13 capitals I used when assaulting the first AI's homeworld (and his fleet there), before any Marza had its barrage ability. Now that all of them are above 6, I could rather easily drop to 3 Dunovs and free up 2 slots for additional Kols, but it's not really needed.

I'm already at the point where I can't lose, it's just mop-up.

i disagree on the skirantras.

with 4 of them you get a total repair of 120 hull/sec which keeps almost any cap alive from lots of enemy firepower.

and of course with so many carriers and other cap ships you will have at least 15-20 fighters and bombers to play with.

played a cap-only game vs. 3 hard AI once with v1.05 but used scouts so i didn't get the achievment.

as i recall i had 4 eggs and 5 skirantras + an even mix of the other types.

i didn't lose any ship the whole game.

the more caps you get the less experience each ship gains, at the end with 16 capital ships most of them never got past level 5 or 6, only my first two got to level 10 and 9.

ROFL that would be IF the ability stacks wicht it DOESN'T. So you'd be dying thinking you heal 120.

Also get more eggs in that settup. IT'S ONE OF THE BEST CAPS IN THE GAME AND YOU ONLY BUILD 2?!

Grtz,
[_]-Flipkik

The skirantra is the one and only thing that can repair squads ^^

also they repair very fast and once its launched it can still move or use abilitys unlike the advent mothership shield restore

The egg with nano is pretty much destructive, if you have 4 lvl 3 of them you can kill ships very fast

AKA as I said klemzy boy GET MORE EGGS.

Grtz,
[_]-Flipkik

if i'm not totally mistaken or missed it in the last few patchnotes the repair-cloud does stack.

at least it stacks for me

*using entrenchment beta 2.5

WOOT! It stacks in beta? That's like . But in normal games overseers would still be more effective and you only need one for sc so for the "go big or go home" in beta you might try skarintra's. But still get more EGGS.

Grtz,
[_]-Flipkik

Why get more eggs?  I would use 1 to chain Nano-Disassembler on the current focus target and the other to chain Gravity Warheard when it's needed, apart from that why would you need more?  Pretty sure Nano-Disassembler doesn't stack.

I stand by my Skirantra statement, using up 1 slot for a very weak heal and extremely low damage is crazy.  If you have 20 fighters/bombers from caps then the enemy is gonna be ruling the skies at that point anyway with that much fleet supply.

Idealy your attacks will have an egg use Nano-Disassembler on the focus cap (1 egg can keep this up every 30 seconds for a long time if it has lots of AM), 1, maybe 2 Maruaders disabling annoying caps.  Kortul using Volatile Nanites on the focus cap and then your high damage Kortuls and Desolators pounding the focus to dust.  Retreating to repair planets as you need.  Grouping your caps for the Kortuls to use Jam Weapons as much as they can.  Your second egg can Gravity warhead if he tries to retreat his fleet.

If all you care about is the achievement, just play point blank and send your Sova to the other guy's planet with embargo asap. Get another point of capital ship research and then send a marza over. Even on unfair he doesn't stand a chance.

I tought myself how to beat the odds by abusing save/load before each major battle.

I had 1 Kol lvl6 , 2 Marzas level 4+5 and 1 Dunov level 4. First thing I see when going into the gravity well is that the entire enemy fleet is on the opposite side of the asteroid and there are hundreds of strike craft vectoring towards me. I replayed this part about a dozen times in order to not lose any caps. What I had to do was turn off all autocasting and keep my fleet in a tight formation and park them near the retreating edge of the gravity well ready to leave.

When the fighter swarms reached me, i triggered the kol's Finest hour and manually triggered flak burst when I could damage the maximum number of bombers. I think I was able to deliver 4 or 5 flaks, but thats all that was needed and just about all of the strike craft had been neutralized. Apparently, killing strikecraft gives a lot of XP, because one of my marzas leveled up to 6, just in time for a swarm of various frigates and support cruisers to show up along with several enemy capitals. I focused fire on the cap and let loose my Missile barrage. The destruction of dozens of ships at once leveled up my other marza into level 6. I opened his missile barrage and finished off most of this fleet and caused them to retreat. But I wasn't paying close attention to the other half of the gravity well, another Empire fleet had moved in. with missile barrage cooldown still minutes away, I hasted a retreat to heal up and come back later.

I learned the power of flak burst then, and I came back with 2 more Kols and 1 more dunov. The reason I reloaded that save so often was only because of bombers. They were doing major damage to my Marzas and costing me to lose it too early. I tempted fate several times and once narrowly escaped with my now level 7 kol at 4% Hull as it retreated

The game I am playing is 1vs 4 hard AI set to research and economy. 

Getting more eggs will allow you too nano disamble more ships. And nano disamble is by far the fastest way any vasari cap can kill another ship. While you focus on killing the cap and doing damage too ships close with the volatile nanites(never really used this ability allot don't know how much damage it deals when you destroy the cap). I'dd kill the fleet with a shitload of nano's (the fleet is more dangerous for a cap ship fleet than the cap ships of the enemy) Also if you have 4 eggs or more and you somehow get them all or most of them too lvl 6 it will be game over for the enemy in no time. I'm a fleet player with vasari so I'm just saying whatever comes up . I really think nano disamble spam would work. Nano a ship go too next nano it, next nano it,... and so nano his entire fleet.

Anyway I got that achievement by playing point blank vs ai.

Grtz,
[_]-Flipkik

The Volatile Nanites does about 1000 damage to other ships when the effected ships die I think, would work really nice with a phase missile swarm spam.  That's not the reason you use on the focus target though, it also increases the damage the target takes, which is why you use it.

Personally with a fleet of caps all my caps would be firing the same target so I would only have use of 1 Nano-Disassembler at a time, with caps having multiple shots per bank now I'm sure more would help but it seems a waste when imo you would just be better off with more dps on the focus.

AFAIK Volatile Nanites does 150.

This is false, capitals are the same as in vanilla Sins. The change, so far, only affects starbases and Adjudicators.

In the fleet I suggested you don't focus fire with your eggs. You take an egg fire nano at a ship do it with the others on another ship. Then do it again as first cooldown will be over each time on other ships. You guys see nano only as cap killers?

Grtz,
Flipkik

No but it's a damn slow death to try and kill frigates with only 30dps or whatever it is.  Best thing about Nano is the armour debuff for focus firing.

Cheers Annatar.  I was thinking about the change they did to Caps to make them better at firing their banks at different targets and mixed it in my head

1 lvl 3 nano kills almost every non cap if i'm not mistaking.

Grtz,
[_]-flipkik

are you guyz crazy? ^^

a nano lvl 3 = destra/kodiak dead and enforcer fucking damaged

the -30 is added to -6 armor so it means ... fucking more damage, and the lvl 3 nano stays a good amount of time, meaning you can get rid of 30 hc in no time

Barring flak, frigates have at most 700 health (unupgraded). The 30 dps from nano goes through armor and mitigation, so it kills frigates in 13 seconds (400 hp disciple) to 23 seconds (700 hp skirmisher).  And yes, lvl 3 nano kills any non-cap except for carriers or pirates.

So in short, it kicks ass spam it. I own vasari vs vasari all the time because he only nanos my whale, while I nano all his assailants out from under him.

edit: Kodiaks and Enforcers can survive level 3 nano with a few hull upgrades. Crusaders still die no matter what.

uh, what's space egg?

The Vasari coloniser, Jarrasul Evacuator.

i agree with the comments on Vasari caps. 

only need 1 Marauder really, its just there for the speed buff, right?

only need 1 or 2 Skirantas. 2 of them should be able to alternate cast repair cloud and keep it up at all times. as pointed out by others, it doesn't stack, so just keeping it going in rotation is the best you can do. 

the two ships with the highest firepower are the Kortul Devastator and Vulkoras Desolator. Spam out on those to dominate ship-to-ship combat. 

more Evacuators (the egg, the whale, whatever you call it) are always good. chaining gravity charges can lock out phase jumps permanently (need at least 3 to keep it up at all times i think, though 2 is enough to block phase jumps). more importantly though you can send 4 of em to suck a planet dry in 20 seconds flat while the rest of your fleet is still fighting. 

I agree with you, Space Eggs are wonderful things and are amazing to stop retreats. What I want to know is how you got four level six Space Eggs.

[IE]Tal Gendron'nh

Edit: I can kind of see it happening if you were going for the Go Big or Go Home achievement, but still, leveling four of them up to level six would be difficult, especially if you had other caps there.

I am doing this right now for TEC and I FORCED myself to get the two Sovas...first off, Sova was my second cap because I needed strikecraft (I would normally go Kol but I wanted to give it a chance) after the AI already had some AND for most of the game I tried not to use missile barrage just to see how long I could go without using it.  Its easy during the early to mid game because not too many other little ships that couldn't be handled easily but not so much in the late game.  I currently divided my fleet so to get them all to level ten before I make them into one again and march on the computer's remaining fleets...but, after this game, I once again love the Akkan because I found a new very good use for it...but it might be an error...still, I think it shouldn't be fixed because of a personal reason...anyways, I don't think I would go for more than one Sova ever again unless it gets more strike craft because to me it just seems worth more to get other caps than the Sova.

Thanks for the replies!

As TEC I will just get 1 Akkan and maybe 1 Sova and more Kols.

So as Vasari I'll get more Kortuls and more Space Eggs and fewer Skirantras (maybe none) and just 1 Maruader.

The reason I chose 4 Skirantras was because I would need SC numbers and micro-phasing aura. I was also thinking of using scrample bombers to distract enemy fighters.

What about my Advent capship combo though? Is it any good?

If I need more battleships as other races does that mean I need more then 4 Radiances?

What about the other Advent capships?