Vasari Neutral Grabbing Secrets

from Sins Forums

I seriously hope some people read this, because they SUCK at grabbing neutrals, even as Vasari.

1)  DO NOT let your scouts stand still in gas gaints and plasma storms.  With proper micro, they should never die to the pirate defenders, or enemy defenders (minus fighters).

2)  Queue a few movements (120 seconds worth) to regen AM, and then order it to capture the netural.  If the grav well has more than one extractor, press shift and give it another movement order, and then shift and capture neutral order.  Repeat for additional extractors.

3)  Pin the grav well to your empire tree so you can see if enemy forces are trying to retake the extractors.

4)  If you need to send a scout from a few jumps away to a neutral extractor, first order the jump to that grav well, then press shift and order a few movement orders around the gravwell.  By the time the orders expire, it will auto capture a neutral and by that time you should be able to check back on it's progress and follow the instructions in number 2 above.

5)  Use your scouts offensively.  Yes, they have weapons people, use them. 

 

strategy
5,812 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Even colony frigates - those flimsy colony frigates - can easily survive pirates long enough to take three extractors if you micro them.  For me, the biggest difficulty is if I end up in a fleet battle, I forget to check back on my scouts/colony frigs and give them new orders, so they sit around wasting time.

 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

True, colony frigs can do it too, but we're talking about scouts.  Also, scouts can cross multiple neutral/enemy grav wells.  Colony figs can't.

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Good post, I never pin neutrals to my colony tree and that would help alot

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

 

Thanks fro the tips Howthe i could use i am thnik of going to vasari now inted of tec

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Good call Howdidudothat. However, pinning the well to the tree is only needed in multiplayer, the AI never seems to take a neutral. Secondly, in the rare event that there are lots of pirates in the well, a few light frigates/missile frigates should do the job.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

in the rare event that there are lots of pirates in the well
End of quote

Pirates appearing in neutral gravity wells isn't random.  Plasma storms and gas giants will always have pirates (one light frigate, one flak frigate).  Other neutral wells, including magnetic storms, asteroid belts, space junk, and worm holes, will never have pirates.

Yes, you can deal with them, but in a fast-paced early game you often don't have time or resources to spare units to go and exterminate them.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Darvin3, reply 6

Pirates appearing in neutral gravity wells isn't random.  Plasma storms and gas giants will always have pirates (one light frigate, one flak frigate).  Other neutral wells, including magnetic storms, asteroid belts, space junk, and worm holes, will never have pirates.
End of Darvin3's quote

Too right, sorry for my stupidity. What I ment to say is incase there are opposing souts/colony ships in the well, all trying to get a neutral. It may appear costly in the begining of a hectic mulitplayer or unfair AI, especialy in small maps or when someone's doing a rush, but with a potential source, after research,  of 0.96 (if I remember correctly) of the resource, it is easily worth allowing a frigate or two to stand guard, giving you a key edge over the enemy

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

They're definitely worth the effort of acquiring, but why bother killing the pirates if you can just claim it and get out of there before the colony/scout frigate gets blasted?  In the early game, you seldom have time to divert real combat forces, so anywhere you can skimp will help you overall.

No questions asked, neutrals are a critical resource that can decide the game.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

well here's the thing colony frigate is the slowest ship in the game.  So if you don't kill the pirates a Vasari player will jsut go in there and take the neutrals.  You then send your colony frigate back to get em back, but the pirates target your ship and so will the Vasari scout.  You will get nothing back and you iwll lose the colony frigate.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

If you're competing with Vasari for a neutral well early on (and he's actually trying), you're just going to lose.  You basically can't stop a scout from doing a fly-by and capturing the thing without camping the well, and a Vasari player can have two scouts to every one colony frigate you deploy to begin with command-wise (and it's even more in his favour cost-wise).  Pirates or no pirates, you're in a losing proposition if you're competing with a Vasari player to retake a well.

When against Vasari, I pick some sensible neutral wells that I'm going to focus on for the early game, and just forget about the rest if he tries to compete with me for them.  Unless he's lazy, there's no way I'm going to be able to keep control of them and it's not worth sending those slow and expensive colony frigates out to compete with those cheap and fast scouts.  Take them once, and if the Vasari player makes a point of fighting over them, don't try to take him on until you have the fleet to ward off those scout fly-bys.  A colony frigate has no problem quickly entering a system and capturing a few extractors.  I'm not going to come back (particularly if I'm damaged) to compete with a fast and resource-efficient Vasari scout.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

Nonsense once you clear the pirates your colony frigate will keep single scout out because it can capture faster than the scout.  If he brings 2 you station garrison of course.  Cobalts work OK, but if he really microes them a lot you mgiht need scouts or carrier.  Nothing is worse than simply giving up the neutrals to a vasari player.  Sure on huge maps there will be neutral sites you can't easily reach, but that does not mean you shouldn't secure all sites near your planets.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Ive got a few extra tricks....

 

- When you find that you have no time to micro your scouts to move more within the gravwell because your focusing on a battle or something , you can use the left side bar  (pinned grav) and make the scouts move from one rock to another rock and back and forth. Not as good as circling , but its the only movement u can apply to the scout without looking at the grav. You can also go back and forth from the middle of the grav to the asteroid...if there is only one.

- If you find you have entered a plasma/gas grav with enemy vaz scouts...make sure that the flak and cobalt are designating the enemy as their target. So just grav back out and then back in again.

- If there is a neutral next to the stars , it is faster to phase to the sun and gain a full tank of AM , then wait in the neutral grav for your AM to go from 0-60. The assumption being that your scouts will have run out of AM by the time they reach neutrals next to stars.

 

 

 

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

Sure on huge maps there will be neutral sites you can't easily reach, but that does not mean you shouldn't secure all sites near your planets.
End of quote

As I said, I pick some neutral wells to focus on, and then put my efforts into keeping those.  If I'm in a situation where there are some remote neutrals, I don't bother competing with a Vasari player for them.  I'll take them once with a fly-by, but I'm not going to commit forces or expensive colony frigates to stick around and keep them under my control.

Obviously if the neutrals are close to home, you will have the opportunity to clear out the pirates and just keep colony frigates on call.  It's when they're a distance away that scouts just become so much better at taking neutrals.

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

but why bother killing the pirates if you can just claim it and get out of there before the colony/scout frigate gets blasted?
End of quote

Great point because playing with the AI, he DOES grap neutrals if nothing is there. If I don't leave the pirate forces there he comes with  colony frig and takes my extractor and if I come take it back the AI will send a small force to boot me out. But I realized now how much of a micro pain it is to keep retaking extractors and I hate leaving a small force there because after 3-4 neutrals it adds up in fleet supply. So I place a star base in there and problem solved, not only does it hold the well, but it also does the ole -30% hull , 100% anti-matter loss to any ship comming to my territory and softens up pirate raids if they happen to path thou there to. Yes its expensive but if you can....do it.

Happy Easter guys have a good one :beer: