F***ing Sova » Forum Post by Agent of Kharma

upload replay.

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Yeah, I was in that game. Sova is a great cap ship.....

p.s. hunting for the file now, will post soon.

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My guess is his first ability was missile batteries? Those definitely set the Sova above most of the other caps in terms of damage dealing, and thats the only way he couldve killed one of your caps despite alternating heals. Sounds to me like you didn't use the full range of your abilities however. Perhaps a better idea would've been to choose scramble bombers as your first skill, your fighters woulve kept his down, and you would be dealing a great deal more damage than without them. Also, if you had air superiority, where were your bombers? You could've easily set them to hold position inside the range of your repair cloud which wouldve kept them alive while your fighter squads took down his. Missile batteries put out a lot of damage if left to do so, perhaps you should have targeted them with the assailants rather than the poorly firepowered cobalts (of which repair cloud can easily overcome). The downside to missile batteries is theyre stationary, but you don't want to just sit there and take the full force of them. People say the Halcyon is the strongest carrier cap, personally I think its the Sova, either way theyre pretty close.

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The Skintara has really poor weapons which barely makes a dent in any capships so going with two Skintaras without proper support is suicide, even against a rival Skintara. What you should have done was make your second capship a Devestator or Evacuator and keep the fighters and Skintara nearby to take care of the enemy bombers as the Sova gets pounded into scrap.

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http://www.2shared.com/file/10271874/9c3b9bf3/AutoRecord-12271011.html

OK, there is the link for the save game. At the risk of antagonising Kharma I must say that your account differs a bit from what actually happened i.e. he had a few more frigs than you suggest which enabled Terr to tip the scales in his favour. Plus, I don't think you microed that well. Further, his sova was at a higher level; level 3 compared to your level one and two...

p.s. there are also a few other errors in Kharma's account but i'll let people watch the replay and find them for themselves...no offense Kharma.

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Repair cloud can not fix damages from 6 cobalts, three missile batteries and a Sova to boot. 60 laser damage + 51 missile damage + 17.5 laser damage > 43 damage point from 2 Skintara. That's three times the firepower bearing down on those Skintaras.

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My guess is his first ability was missile batteries?

Yes.

Perhaps a better idea would've been to choose scramble bombers as your first skill

No, because then everybody calls me an idiot for fielding bombers when there are fighters around, plus then I don't have repair cloud, which everybody says is "the best heal in the game" and "the reason to choose skirantra."

Also, if you had air superiority, where were your bombers?

See above.

The downside to missile batteries is theyre stationary, but you don't want to just sit there and take the full force of them.

Of course I don't want to, but the dude is sitting there bombing my roid. I need to attack his capship with my capships. The only recourse is to go in and take it on the chin. So again, why should his missle batteries ability be able to outgun TWO repair clouds? They are two sides of the same coin. One ability heals damage, the other does damage. Why should his outweigh TWO of mine?

The Skintara has really poor weapons which barely makes a dent in any capships so going with two Skintaras without proper support is suicide, even against a rival Skintara.

LOL. I have to deal with the threat of dual carriers from my opponent (usually dual halcyons waltzing into my home planet 3 minutes atfter the game starts). So I built 2 skirantras. He build one sova. And if I didn't have "proper support" in assailants, he didn't have "proper support" either in cobalts. So again, why should his sova be able to stomp my skirantras into the ground?

OK, there is the link for the save game. At the risk of antagonising Kharma I must say that your account differs a bit from what actually happened i.e. he had a few more frigs than you suggest which enabled Terr to tip the scales in his favour. Plus, I don't think you microed that well.

What? I didn't play you.

And I micro'd better than my opponent. I had to alternate repair cloud on my skirantras, and I killed his lrms with my fighters as they arrived in the grav well. That's micro. What did he do? Pick his nose and watch the whole scene unfold. His missle batteries didn't need to be manually cast. He didn't kill my assailants with his fighters that I could see. I didn't see any micro from him, other than killing the builder when he arrived in the grav well.

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Kharma in that game I posted I was TheMouse and you played under the handle Nightmare Crush who went up against Terr, right? Infact I am pretty sure that the game I posted a replay of is the right one given the time stamp on your post and your description. You did play me, albeit as a 2v2.

Anyway, regardless of whether you microed well or not, your intitial account in your OP is very in-accurate and misleading. You lost that engagement fair and square IMO and your loss was not down, again IMO, to an over-powered Sova.

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Sova Aint Overpowered, the fact is you lost due to your incompetence, Spamming two of the same caps is pointless (unless rushing), its too easy to counter, 2 carriers lack firepower againest a fleet etc.

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I play the sova and my weakness is Assailant spam.

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Sova Aint Overpowered, the fact is you lost due to your incompetence, Spamming two of the same caps is pointless (unless rushing), its too easy to counter, 2 carriers lack firepower againest a fleet etc.

2 of the same caps is not pointless, i have to disagree with you hawk 2 skinantras is an amazing cap combo. I have even gone for a 4 skinantra start before

i have even taken out 1 of JJs halocryns from his 2 halocryn and 10 disciple fleet with 2 lone skinantras.

The problem Agent is that you relied on the firepower of the skintra which is i think 11 dps. through migitation and armour in total your 2 caps together were probably only doing half of their true dmg. Skinantras are carriers!! use bombers to attack their caps. and dont give me the bull that they die to quickly to fighters, half bombers and half fighters will work well for killing the fighters and killing his cap.

The problem is that even with only 1 missile battery the sova does more dps then 2 skinantras if you dont use their strikecraft. The skinantra is also a support cap, it is not meant to have high firepower. if you want to kill caps with it do it properly.

And finally you just sat your skinantra there as its helath slowly went down to 0. no matter the situation if you cap is getting down to 1500 hp (depending on their fleet) you need to run it. you could have easily saved your cap but you just sat it there.

From what i see you lost from misuse of a support cap and failure to retreat it when its health got low.

another thing, on the rush scramble bombers is stronger than repair cloud, it will take out caps faster. usually my first skinantra i always start with scramble bombers then repair cloud, just to give me an advantage for the rush as the firepower of skinantras are very weak.

_|~Uber

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Uber I find spamming two caps at start unless rushing a person, quite pointless, firstly, its leaves you with a higher fleet taxation earlier then usally, its costs quite a lot to produce the second cap, in which this delays you going civic due to the investment of another cap, so your less likely to expand quicker then the other guy.

Two caps at start, if your gonna rush, its good, if not, then dont build them. Thats my advice.

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Sova Aint Overpowered, the fact is you lost due to your incompetence, Spamming two of the same caps is pointless (unless rushing), its too easy to counter, 2 carriers lack firepower againest a fleet etc.

LOL. First off, I wish you'd tell all the players I play against that spamming two of the same caps is pointless, because that's all I ever see (2 halcyons, 3 halcyons, 4 halcyons, 2 sovas, 3 sovas, 4 sovas, etc.). This is the first game I've played in ages where my opponent DIDN'T spam duplicate or triplicate caps. I spammed two skirantras because I expected my opponent to come with 2 carriers, like he always does, and it's the only way I know to attempt a counter.

Secondly, you say it's "too easy to counter." BY A LONE CAPSHIP? WHAT'S YOUR RATIONALE FOR SAYING THAT? So you are saying if I spammed just one cap, I would have been more difficult to counter by his lone capship than two?

The problem Agent is that you relied on the firepower of the skintra which is i think 11 dps. through migitation and armour in total your 2 caps together were probably only doing half of their true dmg. Skinantras are carriers!!

He had a carrier too!

use bombers to attack their caps. and dont give me the bull that they die to quickly to fighters, half bombers and half fighters will work well for killing the fighters and killing his cap.

Hell no, I ain't deploying bombers in a grav well with fighters (sorry, I gave you the bull anyway - LOL).

The problem is that even with only 1 missile battery the sova does more dps then 2 skinantras if you dont use their strikecraft.

Yeah I know! That's my point! Why the hell is the skirantra so underpowered compared to the sova?

The skinantra is also a support cap, it is not meant to have high firepower.

Right, well isn't his cap a support cap too? It's a carrier. And even if the skirantra is a support cap, shouldn't it's support (repair) be able to keep up with the dps of a sova?

I don't ask that the skirantra deal the high dps of the sova, but shouldn't it be able to heal the same amount of dps caused by the sova? If you say "no," then I will ask, shouldn't it be able to heal HALF of the dps of the sova? I had 2 skirantras. If each healed HALF the dps caused by ONE sova, my skirantra would have lived.

And finally you just sat your skinantra there as its helath slowly went down to 0. no matter the situation if you cap is getting down to 1500 hp (depending on their fleet) you need to run it.

Yeah, I know that. Once I realized that his single, lone eff'ing sova was gonna kick the crap out of both my skirantras and take my 'roid, I didn't eff'ing care anymore - the 'roid was lost and the game was gonna be lost. At that point it just became a test to me just to see how inferior the skirantra was.

you could have easily saved your cap but you just sat it there.

Yeah I know - I sat it there on purpose. My point with this isn't that I'm asking advice on how to save caps, how I could have played better, etc. I'm trying to point out the weakness of the skirantra. I think it's ridiculous.

From what i see you lost from misuse of a support cap and failure to retreat it when its health got low.

I lost the second his sova hit my roid. The loss was already as good as sealed. I let the cap sit there and die because once I realized I was going to have to retreat both my caps and give him the roid, the game was already over. You can't recover from that (at least I can't).

Look Vasari, believe it or not I actually respect you a hell of a lot. We've played some games together (you never knew it was me, ha ha). We won a tag team just the other day (I played vasari), and you said I did good. I've never seen bad behavior from you online unlike in many others - you always seem like a class act whenever I play with you. Furthermore, my guess is you'd kick my ass if we did a one on one, so far be it from me to dispute anything you say. I'm just saying I really think the skirantra is underpowered. Actually, it's worse than that. I think vasari is underpowered, period, including their caps. I think they can't win one on one on a small map with players of equal skill.

I said this before, but this time I mean it: I'm not playing vasari any more, unless it's on a huge map where I have the time to expand and hit late game. That probably means no more vasari for me unless its single player.

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Right, well isn't his cap a support cap too? It's a carrier. And even if the skirantra is a support cap, shouldn't it's support (repair) be able to keep up with the dps of a sova?

I don't ask that the skirantra deal the high dps of the sova, but shouldn't it be able to heal the same amount of dps caused by the sova? If you say "no," then I will ask, shouldn't it be able to heal HALF of the dps of the sova? I had 2 skirantras. If each healed HALF the dps caused by ONE sova, my skirantra would have lived.

no sova is not a support cap, every ability it has only helps the sova itself no other part of the fleet, that is the difference.

Im sorry if i sounded upset in my last post but i just hate it when people misuse the awsomeness of the skinantra

for some advice if you are going to get double skinatras get 1 with fighters and 1 with bombers, you can out the fighters on hold position to kill the other fighters and target their caps with the bombers.

it does work you just need to use them properly.

if you have 1 skinantra with repair cloud and 1 with scramble bombers then you can have 6 or so bomber squads and you moniter them so when their HP gets low repair it with repair cloud.

I know for a fact that this works i have beaten JJ with it (on his off day, otherwise it is humanly impossible to beat JJ)

i do agree that the vasari are a bit weaker and do have problems dealing with other caps, but try your best to exploit the few advantages they do have against their enemies.

Hope this helps more than my last one

_|~Uber

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The only thing "overpowered" I find about the Sova rush is its ability to bombard while fighting. You get pretty much the full effect of its missile turrets and strike craft. That if you ask me is the problem. Unless you can deal enough damage to send it scurrying back, it's sitting there wiping out your worlds while the battle rages on. In those slow-paced early-game battles, this can very easily take down an asteroid.

One could argue that a Marza will take down a roid faster, but notwithstanding the fact that it's a siege specialist cap, it cannot fight while it's bombarding. For the entire bombard duration you're down a capital ship in terms of your DPS. Sova? No penalty whatsoever. As a result, I'd like to see carrier caps become terrible at bombarding.

You would have been much better served by one Skirantra and a dozen or so extra assailants in this situation. With repair cloud to keep the assailants alive you could have easily dealt enough damage to send the Sova scurrying home, and as fleets get larger and you introduce more assailants and flaks it would be harder and harder for him to pull this on you. Carrier caps are nasty to beat because you need to suppress their strike craft and then kill them with either LRF or bombers. Those missile turrets are a problem, giving him the necessary LRF support, and early on you'll need to back off if the Sova builds up more than three in one place.

As the others mentioned, no excuses for losing capital ships in a situation like this. Desperation is not to be confused with martyrdom. Get those guys back to the nearest repair bay and they might be ready to rejoin the battle in a few minutes!

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Im sorry if i sounded upset in my last post but i just hate it when people misuse the awsomeness of the skinantra

Nah man, you didn't sound upset. I'M the one that sounded pissed. Your post sounded reasonable. Now Hawk, he always insults me every chance he gets. But I had no problem with anything you said.

for some advice if you are going to get double skinatras get 1 with fighters and 1 with bombers, you can out the fighters on hold position to kill the other fighters and target their caps with the bombers.

Well I won't be playing vasari again - I guess it's TEC from now on for me. But thanks anyway (dammit, I could have sworn I learned the lesson over and over again not to deploy bombers when there are enemy fighters - I guess I learned wrong).

The only thing "overpowered" I find about the Sova rush is its ability to bombard while fighting.

I actually think that the sova is "correctly powered" for a capship, while many others (vasari, *cough*) are severely underpowered. Yeah, the sova is severely OP, but that's because others are UP. What I'm saying is, I'd like to see other caps buffed up to the level of the sova. I think the devs did the right thing in buffing caps, they just need to take that idea and apply it to the other caps (vasari, *cough*).

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The skirantra is much more powerful later in the game than a sova if you ask me.The heal ability is so powerful.

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Okay, hypothetical situation. I construct you a map - two starting terrans, with a roid in the middle. Two players of equal skill. You play vasari. The other guy plays TEC. He even tells you what he's coming with up front - a one sova start, or a two sova start. What are you gonna build to counter him and contest the roid?

Even TWO skirantras will have to retreat from one sova, so skirantras are out. But you build any other cap, it gets slaughtered by bombers if it stays in the grav well. The only thing I can think of to try would be build NO cap, and just try to pump an assload of assailants as quickly as possible, but he can always counter that with a scout spam.

My contention is that vasari can't win this. Can you tell me different?

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i would get an egg and a skinantra to clean up the bombers.

Nanoes will kill his sova fast, and with good micro fighters can take out the missile batteries.

double skinatra would work unless he had all fighters then you would have to use something else.

_|~Uber

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Volt_Cruelerz

Join Date 06/2008

+115

That's true. The Skirantra is a wonderful support ship (especially late game due to repair cloud and MA), though I have never started with it. I always start with a Jarrasul.

I don't play online (I finally got entrenchment about a week ago), but thanks to the recent buff, things like the Kortul have been brought out of obscurity. I love the Kortul. Its not the best ship in the game in any direct way, but early game, it becomes very powerful and is one of the few capital ships that can counter virtually anything you throw at it.

Early game, you want high DPS if rushed so that you can quickly take them down. Power Surge instantly increases the DPS of the Kortul and heals it simultaneously.

You also want to knock out their AM and abilities so they will stop using Missile Batteries. Disruptive Strikes yanks out their AM and slows their ability usage and synergizes with PS.

You have to deal with SC. Jam Weapons can make it very aggravating for your opponent. Send your Sentinels after the crippled SC and have your Kortul and Assailants hit the Sova. With any luck, you will bring it down or force its exit.

If you play online and the above strategy doesn't work, please correct it, but it seems theoretically plausible.

But I agree with what was said earlier. The Sova is somewhat OP because it can bombard you and sick its fighters/MB's on you at the same time. If you don't want to plow through the missile batteries, get bombers. Obviously, he will have fighters though. So what does that mean? Fighters and flak. Really Vasari's suggestions seem to be precisely what you should have done.

Though as far as not fielding bombers with fighters around.. You can sometimes.. Its not recommended in large battles, but in small battles if you have flak, just keep them on hold position within range of RC and your Sentinels. They'll be just fine.

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psychoak

Join Date 07/2007

+225

The Skirantra is a support ship, the Sova is an assault ship. The Skirantra has low damage, and the only offensive capability is to summon another squad of strike craft. The Sova is more damaging, and has a turret spawn. Trying to counter a Sova with a Skirantra is thus a silly course of action. You need a fleet for a Skirantra to be effective. I would use a colony ship, not a carrier, buy the first two levels, and disassemble the bastard in under two minutes. Use the ship weapons on supporting frigates. You should be well within the time frame for survival and force an untimely retreat by the Sova. Then you have the asteroid, I suggest repair platforms as your first tech aquisition.

Hypothetical situation resolved.

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Having seen the replay, your original description of the battle is very poor, as has been pointed out.

It's a 2v2, your side has you as Vasari against a TEC player. The TEC player has two neutrals with four extractors right next to his home, allowing him a very early boost. He builds two civics and takes an adjacent ice than a volcanic with his carrier, it gets to level 3. His roid is on the other side of his home from you and he takes it using the colony/turret exploit, he can also take the central roid using the same exploit by travelling via one of the neutrals. He begins to build more factories on this roid.

Your position isn't as favourable. Your ice is on the opposite side of your home from him and you ignore it, also the volcanic. That leaves you with a chain of four asteroids, the last two of which are the central roids. You build two civics, but only to up your metal/crystal? Then you take three roids in succession with a carrier and colony frigates, but that only leaves your carrier level 2 by the time it jumps to his central roid. You have however built a military lab on each of your first two roids and are building a third on the third.

The carriers first clash when his already damaged Sova jumps into his central roid. You are attacking his turret with your Skirantra- and fail to destroy the constructor frigate. He has a factory and begins to build Cobalts. Your scouts have just reached the 3-extractor plasma storm next to his home and are about to take it. You use 6 scouts on three extractors..? You could have returned at least 3 for the main battle.

You already seem to have changed your approach once (why civics if you are worried about the rush?), and at this point you decide to build another Skirantra- though you already have starbases researched and colony frigates available? You have to retreat the Skirantra as his Cobalts emerge, and he has six of them when you jump to your central roid, where you have built the third military lab but not finished building the extractors. Your constructor is destroyed straight away. He then adds 2 LRM- before your second Skirantra gets there, past the militia at your volcanic. You destroy one LRM with fighters, but this costs all your fighters from your first cap, in combat away from the repair cloud that should help them. So you concede the air to him throughout the battle.

Your colony ships have another opportunity to start a starbase, but with enemy frigates already constructed it isn't as dangerous. Instead you research Assailants and queue them from your homeworld...? Your colony frigates aren't even a distraction, as you jump them out- to use their colony ship firepower against a pirate raid on your ally? Also, you research carriers with your three labs, though you don't build one and have one only factory.. your assailants will arrive damaged from the militia at the volcanic.

So the main fight was 1+1 Skirantras vs a Sova 6 Cobalts and 2 LRMs... when the first Assailants arrive so will another 2 LRMs plus 4 flak.. As his Sova is level three he gets the second stage of missile batteries, whereas your level one and two Skirantras only have level one repair... and your second Skirantra is brand new and its fighter squadrons are not fully made up. Your micro is poor, you use the strikecraft away from the carriers and only get one bank of four of your side banks firing. Even so, had you saved your first ship, your Assailants could still have caused his cap to retreat before he could have captured the roid himself, though he could deny it to you.. but if the central roids were so vital why not starbase one, preferably his?

So I can't agree that this is TEC-Vasari imbalance. You made 2 civics you didn't need, could have taken roids far faster had you used the exploit (not that I approve, but it caused imbalance that isn't part of the game balance), weren't in as favourable a position to the neutrals, built three labs to research carriers you didn't use, and didn't use starbases either once having researched them- and when you knew what fleet he had and had a far more favourable position than the one you ended up in.

You had a poor game, it doesn't necessarily make you a poor player and you had extra stress from accepting an inexperienced player as your ally, though this doesn't show in any stats. However, it doesn't mean the Sova is too strong, either. The Skirantra can repair an infinite amount of damage if you use it properly, that is far more than the Sova can deal out. The six Cobalts, present at the start of the final battle, did the most damage to your cap of any of the multiple attacks on it.

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2 kortuls would prolly work as well.When someone goes 2 carrier start I usually get about 10-12 flak.They drastically lower the dps of carriers and are really tough so they survive a long time.Flak will kille bombers eventually.Then you start spamming lrf because flak will help against scouts.If need be keep spamming flak but it takes a carrier awhile to kill one.Egg would be good 2nd cap but u must deal with bombers and without a skirantra you will need to be buying repair bays for it to endure.You must always retreat your cap to heal dont let it die.Losing a roid is not always then end to a game.Remeber he kills your roid and then colos it it takes him resources to do so and build stuff so you have a very short window to build a counter to his fleet.

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I think agent you severely underestimate the survivability of Vasari bombers. I would have matched his fighters (maybe 1 extra squad for good measure) and gone the rest bombers. Repair cloud will keep them alive until your fighters clear out his. Bombers are one of Vasari's BIGGEST strengths, and it sounds to me like you didn't take advantage of that. If anyone calls you an idiot for fielding bombers as Vasari, then it is they who are the idiots.

Also, if you've built extractors on your roid already, its ok to lose it as long as you know you are going to get it back. The whole point of the roid is for resource income, not credit income. I mean you don;t want him to get it, but if he wants to bomb it with his carrier cap while you annihilate his supporting fleet, then by all means let him, because when he's done, you'll have the upper hand in the grav well, and can drive that carrier cap off and recolonize.

2 Kortuls would have definitely laid some pain on that Sova, they can take serious punishment with PS, you could alternate Jam weapons against SC, or you could DS the crap out of em so he cant put out missile batteries. I have been seeing a lot of double carrier cap starts recently and theyre tough, but people are going to start figuring out the perfect counter or a better combo, they may already have started. I've started to see Halo/Progen combos as well as Sova/akkan combos. Hell one guy even attacked me with a Halo/Progen/Radiance combo that would have probably clobbered me if I hadn't already pretty much destroyed most of his stuff.

Anyway, like the progen, Skirantras strength lies in fleet support because of its AOE heal. You'd probably have been better off spending the money from the second skirantra on a different cap ship or bigger fleet. Having dual skirantras only works well if you've got time to build a decent fleet to go with them or if you're SB rushing.

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Volt_Cruelerz

Join Date 06/2008

+115

After reading more, I'm thinking that perhaps the best course of action would have been a Jarrasul/Skirantra, 2x Kortuls, or a Kortul and a Skirantra..

I mean, either way, you need flak to take out his fighters/bombers, and you'll obviously have assailants. I'll outline the above for better explanation:

Jarrasul/Skirantra: Simply put, the Egg nano's the Sova into submission along with the bombers from the Skirantra while the Skirantra's fighters help the Flak and they also help damage the LRF's that came in periodically.

2x Kortuls: You send them in to shred the thing with PS and buy the second level with the money you could have saved elsewhere. For one, you buy Jam Weapons, and the other gets Disruptive Strikes. If still have more money, you can buy the second upgrade so that you have another level of PS to increase your DPS, heal you, and increase the effectiveness of DS

Kortul/Skirantra: You get PS for the Kortul and buy two upgrades for it while you get the first (and possibly second upgrade for your skirantra) The Kortul gets PS and DS while the Skirantra gets Scramble Bombers. Then, if you can get the second one, switch your fleet to tight formation and get repair cloud.) This will increase the effectiveness of your bombers, and by now, the Kortul should have drained the Sova of AM).

But I would love to see someone attempt a Trinity Rush... Seems almost impossible unless you landed by some really nice resource deposits...

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