New player, bunch of random questions

Just FYI, if you ever want to try serious multiplayer Vasari Rebels are usually banned due to their jumping starbases of doom. If you don't, it's no problem.

Sins is a counter based game, the best fleet is that which counters your opponents best. That said, early on as Vasari assailants are very easy to get, are especially good at taking out capitalships and light frigates. Corvettes are good as any faction for expanding as they are fast and kill siege frigates quickly, but as Vasari you have the disadvantage that they are a tier 2 tech. If you're going to rush corvettes, you may as well learn to take advantage of the other major tactics available to the Vasari with two quick military labs, notably starbase rushing.

The middle game can go anyway, depending on who builds what, but I will say Light Frigates + Corvettes or LRF + flak are pretty popular, as all these ships can be built early and these two combinations counter each others counters. It probably doesn't matter that much for AI, but if you want to transition to a fleet based on this it might best to not build LRF and Corvettes together.

The Vasari have three top notch Capitalships. The Colony cap is of less economic value than the other two but nanite disassembler is so good its worth keeping on around the rest of the game. The Skirantra Carrier is the other main starter cap, though if you do this you'll need to build extra colony frigates for faster expansion (though sense these will be turned into starbases later that's not much of a handicap for Vasari). The 3 strikecraft squads any carriers have are useful, plus the spawn bombers ability can give you a lot of phase missile bomber damage early to counter enemy caps or take out the heavy cruisers if you are next to a lot of terran or desert worlds. And its repair cloud ability is a must have for any fleet, though its not as good as the Advent shield one. Just don't invest any points in microphasing aura, its pretty pathetic. And last the Kortul Devestator is is amazing but at a later stage in the game, especially once titans come out. Its passive disruptive strikes is the Vasari capitalship ability that can drain titan antimatter, and it increases enemy ability cooldown time, making it the most efficient killer of caps and titans in the game. Further, powersurge combos with this nicely and makes the Kortul probably the best tank unit in the game. And last but not least it has jam weapons, which while very situational it can be a life saver against strikecraft swarms. As for the other caps, the Vulkoras is a great siege cap, and you can have some fun rushing a pair and taking out the AI or an unprepared player, but mostly its a luxury as a mop of ship after you've killed the serious defenses, as it can take out structures and planets with ease. The Nanite ship is purely average, though it is the only way the Vasari cap get long range antistructure units, so it can work well with the Vulkoras. The Marauder is total garbage, the only time I've seen one used well is for using phased out hull to pertinently keep a flagship from escaping until it was destroyed.

Hmm, that seems a long time, I guess we thought it was like the overseers ability that delayed phase jumping ships which wasn't worth anything at all. I'll take another look at it.

Although this used to be true, I went into a couple of games yesterday as VR and no one complained. The Orky got nerfed again, which helped.

Yes, the Vasari Rebels are now much more widely tolerated. I may even think that once Vasari received a general nerf they could be fine.

Thank you for the replies.  I didn't realize VR had that bad of a reputation.  I read complaints about it, but the same goes for a bunch of other stuff (wail, eradica, maw, etc), and it's hard to figure out which are still relevant and which aren't since I believe there were some balance patches recently.

I've tried both rebel and loyalist, and the reason I enjoyed rebel more was because their titan felt more useful at lower levels and the bidirectional jamming mentioned.  I hadn't even used the jumping starbase yet, opting to instead build them during the attack with assault deployment (mainly because I played loyalist first and I never re-examined it to realize that an upgraded starbase, even with the debuff from jumping, is probably far more powerful than a newly built one).

On the topic of titans, how do you skill them?  I mean obviously the rebel one wants nano leech, but after that I'm not sure, especially when it comes to passives.  The damage of titans seems nice, but nothing that crazy to make me want to pick the damage passive.  The anti-matter passive seems nice enough on the loyalist titan, but on the rebel one has so much anti-matter from nano leech it seems kind of a waste to pick it just for the cooldown reduction.

Hi,

i am new to Sins:Rebellion and have a few questions too, so i will just jump on this thread and ask .-)

a) Coming back to VR: So i really don't have to fear being kicked if i pick VR anymore? I like that faction. I am still not sure what faction i will play mostly, but VR is in the shortlist.

b ) Pirates are usually turned off in multiplayer, right? (Read that somewhere)

c) Are there any capitals or abilities considered "banned" in Multiplayer? For example the Sova's-"Embargo"-Ability seems overpowered on small maps (1v1) where you can reach your oponent in only a few jumps.

d) What are the most common games? 1v1? 2v2? 3v3?

e) What are the most common maps and how many planets do they have? (I would like to play on that maps against AI)

f) A general question about maps in SINs: Are there fixed "starting positions", or is the starting position random (e.g. a random Terran-Planet anywhere or something like that)?

A lot of questions, i know .-)

Thanks in advance

Interesting, the game I played a day or two ago did not allow Vasari or Advent Rebels, though admittingly only after the host asked if anyone cared.

Really? I mean yeah those debuffs the Starbase gets on jumping are definitely noticeble, but only if you have a force their to counter it. I would think if an eco player is able to go crazy with them it wouldn't make a difference since he'd be attacking far more planets than you can have fleets to destroy them with.

Well, titans get 20 upgrade points, and 14 of them are from abilities. Usually I max the abilities no matter what titan. As for the stat upgrades, it just depends what I feel like putting them in, but the first weapon upgrade gives +15% while the rest give +10, so that seems a particularly good deal. The Ragnarov and Eradica can benefit a lot from an antimatter upgrade or two, but on the rest its probably best to stick to only armor or weapons.

In serious games, yes. There are a lot of new players since the steam sale but the skilled games always have it off.

I've only seen the AR's Wail or the VR's Starbase Mobilization banned, just because those are the reasons those factions are banned. The Sova was even more OP in Diplomacy and no one suggested that, so anything else is fair game.

The serious games are 5v5, or 4v4 if their are not enough people.

Competitive large or huge random maps that are single star.

Well, that depends on the map. The "Premade Maps" (any map that doesn't have Random the in the name) have the same layout everytime you play, so the starting location just depends on the map. In multiplayer its all about the Random maps though. The maps are different every time but the homeworlds are all generated in a ring a fair ways away from the star. So it is random but only to a certain extent.

The main thing isn't where you spawn (though what kind of planets are around you is important) but who your neighbors are (as its a ring you always have 2). If its two allies you're next to, you're in the eco slot and mostly safe from immediate attack, so your job is to expand and get your economy up as fast as possible to "Feed" (send resources) to the front lines. If its 1 friend and 1 enemy, your in the "front line", so you'll be doing most of the fighting. If you're surrounded by enemies, you're in the "suicide" spot. Your main job is to fend of the inevitable assault as long as possible while your allies bring the attack to the enemy, and to send a colony capitalship to the center of the map so you can colonize near your allies and restart from scratch where they can protect you.