Balance Suggestion RE: Vasari anti-structure

vasari do not need a buff.

You should give us a good, valid reason why Vasari players are forbidden to use any kind of anti-structure firepower.

*If you say "starbase", you are wrong.

What are you saying?  Have vasari weapons been nerfed for structures?  Including bombers?  How bad is the nerf?

What about the other factions?  Have their weapons also been nerfed for structures?

I'm not necessarily against these changes - will have to evaluate them.  I'm just asking questions.

Bomber damage has been nerfed for all factions vs. structures, from 100% to 75% damage. Concurrently, other factions have been granted anti-structure ships; the Vasari have not. Their starbase has an upgrade to do this, but with beta 2's changes to starbase construction, it is virtually impossible to build and upgrade it offensively, in an enemy's gravity well. Furthermore, once it is made, it can't jump to any other wells.

Right now, Vasari have real trouble dealing with starbases and structures compared to the other races. Making their bombers do 125% damage to structures might solve that, and make bombers not-useless again.

Bombers have no real limit and remain useful in many ways. they can blast ships, buildings, starbases, and they can do it over and over again as replacing them basicly costs time only. You only pay for the carrier which can field fighters if the situation requires it.

Building-buster cruisers take preciuous popcap, arent that cheap and basicly do only one thing; blast buildings and they do it with less the flexibility of a fighter/bomber cloud and die horribly to said cloud.

No sir, Vasari indeed do not need anti structure bombers.

And Bombers are hardly useless.

You sirs need to start playing vasari as vasari, not as Tec with different textures.

25% nerf doesn't sound too bad, especially with the numbers of bombers many people field.  Would take you 25% longer to kill a structure, give or take.

I can see your point about vasari having to rely on an uber-expensive SB that has to be built in an enemy grav-well, and then upgraded, in order to take out structures.  Assuming there is some kind of problem (not saying there isn't or isn't), the solution isn't necessarily to give vasari a torp cruiser, as some suggest.  The solution isn't necessarily to re-buff vasari bombers (not that any of these ideas are horrible or bad).

I'd say the solution lies within the vasari SB itself.  If the SB is deemed the vasari structure assault weapon, then make it a valid weapon.  Perhaps it should be built more quickly in enemy grav wells.  Perhaps it should come with anti-structure weapons as defaults, instead of enhancements.  Perhaps it should be able to jump to other grav wells, so that you didn't have to build a new one every time you wanted to assault another grav well.  Barring that, perhaps it should be able to be scrapped for a larger chunk of change to help defer the costs of having to build one for each enemy grav well you are assaulting.

The point is simply to think of solutions within the confines of the general theme that is laid out by the devs.  In other words, the vasari SB is apparently their anti-structure weapon.  So use that idea when thinking of solutions to the problem, real or perceived.

The do not get torpedo ships because their starbases can move.

Then you sir have never played the multiplayer.

Please restrain from wiriting your opinion, which lacks real multiplayer situation.

By the way, the last sentence is just prime example of complete nonsense for balancing the game.

Vasari need a valid option to take out star bases though. 5 torp cruisers can take out a fully upgraded SB in no time. It's pretty tricky to get a SB built in enemy territory. Either they need to make some option/tech for the SB to jump to other grav wells or they need to be a viably buildible option for front-line assaults on other SB's.

The movement of the Vasari SB is vastly over-hyped by non-vasari players here. it's NOT that much of an advantage. Yes it increases it's coverage but it's not OP. A well placed starbase doesn't need to move. I like playing all races but as Vasari it is very difficult to take out a star base since they don't have any specialized units to compete with what the other races get.

What  i said remains true no matter how hard you try to deny it.

youre unwilling to use the tools given to you and expect the game to change to your needs.

Vasari are meant to be weak against directly assaulting fortifications, its just not their style by the lore. This expansion is widening the disparity of function in the races, and I expect the rest to do this even more so. Im sure as the other micro expansions come out, we'll see some areas that vasari excell in brought to the fore. But in the end, I think this expansion caters to the turtle, which is the TEC have been about from the get go. They are an empire on the defense, after all. This is ultimatly an expansion of the TEC, the others will likely cater to the other races in kind.

Actually the expansion adds to the strengths of each race.

I as one of those non-vasari players do not think the vasari starbase is overpowered. Yet I still think vasari have the advantage even with mines and starbases. If you enemy want to turtle let them. Sit back and wait till you get your superweapon. Bam can anyone say backdoor?? I wish as TEC I got a backdoor to your core worlds. Sigh, but I dont.   So, I will make a deal with you. You get a torp ship, I get a backdoor gun? Sounds good to me.

Very well put. A simple and effective start to this problem of thier starbase would be just to have the anti-structure already equipted. And maybe a reduced build time in an enemy well. Sounds like a start to me.

I agree. Possibly a generally reduced build time, or constant. This might be justified either because the vasari have been at it longer, or because their SB tends more towards a... dreadnought ship, really, than a stationary battlestation.

My 2 cents.

P.S. They can have as many backdoors as they want. They haven't seen my core worlds.

I think a reduced time with the anti-structure already equipped would be ideal, even if the starbase was made weaker or something.

Or if there was some expensive research to do this it'd be cool too. If the purpose of giving the Vasari SB the anti-structure ability would be to counter the torpedo cruisers, then there needs to be a way to get them into enemy territory. Doesn't need to be extremely easy, just possible even if it's slightly defended.

I fully agree with you guys. SpaghettiMon I'm not sure about what you mean about Vasari SB being able to counter torpedo cruisers though! If you mean that buy having an expensive research so that they build thier SB's quicker in enemy teritory, to make them more equal in effectiveness as the torp cruisers, then I agree with that idea.

I also think something needs to be done to the Vasari SB to make it survive those torp attacks better, and it needs to be something that their SB's come with when they are built, or at least fairly soon after they are built otherwise they will just be taken out to before they get a chance. More bombers in the bases hanger up grades would be good for this I agree. But then you also don't want to take the antistructure cruisers out of the equasion to quickly either. This is why I think if all the races SB's are given a counter to the anti structure weapons themselves would be best and of course the more of these weapons coming towards the SB's the more that will get through. Whether it be some sort of deflecter against energy weapons or flak/point deffence against torps, I think that would be really cool.

I have to addmit though, I have no idea how hard this would be to implement.

A variation might be to keep the build time roughly the same, but allow it to be started while in the phase jump, LOL.  Would add some tactical decisions, and would allow for not only building the SB quicker, but also having some hit points accumulated on it when it arrives.  Just creative brainstorming, ha.

You probably already have tools at your disposal (think fighter strikecraft, etc).

I am just having this imagine in my mind: a marauder at lvl 6, a phase stabeliser, several migrators flying to the planet concerned, enough money to spare .... omfg the enemy is attacking with a fleet of starbases

not a bad idea though, but I don't think it would help all that much. may some sort of stock anti-structure attack that can be upgraded later would help. dunno.

I mean maybe it's good to nail it down again what the problem is:

1) the vasari have something against enemy starbases, which is their own starbase.

2) in order for it to be effective, you have to get it there, construct it and give it at least one weapons upgrade.

3) if the enemy planet is halfway protected, instead of the weapons upgrade, you may have to go for a structural one first, in order to ensure it survives long enough.

4) that means by the time you have done all this, you have spent a lot of resources and time. time the enemy has had to react.

5) you spent all those resources and you cannot assault another planet with it. granted, you have strong defensive installation now, but a tec or advnet player just takes his investment in ogrovs or adjudicators at attacks the next world. though that would not such a big point necessarily, if the resource point was smaller. after all, you are free to move more of your fleet on, with a nice defense in place. the other races either have to leave forces behind, spend resources on defense, or risk an attack.

anyone agree or disagree with those considerations? then it might help in finding a solution.

And this is another evidence, while you are surely one of people who do not play multiplayer, you are lazy enough to not read any articles in Multiplayer and Strategy section of this forum.

Shame on your incompetence.

What if you could pay slightly more to build a starbase faster?

Agent of Kharma, you got it right on. About 10 fighter squadrons will take out an Ogrov in one pass. And given that Vasari have tougher squad members than the other factions, flaking down their fighters is a little more difficult than it is against the other factions; even though they have less members, it takes longer to kill one of them. I don't know about the Adjucator, but I'm thinking they have the same armor type as the Ogrov as well. Now, as far as building busters go, don't the Vasari have that big cannon that blows the hell out of all structures in a target gravity well? I mean, I know it takes a while to get to it, but I do recall witnessing its destructive power in the vanilla version and thinking, "Jesus, that's sick."

I don't know how much damage it does though. Anyone know the answer off the top?

I have used the vasari superweapon many times.  It doesn't do that much damage to structures that I am aware of.  I have not witnessed it killing any structures, although if you have enough of them firing over a short enough period of time, I'm sure it could.  It might have been nerfed since you last saw it in action.

What it does do, however, is disable structures.  Not for a hell of a long time, but it does disable them.  In addition, it does damage to enemy ships (again, not a lot) and also disables those as well, LOL.  It will also disable a starbase.  One way I have used it in the past is firing the cannon right before I phase jump into a system, and time it so that as my fleet is engaging, the shot hits.

I'm not 100% convinced that serious buffs are needed to vasari's SB to get it to be able to assault other SB's viably, although it's possible (will require more play testing from all of us).  Also, I should have mentioned this earlier. the devs HAVE stated that they plan to do something about vasari anti-structure abilities on the SB.

Note that I'm somewhat sure that a vasari SB isn't expected to be built inside an enemy system without escort or protection, and then be expected to withstand all manner of torp cruisers and bombers beating it up, and still be able to waltz over and assault an enemy SB on its own.  In other words, people probably need to think in terms of an escorting fleet for the SB.

My point still stands though:

Why do you ignore the tools you have and ask for a simpler, op, all in one package deal?

the vasari kostura cannon will not damage starbases at all, no idea if it is a bug or intended.

on my latest test game I fired 8 of these babies in 1 minute while attacking, about 90% of all structures and the defending fleet except capitals and the starbase were vaporized.

of course that doesn't compare much to TEC who could easily obliterate your whole empire with 8 superweapons on a medium sized map.

but really, I played about 6 games as vasari with beta 1, 2 and 2.5 and never had any issue taking down a starbase, it's just not that hard if you micromanage it correctly.

Thanks for the heads up Agent of karma.

I allways thought bombers were better at taking out cruisers.

Has there been any info on antistructure cruisers and SB's been put into the manual? and where is it found. I've been using the one that came with the cd to date.