Ok, Vasari next level info this time

Three words for Overseers: Reactive Nanite Armor. This ability gives the target an instant boost of 200 hull points and 2 armor, and is stackable (the hull repair is, not the armor bonus), so five Overseers using RNA on one target will instantly boost its hull by 1000 points. It's a good way to quickly save important ships or structures (capital ships come to mind, but also SBs when they're under attack from a force that has the potential to destroy it). The four second cooldown time essentially makes it equivalent to having a 50 hull/second repair ability, provided you have the antimatter and/or numbers to keep on using it.

Actually, Vasari skirmishers suck.  In terms of bang for your buck, they're actually one of the worst units in the game.  Their only redeeming feature is reintegration, which must be researched, by which time you should be getting assailants anyways.

Enslaved Labour isn't necessary.  It takes a while for that discount to pay off, and often times it's not worth it.  I often get the upgrade that increases salvage efficiency then scuttle my civic labs once I've researched everything I want.

Six, you want to research their special ability...

Transporters are awesome.  Once you have some phase missile research done, their strike craft are easily the best against frigates.  They are expensive, though, so you'll need to use them carefully and not get them killed.  Don't risk the transporters if you can help it.

Yup, they're your primary healers and invaluable for keeping capital ships alive.  Also wickedly effective when combined with a starbase.

Don't get the shield upgrades as Vasari (or TEC, for that matter).  They're too expensive and offer less than other upgrades.  A better choice is the armour upgrade.

Sounds pertty good.

My ideas though take with a grain of salt as i don't MP.

1. Get both.  If you rely on spamming one type of unit you'll have a harder time

2. Not sure what the concensus is but I like them.

3. Not sure of the names off hand but I always pick up fleet communications from the empire side which expands the fleet capacity with only a 1 time fee.  Also, the upgrades that lead up to returning armada.  Of course don't forget about the ice/fire colonize techs, the world population techs, and crystal/metal upgrades.  Phase missle tech is also really good.

You said you are being stingy with research.  You certainly don't want to be careless with money in MP, but I'd say to spam reseaarch in SP, if that's what you are playing.

One tip is to get all levels of enslaved labor before you spam refineries and trade ports, because those things are expensive.

Get the mineral upgrades as vasari.  They are good, since you get "two for the price of one."

Didn't see anything about starbases in your strategy?

As Darvin said, research the subverter special ability with the 6th lab.  Then make sure to stop everything you are doing and watch one in action if you haven't seen one use the ability before.  It will do an "in grav well phase jump" to its target and shut it down.  Lights out!

Try Returning Armada.  Research phasic transmissions too.

Well, your original points have been answered quite effectively so I'll add something else.  Ruiners+Subs=BOOM!  Send in your subs to knock out their damage and then send in the ruiners to fly among the deactivated ships and deposit their wonderful little presents.  End result?  When the enemy fleet wakes up, they find themselves on a newly set minefield which happens to detonate pretty much as soon as they get their bearings.  In other words, you hear a resounding boom coming from their end of the gravity well.  If you feel particularly evil, throw in a Volatile Nanites shot.  Increase damage to targets and turn their ships into mines as well.

I can't over emphasize how powerful this combo is.  I tried it once and well...  The enemy fleet kinda went away..  I didn't know whether to be ecstatic that I had more or less just won the game or terrified that such a powerful combo existed.  My response: nervous laughter.

Dont be nervous this is just the kind of thing vasari are meant to do. win at any cost.

You could say the Vasari are the best faction for "playing dirty" with all their tricks at their disposal.

1. Lasuraks are really good when you have 3+ Skirantra Carriers. Mix them as 5 Assailants to 1 Lasurak

 in the beginning, then lead to 5-4.

2. Overseers are helpful when you need to save a Cap or an important structure,for example PS. If you have a TEC ally in the battle with Dunov, your cap becomes invulnerable.

3. I will list most important Vasari techs:

Empire Tree

Phasic Cloaking

Phasic Barrier

Highly Attuned Sensors (giant maps)

Power Draining Nanites

Enslaved Labor

Military Tree:

 hull research +  2 points in Reintegration

Charged Missiles

Distortion Field (Makes Subverters extremely good unit)

and Kostura, I think its better than novalith

Kostura is the best superweapon by a massive margin.  Nothing else even comes close. 

Also: how can you miss phase stabilizers?  I'd give up ALL of the techs you listed for phase stabilizers (cept maybe Kosturas).

I know we dont do shield techs as vasari

but you didnt mention armour i always take armor

and repair bays

Repair bays are always good options, regardless of race.  Armor is good though.  It works alongside the hull upgrades to be quite effective.

Sorry it took so long to reply, and I really appreciate the information folks! 

Darvin, thanks for the information about the Enslaved Labor (which i've heard more than once was great to have) and putting my worries to rest about the transporters.  And the shield upgrades not being worth it... these are the subtleties that I was hoping for.

Volt your combo post was hysterical... I can just picture the nervous laughing with the shifty eyes.  Alas, I have yet to get Entrenchment as I've only had Vanilla for about two weeks or so.

Phoenix, I appreciate the straighforward list of techs... i'm going to have to make sure they go with the ones I generally get since i don't have them all memorized by name yet.

I don't know what it is but I really like the Vasari... I hope after this patch they're more competitive.  I can't put my fingers on why exactly... I think I've always liked the evil race.  I always played Zerg.  And man I freakin love that Egg!  Between the nanite bomb and planet drain, just wow.  And of course the upgraded carnage of phase missles, straight deathy!

He also missed phase missles!

I think you should get enslaved labor.  It is definitely worth it, unless you are in the rush or suicide spot multiplayer.

Enslaved labor is in the long run good, but in the short term, it may not be so good.  If you are in the pocket, get it definitely.  If rushing or in suicide, don't.  Other than that, it just depends on the situation.

But of course phase missile upgrades are the real reason for the Vasari.  By default PM's function as any other weapon, but by researching that percentage of shield bypass, you drastically increase their power.  At the end of the day, you end up with around 3-4 times the power (I can't remember who actually calculated this).  They are critical.

Also, do not be deceived by Phase Missile Swarm on the Vulkoras Desolator.  It does not deal Phase Missile damage.  All missiles it fires are normal...

While they dont do phase missle damage they are alteast usefull in cleaning up small groups of figates.

Its the abilty that allows me to send in a vulk and an egg to a lightly defended world and know i will win

and he didnt mention phase missles or phase stabilizers cuz if your playing vasari and avoiding those techs your doing it WRONG!!!

Bit confused about how those phase missile upgrades work myself. What makes them so good?

They bypass shields and shield mitigation.  The latter is especially helpful.  While they only have a 30% chance of doing so, you bypass mitigation which normally would have reduced your damage by 75% which means that you are essentially deal 4x damage.  Also, at full upgrades, it is not uncommon to see a capital blow up even though it still has 1000-1500 shields left.  Also, once you get the +20% damage boost at tier VI, you essentially upped your damage to ~500% of what is listed.  That is why Phase Missiles are so good.

And if you play on a mod such as Distant Stars where research goes up even higher (in the game its up to 60% chance of bypass and +40% damage), any ship with PM's is unstoppably powerful.

ah right i see, i didnt realies they avoided the mitigation. have been putting off researching them in favor of hull upgrades first, but guess ill swap them round now

Yes.  PM's are a very good upgrade and one of the reasons the Vasari can go toe-to-toe with the Advent late game.

Phase Missles Highest tech level plus subverters make enemy ships go boom

Wrong. Chuck Norris's round house kick

What a productive comment to make in a thread that was pretty much concluded <_<

Ain't over till the fat lady sings