Help fighting Vasari Late Game

If none of your caps were above level 6, then you definitely had too many.  As TEC, I strongly recommend not going above 3 capital ships until at least one is level 6.  The TEC capital ships are great if you can get them to level 6, but are actually pretty weak until you get there.  You're much better off with a few high-level capital ships than many low-level ones.

I'd need to see the replay.  It could be that he had a lot of money saved up that he hadn't been able to spend yet.  Or it could be that you just weren't dealing very many casualties.  He also might have been using returning armada to create units at a substantial discount.  I just can't say.

The most likely culprit isn't the capital ships, but rather the smaller support cruisers.  The Stikulus Subverter can shut down your units, taking their engines and weapons offline.  This can deprive you of the majority of your firepower and make your fleet easy prey.  Kodiak heavy cruisers are particularly vulnerable to this.  On the other hand, the Serevun Overseer can instantly restore hull to a target unit, which can make focusing on a capital ship very counter-productive.  With much of your firepower disabled and the remainder getting soaked up by healing support cruisers, you might not kill anything.

As for the capital ships, they bring their own special abilities.  The Kortul can regenerate its own shields, adding even more durability on top of what the Overseer offers.  As well, it can shut down strike craft weapons in a radius around it, so if you were relying on carriers that can completely gimp you.  The Skirantra can heal nearby units in an area of effect around itself, and this healing stacks with the Overseer.  The Jarrasul, Antorak, and Vulkoras all have their strong points, but are not going to be a big deal in a straight fleet battle like the Kortul and Skirantra can.

Yes.  Focusing on his capital ships first was probably a big mistake.  Remember that capital ships have relatively poor damage output, so you actually aren't cutting their damage significantly by knocking out a capital ship.  In the meantime, the enemy probably was busy killing your damage-dealing units, so even if you did take down the capital ship, you'd still lose the battle overall. 

 

Be thankful you're not up against a human opponent.  There are horror stories of beginners going up against a small force of 10-20 Vasari units and losing hundreds of frigates before they finally take them down.  In the hands of an expert, Vasari is downright scary. 

That makes a lot of sense.  With so many caps they were slow to level up, and sure did not seem to help me much.  And every time I had to retreat from engagement, the Vasari would disable 2-3 of my caps and wipe them out and then I would be making more. So part of my problem was that every time I lost a battle, all of my caps that had started to level up would be disabled when I tried to retreat and destroyed.  

I can't do a replay since I have now upgraded to the latest version, but I suspect the two theories above are probably the right answer. I was trying too hard to take down his caps, so probably was not taking down too many of his ships.  Returning Armada was probably a contributor too, I suspect.  I know he did not have  a large cash reserve since I would start and stop the game often since I play only a little at a time, and each time I would stop I could see who had what credits, ships, etc.

The Subverter explains how my caps could never retreat, all right.  And the Overseer would explain why sometimes my entire fleet could not take down one cap.  They had a good number of Skirantras as well.  I wonder if using Cobalts to deplete anti-matter would have helped.  I tend not to build those after the very early game. 

 

No way I would play against other humans.  I tend to like long games that I can play out in small chunks of time over a period of few weeks, and playing with anyone skilled would not put up much of a fight.  Still love the game, though.  

Thanks for clearing those things up for me.

 

 

It would if this distortion field affected caps more likely he had a phase jump inhibitor or was using grave bomb or another disable capital ship based disable (or a combination of them).

Actually, after a while I took to destroying his Phase Jump inhibitors right after getting to one of his planets.  But whatever it was was disabling all abilities, not just jumping.

 

nope, must be something else.    you have armistice?  light frigs? hohos? magnatize  any one of those things could possibly be giving the results your seeing.

 

Retreat your capital ships first, and once they're clear then pull out your remaining units.  Vasari, by their nature, will cause disproportionate casualties if you have to retreat, so sometimes it's better leaving a rear-guard to fight to the death while most of your forces escape.



The only possible Vasari unit that can do this to a capital ship is the Antorak Marauder with its "phase out hull" ability.  The Jarrasul Evacuator can slow you down and disable jumping temporarily with its "gravity bomb" ability. 



The biggest problem you face when employing cobalts is their weakness to the Kanrak Assailant, which is Vasari's strongest combat unit.  You need to get the job done quickly



Ironically, the Cobalt is better in the late-game than the early-game.  For early-game purposes, you can actually use the Arcova Scout as a combat unit.  You only need to defeat the Krosovs and Javelis in the militia forces before you colonize; everything else can be killed with a turret afterwards.  Move in with the scouts, kill those light units quickly, and move on to the next planet.  The Cobalt is utterly unnecessary once you adopt this efficient strategy.



Human opponents bring a new dimension to the game.  As you learn more about the game, don't dismiss the possibility. 

Once Phase Missiles are fully upgraded, Vasari can hold off quite a disproportionate # of attackers using assailants to focus fire and skirantras & overseers to heal.

With TEC vs Vasari later game, I actually create 2 fleets to attack at once with, small to midsize fleet of kodiaks & flak to rush forward and take the initial wave of subverters and then the rest of the fleet consisting of various units depending on what I know to be fighting. My basic mix is more flaks for SC defense & damage soaking, hoshis to keep tanks alive, cobalts to start shutting down subverters and other AM strong units and large volumes of lrm or bombers for damage. As far as caps, I like the Sova, Akkan & Marza. Every now and then if I am feeling whimsical, a Kol. Almost never a Dunov.

I find donovs invaluable for the emp which can mass shut down subverters. magnatise is also nice for removing vasari strike craft and disabling skrantras.

*shrug*

I haven't really played with the EMP too much. Perhaps I need to give Dunovs another look.