Wall of text incoming. I know you have covered some of this. About the Sulsorak Defensor, when it is fully upgraded in Alliance(armour/hull buffs, better shields) and massed(30-50), they do well in my experience. They are the only Corvette with Durability, meaning they take less damage from PD guns and Advent Swarm missiles(even less when their armor is fully upgraded). Assisting them with a couple of Skirantra Carriers, they can easily shrug off all but the heaviest salvos of such weaponry. Their constant maneuvers and high speed also prolongs the time for missiles to hit them, allowing the overlapping PD guns to work more efficiently. On top of that, they can be built by the Jusotra Fabricator Cruiser, so you have always a lot of them to assist with PD and as a distraction. They also only take 4 fleet points and 14 seconds to build, while the Tosurak Raider takes 5 fleet points, 18 seconds to build and are more expensive. PD guns might only have 0 pierce and low DPS, but when you have a swarm constantly firing, you are constantly draining the health of anything within range, which pairs really well with various AoE nanite "drain" abilities. The enemy fleet takes constant damage while you still focus on the main threats. Other stuff. The Vulrak Penetrator is short range, but very durable(more shield, more armour, more armour strength than even the Oppressor). Once PD is patched, these will be quite common in late game fleets for dealing with titans and starbases. The Karrastra Destructor(planetkillers) have roughly 60% of the bombing capability of a capital ship. So if you bring 5 of them(45 fleet points), you basically add an extra 3 capital ships worth of bombing damage, for the price of one. In the early stages of the game, where you have limited capital ships, this can drastically speed up the takeover of hostile planets. Even in later stages, when some planets have close to 20k health, having a decent number of these speeds things up considerably. Phase Missile Tech is very good against the Advent who relies a lot on shields. Damaging armour and hull before the shields are down means that Shield Burst is delayed. This often leads to you taking out capital ships before they trigger their first shield burst. And in cases where shield burst does trigger, part of your damage continues to deal damage to armour/hull, potentially leading to "crippled" or even destruction before a second trigger of shield burst can happen. Most factions can get Shield Burst(only Vasari Exodus does not), so it is great when dealing with high level capitals, starbases and titans. Wave Cannon weaponry is the main armament on the Kortovas Oppressor and is also important on the Kortul Devastator, Starbases and both Titans. The Wave Modulator item on the Kortul Devastator drastically increase both damage and rate of fire(constantly), which makes it easier to apply its armour debuff efficiently. Beam weaponry is also important on the Kortul Devastator, but has a much lower rate of fire and 2 of the beams are aiming backwards. The TEC armour tech that the Vasari Alliance can get at tier 4 really helps making armour that much more efficient. My Corvettes now have 265 regenerative armour with 69 Armour Strength(nice). A nice thing about the Vasari alliance(beside the armour/shield tech) that is often overlooked, is how culture impacts their defenses. At tier 4, you can get a tech that greatly reduces friendly planet bombing and structure damage where you have dominant culture. This buys you crucial time and can also lead you to taking out enough invaders to force a retreat. When combined with the Defensive Uplink plant item(the upgraded version grants +12 Military Orbit slots and +24% damage and range to all defensive structures), you defenses becomes quite formidable. Do not underestimate the power of commerce income from the Vasari Alliance. If a market has a crash(making a specific resource cheaper to buy), you suddenly go from 300 credits per 100 metal, to 190 credits per 100 metal. If it crashes further, I believe it goes down to 140 credits per 100 metal. In games with only a few Vasari faction(generally wont be selling resources), the market of one of the resources will often crash fairly early on. Getting an item that gives you 3.5 credits per second(at tier 3) would be great for any faction, and here it is for a faction that does not even "need" it, so you can spend it as you please. I am currently 3 hours into a big game, and I am sitting on 80k credits that I can spend on the market, use for diplomacy dealings or help allies out with. That the planet item also add to cultural push just makes things easier as well. Faster Factory unit build times also makes you build capital ships faster, allowing you to quickly rebuild a fleet or creating defensive measures against a sudden aggressor. And finally Influence. Vasari Alliance can fairly easy dominate the Influence game. Winning every auction(especially those caches of metal or crystal early on) and still have enough to spend on various minor faction abilities is great. Sure, it requires that there are some decent minor factions in your game, but it is a strong aspect if available. In my current game(a bit more than 3 hours), I have a cap of 44, and it takes me about 16 seconds to generate 1 point of influence. The Vasari Alliance special research "Coercive Control" reduces the cooldown of minor faction abilities by 18%, so you can use their stuff more often as well. Overall, the Vasari Exodus has a very unique playstyle, with a focus on economy(and denying it to your opponent) and mobility. The Vasari Alliance focus on more powerful fleets and static defenses, and manipulating the markets and minor factions. Regardless, Vasari is probably my favourite faction.
Fantastic analysis. I firmly second the corvette information, I tried a Sova+Corvette swarm after playing Vasari a few times, and the difference was unbelievable when I faced off against Advent. Defensors easily cleared up the Tempests and strike craft wings. Yet while the TEC caps were safe with flak, the corvettes vanished! Honestly one of the main reasons I'm becoming a Vasari main, instead of TEC like I was in Sins1. I too am coming to like siege frigates more, I've been trialling out using them as part of a secondary fleet of around 100supply who stay at a planet while the main fleet continues to advance so I can push my advantage. It also allows me to guard the planet while STTC is built! I have lost Caps to Vasari due to phase missiles. Having them blow up while the shield burst has activated and on over 60% shields hurts. I was going to counter the importance of the alliance influence with if you get good neutrals. However, all of the neutrals have very good effects. Just some of them are too expensive for the average player. High culture and a ton of influence capacity and you can be affording those great 6 value ones on the regular. It's a shame I barely play them as if I'm playing more of a slow roll game, I go TEC. But might try them again with better understanding you've outlined here.
@@pikkozoikum8523 Beams are the most DPS against enemy Capital Ships and Heavy Cruisers on paper, yes. But two of the beams are firing backwards. So when focusing a target, their DPS is much closer to each other. With the various upgrades and modules, the rate of fire of the Heavy Wave Cannon gets fairly high(the module grants a constant fire rate buff), which means more triggers of the passive(the one that reduces Armour Strength on enemies), which is great for increasing the damage of your entire fleet on the target(great vs Capital Ships, enemy Starbases and Titans, as they all have good Armour Strength and a good amount of Armour). Beams hit harder, but has a low rate of fire. You will want both Modules(beam and wave cannon upgrades) if possible.
@@fendelphi I think the backwards firing lasers aren't an issues, there are always enemies behind as well. But it's still an interesting thing to think about. I personally felt like Wave Canons are rather weak, they don't have much pierce. I think 200 is the highest. The Debuff is nice, but it's capped at 3 stacks, so at lvl 2 or 3 it should be up anyways. I think, it doesn't also stack with multiple Kortul, as far I could see I currently try the nomad playstyle. Having many captial ships with plenty of refinery, beacons, labs and then destroy all planets. But this is something, that works only at the very late game as a final strategy. Also only playing against NPC But again, I might think about the wave canons more, checking it. It's interesting to know about that point
@@pikkozoikum8523 I agree that the debuff, at times, feel a bit weak, due to the limited amount of stacks possible, but against targets with a lot of armour(mostly TEC and other Vasari), it does speed things up. Armour is the strongest defense after all, and the Kortul is the only ship that can reduce Armour Strength(maxed at -54).
The thing with the Alliance is they get better ships pound-for-pound than Exodus by the mid-late game. You mentioned the shield burst (the Advent reverse engineered tech), but they also get a big bonus to their armour and hull points from another T4 tech to represent cooperation with their TEC allies. Obviously this is also compounded by the fact they don’t get any of the infrastructure on their ships the Exodus do, so you’re not filling any slots with items that don’t buff your attacking power or defences. The credit income is also really nice to have to balance out the economy early-mid game.
This is such a great watch! Can't wait for the Advent video, but take your time! Side note, I belive missle defense is fixed in the current beta version so the ships won't fire everything at the first missle and miss the rest. not sure if you've had the chance to give it a try yet.
I started playing it a week ago and I see you have a video! We have similar tastes, the game is very cool, of course it is not a deep Stellaris, but there are dynamic battles and fast games!) Greetings from Russia, friend. I also do not understand why people continue to play Northgard, when there is a wonderful Dune, Northgard limits you only to winning the war, such is the balance there, and Dune allows you to win by any means.
In defense of the better phasing T5 research: I’m normally an advent player, and I’ve lost upgraded star bases and capital ships that still had shields, even before the end game. It’s an “anti-advent” tech, still probably good against TEC or Vasari, but since the advent’s main focus is shields, phase missles are hugely effective and forces Advent players to invest into point defense cruisers.
Great info! Currently I still am adjusting to the new game (long time sins 1 player), my main challenge at this point in the game especially with vasari alliance is the distribution of planet items and overall what is the most efficient way to build their homeworlds. What I have been doing (with moderate success against unfair ai) was at the start of the game is build the tech upgrade item on the homeworld then try in essence to hunt for big planets to build the tech upgrade to free up the orbital spots for orbital extractors/refineries/culture buildings. For asteroids I almost always build them for resources (adjunct lab and hypercompiler) with orbital extractors, later on in the game if I need more labs I tend to remove the adjunct lab and replace it with the admin uplink and then build the labs. What I find odd about vasari is that the gameplay in the early stages of the game feels very stiff (for a lack of a better word), and trying to find a proper route on how to start up the economy feels rather overwhelming especially regarding the planet items. An issue I found (if you can even call it an issue) is that I miss the old sins 1 refineries/trade ports, when the game gets into the late stage and you get a whole lot of planets I miss just chugging each and every 1 of them full of trade ports or refineries in essence to make them full on economic zones with no free orbital slots, whereas in sins 2 once you finish up all your labs you don't really have a reason to build civ orbitals in new planets except for the occasional forward factory world (which can even be mitigated to some degree by just building a phase gate and sending troops from your homeworld area)
I think you've got a decent plan here. Vasari have kinda a tough early/mid transition economically but once your tier 3 eco tech comes online it really helps boom everything. The only struggle I have is if map gen just screws you on crystals as there isn't a ton of recourse if that happens. Trading Metal > Credits > Crystals is the worst deal in the history of deals, so when that becomes necessary you know you're in for a bad time.
@@daevohk That is true, vasari is very planet dependent. Noticed that building the special commerce planet item from the VA tends to produce just enough credits to sometimes fill in the gaps when you're short on crystal so I started making 1 on each planet that can have them.
The Debis Reintegration is awesome. It allows your starbase to stay really long in the fight if you focus the small ships since they give you all the armor back. Its by far the best upgrade. Especially if you combine it with the intellegend armor
Planet health regeneration is very important if you are going STTC as it allows the planet to protect itself long enough for the scuttle to have an effect. But STTC is a remarkably in depth topic, as sure you might get the resources over time. But getting that massive burst of crystal from an ice world allows for a sudden tech leap, those ship labs don't seem so costly when you have 20k in the bank. Rushing civics then allowing you to pivot military much more easily.
I also like stripped to the core because it acts as a “snowball” effect. Sure maybe the game goes past the 30 minutes but getting all those resources NOW lets me build soooo much right now and snowball way faster. Just a thought but that seems like quite a good boon
What made me fall in love with the Vasari is that their warfare tech upgrades allows their hull and shields to never stop regenerating and from then on out just buff regen even more. No BS shield cannot regen under fire, hell even their hull and armor regens in combat. They are like space werewolves. Or cockroaches XD
6:30 Phase resonators to resonance is NOT 1:1 Each resonator gives you resonance equal to the resonance on a given planet/the sun. So if you have one near a sun, you fan easily get 3 resonance by just building one of them.
LOL can you imagine when an enemy attacks your frontline world and you have a phase gate to your home planet and you just send your fully operational Orkulus station as Reinforcement and just rebuild the one you just sent at home. Gotta name the Station *The Vasari Inquisition*. Because nobody will expect it's arrival.
You mention the debris reclamation center and the Jusotra both can salvage, but does this stack? I.E if I have a reclamation center and a Jusotra do I get both their salvage or do I just need one of them? If the latter, seems a bit weird they are both at tech 3, other than the starter center I think I'd prefer Jusotras. I'm assuming I can't just stack Jusotra to get all the resources possible as well.
You can pull off some really funny stuff with multiple phase capable starbase against AI, I build 2 lines of starbase behind my choke point fortress(like 5 spares fully upgraded) and saw the AI was coming with his 2000 supply fleet, the base won't hold for long but if you position all the second line star base near the phase lane and just forward one as soon as one is taken out the AI will keep trying to take out the starbase before blowing up the planet. This can delay their move by maybe 10 to 20 minutes and in the meantime they are focused on taking out the fortress that they think it's a win, you call your main fleet and just absolutely wreck their economy by blowing up all the backline planets, leave a core stripping behind, before engaging them in a main battle. After 2 to 3 engagements against my neighbours none of them had any livable planets left that can support a 2000 supply fleet.
Optimal midgame/endgame build with Vasari 100+ missile frigates to instakill capital ships and 50+ defensors to counter other players missile frigates trying to instakill your capital ships. afaik every faction is doing this rn Vasari just do it better because of phase missiles.
Vesari - "Money what is that? you puny slaves don't need money, drill more Ore, harvest more Crystal." .... "Fighters? ... no no, build more bombers. Bombers destroy stuff, no need for fighters." .. " You humans make good slaves, more slaves."
Why do you have those arrows in your tech tree? On mine its just the pictures of the techs And by the way, very good Video, thank you Greetings from germany
Its tough! Pound for pound Vasari ships are just better than most all TEC equivalent. The typical answer is you need to lean into econ/production in order to just overwhelm the enemy with rebuilt ships. It'll get a bit better once the next patch goes live as it is expected to buff the capabilities of point defense to counter missiles and the the cost effectiveness of missiles (especially the cheap, effective Vasari missiles!) is gross right now.
Vasari is my favorite to play. But I got to say their unique stat boost is the lamest of the 3 races. They need to update it where we have the option to move it around if need be. Maybe I want mobility at first then when planning to battle I move my points from mobility to combat. Its not a good system when its a set and forget unlike the TEC where you can move around what you need with their trade crates.
Same can happen with the Advent, as the higher tier Unities require more focus, but you can't change it around. What it does do though is give them a big bonus on the assault of a system which is usually a downside due to defenders already being setup. But also helps them reinforce due to the mobility increases applying all the time. Compare that to TEC who requires culture to do the same.
I am of two minds on phase resonance. On one hand, it would be nifty, if I could change "aspect" as I needed(similar to how Trade work for TEC). But on the other hand, the benefits are considerable(basically equal to tier 5 tech or better) when a branch is maxed out, and it works on everything that makes a phase jump(even your bombers). As it currently is, it leaves the player with a decision to make fairly early on(what do I get first, and how will I proceed), rather than requiring constant readjustment for "optimal play". It keeps it somewhat simple. If you like mobility, you focus there first and get 3 ranks of it(nice milestone for every aspect). If you go heavy into Capital Ships early, you might want Anti-Matter and cooldown instead.
@@fendelphi I have only done 1vs1, 2vs2, and 4 way FFA and I haven't been able to reach the last tier since it requires an insane amount of phase resonances on top of the ones already built before. Maybe it can be reached if you don't spread out the points and focus on just 1 single tree the entire game. Simple isn't always good. It makes what should be a unique system be bland and unimaginative. And being a permanent choice mistakes can be made. I personally don't like have points floating around. If I need 4 points to get T4 in mobility. But currently have 3 with no way of building more phase resonances at that time. I want to use those points in a different category instead of just sitting there.
@@daevohk In the current state I feel would be overly potent. As you could just flip-flop between abilities as you get the focus. I general though I feel that Unity and Phase are both less important beyond an initial small investment. After which it's mid-late that you max them out. Unlike trade which I run hard from the start
As a Vasari Alliance/Rebels main, I'm a little annoyed that they let those nasty Exodus/Loyalists phase jump their starbases in Sins 2... Other Alliance unique techs that you missed (it's really hard to spot the subfaction unique techs...) include a "TEC" armor tech (+15 armor strength, +15% max armor) and a nice little +180% phase jump speed into friendly gravity wells.
