Point me to a thread on early game Vasari strategy?

You won't have problems.  The AI doesn't know how to abuse Vasari's weakness.  Simply unlock your long range frigate (the assailant) and repair bays with a single lab and start building up a fleet.  If you see strike craft, get some flaks.  This balanced and low-tech fleet will clean up just about any AI.  For capital ships, lean on the Jerrasul Evacuator, Skirantra Carrier, and Kortul Devastator. 

Now, multiplayer is another beast entirely.  Basically if an enemy Advent player spawns within 2 jumps of your homeworld, you should be immediately setting up defenses.  That means repair bays and turrets.  The key problem is that Advent has very strong light frigates and scouts.  They will arrive with a huge number of these.  Scouts will kill any assailants you make very quickly, and because skirmishers have such low damage you won't be able to kill the scouts very quickly.  The traditional counter to scouts is the flak or the carrier (with fighters), but those powerful Advent disciples will roll over these units quickly.  If the Advent hits with the right capital ship, you could be down for the count right then and there.  Happen to me this morning.

A Vasari basically has to acknowledge that he's going to be on the defensive, but fortunately your capital ships are by far the strongest (in terms of combat presence) and your units aren't without advantages, but in terms of base combat stats you're severely hampered so if you get hit before you're set up a Vasari player basically has no options.

Based on my very limited experience with this game, I can give you the lowdown on what I've learned about Vasari.  Originally, they were my favorite race, so I understand the appeal of wanting to play them.  Having said that, I switched to Advent because I felt like Advent is better than they are in almost every way, at least early game.

Please keep in mind that all these comments are made concerning multiplayer and competitive play, not against the AI which obviously it doesn't really matter which race you play, because you are facing a computer.

Vasari have a really rough start for reasons that have been discussed in this thread umpteen times and also that pretty much anyone would agree on.  Their Light Frigs are underpowered, their Long-Range Frigs are inferior to the other races' (though you can get them quicker), their Scout is also inferior in the big picture.  Their Capital Ships are nothing to marvel at, in my opinion Advent has the best ones because they synergize so well, even early on. Obviously Darvin disagrees with me about the capital ships, but he's a veteran, so his opinion probably counts for more there.

The only real early-game redeeming grace you find with Vasari are the fact that their Scouts can colonize asteroid field mines and that they can get a quick SB.  I think the SB rush is more of a gimmick strategy than anything so in all actuality, you may have no real advantage over an opponent of a different race early game (unless the map is heavily covered in asteroid fields).

If you can hold out for the first 25 minutes or so though, things may start to change for your favor.  The Vasari economy tree is the best in my opinion, with such beautiful things as easy population increases for several types of planets, crystal+metal upgrades together, 15% credit reductions for anything you buy, fast planet populating to get those new planets gushing out the cash, and of course early refineries if you are in a good spot.  If you can take advantage of even a couple of these economic bonuses early on, it can put you in a huge advantage over your opponent.  In a 1v1 this is extremely hard in my opinion (because of the tendency for rush), but it can more easily be done in 2v2, and certainly 3v3 etc.

Once you've made it to mid-game with a decent economy and upgrades, you can start to shine.  Your long-range frigates, though inferior early on, can become quite superior with phase missile upgrades and in conjuction with Subverters.  I have been told that your strike craft (fighters and bombers) are the toughest and most powerful in the game, and since they all use missiles, also become greatly improved with the phase missile upgrade.

The loved and feared Phase Stabilizers are one of the most prominent and memorable features about Vasari, and its what sets them apart from the other races in terms of mobility and map control.

To make a long story short:  Early game you're always going to have it rough, late game, if you do it correctly, you can dominate.

Hopefully they buff some things next patch to make them a little more useful early game, I think most people would agree they need it.

In Single Player it's pretty much just what Darvin said.  Unlock your Assailants ASAP, they you can be pretty aggressive because the computer isn't going to build mass scouts to counter you.  You can proceed to bully them around, taking their meteors and smaller planets early, then late game you just overwhelm them with your larger force.

Sorry if I made any mistakes or misleading comments, like I said I'm new at this too.

Wing

As fleet support, Advent capital ships rule.  For stand-alone power, Vasari capital ships are the top picks.  The Skirantra is the only Vasari capital ship that even has a fleet support role, everything else is about sheer overwhelming power.

Jerrasul Evacuator and Kortul Devastator are two of the only capital ships in the game that can seriously go toe to toe with a starbase and destroy the thing while only taking shield damage.

Depends on the map layout.

Yeah it's just upsetting because in the past few days I've been playing nothing but 1v1s and every player I have faced is Advent.  Something is seriously wrong when the only race people want to play is Advent in close-ranged matches.

It seems that veryone agrees re Advent.  Based on about 11 SP games, they are even easier in SP. 

Ah, starbase.  I since I not finished even all the small maps, I have not bought expansion.  Does it add maps too?

I only found 8% in the tech tree .... (1.181)

Have not done the math; seems implausible that paying for just a 20% growth increase would pay off before reaching max. pop.  Anyone know?

I built one with 12 system+adjacent extractors and 110% allegiance but it returned only 0.8.  Read elsewhere that it is supposed to be .096/extractor @ 100%.  Are Vasari worse than standard?

By far the most powerful tech I have discovered yet (haven't reached any 7s or 8s).  Unfair, even.

New Qs:

-I had a trade route 5 planets long.  When I added a 6th the computer cut out #5 and counted the length as only 4.  (Later, when I added to the 'far' end, it counted 5 when it should have been 7).  Now, #6 was connected to #2, so you could draw the length as either 5 or 6 if the algorithm is dumb but I don't see how it could get 4.  There was also a connection between #2 and #5 via phase stablizers but prior to adding #6 this did not affect the count; it correctly counted 4.  OK, so the algorithmis dumb; can anyone explain principles of how not to get caught by it?

-There is a late Vasari armor tech that says "mass reduction 4%" in addition to the armor.  Does this do anything?

-What is the status of the tech that allows structures to shut down to self-protect--is it working or non-working in 1.181?

-Shock and Awe seems lousy.  Opinions?

-Opinions re best balance of defenses when Power Draining Nanites are available?  With just 25 on the asteroid that was my most frequently hit front, I used phase stabilizer (10), PJI (2), 2xHangar (8), 2xRepair (4), 1xMissile (1).  (Had to unbuild stuff to get the PS, of course.)

dude thats your own post not a response youll have better luck with copy/paste and the create post button

ck07'

1, did you reserch the cost reduction and check it's 2nd level?

2, same thing with growth increase.  Think it has a 2nd level too.

Yes.  Cost reduction 4% at level 1, 8% at level 2.

Growth increase 2% at level 1, 40% at level 2.

Since the 2nd level always costs more than the 1st, if the first is not worth it the second is not.

Since nobody tried to do the math on growth I'll try.  By observation any planet at 0 pop pays 0.0, at 280 about 12/sec.  Say a net of 14.  At 0.5/sec growth that takes 560 secs with average tax of 6 = 3,360.  With +20% growth it takes 467 secs = 467 * 6 + 93 x 12 (for finishing early) = 3,920.   A gain of 560 credits.  The tech costs 600 + 115 (50 metal, assume long metal) + 460 (100 crystal, assume short crystal) = 1,175.

So if you get two brand-new terran planets (or equiavelnt in less populous types) after this tech it will (almost) pay off by the time they reach full growth, even without any pop limit-increasing techs.  Better than I expected. 

It is easy to see that although the 2nd level of this tech takes longer to pay off, it still does not take 3 terrans.

The best thing to do is find a replay from a more experienced player and get some ideas from them.  Some of the multiplayer replays are also very good to learn new tactics.

I have a thread in the General section with a couple replays where I beat Unfair AI's, but it won't help you much since they are Entrenchment 1.041 replays.  You should think about getting Entrenchment though, it adds Starbases and a some new strategies to the game.