How to attack Vasari SB / Phasic Trap without taking horrible fleet losses?

from Sins Forums

So, as TEC, I was just playing someone (1v1) who, as Vasari, built a completely upgraded Orkulus on one of his worlds. I built something like 50 bomber squadrons in response in preparation for killing it, but he quickly put 4 or 5 hangars around it with phasic trap. (I wasn't able to kill the builder). With almost all of my fleet supply used on carriers, capital ships, and LRM, I went up one more supply level and tried using Ogrovs (like 15 of them) to take down the hangars, but the SB just moved into them and often killed them before they were able to back away. I then tried using a two-pronged attack by having two small fleets of 10 Ogrovs each, on opposite sides of the Orkulus, in addition to my mob of LRM, so that I could attempt to attack on multiple sides and the SB could only scare off one fleet (one side) at a time... but my opponent simply built more hangars while (often) destroying significant parts of my fleet in the process. Due to maneuvering towards and then away and then towards etc to evade the SB, I was only able to kill maybe 1 hangar every minute and a half or so. If he had built regeneration bays, it would have taken a lot more time.

I think I could have taken significantly fewer losses if the lag wasn't so bad (it was taking about 3 seconds for my orders to register at that point in the game), but it was still impossible to destroy enough hangars so that my strikecraft could destroy the Orkulus.

This was all with him having absolutely no fleet to speak of. I felt horribly embarrassed that I couldn't figure out how to take down the planet. (it was being protected by the starbase's Enforced Loyalty). If he had even a small fleet he could have easily negated my Ogrovs (and if I moved more of my fleet in to try to defend them, they'd be very quickly disintegrated by the starbase).

Strategically, I could have simply moved on to his next planet, but leaving a healthy enemy planet behind me wasn't a good idea in that situation.

I was getting tons of income, but in a more competitive game in a similar situation I wouldn't have been able to destroy the SB without a frontal assault with tons of frigates, most of which would have died, which would leave me too crippled to defend if my opponent then attacked with his own fleet.

I really have no idea what to do and am embarrassed that I have to be asking about how to counter such a basic Vasari defense strategy.

In retrospect, I could have built a few heavy cruisers and had them make a suicide run against the builder frigates so that my opponent couldn't build any more hangars, but he already had like 8 hangars, and I still wouldn't have been able to destroy them in any reasonable length of time before the builders regenerated.

I also should have been able to trade port spam and then frigate spam to prevent him from having the funds to do that in the first place, but I made too many mistakes in the game for that.

I thought I remembered that a recent patch put a target cap on Phasic Trap, but the cap didn't seem to be low enough (all of my 250+ strikecraft were being permanently frozen). I looked for the description of this update, but couldn't find it - is there really a cap or am I remembering incorrectly?

So I still can't figure out how I'd kill a starbase in that situation. Help please?

Thanks a bunch.

strategy
7,925 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Ogrovs are also very good against Star Bases as well. In fact better then bombers as they do a higher DPS for a better armor penetration. You seemed to have a good idea with splitting your fleet to force the Orkulus to attack one or the other. Dump the carriers or go one level higher if you can and build a mass of Ogrovs. Split fleet and focus on the Orkulus. It should fall quickly.

And no, no cap exists.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

I agree with Ryat. But I might add a couple of things.

Yes for sure use the ogrovs to kill the SB.

But ... maneuver your fleet to an edge of the grav well to lure the SB away from the hangars. Have your bombers / fighters on hold position over your fleet (you can usually safely navigate them). Put the ogrovs behind the fleet with your flak and lrms. If the Orkulus doesn't come to you then blast at edge of range with ogrovs and your lrm and keep fighters in hold position. If he bites and tries to scare you off then let your bombers losoe when out of range of the traps. Kill any builder that comes remotely close to your fleet. There must have been some opening in the grav well to maneuver to. And if you are at the edge you could jump if his fleet shows.

Btw how buffed was his SB? 20 ogrovs with some moderate fleet support will absolutely rape anything other than a maxed Orkulus with no repair platforms. And even then it is baked eventually. I assume what was also hurting you was his actual bombers in the well hitting the Ogrovs. That is why you put them behind or with your hold position fighters and your flak.

Now if you had been Advent then it gets worse much worse. If you were Vasari then you use 1-2 Eggs with armor debuff + almight kanrak spam and a subverter or two to shut down shield mitigation. But Advent you are stuck with bombers and then should probably jump to the next well or really fleet up.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting dbkita, reply 2
But ... maneuver your fleet to an edge of the grav well to lure the SB away from the hangars.
End of dbkita's quote

Any opponent worth his salt is smart enough to have the starbase hold position or local area, which mine did, so the SB couldn't be lured away far enough.

Quoting dbkita, reply 2
Have your bombers / fighters on hold position over your fleet (you can usually safely navigate them). Put the ogrovs behind the fleet with your flak and lrms. If the Orkulus doesn't come to you then blast at edge of range with ogrovs and your lrm and keep fighters in hold position. If he bites and tries to scare you off then let your bombers losoe when out of range of the traps.
End of dbkita's quote

For my Ogrovs to be in range of attacking the SB, they have to be close enough that the SB only needs to move a little bit to start killing them. The owner is probably smart enough to keep the SB very close to the hangars: so, it's not possible to lure the SB far out enough such that Phasic Trap won't be in range of my bombers.

Quoting dbkita, reply 2
Btw how buffed was his SB? 20 ogrovs with some moderate fleet support will absolutely rape anything other than a maxed Orkulus with no repair platforms. And even then it is baked eventually.
End of dbkita's quote

It had full weapons and armor, plus the planet protection upgrade I think (all 8 upgrade slots filled). My Orgovs died in about 10 seconds when the SB was close enough to fire at them. (that's only enough for the Orgovs to fire once). Spamming enough of them to kill the SB would have taken a long time (to build) and would have resulted in tons of casualties... I think.

Quoting dbkita, reply 2
I assume what was also hurting you was his actual bombers in the well hitting the Ogrovs. That is why you put them behind or with your hold position fighters and your flak.
End of dbkita's quote

No, my opponent actually didn't have any strikecraft at all: if he had chose to make some, it would have made it significantly harder for me.

But it's a good idea: I'll try focusing fire on the SB instead of the hangars instead and see what happens.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Understood. To be honest while the traps protect the SB from your strikecraft, if he stays put (as you said he did) then he he doomed to ogrov focus fire. Period.

Even if the SB is upgraded and assuming you have armor upgrades on your ogrovs, and even if he has multiple repair platforms which you may have to take some out first; 20+ ogrovs will shred an undefended (even max) orkulus let alone one being also hit by some LRF. Maybe some hoshikos with the ogrovs could be some insurance. Yes you will lose some ogrovs but then again your opponent is losing a chokepoint. Btw you could also use an Akkan with targeting uplink to let your LRF shoot from further away (not sure if it helps ogrovs I would have to check). I know then the LRF can shoot the Orkulus outside his range if you have targeting uplink.

To be brutally honest as TEC I would love to see a grav well with a fully tricked out Orkulus + multiple hangars and think about all those resources that could have gone to fleet. You can either go around or torpedo it out of the sky.

Again as TEC I think you have the best advantage for the described scenario but only if you focus fire on the Orkulus. The ogrovs do the most structural damage by a landslide. As a Vasari you would go right up into his face and depending on how many eggs and kanraks and subverters you have it could take some time + losses. But as an Advent ... well then you should just go around the planet for now.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting dbkita, reply 4
Understood. To be honest while the traps protect the SB from your strikecraft, if he stays put (as you said he did) then he he doomed to ogrov focus fire. Period.

Even if the SB is upgraded and assuming you have armor upgrades on your ogrovs, and even if he has multiple repair platforms which you may have to take some out first; 20+ ogrovs will shred an undefended (even max) orkulus let alone one being also hit by some LRF. Maybe some hoshikos with the ogrovs could be some insurance. Yes you will lose some ogrovs but then again your opponent is losing a chokepoint. Btw you could also use an Akkan with targeting uplink to let your LRF shoot from further away (not sure if it helps ogrovs I would have to check). I know then the LRF can shoot the Orkulus outside his range if you have targeting uplink.

To be brutally honest as TEC I would love to see a grav well with a fully tricked out Orkulus + multiple hangars and think about all those resources that could have gone to fleet. You can either go around or torpedo it out of the sky.

Again as TEC I think you have the best advantage for the described scenario but only if you focus fire on the Orkulus. The ogrovs do the most structural damage by a landslide. As a Vasari you would go right up into his face and depending on how many eggs and kanraks and subverters you have it could take some time + losses. But as an Advent ... well then you should just go around the planet for now.
End of dbkita's quote

That's actually exactly what I was thinking when I saw it: "Hey, this guy's spending all his income on starbases and static defenses, that means he doesn't have much fleet! This game will be pathetically easy!"

But then I found that the trap target cap I misremembered kept freezing all of my strikecraft and that my 20+ Ogrovs + LRM couldn't hurt his defenses much without taking serious losses :(

Oh well, I guess I'll have to practice fighting big moving starbases more.

Something which might be a problem is that a single Ogrov costs 620/130/95. 20 of them (the absolute minimum number I'll need) cost 12,400 / 2600 / 1900, which is a TON - then again, a starbase costs something like 3000/450/375 + (non-final upgrades * (1800 / 275 / 150)) which comes out to a lot.

If my Vasari enemy is smart, I have an idea that they'd churn out a lot of heavy cruisers (very very strong against light armor of Ogrovs) which would probably completely slaughter my Ogrovs... whether it would be enough for them to save the starbase is another question, but I would suspect yes, the HCs would overpower Ogrovs. It would be an interesting exercise to see just how close I could maneuver my bombers in hold-position (to counter the HCs) without being hit by Phasic Trap. The enemy could then retreat their SB just slightly to lure in the Ogrovs a bit more so they could then retreat their HCs a bit so that my bombers, to fire, would be in range of Phasic Trap.

This is complicated. :) I like complicated.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

As Always a balanced fleet is the key with cracking uber defensive strongholds:

Ogrovs are great but they need the proper support. You need a cheap frigate with relatively high armor and shield/hit points to fly ahead of the Ogrovs and box in the SB. I would recommend the Flak Frigate, it is great for flying right into the fray benefiting from a high damage taken/cost ratio and omnidirectional targeting. 40 or so of these is a relatively cheap investment when you can field a fleet of 20 Ogrovs and will do wonders for the survivability of the rest of your Fleet.

Alternately, you could field a 60/40 mix of Flak and LF. Only do this if you have upgraded your LF with Sabotage Reactor. If you have, they can target the Hangars and disable Phasic Trap. After that, deploy your bombers and let the killing begin.

Next you need Hoshi's to keep everything alive. Depending on fleet size I like anywhere between 15-30 Hoshi's which will do a good job keeping your fleet alive especially against SB which specialize more on crowd control and damaging multiple targets at once rather than doing heavy damage to a single target.

After this, the rest of your build is fine. LRM & Ogrovs can focus fire and shred the Orky. If you have caps to fight against it, might I recommend a Dunov; Magnetize is one of the few abilities that can disrupt Star base abilities so the Dunov can prevent the Orky from using the Uber Shield or Healing itself. EMP is also great for shredding Antimatter on Hangars which regen AM at an abysmal rate.

If you have upgraded your missiles & armor with the fleet ideas outlined above, you should be enjoying Orkulus soup in no time.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Ryat, reply 1
And no, no cap exists.
End of Ryat's quote

Was just setting up a testbed and saw this:

However, I tested this using 200 squads to move over 5 Vasari hangars, and all but 10 of them were completely frozen by Phasic Trap. The *real* cap, if there is one, seems to be much higher than 20 SC freeze per activation.

I don't get it.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

I agree that the Hoshikos + some flak are very useful.

As gamerlamb mentioned the flak soak damage well relative to their cost. But ... if the player is driving their Orkulus the whole time (which seems likely) then he wil target the ogrovs regardless and the extra dps from the flak is well less than some at range LRF (especially with targeting uplink). On the other hand if he had strikecraft also then the flak are essential to keep the pgrovs up long enough.

Don't mistake what I was saying about a  full squad of 20 Ogrovs vs a maxed Orkulus. Being driven by the opponent is going to cost you fleet (i.e. the Ogrovs) but focus fire should still hammer it especially if you use hoshikos and/or flak. Especially since you didn't mention repair platforms. To be honest 4 hangars + 4 repair platforms with the Orkulus will be much worse than 8 hangars and no repair platforms. Btw did he have the nano weapon jammer which slows down your rate of fire?

But beyond that (with the exception of a tiny grav well) I still don't see how you can't plink him at range to make him exit some of his phasic trap shadow. The ogrovs have reasonable range. Yes the Orkulus can hit them but most his dps is out the window until he comes on near them. None of your ogrov dps is mitigated by range. Zero. Then you step back to the edge and this should be outside the phasic traps if you orchestrate it right. Then the hold position bombers would take over some of the job. And you can use your LRF to hammer the builder drones. The orkulus cannot be in two places at once. If he doesn't chase then risne and repeat. Eventually he dies esepcially with no fleet or strikecraft intervention. SOunds like your opponent sent out no strikecraft from the hangars to bank on phasic trap.

I guess I would have had to see a replay to understand better the citrcumstances ... sorry if I can't be of more help. Liek I said last resort is you bypass and make him pay for the crazy number of resources he spent on that well.

 

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

@Wrath89 - Yep just checked the coding. There is now a cap. I know 1.21 did not have it but for some reason they slipped it in with the 1.3_ and did not list it. May be why I didn't see it as I rarely play Vasari. Though I need to so I can game test them for DS.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Hmm this might be a good point to try to get a clarification from the devs since though Ryat has confirmed a cap, it isn't clear it is working as intended, right?