Vasari Rebels
Just FYI, if you ever want to try serious multiplayer Vasari Rebels are usually banned due to their jumping starbases of doom. If you don't, it's no problem.
Are there specific ships should be focused on at specific stages of the game? I just sort of end up building a little bit of everything, but due to the different weapon systems they use it means split research (and from my understanding the phase missile research tends to be the most important). Usually I grab corvettes as my first new ship, followed by LRM. Sentinels early if they have a lot of SC, otherwise I grab carriers and overseers first. I mostly don't build the starter ships (skirmishers I think?) once I have a bunch of unlocks, and I've made very little use of the Enforcer or Subverter as well.
Sins is a counter based game, the best fleet is that which counters your opponents best. That said, early on as Vasari assailants are very easy to get, are especially good at taking out capitalships and light frigates. Corvettes are good as any faction for expanding as they are fast and kill siege frigates quickly, but as Vasari you have the disadvantage that they are a tier 2 tech. If you're going to rush corvettes, you may as well learn to take advantage of the other major tactics available to the Vasari with two quick military labs, notably starbase rushing.
The middle game can go anyway, depending on who builds what, but I will say Light Frigates + Corvettes or LRF + flak are pretty popular, as all these ships can be built early and these two combinations counter each others counters. It probably doesn't matter that much for AI, but if you want to transition to a fleet based on this it might best to not build LRF and Corvettes together.
In the same vein, any recommendations on capital ships past colony opening? In my games against AI, my second cap is usually my titan, and then probably the siege one (Vulkoras). I've tried the carrier and the nanite based one as well, but due to the size of the battles, it's really hard to judge how effective any of them are. I like the siege one because it means I don't need to worry as much about anti-planet ships and just let my caps take care of it.
The Vasari have three top notch Capitalships. The Colony cap is of less economic value than the other two but nanite disassembler is so good its worth keeping on around the rest of the game. The Skirantra Carrier is the other main starter cap, though if you do this you'll need to build extra colony frigates for faster expansion (though sense these will be turned into starbases later that's not much of a handicap for Vasari). The 3 strikecraft squads any carriers have are useful, plus the spawn bombers ability can give you a lot of phase missile bomber damage early to counter enemy caps or take out the heavy cruisers if you are next to a lot of terran or desert worlds. And its repair cloud ability is a must have for any fleet, though its not as good as the Advent shield one. Just don't invest any points in microphasing aura, its pretty pathetic. And last the Kortul Devestator is is amazing but at a later stage in the game, especially once titans come out. Its passive disruptive strikes is the Vasari capitalship ability that can drain titan antimatter, and it increases enemy ability cooldown time, making it the most efficient killer of caps and titans in the game. Further, powersurge combos with this nicely and makes the Kortul probably the best tank unit in the game. And last but not least it has jam weapons, which while very situational it can be a life saver against strikecraft swarms. As for the other caps, the Vulkoras is a great siege cap, and you can have some fun rushing a pair and taking out the AI or an unprepared player, but mostly its a luxury as a mop of ship after you've killed the serious defenses, as it can take out structures and planets with ease. The Nanite ship is purely average, though it is the only way the Vasari cap get long range antistructure units, so it can work well with the Vulkoras. The Marauder is total garbage, the only time I've seen one used well is for using phased out hull to pertinently keep a flagship from escaping until it was destroyed.
Last question, I don't really see any mention of bidirectional jammers. Does this work differently vs AI? It seems absurdly powerful. Once I realized I could slow ships even while they were already mid phase, I simply started researching this along with the tech that lets you see enemies warping in. Since any front line planet usually has at least 2 inhibitors, that means I can delay their whole fleet 1.5 mins to get my ships in position, or simply split it in half by jamming as soon as some ships arrive. I'm sure players warp their fleet grouped up better than the AI does, but even so it seems incredibly useful.
Hmm, that seems a long time, I guess we thought it was like the overseers ability that delayed phase jumping ships which wasn't worth anything at all. I'll take another look at it.
