It is in imperial tech tree actually. Dark fleet is the grand armada of the Vasari. The Vasari you fight in the game are just a vanguard I believe. Once you research returning armada, you can use phase stabilizers to summon ships from the dark fleet to join your side. These are random assortment of fighting ships (No support or siege ships). They cost no money, but still use up supply. So claim it is too good, I think it's very right. It is not easy to set up, and you neglect lot of military research for it.

It is an upgrade for phase gates, its at the end of the empire (civil) tree, and as such requires 8 imperial labs.
Returning armada, thats the actual name, will call reinforcements for you which are send from the remnmants of the dark fleet (yknow, the once feared vasari fleet).
Each phase stailizer will call in several cruisers/frigates (depoending on your level of returning armada) for you, for free. It only costs the antimatter of that stabilizer.
In short: once you have returning aramada, build a lot of phase gates and go win the game.

This is a problem I am now encountering, having only begun playing this race. Is there a way, possibly by disabling autocast, to stop this tech from using up all the available supply?

I notice if I have any supply available, or I create more supply and don't use it right away, the dark fleet assigns it to a point of negative value in some cases. Right now I am at -4 supply.

I assume now, that at some point when I get into a battle with my offensive fleet I might not be able to replace my losses as the dark fleet might assign my remaining supply to the defensive forces??? or even worse... I have heard that some players have had negative supply in the hundreds and after losing ships in their offensive fleet are still negative and cannot replace the lost ships????

the -4 supply probably means you are in a processing of upgrading another fleet supply and it have not finished yet, but you queued up a lot of ships that are not going to build until it is above the supply.

Nutshell answers to the specific questions:

1. It's an ability for the Phase Stabilizer tactical structure. It summons random combat ships for free once enabled.

2. Ravastra Skirmishers, Kanrak Assailants, Junsurak Sentinels and Skarovas Enforcers can be summoned by Phase Stabilizers.

3. When you build 8 Imperial Labs and research the tech 'Returning Armada'.

4. Anywhere. Phase Stabilizers allow near-instant travel for your ships between any two of them, so the Dark Fleet is easy to mass into one group and deploy to just about any region of your empire.

5. It's good because the ships are free(or rather prepaid) and they are numerically unlimited - so you can mass huge forces or rapidly replace losses, but you don't get to choose which ships you get and don't get any capital ships or support cruisers(which also means that you don't get any strikecraft forces).

6. You use the Dark Fleet by following these steps:
1. Research Returning Armada.
2. Build Phase Stabilizers.
3. Receive your new combat ships, at your doorstep hot & fresh, within 5 minutes.
4. Enjoy.

Thanks Danman, If I am following you correctly... I disable autocast, now no new ships will be spawned and sent to that planet(s). So, I just spawn what I need at each new gate when created, as needed, and then turn it off or... once a new gate is built, turn it off immediately so as not to create additional ships and the dark fleet will go there to defend if that planet is attacked?

If this is how it works, it is truly an awesome tech!

Thanks

With enough gates, 10+, you can call in 500-700 pop worth in ships every 7 or so minutes. If you don't need the ships you can scuttle them for cash and resources.

If your near fleet cap but have enough space to call in one more gates worth of troops, about 70 population, select all your gates and call them all in at the same time, this will put you to like -400 fleet cap, I'm sure its a bug that needs to be looked at. Vasari can get to 2300 fleet cap with research anyway and doing this can put you at 2700+.

People keep complaining about this, but I really don't think it is a bug, and I often wonder why people are complaining. I mean, you just got a bunch of free ships. The fact that you are now at negative fleet cap means you actually have more ships than what are "technically" allowed under normal circumstances. And this is a bad thing why?

If you don't want the ships and negative supply for some reason, just scuttle ships, turn off phase gates, etc. I really think it is a "feature," not a "bug."

The key to using returning armada ist to "stab up" and "Supply up".


Im talking about a seriuos incestment that will make or break your game. you need at least 12 stabs to get any real benefit out of it. Why?

The "strenghth" of RA is your ability to fight a war of attrition on a scale only the TEC can realy compare with. Its about sending all those frigates, cruisers and carriers to your enemy to snipe key buildings (tradeports, culture spreads, labs, shipyards) then go to another systen and snipe antoher building. Or mass a fleet to hunt capitals, lowering the overall level of the enemys fleet (usualy around 4, won't do you much good vs advent). You have a free cost harrassment force, use it. your main fleets (you have build "real" fleets, yes?) waits until you get an opening to snatch or just glass an opponents world (realy, its about inflicting economic harm to your enemy). The Supply is needed so you can get more ships out, simple easy: more supply = more ships you can have = you need more stabs. And you need more ships because for quite a while they will have to brute force the enemys fleets, brizzling with support ships and all the fancy stuff.

The more stabilizers you have the faster your losses will be replenished and the more pressure you can apply. its advisable to have the stabs grouped in groups of three to four and use returnign armada manualy, so you dont have stabs wasting their "call" if you dont have enough fleet supply. usualy suply goes in the red, but once in a while the call is wasted instead wasted. It also gives you time to replace "real ships" (support cruisers, siege ships, caps if you loose one).

If you don't use mass stabs, RA will be useless. You have to constantly send in ships and you have to constantly replace them with RA, so only a few stabs won't do the job.

Once you have RA, research support techs (hp, am, support ships and abilitys).
Bring your military tech up to par. Its paramount. After RA you should have the ressources to do that, you wont be spending them on ships after all.
Research salvaging too, give 25% of ressources for every kill you make.

Good cap ships to use: Evacuator for its imba dot and its ability to vampire ressources for you, the marauder to return the evacuator to safety in a pinch.

Keep at least 3-4 shipyards around (depending on map size), should you ever need other ships then carriers cruisers and enforcers. (like support cruisers, siege frigs, or just want to use those ressources you salvage or drain)

Oh, and i don't recommend it for 1v1 games.
Its a tech that promotes semi-senseless attacking, act accordingly.

That might also land you in jail!  

This point I'm a bit puzzled about. I have used RA to bring a couple defensive ships to each planet I am protecting in my empire, I then have turned off the stab. This seems to work real well for rebels and pirates.

If I wanted to mass one large fleet and let it patrol the entire empire, how would I mobilize it to a specific planet when one is attacked?

I tried to send them once by clicking on the fleet I wanted to move and then the target planet to send them to and they didn't "instantly" travel there by means of the phase gate, but used the conventional means via the phase lane. I must be doing something wrong... that's when I decided to just put a couple units on each planet and shut down the gates until I lost units.

So, how exactly do I send them through the jump gates?

Thanks for your feedback PeskyFly...