Another Returning Armada thread

I wonder if you'll trigger RA's "repulse" reflex...

Advent has a pretty shitty economic tech tree.  For money-making, you have population upgrades, trade ports, and allure of the unity.  That's it.  Even capturing a few extra neutrals can overshadow this.

Now, as for your question regarding labs and losing techs, you lose some things but not others.  The ability to build units and structures is lost, but usually unit abilities are not lost.  So if you lose all your labs you cannot build more hoshikos, but they can still use demo-bots.  There is consistancy here.

Building abilities usualy fade when labs are gone tho. Repair bays don't repair anymore superweapons won't fire anymore. I'm surprised RA still works.

And for RA I freagin hate RA. You can bring numbers but that's it you can't realy do much of composing a fleet since you let it be decided random so you might have like 30 percent ships you don't really want in you're fleet... Meh...

Grtz,
Flipkik

RA from my experience never sends Overseers or Subverters, so you'll have to build support ships yourself.

yup, but when you're getting a ton of hc's every cycle (or constantly if you stagger it on different phase stabilizers) building support ships matters little. What is most annoying is when RA spams carriers at you...

RA and repulse are like a dysfunctional family, repulse lets you kill ships forever and RA lets you produce ships forever, a stalemate you might say... but nope... read your bible, repulse wins

Well RA requires resources nowadays it's a small discount you get for each ship but w/e vasari already got discount techs and they are still expansive ships. I'dd rather not have a discount and be able to compose a fleet with what I want than have a discount.

Grtz,
Flipkik

Flipkik, No, repair DO still repair after the lab requirement is gone.  You just can't build anymore.  But yeah, superweapons won't fire. 

I think automatic features continue to work, while those that require user input don't.  For example, you can no longer order new ships, after that research has been lost, but the ships still work.

And the second level of RA IS actually a significant discount.  I've heard about a 40% discount.  But the biggest savings that people forget about is:  you get high tech ships like HC's, (or Carriers) even if you don't do the research for them.  Unfortunately, you don't get Overseers or Subverters.

Valkya, RA has been this way for as long as I remember.  There are a few other useful Techs that you can also get, then scuttle the "extra" labs, and still use the Tech.  Like Pervasive Economy for TEC, under the civil tree (tier 8).

Maybe this explains the low cost efficiency of Vasari ships? Maybe the devs intended for Vasari ships to be too expensive, but give them a way to get ships that are free (not only much cheaper). Imho, this reasoning didn't work out so well.

While in theory it may work as an explanation, in practice it doesn't work as balance.

I'd rather guess Vasari ships start out with a lower cost efficiency because of Enslaved Labor and Optimized Construction which increase the cost efficiency to almost normal level (compared to TEC and Advent) but additionally save credits and resources on all structures as well (thus increasing the overall cost efficiency)

Hm just tested it and you're right. Did this change some time ago? Cause I still remember repair bays not working for some reason they where not disabled. Bah must've been dreaming.

It's always confusing for me to read RA threads.

Does RA always make you pay to activate the ability? I mean, do you have to pay each time, or is it a one time thing?

Yeah, now you have to pay, each time (the old version was free - before the nerf). 

But make sure you have lots of fleet slots open.  Because if you don't, it will only fill what it can, but still charge the same amount, and rip you off!  I learned this the hard way!  (Easy mistake to make, if you have auto activate on).

Ya the thing bout RA is that you want a really vast econ or a really good feeder if you want to relly on it. Cause you'll want to have allot of fleet suply research done which slows your economy down.

Grtz,
Flipkik

You can't really rely on it, as vasari you need to have pretty much won the game by this point (especially against advent) or you are doomed

Right now, I'm actually in favor of making it free again. The Vasari just don't have the cost:performance ratio to stand up to say, the Advent or TEC. It is only a late game solution - as it can only be accessed later on.

really RA is an awsome ability. Now before you argue with me ive used it in a couple of games and i just rolled over everyone. One game was a 1v1 i lost 1000 + fleet supply from a suicide SB and 10 mins later i had it all back.

The other was a ffa i allied myself with everyone and went econ then as i hoped it ended up as me and bsc (Black Sword Command) vs 3 others. I got RA and with the extra fleet supply research i had 2300 fleet supply. I took out the combined fleets of all 3 of my enemies,(1 vasari,1TEC and 1 advent who did spam repulse)

My 120 bomber squads took out caps in 2 passes or less. Now really as vasari it is not viable in a real game unless you are econ because you need enormous amounts of money to get it up and to upgrade fleet supply.

One other game was a long time ago it was a bia + plus me vs DT i was an econ but had a messed up posiotion with only 6 planets, i got an econ got RA and with only 6 planets i had 1 for fleet, i had a larger fleet than someone who had 40 HCs and other assorted ships.

RA may not be the Uber ability that it was previously but it is an extremely deadly late game ability as it was designed to be. The only problem is most MP games do not get to late game so vasari rarely even get the oppourtunity to use it.

_|~Uber

I've used the nerfed RA several times in long multiplayer games.  It is a powerful option that allows Vasari to stay competitive in endgame.  Unlike the old RA, you still have to maintain an economy and know how to fight your enemies.  The old RA was a crutch for people who often didn't know how to win without it. 

Pre-nerf, it was worse than repulse is now.

Post-nerf (today) it is still useful, but only situationally. This is how it should be IMO, since phase gates are already a huge advantage.

To me, it seems that RA only really comes into it's own on multi-star maps where you have several battlefronts that you can't adequately defend (too much fleet splitting). It lets you, in a pinch, summon a fleet into some random star system of yours thats under attack and has inadequate defense or is unreachable by one of your main fleets due to bottle-necking (starbase infested stars anyone?).

And it's almost entirely useless in singleplayer (the AI is too stupid to ever force you to need RA).

-Itharus