Vulkoras Desolator.What's the point of this ship? Damage dealing? Its Phase missile swarm isn't nearly as effective as it should. Disintegration is channeled (i.e. disruptable in a zillion of ways). Forward damage is mediocre compared to Marza, Kol or Kortul. Yes is fires Phase missiles, but they're nowhere near killer.
Assaulting Planets? Assault spec and bombing platforms may hint that this is the thing. Still, Evacuator aka "Space Egg" can do more damage to planets than Vulkoras with its Drain. Besides, having any other cap plus two siege frigs gives you equal bombing power and a lot more utility.
Maybe correcting the Assault Specialisation bug will help Vulkoras by some, but as of yet, with its absolute lack of any helpful abilities, it is the worst cap ship in game, in my opinion.
1) Phase missile swarm at rank 3 does 600 damage to 7 ships for 90 antimatter. That's 4,200 damage total dealt every 15 seconds. I don't know how you can say it isn't effective
2) Disintegration, even though it's channeled, deals 1600 damage and heals the Vulkoras for 1500 hp over 8 seconds. Just because it's channeled and interruptible doesn't mean it always gets interrupted, or that it sucks
3) Assault spec deals an extra 180 points of damage to structures with every shot, making it the best defense buster in the game.
4) Each siege turret does 32 bombing damage (just 8 less than the space whale) at rank 3, and the Vulkoras is able to keep 2-3 of these deployed at the same time. Planet drain does 1,350hp worth of damage with a 3 minute cooldown. It takes 30 seconds to channel, so the egg get another 150 seconds to shoot the planet. With 40 damage/10 seconds, the total damage dealt is 1950 (1350 + 40*15). Ignoring Vulkoras' bombing cooldown ability, it deals 53 damage every 10 seconds, plus let's say 2 platforms for another +64 every 10 seconds deals 117 damage/10 seconds, which is 702 damage per minute, which is 2106 damage in the same 3 minute time frame. Since it can maintain 3 platforms at least part of the time, it can do even more
Have you got any numbers to back up yor claims? As I'm having a hard time agreeing with what you are saying from my experience. From what I have seen it is as much if not more damage than the Kortul. It's siege platforms are superb. Disintegration is a little bit meh I agree but I still love the ship.
That's also 28 more fleet supply!
It is a pretty good ship, all around. Other than being a little bit fragile, there is nothing wrong with it -- it fulfills its task as a world killer plus reasonable decent fighting ship. There are enough ships that everyone has their favorites. I never make this ship first, but I find it very useful in situations where I have to clean up a lot of worlds but there are still enemy fleets roaming around.
Keep in mind too, now that the siege platforms are fixed, they are even more useful.
Yeah, thanks for finally fixing this! I have been microing that ability on my Vulkoras for the last 8 months...
IFa] Vulkoras phase missile swarm dealt 100/200/300 (even flat physical dmg as it does now), but instead cost 40-60 AM with 8-10 second cooldown and a limit of 6/10/14 or maybe even 10/20/30 targets;b] Disintegration dealt the same damage with the same cooldown, but over half the time (so it isn't so easily interrupted).THEN I would be willing to agree it has some combat purpose or survivability.
Right now, Vulkoras is, for me:1] a "meh" combat ship:- Kortul does 25dps forward and 10 dps for each bank giving it 45 total dps ---- increased insanely by the spammable Power Surge---- which also increases its survivability greatly---- Casting Volatile nanites on a big fleet (the bigger the merrier, unlike with PMS) and destroying two affected ships does more or less similiar mayhem as the PMS.- Vulkoras does 34dps forward and 4 on each bank, summing up to 42 total dps. ---- increased by his PMS ability which eats away his AM pool quite fast and handicaps his bombing ability later.---- also note Marza does 46 straight FORWARD dps alone, plus 4 on each bank, which makes Vulkoras look small, even if it isn't *phase* missile dmg.2] a good planet bomber... but to become a good planet bomber, you actually have to drop another cap ship to bring this bloke into battle for him to gain experience. Which is kinda risky, cause he has no survivability boosters. And handicapping you, cause he has little-to-zero utility, unlike any other cap.Oh and his Assault Spec iz buggit https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/329932edit. to Blair - I never really had trouble with that deployment range bug. I just ordered him a little closer before I ordered to attack the planet and turned on auto platform deployment.
Get it all out, man. You'll feel better.
Not nearly Cykur.
As my psychotherapist - you're fired.
I am glad that you identified the possible Assault Spec bug. Hopefully a Dev can look into it.
there was another thread that talked about phase missles not always phasing, therefore, they won't always deal direct hull damage. I think the figure as 10% chance to phase and hit hull.
I used to think that the desolator was pointless. Once i realised how to use it i knew how wrong i was. It is fantastic. relatively high survivability, phase missiles and great abilities. seige platforms are MUCH better then siege frigs. Plafroms free up the desolator to do other things.
You need to get the space egg to level 6 before you can seige with it properly. Phase missile swarm is great against structures.
Phase missile swarm night not shoot phase missiles, but it is still extremely useful. If you think that the Kortul's volatile nanites are good, wait till you see that ability used with phase missile swarm. I have done this to destroy 7 carriers, 4 kodiaks and 8 Hoshikos instantly. This combo is MUCH better then either used alone.
So what if it has a small AM pool? it still has alot and the only ability used regularly is phase missile swarm. The desolator does not run out of AM fast.
Disintegration is rarely useful, but it can allow it to win against the odds. One time i had a desolator with no shields left and half health and it got picked on by a level 7 Marza. I used disintegration and won. And you say it has no survivability boosters? absolutely rediculous.
One last thing. sending in bombers to bust defenses still with fighters around is suicide. The desolator is not any harder to kill then any other capship. It is waaay better then the Maruader.
Mitigation affects all forms of dealing damage, it's sort of weird to dump on Phase Missile Swarm on that basis.
I think Phase Missile Swarm is probably one of the best abilities in the game. While its antimatter lasts the Desolator is an absolute terror to frigate groups.
I do wish Disintegration was more, well, useful. I mean, phase missile swarm outshines it when it comes to dealing damage, and the healing has never really helped that I can recall. And I'm speaking as someone who often takes the Desolator as my first capital ship.
@N3rull: Whatever floats your boat. The kind of reasoning you're making can be applied to every ship. "The space egg can be destroyed by x bomber squads, it sucks!". It's irrelevant. Everything can be combatted by something else. The planet drain channeling can be interrupted too, you know. I can pick any capital and name 10 reasons why it "sucks", even though it doesn't.
Most of the time you aren't even making equal (or rational) comparisons. Vulkoras' damage against buildings vs 40 frigates? Yeh. Good luck with that one
Whatever you think of the Desolator's PMS and its forward damage you must understand - the FLEET is going to be killing, not the desolator. You aren't gonna win a game by spamming caps. In a balanced fleet, the LRMs and HCs are going to do most of the damage, the caps will only throw their 2 cents in. Cap ships are dangerous, because they bring powerful abilities to the field. Weapon Jam, Volatile Nanites, Radiation Bomb, Microphasing Aura, Targeting Uplink, Armistice, Vertigo, Vengeance, EMP Charge, Flux Field.... these and many more other abilities are totally battle-shifting. It doesn't matter whether those are two small, dozen-ship groups or two huge 150-ship fleets spitting white hot iron shells on one another. Those abilities are still powerful and can turn the tide of any battle, big or small.
What Vulkoras has to offer in a battle, however, is a skill that does fixed 4200 damage which is not even "Phase Missile damage" as the name of the ability would suggest and will ALWAYS be mitigated at least by the basic 15% (so in fact it will never do more than 3570 damage over 7 targets, and possibly far less). This, along with Disintegration, is pure prawnage only if you are fighting, like, up to 30 ships. Further than that, when the numbers are beyond 60 or 80 ships per side (and it is very likely that they will before or shortly after Vulkoras goes level 5), his skills simply do not improve. Moreover, Phase Missile Swarm's effectiveness diminishes with the size of battles, because it hits 7 targets that aren't likely to be hit again anytime soon, so they regenerate.
That's the problem. Yeah, I bet that in one-on-one, Vulkoras is pretty likely to eliminate any other ship, simply because his forward damage is like 2nd in game among all capitals (second to Marza), PMS IS going to hit that Marza if there are no more than 7 targets and Disintegration will heal Vulkoras once a while, giving it an edge.
Vulkoras is dangerous to seven targets only. Any more around are not threatened at all.
I do agree that if the Ass Spec bug is corrected, Vulkoras will be the no.1 bombing ship in game. Still, you gotta level it SOMEHOW... which means big battles...
Oh pffttsssh. Why do people keep bringing mitigation up as a point against missile swarm? If anything it works in missile swarm's favor, since you are dealing massive damage in a single shot to multiple targets who are all sitting at 15% mitigation. Spreading the damage is only a problem if you are facing area-effect repair/regen spam.
I'm not sure why you bring up Radiation Bomb, being as it is directly comparable to missile swarm.
Are we to suppose abilities are only useful if they are force multipliers, that there is no role for direct abilities? We should just strip out the Dunov's shield restore, the Kol's rail gun, Rapture's domination?
What I dont like about it is that Phase Missile Swarm doesnt actually shoot phase missiles. I dont see why it shouldnt, I mean, it only makes sense. It can be tweaked to take into account the fact that Phase Missile research will give you uber damage, but as it stands now it takes too long to get the PMS + Volatile Nanites combo to work, compared to Malice and Cleansing Brilliance.
I wasn't saying that every skill should be useful against high numbers of enemies. Skills that have one target are ok to be there as well. However, each ship, which is supposed to be useful in large battles, should have a skill that would make it so. Radiation bomb deals less AOE damage than phase missile swarm, but it does it to everything, not just 7 targets - meaning that whatever you decide to kill next will go down quicker, because it was in the area of effect.
I would change my mind completely about Vulkoras if Phase missile swarm was more spammable with greater area of effect, even with less damage (say 1/3 damage, 1/2 cooldown, 1/3 AM cost, double amount of targets. It would still be less AM-effective than Volatile nanites backed with a medium sized fleet, but it would make some sense in big battles)
As I said before, right now the Vulkoras is in my opinion a "Planet Killer to be sent against weakly defended worlds, not to be brought into big battles".
The Assault Spec bug is fixed. The same bug was also causing the Vasari Weapon Jammer to make enemy ships bomb more quickly - ouch!!!
Whoa, between the Assault Spec bug and the bugged Siege Platforms, no wonder you thought the Vulkoras stunk
Thanks for tracking this down guys!!!
Ok, so now the Vulkoras is going to be an über big fat siege frigate with strong "get lost nibs" abilities to be used against small enemy regiments.
Can't wait to throw a level 5 Vulk againt an enemy planet and see its health go dooown.
Thanks Fraser.
I'm not, at all, an "expert" at this game, so maybe it's me, but you keep saying something that confuses me; that the phase missle swarm is useless because the enemies hit will, most likely, not get hit again before they heal. I'm utterly baffled by this, unless you are micro-managing the battle like crazy (which I presume is possible, I dunno). Roughly speaking, if two large fleets engage, and you use Swarm, you'll hit a bunch of opponents that are currently being whacked anyway since they are right along the front line. Unless you are directing every single ship with regards to who to hit, I don't see this happening. I know that I, at least, like the ability to soften my opponents. Likewise, although I don't often use this, the Seige platforms and Assault Spec are handy in that you can have your Desolator run over, throw them out, and start blasting buildings (for bonus damage) AND the planet while the battle is going on (or ignore the planet, hit the buildings, and also smack anything that sneaks through your lines to attack). If you are more the type to wait until the enemy is completely dead or gone before you touch anything else (which is myself as well), then sure, a little extra damage in bombing isn't that big of a deal. But if you are trying to move quickly, and wipe out everything at once, I think it's not a bad ship to have at all, since you can make it a really powerful seige ship that is also capable against small defense fleets.
Point being, we all play differently, and I think it's easy to make it work in your favor, if you want to play that way. I hate the Marauder, the Revelation, and the Dunov for the same reason; doesn't fit me.
The PMS ability does a lot of damage, but it is all spread out. If you have other ships fighting these ships, this is good. If it is just the Vulkoras by itself, it can't be hitting all of them, so all of that splash damage is wasted because the ships recharge / repair (if it bypassed shields). Ships not being attacked start repairing or replenishing shields fairly quickly.
use volatile nanites with phase missile swarm, its a great combo.
That is rubbish. Since you dont understand the desolator and since it doesnt fit your playstyle, you dont like it. Dont claim that it is useless though.
n3rull your comparing a vulkoras to 40 assailants 20 cruisers atleast come up with some decent numbers, even a marza cant deal with that
vulkoras is the 2e cap ship i build for vasari, it's great for quickly taking down planets (i rlly didnt notice that bug.... atleast.. i did think on some occasions.. dam still not done?? but never imagined there'd be a bug like that)
its phase missle swarm is also superb, deals quick damage, disintergration also a hard-hitter, but still prefer marza's missle barrage
there is no "best" "....." buster structures are easiyly wiped out by bombers yes, but someone dug in with flaks and healers, i prefr using lrf's for that.... vasari and tec equivalant are out of turret range, vulkoras also great for taking out labs fast
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