1.  Frigates favor damaged ships when attacking, so as they cleaned up their targets they would go after the ships hit by PMS.  Obviously PMS is more useful the more ships you have backing the Vulkoras.  I don't think it is quite as bad as you make out.  For example, I think the base nuclear attack on the Marza is crap, but overall the Marza is pretty good.

2.  I didn't realize PMS wasn't a real Phase Missile...hehe, it figures, right?  Thanks for info.

These ships are in fact big siege frigates.  That is how I always used em.  I'm glad you have brought to light some of the bugs with them, I always did wonder about Assault Spec, because I had a hard time telling if it was doing anything.  Regardless, even when I have built a few of these ships, their shortcomings have never stopped me from beating other players because they were always backed by fleets, and they do have some offensive punch to contribute to the fight.

Volatile nanites does not make PMS worthwhile, it just makes it much better. PMS have a brief cooldown, so you can use it again and again. The damage dealt very quickly becomes noticable.

That is why you need to think about where the desolator is in the battle. If it is at the front, with your heavy cruisers then PMS will damage the dangerous ships.

I didnt say that weapon jam is useless. It is the weakest anti-strikecraft ability, but yes almost every ability requires micro to use it to its full potential. Weapon jam can be good when the enemy has superior strikecraft numbers or is bombing your capships. I have very rareley needed it though.

If you agree that, then why are you complaining that the desolator is pointless? That IS what the desolator is for.

Volatile nanites makes PMS very worthwhile is big battles. The Kol and the Skirantra carrier (to a lesser extent) dont affect large enemy fleets very much, but both are VERY useful.

The Kol actually gets some splash damage at level 6.  But by all means, don't let me derail this argument about the Vulkorus -- I find it fascinating that so much can be written in argument over the finer details of this majestic battleship....not that I'm reading all of it, mind you.

In Multiplayer, Capital ships are of critical importance for their strategic abilities, not as much their direct combat abilities.  The bigger the map and the bigger the fleets, the less you care about how much damage a capital does, and more about how you can leverage its other special abilities.  On very small maps, the actual combat abilities of the ships are very important, even in multiplayer, but as fleets get massive, you care less about how much damage it can do than about what it can do for you that your fleet of frigates can't do.  ie.  (Drain / Raze Planet, Repair Cloud, Flak Burst, Telekinetic Push, Shield Restore, Malice, etc.)

Cykur: Well, I've now been told various things, so okay. The reason I brought it up was to try and pin down in what situation this cap ship should even be judged by.

N3rull: This is really quite an interesting amount of thought on the merits of one ship. That's not a judgement, it's merely an observation. It was obviously designed for taking down planets, we all see that, but I wonder if it's a particularly fair criticism to complain about having to level it to make it useful, or about "scalability". Nothing the vaunted Space Egg has is scalable; it can colonize one planet, it can damage one planet, and it has two abilities that effect one ship at a time. And as far as leveling, what about the Kortul; it's Jam Weapons ability hardly even works at level one, and it's passive ability, as you noted, has to be level 3 to even be somewhat useful. I don't think Power Surge is all that useful at lower levels either, since both the duration AND the amount it's buffed increases with levels. Assuming one wanted to make these worth it, that's, what, level 7 (3 Disruptive Strikes, 2 for the others), if we don't get Volatile Nanites ASAP? Between the Kortul and Vulkoras, firepower isn't dramatically different, merely shifted around. And since my cap ships, at least, usually don't have too many ships on the sides of it anyway, I don't see a big difference in damage output to begin with, meaning low level versions of each are similar. So...I'm not sure I go along with your argument. No, it's not that great a cap ship, yes, it's primarily for damaging planets and structures, but I don't see how "it needs levels" is fair when that's not unusual. And correct me if I'm wrong, but don't ALL cap ships get experience from ANY enemy killed in it's gravity well? If that was the case, then it could level up while still being used as souped up seige ship, and avoid the battle for the most part.

b] To actually make the Desolator a good planet ravager, you have to have it leveled up. I believe the Desolator, unlike most other ships, becomes really good only at 10th level.
He NEEDS his PMS on level 3 for it to be sensible.
He NEEDS Assault Spec on level 3 to really be a planet killer, just as he needs the platforms.
He NEEDS the Disintegration, or else two bomber squads could destroy it given enough time, because he has no other survivability booster.[/quote]

What is so strange about that? plenty of capships need levelling up before they are useful such as the Kortul.

It would take a pretty long time for 2 bomber squads to take down the Vulkoras. I NEVER send in capships alone, so I always have fighters to defend against bombers.

Using the same logic, I could also argue that the Marza sucks because it cant regenerate health so 2 bomber squads could kill it. This is not the case though. The Marza is good.

Yes, on the THIRD LEVEL it is decent, not so on lower levels, just like the Kortul's other abilities.

Summing it up:
Every other ship needs to take part in battles to level up and every other ship has means of becoming useful in any battle.
Vulkoras ALSO needs to take part in battles to become powerful in what he does (planet killing) but has NO good utility there. This is the thing!! If Vulkoras could level up by doing what it is good at - bombing - I would have no problem with it. But he NEEDS to fight to BECOME good at his main job, while not giving much help in due course, unlike any other more or less battle-oriented cap in the game. 

And I believe wasting a cap ship slot on a vessel only to have it parked somewhere in the grav well, peeing on the planet is a JOKE.

Yep. Assuming the enemy is idiot enough not to overcome your fleet, which you just stripped off of one capital ship, that could have been casting Volatile Nanites, Repair Cloud, Weapon jamming, Replicate forces or Nano Disassembler.
Or even a freakin' Phase Out Hull on focused ships so the enemy's LRM dps is essentially wasted or on enemy caps so they do nothing good for them / bad to you.

I like them quite a bit.  I never use them as the only cap ship in a fleet for all the reasons you have pointed out.  However, past that they seem to do very well.  As amazing as volatile nanites is(are?) - it does not stack with itself while all the Desolator abilities do.  I'd much rather come up against 3 Devastators than 1 Devastator and 2 Desolators.  It's a whole (fleet) being greater than the sum of its parts type of thing.

As for axul - I'd pretty much love to have my fleet meet three lone enemy caps anytime. Easy XP.
Now seriously, if I had 3 caps and met 3 enemy caps - surely Volatile nanites is crap. Nanites are for taking out masses of ships, not 3 caps. Lol. And if Nanites have a weakness it is that they sometimes tend to end right before the enemies start blowing up en masse. Having a second Devastator cast another right after would be a death sentence carried out.
Still, if I had 3 caps and met 3 other caps, I would pretty much hate meeting 3 Devastators, because as of 1.1 the Surge + Disruptive Strikes = no antimatter , while Surge means lots of shields to lose. So unless you kill them quickly, you're screwed. And their hit point count and Surge doesn't help them go down fast.
But yeah, in a 3 vs 3 fight a Desolator could be good, because its PMS would hit all enemy targets and 3 Disintegrations could actually do a lot of harm, particularly against Devastator which has no interruption for it. Plus high phase missile damage evades shields.

HOWEVER, cap ships never travel alone, unless they are looking for a grave. Everybody knows that, even Cykur on crack or whatever weed he was smoking before posting.

If both cap ship trios were backed by a decent fleet, as they SHOULD, I would like to meet desolators above anything else, for all the reasons I mentioned in this thread.

I do not play online because I have a life, a family and everyday work to do. I do not have 2 hours of time to spend exclusively on gazing in the stupid monitor. Since I could never finish a game, I don't begin them at all, so you lifeless so-called pro players don't whine about another leaver.

So, Cykur. Making a replay is pretty simple in sins. Actually, it makes ITSELF, automatically.

Why don't you go and prove this fancy tactic of yours really works?
Post a replay.

You ain't gonna do that though. And not because you don't care. If you didn't care, you'd have shut up a long time ago, once you've said your share of nonsense.
You won't post a replay because you'd have to spend days on looking for a sucker stupid enough to fall for this 'tactic'.

The only moment it might "work" is when you do it AFTER the game is won, which isn't really helpful.

This is sad . I actually expected this to be a fair exchange of sensible arguments backed by game mechanics. I tried my best to back all my opinions with reasoning. Instead, all I'm getting recently is laughable tactics of how to hide a vulkoras behind a planet to leech experience or arguments saying that meeting 3 lone devastators is less scary than meeting 1 devastator and two desolators. As if they were the only thing a fleet should constitute of.

Y'know what? Forget it. You complained about getting "stupid" responses, but you have honestly become the insulting jerk here. And that, on a board that is among the nicest boards I have ever seen. I can only imagine how you do on the rest of the internet. Instead of trying to debate you, let me just offer a simple solution; forget the damn ship even exists, build another Kortul, play the game, and shut up about it. I do the same thing by never using that stupid Marauder; as far as I am concerned, it's only two functions are for running away like a little sissy and calling up back-up for a fleet that was either used wrong or poorly constructed. But so what! We have 3 civs and half a dozen patches and 30 mods and 100 maps 5 cap ships all so we can play our own way. I hope they do make PMS use actual phase missles, and somehow make Disintegrator more useful. There. We've agreed on changes we would like to see. That's more progress than this type of topic would get most anywhere else, so take it, and smile.

   Umm...  If you are playing Vasari you should be massing Phase Missles so you should be fielding The Vulkoras.  The fact that it is Bristling with Phase Missles is enough to field them.  With Bombers/fighters and 20 assailants plus two Vulkoras you can destroy a fully lvl ten Marza in a single pass..

  Learn to use the Vulkoras before you whine about it... Or just learn to play the game...

  Vasari players worth their salt should be fielding anything with Phase missles as the Vasari can Focus fire enemy fleets into oblivion.... Evacs while nice become redunt when the fleet battles become bigger then one cap ship.  Why?  Because all of their damage will be mitagated by the Shields.  Phase Swarm is used while you are Focus firing an enemy cap ship so you can spread out the damage....

   A proper Vasari fleet should be able to kill all enemy capships in a minute.  

Not trying to get involved with the immature part of this conversation, but as an observation, I had a lot of luck with this ship by building about 3 of them, maxing P.M.S. and the Orbital Assault Platform, and using the Vulkoras as the main attack crew for forward assaults. (Of course Desintigration by level 6 or 7, depending on the need).  This is assuming there is a game worthy of that many capitals, only the <20min games some play random-online forego the need for this.


Initially id use them with modest hit and run squads, or modest local defense groups on multi-star games, until they reached some level of maturity.  Purchasing levels and the level-tech that goes with it helps to speed this along.

By the time I got that many, even an endless swarm from two Hard computers as a testing ground, was quickly wiped out at their home planets.  Concentrated fire from 3 of these ships at level 5+, and the tech for phase missiles, can end capital ships faster than they will turn about to escape.  Not to mention 3 simultanious Desintigrations, Kol or not, its going down damn quick.  Thats a capital ship ender right there, major laughs against level 9/10 Battleships 

As with a few other capital ships, this is not one of those ships that can shine by itself as well.  Its role is a bit too niche for something like that, much like your "Damage Per-Second" class of RPGs.

It doesnt have the "flashy" abilities of some of the support capitals, and the defense abilities of the battleships.  What it does have, is tremendous firepower and good unassisted staying power, multiply their numbers and their role is very well defined ; on the other hand, multiply some of the support capitals and you can overdo it a bit with the support role, not enough staying power or damage delt.  Multiply the battleships and you get good staying power and damage, but not enough of both, which can be countered by support role frigates and capitals.

A squad of 3 or more Vulkoras is easily recognizable, and enemies cannot put nearly enough distance on it when it arrives to do bid'ness, ambush tactics are key here, which we should be used to as Vasari.  It requires tremendous staying power, support, or excessive and unbalanced numbers to take out several of them before they clean house, not an easy task at all, possibly the most powerful group of capitals for seek & destroy in the game.  Im sure in some way the other Dreadnaughts could be used to some effect, but in this case, the Vulkoras has the best of stats I belive.

Another good way to test this is to try heading out to the local pirate haven with 3 of these badboys at level 5+, and see how quickly you squash the fight, frigate assisted or not!

• Great unassisted planet damage (with the bug fix)
  
• Severe building/planet damage by itself
  
• Severe, although channeled, ship to ship damage level 6
  
• Great mix of defense, damage and speed with the right techs (lattice armor, gravity well reduction, and phase misssile tech lines are the key here)
  
• Severe concentrated damage with the right techs
  
• Capable of wiping out large groups of enemies in short order, with 3 or more Vulkoras (remember stars help anti-matter regen tremendously, so engage near them if possible)
  

So there is a lot to love, as a single ship leading the flock, usually its not a good route to go.  But I guarentee building 3 of them or more, you'll be stopping fights before they can even start, which is the whole point of going to war anyway. 

I also noticed those soon-to-be-fixed-bugs with this ship a few months ago, and im very happy it is being fixed! Even more to love.  Thanks Stardock!