Much better, thank you!

I suppose it's a retorical question but I'll answer anyway: because the carriers are nothing but mobile factories, while the bombers do the actual fighting. Therefore bombers act more like combat units than the carriers themselves. Therefore, in terms of resources, it would make sense if bombers cost resources just like the units they engage. That would me a more "honest" exchange of risk of investment.

At the moment, in order to destroy the carriers, units will have to leave their defensive positions (and the support of repair bays) and engage the carriers at the edge of the gravity well. The defender thus becomes the attacker and the attacker becomes a defender.

This is a strange situation, which is mainly caused by the need to defeat the huge "enemy base" that has just invaded your territory. And that "base" can create units at zero resource cost and send them to destroy your units if you choose NOT to engage them and to hold your defensive positions. Basically, it destroys the whole concept of "defensive" and trying to wear your opponent down ... you know, instead the attacker wears the defenders down (unless the defender also has bombers of course).

(Feel free to launch your fighters against this point of view).

Because compared to their power bomber carriers are quite cheap.

The fighter VS bomber balancing is RUINED!

Why are Vasari bombers such an issue? Can't you just spam fighters against them?

I'm guessing he would be including anti-strikecraft capital ships (Kols, Halcyons, Kortuls), perhaps other capital ships that affect the strikecraft war (Raptures, Skirantras, Dunovs), and perhaps starbases (which are a big bomber target along with caps) and support cruisers, instead of just groups of light carriers trying to kill each other.

I still think Vasari will win that contest though. Kortuls and Overseers may give them an even bigger win.

True about the Rapture. It's a shame. Wish Vertigo affected strikecraft.

Then again, wish Suppression Aura affected them, wish Flak Burst would actually do something to debuff them, and that Telekinetic Push would work something more like Repulsion. Presently Advent and TEC abilities just don't affect strikecraft, or need a fair bit of micro (Flak, TKPush) to be effective and can be counter-microed by the enemy bomber user (multiple groups making passes, etc). Also I don't know whether Inspire & Impair does anything to strikecraft but I'm guessing it doesn't (and it needs a level 6 Ankylon anyway).

Jam Weapons can't exactly be counter-microed; all you can do is try to disable or kill the toughass Kortul. And Repair Cloud does affect strikecraft.

So yeah... I don't think complicated tests are going to alter the existing consensus on which faction has the best strikecraft package - that would be Vasari, followed by Advent and then TEC.

But it might be useful in fighter-vs-bomber composition comparisons. Like, when capital abilities and such are factored in, how does a 100% fighter composition fare, or a 67% fighter, 33% fighter, or 0% fighter (all-bomber), against a different composition from the same faction. I'd imagine that in combination with Jam Weapons or TK Push, partially fighter compositions may be more viable than 100% bombers.

Well we can imagine a fun world where Vertigo and Vengeance worked on strikecraft, and where Animosity worked properly and TK Push was a Repulsion field for strikecraft instead of just a momentary shoo.... a world where synergy could face down the bomber horde.

A world of dreams and mods.
Psintegrat of such caliber have not been seen since the olden days of vanilla and the whack OP battleballs of legend.

I know, I was just noting how pretty much Advent and TEC have no cap abilities that help their SC and each have only one desperate ability that hurts enemy SC, but Vasari have two very useful SC-affecting AoE abilities to themselves.

I'm guessing the carrier capitals would have to kite around and the Kols would be pretty much screwed if the Kortuls were let loose.

If anyone's fighters will be useful I would guess it's the Vasari's. Because Jam Weapons doesn't kill anything but it sets the stage for V's fighters to clean house.

Regarding the so-called Vasari dominance... I've seen some pro replays and the frontline Vasari [inevitably, IMHO] get their butts kicked. My sandbox tests point to the same. The Vasari don't get resources from nothing. Their inefficient use of fleet supply (by design) makes their fleet worse than any TEC/Advent counterpart, except perhaps for late-game bomber spam; I hardly ever get to that point in my games vs. the AI, so I'm not going to comment on that.

Earlier, because of econ constraints you can't have uber Orkies built and simultaneously a comparable fleet supply used as the TEC/Advent enemy. In the pro games I've seen the Vasari either go for some vettes + Orkies everywhere (and lose) or go for regular fleet plus fewer Orkies much later (and also lose). A skilled player will trash the Vasari econ by going after its resources etc. See how sinkillr raided and trashed planet after planet in his match with jbaum (https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/454491/page/1/). Poor jbaum couldn't build enough Orkies, and his low-level ones started to go bang once the TEC fleet reached critical numbers around the half-hour mark. And sinkillr was actually pretty conservative with his attack on Orkies there. My sanbox testing indicates he could have trashed those Orkies earlier, with less fleet. Until they get Phase stabilizers, so they can reinforce with their (smaller & less efficient) fleet quickly anywhere, the Vasari are more or less the Maginot line (gambit)... easily bypassed defenses, crippled econ, and eventually their big guns busted. Their repair platform is so pitiful you pretty much need to rush Overseers to keep any structures alive even from a 250-supply enemy fleet... and Overseers are anything but a cheap solution (L4), but at least they can come as reinforcements from another system. (The local frigate factories won't last long.) And Ruiner mines are way inefficient for their cost, never mind the super-fast XP they gift enemy cap ships (10 XP per mine, when a TEC/Advent corvette gives 8 and the Vasari one 12? What were the devs thinking?) Look at a game in the same thread to see ooloo waste lotsa resource on mines trying to establish a beachhead and losing badly--ending up in a position where he had no fleet and backwater Orkies that would have been easily steamrolled by the fleet gathered (again) by sinkillr, who had minimal losses despite the 75-100 mines deployed [over 50 were in action at one point, but there were several waves]. And ooloo did his best to keep away scouts with his corvettes but ultimately only compounded his losses that way.

Vasari anti-bomber hangar defenses (Phasic Trap) is a problem if all you can think to attack them with is bomber or fighter spam...  A 250-fleet supply consisting of Prog (level 2) + 50 Disciples trashes 4 Vasari repair platforms (all in range of each other, so they can mutually repair) while an Orky is wailing on them and the Advent gets away with no losses basically. Even if you add a Skira to massively boost the Vasari repair rate, the aforementioned Advent fleet still kills three bays before incurring any losses. How many hangars is the Vasari going to have at a planet, given that they take twice the tac slots of a repair bay? I'd like to see a recording of a "pro" Vasari using this allegedly uncounterable hangar spam vs. another skilled player...

Disruptive Nanites does not appear at all overpowered to me. Currently BuffStopRegenTarget (which is what the phase missile platform eventually/indirectly casts on its targets) only lasts 60 seconds after the last impact, not 5 minutes; maybe it was nerfed already? Without it you can steamroll the Vasari much easier with cap ships that have repair auras/AoE (like the Prog), unless a Kortul is present; see my latest Orky test https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/454588/page/1/#3470653. A nerf to DN like making AM regen on the target (Prog) start again right away after moving only slightly out of range would make the Kortul the only Vasari cap ship worth building. DN needs to last for a while to be worthwhile because the turret can't move so it can't chase the target at all. Otherwise you can dash into the fight/range with the Prog, cast Shield Restore, then dash out with the cap ship and its AM regen will be basically unaffected (10%-15% slowdown at the most). So one minute seems about right for DN to be effective.

The Vasari do need some fixes, but those are stuff like making their 2nd BB (Rankulas) be something other than a complete piece of crap, etc. The Rankulas easily wins the spot as the most useless cap ship in the game, IMHO.

Sb rushes are not hard at all to counter. The key to defeating the race is to go on the attack yourself, attacking everywhere to force them to SB everything which spreads their money thin.

The fleet cap is not a "direct" nerf.

It just forces the vasari to up their fleet cap as the game goes on. Something you can ignore now.

What other race can survive to late game in front line position with 1 fleet cap upgrade?

And then fleet up titan and bomber blob with all the feed that will come tax free?

The vasari is most cost effective race, you need to more skilled person to win against vasari, with equally skilled, vasari wins most of the time.

That is called "imbalance" in any other game.

HA HA no.

Vasari is only hard if you are less than 2 jumps away from COMPETENT player.

Anything else, and vasari is easy mode.