Wow, lots of questions. One answer. It's their "super weapon" that you achieve through their military branch of the tech tree.

I think.

I don't play Vasari right now, but you can see it by looking at the tech tree.

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.

Its not their super weapon.
The Vasari super weapon is a disabling cannon which disables buildings for a few minutes and ships for a few seconds around a planet.

The technology the OP means is called Returning Armada.
Its a high end tech.
The different names come from the lore explanation, which is that the Vasari call in surviving ships of the dark fleet or dark armada.

Only phase gates can use the ability.

It has to be researched in the imperial tech tree.

Every phase gate can use it and starts with it on autocast if you researched it.

It is good because it gives you free ships in regular intervals per phase gate.

You use it by using the ships it gives you

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.

You'll also notice a lot of comments like this on these boards - either from people who know something I don't about using Returning Armada or haven't actually played Vasari very much.

It's a powerful ability, but by no means an 'I win' button.

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????

If you're losing loads of ships, your supply will come back up to reflect that. If a fleet is demolished, and your supply is STILL negative, that means you've got a boatload of ships SOMEWHERE that you can still use.

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.

Lord Allen,
I have strickly played the Vasari, and can tell you that you can shut off the phase gate's ability by turning off the autocast. Just select the gate, then click the button and your done. When your ships get killed off, the ship cap will go back to normal, allowing you to build more ships. I had the same problem, and this fixed everything. It is a cool tech though, epsecially if you need ships and are low on cash and need to defend your planets.

DANMAN

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.

Actually at this point I only had about 25 supply and had not upgraded for additional supply it ate that up to -4. I saved the game and decided to upgrade to the next level and just watch what happens, and it began using it up again and sending ships to the 3 planets I have stabilizers at. At that point I just quit the game without saving and decided to check with the guru's here about the problem...

Thanks.

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

well, i am also a strictly vassari player and i actually did unlock the returning armada on my first game, the upgrade is very hard and expensive to get to but defenetly worth it, i built a phase stabelizer on one of my frontal planets and just kept getting the returning armada to back up my main fleet who was in the middle of a huge battle, so the dark fleet helped me to win, i would say that it is a partial easy button to winning

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+.

Transporters are also summoned.