i dont know about free, but i deffinitly support an option to make techs cheeper (or more expencive) for multiplayer games. right now they take tooo long and i think this would be a really good way to get more ships fighting sooner... wich is why we play the game

I fourth this motion if not free just cheaper or optionable. I think this has also been mention before but have a begining tech option which you can set which lvl you start at.

This is stupid lol. They should always cost something. Its not free to fun research teams but maby you could have an option for only frigs or everything fully researched

Agree. Ther should be some speed settings like 100% 150% 200% that would afect research speed, bilding speed, ...

scientific anomalies that you can build a research station on to increase your research discount.

I say just get rid of research costs as an option to speed up MP games, it is a possibly easy solution to increasing game speed. How do you honestly know it works until it has been tried? If it doesn't work out it isn't the end of the world, and it is our job to test this.



Yea, there is quite a bit of free time, but I don't want to fill it up, I want to get rid of it so I don't have to play a 3 hr long multiplayer game, like I said. If it is an option, it wont affect you.

I've thought about both scenerios, and I would do the same with or without costs. As it is now I know which techs I want in what order, I would queue em all up if I had the money. There would still be the same amount of strategy, at least in my case because money doesn't affect my research decisions. If I want something then I have to save up, that takes time out of the game that I would rather have doing something else.

HW has free reaserch, and it is very good, and very tacticly in-depth, you know that your enimy is reaserching just as fast as you, so you have to reaserch something that will counter what he is reaserching (I personly was nvr good at predecting my enimies stratigy)

and reaserch will nvr be completly free, the reaserch stations themselves cost a good deal in the beggining of the game.

I think we need a slider, where it goes from completly free, to un-belivably expensive.

This bar would be set by the person who makes the game, at the beggening.

the 4x could go very expensive, and RTS ppl can go somewhat cheap, noobs and other ppl simaler to me will go completely free.



This would be awsome, both 4x and rtsers will be free, one more ground-breaking idea for sins.


I also like the idea of a speed selection slider for the same reasons, keep BOTH groups happay, I don't belive it is possible to combine two good things to make one great thing, I do like the idea where the gamer, can shape his game, now THAT is epic.

I think making research free, or much simpler/easier/faster than it is now would be a terrible idea. Why, like a lot of people said, is because it lessens strategy and dumbs it down. Right now you actually have choices to make. In the beginning, do you build ships and rely on numbers and combined firepower, or do you take the risk to set up a research infrastructure and have stronger ships/planets but fewer? There's room for both, as someone who rushes to build lots of low tech ships might have more numbers, but by the time he gets around to attacking you, you may meet his fleet of Cobalts with your own mini fleet of Kodiaks and make him turn tail and run.

The thing is, I don't think we're *meant* to be able to research everything unless the game is incredibly long, as with many things it reduces variery and makes everything predictable. Right now for reasonable-length games you're forced to choose exactly what you want/need because you can't get everything. Do you take the time to research your light carriers, or do you attempt to make do without and hopefully be faster than the other guy? Do you risk spending lots of money/logistics to get those Kodiaks, or do you set up trade posts instead and build a larger fleet of weaker ships?

Choices, options, and variety are what make multiplayer games interesting because you never know what the other guy is going to do next. Taking that away will make it boring easily.

My vote: Leave it the way it is. If the pace of MP games is increased, the pace of research will increase along with it, and that will be enough.

To address the whole "C&C in space" issue: this is not meant to be a C&C style game. It's not a build-your-base and whack the other guy game. It's, at the heart of it, and empire building game and by nature those are meant to be longer. It is not Homeworld. Homeworld had great elements, but it was meant to be a very fast paced game, this is not. Trying to shape Sins into a game where you can have 40 minute MP matches with maxed out fleets would ruin the concept of the game. As it is, you can finish a 4 player game in 2-3 hours on the right map, and that's perfectly reasonable. It is not the fault of the game if everyone sits around and tries to max out all the research, planet improvements, and fleets before attacking, it is an issue with the way people play. There's a good reason that siege frigates are tier 1 research and they are very, very effective. With a few of them, it is *quite* easy to blitzkrieg early into the game. If anything, there should just be more smaller maps so people who don't have a lot of time have good variety of maps to choose from, and those who have more time have the same variety with bigger maps.

I can manage it with working full time, postgraduate study AND raising child and dog, so that's hardly an issue - depending on what you are studying, of course. It's just time management, one three hour game takes up as much time as three on hour games.

The point, surely, is that for those who want or can only manage shorter online games there isn't exactly a shortage of alternatives. There are several for those who prefer more draw-out turn based games, too. SotSE offers something unique as a balance between the two - it would be a huge shame to throw that away to satisfy one crowd or the other. Point taken on options, but I still think that will divide the online community too much.

I don't have any problem with modding.

Just don't ask the devs to throw it into the "vanilla" game.

Not really -- my last game I barely had any defenses, its just that it takes too much time to build up the economy needed to build a fleet capable of crushing an opponent, if he's even slightly capable.

Depends on what you do, I guess. The first thing I usually research is ice planet colonization (if I have those near me), then trade outposts, and I build a trade outpost on every planet I control. Even with 4 planets, the income from trade ships adds quite a bit of income I find.

Also, again, I'm posting this argument with the assumption that the general pace of the game will be increased in some manner, as the devs said they're looking into it. Whether it's just speeding up resource gathering or speeding up everything. That will help a lot.

I actually timed the difference between a single player game and a typical MP game (I've yet to see one without the jerky movement/lag, so that's typical for me). In an SP game, it took 1 minute 40 seconds just about to gain 50 antimatter on my colony ship. In a multiplayer game, it took slightly over 2 and a half minutes to gain the same 50. That's a huge difference for a little lag. The part that worries me is that presumably everyone's hosting on either DSL or Cable, which shouldn't in theory be laggy like that.

But anyway, I think a lot of people are panicing with the current pace, and proposing some pretty drastic changes that I think are unnecessary. I say wait until the devs do what they do with the game pace, and then we'll see how much it improves.

Also, it doesn't take that much to build up a "fleet", a single cap ship, 10ish Cobalts and 10ish LRMs can do a lot of damage if accompanied by a couple of siege frigates. That's not a huge fleet, nor does it take huge amounts of resources to build. Presumably you will be attacking while your opponent's fleet is tied up somewhere else

The main problem with this is Sins just doesn't has the content. There isn't enough things to do to occupy one long enough. Currently in a typical Sins match, I've things to do the first five minutes and after that there is something occasionally to do every other minute, leaving me bored for the rest of the time. In the late game it's even worse, there are times when I have nothing to do for 5 minutes, then give some fleet commands and wait another five minutes doing nothing. There is just not much in Sins that need managing during the game (which isn't necessary a bad thing, but...)

I've even started reading books while playing late game Sins matches.

The battles are currently the only thing that are time intensive. I need to micromanage them, because the AI sucks at doing this for me. So, the most exciting thing in Sins currently are the battles. No wonder people demand faster games, if important battles only happen after half an hour and then every 15 minutes (yeah, I'm exaggerating a bit, but you get the drift).


I personally don't have any problems playing 3 hours straight, if (a big if) there is something to do for 3 hours. But if those 3 hours are mostly spent watching fleets jumping from one planet to the other, or waiting until I get enough resources to research something, it's not much fun.