Superweapons Necessary?

I agree with most of what you have to say. Superweapons really aren't that useful and are kinda lame to be honest. I've tried out all 3 and while they do bring some interesting tactics to the game I'd much rather be rid of them and have the old PJI's back. Sins doesn't need superweapons, or at least not the ones we currently have. Right now there are 2 ways to win, out-culture (hard) or destroy. It seems like, with superweapons, they were trying to add a third way, out-tech/resource your opponent to the point where you could build these massive weapons and destroy them. That just doesn't work, the weapons are too weak to destroy anyone, to expensive to help a fleet (why build that when I can get 2 capitals?) and, besides the advent one, don't help with culture.

I've built lots of superweapons in the games I've played and I have yet to find much use for them. They seem tacked on, like an afterthought to the excellent fleet combat and planet building the game has...

While I agree PJI need to provide a longer delay, I like the fact that they delay and not totally stop phasing. That said, maybe making it so PJI can totally stop phasing when IN NUMBERS would be okay (I.e. half a planets total Tac slots worth of them?) That way, you can't really turtle, but still stop fleets.

I don't think Superweapons need a nerf. They are part of every RTS because there are stalemates and each race or faction needs an end to stalemates. You can still win without superweapons in SOASE, unlike games like C&C where you will lose very, very hard without them. That and they take so darn long to get that in any non-stalemate game, the player hurredly climbing the tech tree to get them will surely fall because of a lack of any decent military variety and research.

Hiding behind a wall of defenses and just superweapon-ing your opponent into oblivion is "interesting and strategic" and not "an overly cliche RTS element"?

Sigh, I feel old. I remember when the Emperor's Death Hand missile in Dune II was making me break my controller (genesis port) in frustration.

That's why superweapons has been build, powerful and cause fear in everyone unless they has one too! Personal, there alwasys has to be way stop superweapons cause a harm.

I think advent dont have a superweapons, rather they have super mind control or something.

I think it would be more interesting if each race had a super ability rather than a super weapon. Something that could be unlocked at the end of the tech tree. For instance for the vasari something similar to their dark fleet tech but on a larger scale (fills up entire fleet cap to full) for the advent a super mind control weapon giving them control of a planet would be good. For the TEC an ability that massivily shortens the ammount of time it takes to build ships and speeds up trade ships would be nice.

well, mostly the last civilian techs ARE these exact super abilities. not only do vasari get tons of free ships, the also get to see all phase travel. basically almost complete intel. very powerful. tec gets free money (pervasive economy) and free attacks vs all players (insurgency) while advent gets free exp and a bonus to planet allegiance, which helps ecnonomy as well.

no, superweapons are not (the only) reason why pji are nerfed. if you just have to fortify two or three key systems with tons of defenses and a pji or two, attacking becomes effectively impossible. trust me, its not fun.

It's not fun when you can just run past defensive lines and cherry-pick the planets you want to attack. If defensive entrenchments are too hard to break, players should be given more options for breaking them, rather than being allowed to skip them altogether.

And what if they create a sort of special resource for them (pji things) this would mean that the weapon only works if the player has enough of it, or create certain system requirements for them to work. This would create a fight for those certain systems, combine this with the other idea and there is no turtle strategy since the guy has to go out of his shell to eat so to speak.
Of course there are drawbacks. Players will probably only focus on those certain systems which could harm the game. It could work by nerving the power of these things and or by making them vulnerable for something you can research (be it a ship or special power).
Still it's a long shot this will even work, but heck it's an idea.

it really belongs to another thread. try changing around defensive approaches a bit, you find your way.

I had a novalith cannon for about 3 hours in my last game, and it wasnt worth the cost. Boy I would trade 4 novaliths for one pji that actually worked.

furthermore, i think this game needs more defense in general. i noticed in the AAR of my last game that my AI opponent spent zero resources in upgrading planetary tactical capacity. and it also spent very little resources on flak frigates. which tells me that the very logical computer sees little value in both.

That's what happens when you don't let your beta testers actually test the game you intend to release. The Superweapons are lackluster - they are off-grav well support weapons more than galaxy devouring doomsday machines. To nerf the very important PJI's because of those is just ridiculous - and even more so because everyone would have told them not to do that if they had actually tried it in the beta.

The Beta PJIs were lame even without superweapons.

While I agree that there would definitely need to be some sort of balance in this scenario, I think that stardock is intelligent enough to come up with methods of avoiding problems like this. Maybe they could make one of the superweapons some form of EMP bomb that would make all defensive structures near a planet turn off for like 3 minutes or something. Wouldn't that make things more interesting rather than having PJI being mostly worthless, and the superweapons being completely lackluster?

This makes perfect sense. Great suggestion.

Make PJIs work, but introduce a way of countering heavy defenses.

Why does everyone hate turtling? It only works so long and CAN be broken. Just concentrate attacks on the PJI and when it blows move on and start trashing their econ.

I know, it's almost like they want the game to have only 1 strategy and for those of us who prefer to defend ourselves to get kicked out of the game. Turtling, Booming, and Rushing are all legitimate strategies and should all be encouraged, for a good example of a game that does that just look at Age of Empires. Their guide lists the 3 tactics and gives you examples of how to best play them.

I say just get rid of the superweapons, or allow a way to disable them at least, and then add in the old PJI's again. If you can't break through your opponent's chokepoint planet then, you know what, that means your opponent poured a lot into that defense and is being rewarded for it. If I choose to spend 2 fleets worth of resources on my defenses then they had better well be able to handle 1 fleet on their own.

I played in Beta from the start and I turtled. The old PJI's were my best friend, combine with lots of hangers and a couple of ships I had 'perfect' defenses at my 1 to 3 choke point planets. You know what? They computer still managed to break through occasionally! Fancy that, rather than simply running by to own my rear planets it was perfectly capable back then of building a fleet that could get through the supposedly overpowered PJI's and destroy my rear planets. I lost more games in beta than I've lost since release, and I've been playing pretty much the same way. The difference is that the AI, and a lot of players, simply run past my defenses, which gets a lot of their ships killed for no good cause.

Last time I looked at my history the Allies at Omaha didn't whine about the German defenses and then just run through them, they brought a huge force, used decoys to draw off the main German force, and then broke through the defenses. If that battle had been conducted like most are in SOSE they would have simply brought as many explosives as they could, run through the German defenses which would have killed maybe 12 soldiers, and then wreaked havok throughout the countryside until the German army showed up, and then done it a couple more times before one or the other was destroyed...

Good points, I too loved the old PJI's I miss them. I did not see a reason to remove them.

@ emp bomb: I am pretty sure this is how the vasari superweapon is supposed to work. it doesnt do much damage, but disables structures. except that the effect needs to be a lot longer.

for defenses: guys, its not fleet vs defense, it is fleet vs defense + fleet. what happens with permament pjis is that you have to fight not only defenses but a very sizeable fleet as well. any decent opponent will see an attack fleet early enough to get a good sized fleet into position and then breaking through is very hard. the result is that any sort of offensive movement is rendered futile and the game results in a stalemate.

do the following: develop your planets hp (infrastructure), throw in one or two repair centres and a few gauss canons. then position your fleet a jump or two away. the defenses will buy you some time to get your ships into defenses plus give you a place to retreat to for battle repairs and give you a little extra power. spread defenses out a bit, use them for what they truly are - delayer and support i.e. a little extra firepower - and you will be fine.

I try not to be too arrogant or anything. I am just telling you my experiences with the other system and why for many people it is not working either. and I am pointing you out a way to use the current system.

If they could make it fair i realy would like to be able to stop enemy ships. I mean if they could make it work, having an offencive stucture be able to something(as i have seen others say similar things), or mabey have it cost mass(it might be called something else i forget the name right now), maby if they have one active they can't see enemy ships coming, or a combonation of things. Anyway if they make it work it would be worth it.

If they wanted to keep turtling fair and in the game, they could mabey have that Super Weapons and Turtling not work togeather.


"I know, it's almost like they want the game to have only 1 strategy and for those of us who prefer to defend ourselves to get kicked out of the game. Turtling, Booming, and Rushing are all legitimate strategies and should all be encouraged, for a good example of a game that does that just look at Age of Empires. Their guide lists the 3 tactics and gives you examples of how to best play them.

I say just get rid of the superweapons, or allow a way to disable them at least, and then add in the old PJI's again. If you can't break through your opponent's chokepoint planet then, you know what, that means your opponent poured a lot into that defense and is being rewarded for it. If I choose to spend 2 fleets worth of resources on my defenses then they had better well be able to handle 1 fleet on their own.

I played in Beta from the start and I turtled. The old PJI's were my best friend, combine with lots of hangers and a couple of ships I had 'perfect' defenses at my 1 to 3 choke point planets. You know what? They computer still managed to break through occasionally! Fancy that, rather than simply running by to own my rear planets it was perfectly capable back then of building a fleet that could get through the supposedly overpowered PJI's and destroy my rear planets. I lost more games in beta than I've lost since release, and I've been playing pretty much the same way. The difference is that the AI, and a lot of players, simply run past my defenses, which gets a lot of their ships killed for no good cause.

Last time I looked at my history the Allies at Omaha didn't whine about the German defenses and then just run through them, they brought a huge force, used decoys to draw off the main German force, and then broke through the defenses. If that battle had been conducted like most are in SOSE they would have simply brought as many explosives as they could, run through the German defenses which would have killed maybe 12 soldiers, and then wreaked havok throughout the countryside until the German army showed up, and then done it a couple more times before one or the other was destroyed... "

This guy is right, but if they could use both it would be great.

This game replaces turtling with phase jumping. I would have definitely traded a heavily defended, turtled ai opponent for the one i spent several hours chasing in my last game.

I was just saying that that was the reason the devs decided to change the PJI's in the final version. I think turtling is definitely viable option, and I agree that superweapons need to go or need a complete re-thinking.

And to shadowhal, I know that there would be problems with the PJI's being permanent but all I'm saying is that the devs should be able to come up with more creative ways around these problems that all of us are bringing up. I definitely think an emp bomb would be a viable option, but hell, it's the future, why don't the devs think up some crazy weapon never heard of in an RTS. that'd be cool. It's just that the superweapons feel so cliche and out of place, while the original PJI's seemed to be a perfect addition to SOASE.

There are TONS of options!

Out of curiosity, why is turtling considered a "valid tactic" ?

Can you win the game any other way than killing your opponent?

Cause you can sit back and build a nice defense, then build up a strike force and then kick some butt. That's the general idea.

alright, noted. if anyone finds a good way to make pjis work like in old without the stalemate thing, I'm listening. though its not the pji in specific, but the very philosophy of what role defenses should play, how they should be applied and so on and I have trouble imagining how something so fundamental to gameplay could be changed to the better. and dont get me wrong, I am a defensive player myself, I usually build up a long time before moving to attack, the difference is that my defence relies mostly on fleets not on static structure. but check out the "garrison ship" thread, I will make a post there in a sec.