discovered some issues which hinder my game play

from Sins Forums

hello, i have been playing sins diplomacy now for over a year and have discovered a couple issues which have carried over to rebellion

 

i play the TEC a lot, and occasionally the Vasari, i have become frustrated at the 'auto cast' function of many abilities, mainly the repair function of the TEC repair cruiser, the TEC repair station and the Vasari Reintegration ability

firstly i find the AI controlling when and where to use the autocast is pretty damn stupid, infact its downright insane, take this example encounter

i have a colony, its fully upgraded defensively, i have an argonov starbase, fully upgraded, weapons and hp/shield wise, i have 3 upto 6 repair stations based on size of planet and its tactical cap, and a few hangar bases and then the rest of my points are spent on gauss turrets, all of these additional tactical units are fully upgraded. an enemy fleet jumps in, there are some 40-50 ships in this fleet, a few capital ships. but mainly the mainline cruiser for race and a handful of support ships, the argonov seems to attract their main focus, and is engaging everything it can lock on with, the gause turrets are supporting, but their firepower lets be honest is crap, the argonov loses shields, and is taking hit point loss, the gause turrets, and other structures like research stations, trade ports and broadcast centers are taking secondary fire, WHAT DO THE REPAIR STATIONS/SHIPS DO, do they repair the argonov, the main target in the enemy attack, NO, do they repair any of the gauss turrets being hit, NO, do they hit any of the tactical structures taking hits, including other repair stations/ships nearby, NO, they repair the civilian structures first.  this for me is outrageous, ok the common soldier might put civilian livelihoods ahead of other soldiers, its an honour thing, but when that argonov falls, to no support from the structures behind it, that were put there to support it, that colony is wiped out....are these AI choices deliberate, do i have to physically babysit every unit in my entire armada, every colony and tell it specifically what to do next, if so, why the hell do we have an autocast?

the list of stupid AI choices goes on, the Dunov Battlecruiser, shield restore, awesome ability but the cruiser would rather cast it on a 'expendable' ship like a javelin or one of those flimsy fast moving corvettes that came with rebellion than save a fellow capital ship from destruction i mean, do i want to risk losing a ship that costs 200 cash to buy or something that costs 3000 plus resources, plus potentially hours of grinding

i am a defensive orientated person, who doesnt believe in throwing an armada at the wolves cos i can just replace it, i like to have a fleet that can endure countless enemy assaults, colonies that just say "bring it on" but these units that are meant to be helping my survivablity just arent doing their jobs

 

the Vasari have their problems with self repair also, the reintegration ability, simply refuses to work, the autocast function is turned on, but the ships will constantly without fail if left unsupervised by me, to just simply die rather than self repair, i have to personally move from ship to ship telling each individual ship to use their ability, because they refuse to activiate it automatically, personally i think you should be able to set a damage % threshold that you want your ships to activate it, but thats your call (25%, 50%, 75% for example). i have noticed on the new Vasari capital ship, the repair nanites, just sit there and do nothing unless yet again you the player tell them to, even with their autocast enabled

and my last point, what is it with these AI's that think when i set the game to SMALL fleets, it just doesnt bother forming one, and sends over 500 ships in one armada at the same time to the same target, i mean, i want a challenge, but that is ridiculous powerplaying

i dont like the advent, so have not experienced issues with them, they can die for all i care =)

 

please look into these issues, and do something about them

 

thanks for reading

//
technical
3,641 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

If you're getting sick of autocast being dumb, do it yourself.  ;P

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Volt_Cruelerz, reply 1
If you're getting sick of autocast being dumb, do it yourself.
End of Volt_Cruelerz's quote

Sad but true...autocast "dumbness" has been an issue since vanilla sins...there have been some improvements over the years (charged missiles being one example) but in general you are always better microing...of course, on faster speed in competitive games where you may fight on multiple fronts, that's easier send than done...

Unfortunately, skill/execution isn't the only issue here...lag and empire tree issues sometimes make it near impossible to micro units effectively...you can give basic move orders and maybe handle some titan/cap abilties, but trying to line up individual repair cruisers is a pain and takes too long...furthermore, you increase the chance of misclicks...about the only two non titan/cap abilities really worth microing in those situations are repulse and designate target...if you can get a repair cruiser to cooperate awesome but good luck with that during late game lag...

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

A few points to note:


hello, i have been playing sins diplomacy now for over a year and have discovered a couple issues which have carried over to rebellion

 

i play the TEC a lot, and occasionally the Vasari, i have become frustrated at the 'auto cast' function of many abilities, mainly the repair function of the TEC repair cruiser, the TEC repair station and the Vasari Reintegration ability

firstly i find the AI controlling when and where to use the autocast is pretty damn stupid, infact its downright insane, take this example encounter

i have a colony, its fully upgraded defensively, i have an argonov starbase, fully upgraded, weapons and hp/shield wise, i have 3 upto 6 repair stations based on size of planet and its tactical cap, and a few hangar bases and then the rest of my points are spent on gauss turrets, all of these additional tactical units are fully upgraded. an enemy fleet jumps in, there are some 40-50 ships in this fleet, a few capital ships. but mainly the mainline cruiser for race and a handful of support ships, the argonov seems to attract their main focus, and is engaging everything it can lock on with, the gause turrets are supporting, but their firepower lets be honest is crap, the argonov loses shields, and is taking hit point loss, the gause turrets, and other structures like research stations, trade ports and broadcast centers are taking secondary fire, WHAT DO THE REPAIR STATIONS/SHIPS DO, do they repair the argonov, the main target in the enemy attack, NO, do they repair any of the gauss turrets being hit, NO, do they hit any of the tactical structures taking hits, including other repair stations/ships nearby, NO, they repair the civilian structures first.  this for me is outrageous, ok the common soldier might put civilian livelihoods ahead of other soldiers, its an honour thing, but when that argonov falls, to no support from the structures behind it, that were put there to support it, that colony is wiped out....are these AI choices deliberate, do i have to physically babysit every unit in my entire armada, every colony and tell it specifically what to do next, if so, why the hell do we have an autocast?

End of quote

It's very likely the starbase was also being healed.  A given unit can only be healed by a single repair bay at a time, and a given repair bay can heal 2 units at a time due to cooldown/duration of the heal.

no matter hwo many repair bays you build, your starbase will never heal faster faster then 40 hull/sec when fully teched.  I suspect if you had several repair bays as your implied at least one of them must have been healing the starbase- the enemy fleet was likely just causing it to lose more then 40 hull per second.


the list of stupid AI choices goes on, the Dunov Battlecruiser, shield restore, awesome ability but the cruiser would rather cast it on a 'expendable' ship like a javelin or one of those flimsy fast moving corvettes that came with rebellion than save a fellow capital ship from destruction i mean, do i want to risk losing a ship that costs 200 cash to buy or something that costs 3000 plus resources, plus potentially hours of grinding

End of quote

Honestly you really should not be leaving capitalship abilities on autocast at the very least.  Sins is a relatively micro-light RTS in which fights progress at a very reasonable speed, while I understand you may prefer nto to micro every little ship it's not all that difficult to manually use all capitalship abilities.



i am a defensive orientated person, who doesnt believe in throwing an armada at the wolves cos i can just replace it, i like to have a fleet that can endure countless enemy assaults, colonies that just say "bring it on" but these units that are meant to be helping my survivablity just arent doing their jobs

End of quote

Methinks you may be playing the wrong faction.  The TEC are all about having a strong economy so that they can apply early pressure and win a war of attrition in the long run.   If you want your fleet to be nigh invincible Advent may be more up your alley.  Heck, if you like waiting til the late game then rolling your opponent maybe the vasari is for you as they have the strongest super late game by and large(and are less micro-intensive then the advent).

 

 

That aside Hoshikos are incredible- by far the best early game support ship in the game, and fairly good late game too.  They are an essential part of any TEC fleet.   The same goes for Repair bays, but here's the thing: neither are supposed to be able to make your fleet invincible with zero micro.  They slow the damage your fleet is taking on a fairly wide scale early game(especially Hoshikos which can maitain it's heal on several units at a time).

 They are however not best suited to negating late game focusfire, as pasta  certain point an enemy fleet will start deal more damage per second then they can heal.  WHile the heal over time from repair bays and Hoshikos do stack with each other, neither stacks with it's self, so multiple hoshikos or multiple repair bays cannot simultaneously heal a  single ship.

 

The result is as I'd said, both are better suited to dealing with early game focusfire or late game widescale damage then late game focusfire-That's more the Vasari support frigate's schtick.


 

the Vasari have their problems with self repair also, the reintegration ability, simply refuses to work, the autocast function is turned on, but the ships will constantly without fail if left unsupervised by me, to just simply die rather than self repair, i have to personally move from ship to ship telling each individual ship to use their ability, because they refuse to activiate it automatically, personally i think you should be able to set a damage % threshold that you want your ships to activate it, but thats your call (25%, 50%, 75% for example). i have noticed on the new Vasari capital ship, the repair nanites, just sit there and do nothing unless yet again you the player tell them to, even with their autocast enabled
End of quote

Well I agree more here: they really do need to add a way to order whole groups of targeted ships to use an ability.  At present the best recourse we have is TAB spamming, which gets old fast.


and my last point, what is it with these AI's that think when i set the game to SMALL fleets, it just doesnt bother forming one, and sends over 500 ships in one armada at the same time to the same target, i mean, i want a challenge, but that is ridiculous powerplaying

End of quote

I think the fleet size setting just changes the amount of fleet supply available, which is to say how many ships a player can have total.  I don't think it does anything to adjust AI.


i dont like the advent, so have not experienced issues with them, they can die for all i care

End of quote

You'll be assimilated sooner or later.


 

please look into these issues, and do something about them

 

thanks for reading

//

End of quote

 

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Maybe I'm a bit behind the times in RTS' these days, but I was surprised everything in Sins could be autocasted, even if occasionally it doesn't pick great targets. In the old days you had to manually use every special ability... :S

 the repair nanites, just sit there and do nothing unless yet again you the player tell them to, even with their autocast enabled

The Vasari repair nanites and overseer cruiser do instant repairs, not the overtime repairs like the TEC ones. So you don't see a +20 HP per second thing. Are you absolutely sure they don't do anything?

Quoting bilun, reply 3
Methinks you may be playing the wrong faction. The TEC are all about having a strong economy so that they can apply early pressure and win a war of attrition in the long run. If you want your fleet to be nigh invincible Advent may be more up your alley. Heck, if you like waiting til the late game then rolling your opponent maybe the vasari is for you as they have the strongest super late game by and large(and are less micro-intensive then the advent).
End of bilun's quote

Well the TEC Loyalists are the best in defending planets. But you're right, TC if you play any TEC faction, you are going to lose ships. They do not have the synergies to allow them to win even match fights unscathed. They need to win by economic superiority and superior raw stats. If you're fighting Advent and Vasari ships 1:1 you will be at a disadvantage, and need to compensate by replacing your ships more quickly, or preventing their ability to replace theirs with abilities like Embargo and the Novalith cannon.

As mentioned, the Advent are probably the best faction to go in to a battle and with careful use of their special abilities and lose barely any ships. Of course this requires even better handles of abilities yourself, you really can't trust the autocast on your capitalships with them.

Quoting bilun, reply 3
You'll be assimilated sooner or later.
End of bilun's quote

Clearly you don't like the Advent either. The term a true follower of the unity would use in "converted".

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 5
Clearly you don't like the Advent either. The term a true follower of the unity would use in "converted".
End of GoaFan77's quote

 

I am ashamed.

 

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 5
The Vasari repair nanites and overseer cruiser do instant repairs, not the overtime repairs like the TEC ones. So you don't see a +20 HP per second thing. Are you absolutely sure they don't do anything?
End of GoaFan77's quote

Here's my guess, he's got them all in a fleet and he's continually giving them attack orders...

Overseers must face their target in order to use their ability, so if you keep giving move or attack orders to them, they'll never get to use their ability...I suggest not selecting an entire fleet or all the units in a gravity, but selecting units by type...this can be done with an alt + click, a hotkey set in the keybindings, or the empire tree (with max stacked size set to something much larger than 10 in the settings file)...

Similar things I suppose could happen to the nanite swarms, though that is odd with the skirmisher/enforcer...should autocast once 50% hull damage is taken, and ai use time is anytime so it shouldn't matter if they are in combat or not...however, move or attack orders I suppose could screw this up since activating the ability disables weapons and movement....