Astatine

Reply to Is this game worth getting if im only a single player? in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

Yes, I think the game is a good singleplayer purchase. However, you need to be comfortable with both the classic 4X game style of things like Master of Orion and the fast paced style of RTS games like Age of Empires or Supreme Commander. The unique merit of SoaSE is the unusual combination of elements, but if you hate either genre you will find things in SoaSE you don't like. You can have a lot of fun just with 3 AI players on a medium random map. That's what I would recommend for singl

Reply to Balance Issue: Pirates in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

The pirates can, and do, attack more than one person at a time. Those little sword icons next to players names in the auction list show who is still fighting off a pirate attack. Only one attack launches per auction, but with travel time and other factors, it is quite possible for there to be more than one pirate armada outside the base. I've seen 3 out of 4 players engaged simultaneously. One thing that people often overlook is that it is not just the pirates that are motivate

Reply to It's a pity you can't really queue up stuff much in advance in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

Right-click is already in use for reducing the number of ships ordered or cancelling research. Shift-click is already in use for queueing larger quantities. That's why I suggested control-click.

Reply to It's a pity you can't really queue up stuff much in advance in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

[quote] It would just be nice to have a way to tell the program, "hey, as long as the cash holds out, would you kindly produce 8 of these things?"[/quote] Well, I think it would be possible to add that much.. but once you allow that style of future production order things get complicated if the player places more than one order. We could have a control-click on ship production mean "produce this once resources are available" and that would be fine, but if the player control-cli

Reply to Why doesnt the Advent have a refinery? in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

[quote]How much of a bonus is it? I tried this in a game against an easy Comp to just experiment around with the game and when I switched the trade ports to boost crystal/metal in the sector, it was only a small .2 or .3 bonus. Is that amount correct or does it maybe ramp up and I just didn't notice or something else I'm missing?[/quote] Each trade station works just like a refinery except that it does not send ships to asteroids outside the local gravity well. The benefit is approximat

Reply to [Detailed questions on Tradeports and BroadcastCenters] in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

[quote]How can you tell how much culture you control? I just finished a game where all phase lanes were green and I owned all planets (minus the last enemy one) and all the planets I owned had allegiance as high as it could go. But on the recap screen it told me that I only had 50% of the system's culture.[/quote] That recap screen is the best way I know, I'm afraid. However, if you save the game and quit to the main menu before it is finished you will see the same summary screen. That'

Reply to Do Pirate raids ruin the AI or hamper them? in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

[quote]10%?i saw lots of times the AI with around 50% of their fleet wasted in siege frigates.[/quote] OK. Do you have replays? Can we find out whether some of the other players lacked a fleet, or whether the siege frigates were survivors of a large fleet that got routed? Those are both situations that could make it reasonable for the AI to have a large number of siege ships. I would be concerned if the AI overbuilt siege frigates, but the reason why would be important.

Reply to Do Pirate raids ruin the AI or hamper them? in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

[quote]not entirely true about the AI handling pirates well.I have ruined the AI with pirate raids... got them to go to his homeworld, they took out EVERYTHING... [/quote] Sure, yes. I agree that sometimes you can get the pirates to take out an AI that's in difficulties - but I don't see that as any different to when they take out a struggling human player. My point is that the AI does try to combat pirates and does use a combined arms fleet. I'd be happier if it also fortified key syst

Reply to [Detailed questions on Tradeports and BroadcastCenters] in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

[quote]Another short question, If i build 2 or more broadcastcenters on 1 planet, does the effect stack? regarding culture spread strength, speed, tax income (ignoring about putting it onto other planets closer to the enemy)[/quote] Yes, it stacks, in all respects.

Reply to [Detailed questions on Tradeports and BroadcastCenters] in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

[quote]Incorrect. While the longest trade route receives a bonus, those that aren't on it are far from "useless".[/quote] You're very abrupt, Ron. For the record, I didn't say anything was "useless" - the quotation marks you use imply that I did. However, I did omit the word "as" where I had intended to write "as much of a contribution". That's still a long way from "useless" however! I also already made the point that planets may be contributing to cross-border trade

Reply to Pirates: I thought that you paid them to attack your enemy? in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

The pirates usually have only a single base. The chosen victim's planets may only be reachable by sending ships past planets you have taken control of. In that case, try to restrain your defenses from destroying the pirates - take out jump inhibitors if they are holding the pirate raid in your space. If you lose a trade station to these "passer-by" pirates just rebuild it in a different part of the system. On some maps it can be worth picking the pirate victim purely based on t

Reply to Diplomacy issue in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

You [I]can[/I] get AI allies. Popping the occasional scout isn't an obstacle to that either. Relations do not drop to zero goodwill as soon as you shoot at one ship... unless that was the empire's [I]only[/I] ship :) . You certainly do not have to micromanage turrets or anything like that. If you are trying to make alliances at 31%, that is where you are going wrong. You can get a ceasefire sometimes at 50%, anything less than that and your AI opponent isn't serious about it and will b

Reply to [Detailed questions on Tradeports and BroadcastCenters] in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

Culture output from each planet is simply added to the other planets. Each planet's influence diminishes with distance, so they add less culture two links away than one link away. If your planets are linked A-B-C then building culture centres on B will have more effect on C faster than building on A. Building on A and C would affect B equally - except that if they are owned by a different player modifiers will come in to play. However, adding a culture centre to a planet raises the loca

Reply to Do Pirate raids ruin the AI or hamper them? in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

The AI handles pirates perfectly well, and continues to produce a sensible mix of fleets. I often use the pirates to try to occupy one strong AI while I tackle another one. It holds them back a bit in the early game, but later on they can shrug off pirates almost as well as humans can. Humans do a little better because they can use fixed defenses, which the AI is very sparing with. As for the AI producing only siege ships... that simply doesn't happen. Never happened in my games at all.

Reply to AI in FFA Games is Flawed in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

Thanks for the replies -- I did not realize that 'Lock teams' meant that the diplomacy is turned off and that AIs will not ally with each other -- I will try that. I looked forward to seeing some AIs go after one another. Some posters have said they have seen this, which I have no reason to doubt, but it must be a rare occurrence rather than a common one. I still believe that diplomacy is flawed, with teams are unlocked. If I had p

Reply to Why doesnt the Advent have a refinery? in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

Best of all, you can use the Advent trade depots on only your Ice or Volcanic planets, so as to collect extra crystal or metal when you need it at the absolutely minimum cost in lost trade. The other races have to permanently commit those logistics slots to the refinery. The disadvantage the Advent suffer is that they cannot use resources from asteroid belts. When the trade depot is functioning as a refinery it doesn't send ships outside the gravity well.

Reply to A.I is pirate retarded he places bounty on teamates in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

When teams are not locked it is perfectly reasonable for AI players (or humans!) to place bounties on their teammates. That is the only way a player can damage their teammate during the alliances. However, if locked-team AIs place bounty on their teammates then that should be changed.

Reply to AI in FFA Games is Flawed in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

AI players do fight each other, and can destroy each other - even if you do not lock teams. That doesn't mean it works out that way in every random FFA game. However, if you're not going to "play the diplomacy game" at all then you might as well put all the players on separate teams and turn the locked teams option on. One other point - the AI prioritises attacks and in a game with a large number of opponents it is far less likely to devote forces to giving the coup-de

Reply to the deliverence engine. any good? in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

They'd be much more effective if you sent some raiders in to blow up the opposing culture-generators, or used them in conjunction with a force of capital ships harassing the target system (capships also suppress culture). Either tactic will improve your chances of taking over the system with a deliverance engine.

Reply to My mod for a much slower game in Sins Modding Stardock Forums

Good work. I won't use it myself... the games already take 6-7 hours the way I play now. I don't think SoaSE would still be fun for me if it went on a more 4X pace - the design has been stripped down and tuned to work as this 4X/RTS hybrid and it's the unique style and pace that really make the game for me so I wouldn't change that. All the same, good fast modding work - and perhaps a backbone for a complete makeover into a purely 4X style game, the sort of thing MoO3 was supposed to be

Reply to how do you do upgrade for more squadrons? in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

If you're talking about modding the game for more fighters on non-carrier capships then I saw a thread about that earlier in the week you could search for. Otherwise, basically you just have to level up the capships. The light carrier units never get more than one squadron... which is a bit mean really. I would have given them two so that I wouldn't have to choose between bombers or fighters. It's a nuisance keeping track of who has what so that the fleet ends up balanced without riskin

Reply to Sins of a Solar Empire Official 1.02 change log in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

I just woke up and realized!! Thank you~ Oh and I think new users don't know they have to use Stardock Central to Update the Game WHY I have NO internet and there is NO mention of this on the box. Why aren't the "patch" files simply uploaded to a server for easy dl like most games? Because there's no annoying copy protection built i

Reply to Let us know what you'd like in v1.03 in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

also about fleets, I don't like formations, I like my ships to beable to split up and do differnt thinks. Aka- caps bomb planet while frigates take out the refineries and such. As it is now, if the fleet leader bombs a planet, then the frigates just sit in formation and don't do anything. Also I don't like it how my carrior cruisers will join a formation, adn get caught in the middle of a battle, and then start dieing. essentully, along with "

Reply to Does "gamespeed" change EVERYTHING? in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

Good question. I had assumed it worked in a similar way to pressing "+/=" to speed up the game to double speed, which would affect ship movement and research equally.

Reply to Do repair bays stack ? And by how much ? in Sins of a Solar Empire Stardock Forums

Even if the repair bays don't "stack" as such there is still the benefit of having the second bay to repair the first while it is being beaten down - and of course once the first one is gone the second one is still around. That said... my impression is that the repair bays work by charging up their antimatter then spending some of it to repair nearby units. I've not paid attention to whether that's an area-effect ability or whether they are picking specific targets for each repair.