transitive

Reply to Maps should be more 3d, like a DNA chain. in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

all the major gravitational bodies in any rotating system will eventually align along a central axis due to centrifugal forces. this is equally true of solar systems with planets and spiral galaxies with stars. it makes perfect sense, from a physical perspective, for all the grav wells to be in the same plane. the other issue is simply one of usability and presentation to the human player. if the objects had greater z axis separation in would be harder to keep track of

Reply to Nuking planets is evil in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

SINS. its in the title. building empires is messy work. the three factions in the game represent some pretty nasty cultures if you've read any of the backstory. the TEC are xenophobic biggots obssessed with commerce and only willing to cooperate with each other in the face of an alien menace that will surely destroy them all. the Vasari are the remnants of an ancient fallen empire. a bad guy evil empire built on the backs of trillions of enslaved

Reply to Why all the TEC hate? in Strategy Sins Forums

i think the factions are pretty well balanced actually. i've always felt the Advent are the weakest of the three to be honest, mostly because they have much worse high level civilian techs than TEC or Vasari. militarily speaking its a very close balance and all three factions have their relative strengths and weaknesses. also, i'll echo MarkoBarko's observation. i was always under the impression that TEC was the most popular faction.

Reply to Vasari starbase offensively useless in Strategy Sins Forums

there are generally two things an Orkulas assault accomplishes that you can't do with just ships alone. 1) it very effectively locks down the grav well both during the assault and afterwards. there's no chance at all that an enemy will jump past your fleet and bomb the planet you just captured since there's a nasty ol' Orkulas there defending it. it also severely punishes enemies who try to retreat from it and your fleet. it will take them MUCH longer to regroup after a

Reply to [Enrenchment]Why is the AI still cheating? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

lock teams. period. the asymmetry of the diplomacy system in Sins makes it basically unplayable. AI's are just constantly extorting you for resources or military favors and will punish you with Betrayal if you don't do what they ask you. without locked teams its fairly likely for your ally to decide that actually the guy who just nuked 2 of his colonies is a better friend than you are because he succesfully destroyed 5 civilian structures of some other players. it makes

Reply to Give the newbie some help! in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

play the in-game tutorials before you do anything else at all. they'll show you the most basic stuff pertaining to the interface (like how to do research, and what the buttons in the control console in the lower right corner mean). once you've done that play a small map 1on1 vs. an easy AI. you can use any faction, they're similar enough so that it won't be a noticeable difference. when you start this first game follow these instructions to the le

Reply to Computer AI ... in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

i just generally interpret the AI settings a bit differently than their actual names would suggest, for me its like this: easy = training mode, only suitable for your first day or two with the game normal = easy mode, when you want a guaranteed quick victory hard = normal mode, a reasonable challenge but you are likely to win every time if you know how to play unfair = hard mode, you might actually lose this one the resourc

Reply to AI Surrender? in Strategy Sins Forums

its a good idea Draxalon. let's hope it comes through in a future patch. as is it now you have to choose "keep playing" but it just feels wrong. some minor UI changes to make it feel more satisfying to keep playing to the bitter end would be nice for the people who want it.

Reply to AI Surrender? in Strategy Sins Forums

you will play fewer complete games with the AI than you used to. none of those conditions are automatic triggers, they just increase the chance of a surrender. some AI's will just be stubborn though and fight it out. i think Aggressor AI's tend to surrender the most often and Defender AI's are the least likely.

Reply to AI Surrender? in Strategy Sins Forums

the AI in Entrenchment surrenders under a wider variety of conditions than it used to. i don't know the full list but this is what i've noticed. the AI becomes more likely to surrender when: 1) you nuked their homeworld and have a much bigger fleet than they do. 2) you have built Super Weapons (Novalith, Kostura, Deliverance) and they have nothing comparable. 3) you have multiple high level capital ships and they have

Reply to Dreadnaugt capship for Advent? in Strategy Sins Forums

is that even true? Halcyon aura applies to Energy weapons only. i think the Advent Siege weapons are the only non-energy weapons in their entire arsenal. Lasers, Beams, and Plasma are all obviously energy but i was pretty sure the siege thing are Kinetic Rod projectiles and thus not an energy weapon.

Reply to The Power of Flak in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote who="RoyalRook" reply="4" id="2087331"] What should I do to counter the Illum + Defense Vessel battelball formation(why didn't I figure out something was up when he wasn't chasing my carriers)? [/quote] same way you counter any Advent Battleball. Shut down the mothership and the rest comes apart easily. the last thing you want to do is try to beat it with brute force because taht just increases the shield mitigation and makes Shield Restore insanely po

Reply to why use starbases on chokepoints? in Strategy Sins Forums

don't be coy. Safety Protocol Override, obvs. SOMEBODY SET US UP THE BOMB!

Reply to Starbase Rush in Strategy Sins Forums

its possible to tech up to Assault Deployment relatively quickly and then go and try to build a starbase in a really inconvenient spot. it relies entirely on surprise value and and exploiting an opponent who has not adequately defended their territory. thats the solution, by the way. there's no trick to beating it other than being a bit more attentive and judicious about how secure your territory is. a couple of hangar defenses at important worlds goes a long way. so do

Reply to why use starbases on chokepoints? in Strategy Sins Forums

i'm with Astax. one of the most important elements of military strategy is mobility. just throwing everything you've got into the meat-grinder impassable choke point is just flat out boring and stupid. if i wanted that kind of gameplay i'd go play one of those Tower Defense games on Kongregate.com

Reply to Sieges - Does anyone even use them online? in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote who="Agent of Kharma" reply="17" id="2095195"] If you don't concur, then the only thing I can imagine is that people have radically different views on what a siege frigate is, what their role should be, and what sort of gameplay mechanic Sins should employ.[/quote] exactly. why shouldn't economic warfare be a strategy? the depth of the game is increased by adding more strategies. the quality of the game is increased by addi

Reply to Starbase upgrade balance? in Strategy Sins Forums

minor correction to something said in the OP regarding the alliegance upgrade of the Advent starbase. trade ports are unaffected by planetary alliegance. only planetary tax income and resources harvested from the planet's asteroids are affected by alliegance. increasing the alliegance of a 35% desert world with lots of trade ports will not actually be a big boost to your economy. the largest benefit to be gained from this is by placing the starbase at your homeworld. 14

Reply to How Do You Destroy Mines? in Strategy Sins Forums

works reasonably well against TEC and Vasari mines. as far as i can tell you really can't shoot down Advent Homing Mines. they'll ram right into you before you get a chance. clearing mines is VERY SLOW business though, really they're a very good deterrent once they're deployed.

Reply to Orgov -- completely removed from the game? in Strategy Sins Forums

what on earth are you going on about P5yy? here's some basic question/answer relaevent to the thread. Q: TEC have the Ogrov and Advent have the Solanus for anti-module damage, where do the Vasari get it? A: Its the Disintegrator Weapon Uprgade on the Orkulas Star-Base Q: How am I supposed to build a starbase in a hostile grav well, they'll shoot it down!? A: Research the Assault Deployment upgrade in the Fort

Reply to Noobish question on Advent Strategies in Strategy Sins Forums

you've figured it out correctly but don't know the time frame. the abilities have been rebalanced numerous times so as to weaken some of the more abusive combos that existed in the past. the holy trinity no longer exists, really. in the past (like the distant past, patch 1.05 almost a year ago) the abilities worked kind of differently so you could get some abusive combinations between Malice and Cleansing Brilliance (could instagib entire fleets). the third member of th

Reply to Organizing Your Fleet in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote who="Orodum" reply="10" id="2091797"] official fleets seem to take fewer losses, and take down enemy fleets faster. this may just be my imagination, or actually working better. [/quote] not your imagine. fleets have hugely improved focus firing behavior. auto-cast abilities on support ships are also used more intelligently in fleets, particular buff and repair type abilities. fleets also at least vaguely attempt to stay in format

Reply to A question about Trade ports in Strategy Sins Forums

getting off topic so this is my last post about it. maybe you're right Azrak. certainly you are if the search is just a lookup function, which it could be if there was a list of alphabetized keywords to search from. if its actually scanning text and putting together strings spontaneously (without having a database to work from) then its n^2. or rather its O(m*n), where m is the number of entries and n is the number of words per entry. without knowing the exact implement

Reply to Having serious trouble against normal AI players in Strategy Sins Forums

i think the issue lies in your economic development lagging behind the enemy. what did your empire look like when you were attacked? also, you're getting double teamed in FFA maps, which is very difficult even for highly skilled players. stick with 1on1 or 2on2 until you can beat the AI more reliably.

Reply to Rushing in Strategy Sins Forums

scouting is extremely important in any kind of RTS game. if you commit to the wrong attack strategy and it gets wiped out by an opponent who has you countered you're going to lose when the counter-attack comes. to some degree Siddy is right. Sins is a slower paced game than most RTS games. however, i do still think there is a noticeable difference between a strategic approach that focuses first on defense and economic development vs. a stragic approach that focuse

Reply to Subtleties and Balanced Fleets in Strategy Sins Forums

this is not the real formula for shield mitigation, its just an algebraic expression that demonstrates the idea Mitigation per second = 10*d - 2 where d is damage incoming. that formula (which is not the real formula) says that for every second a ship is under fire its mitigation increases at a rate proportional to 10 times the amount of damage it takes and mitigation decreases at a linear constant rate of 2 per second. get