Will Skyfall

Reply to Favorite Starting Cap Ship in Strategy Sins Forums

The Advent Colony capship (the Progenitor Mothership) is an amazing vessel. Not only is its Colonize ability arguably the most powerful of the races' colony capships (20%/40%/60% planet upgrade cost reduction?!), but its other two abilities (Malice and Shield Regeneration) are ridiculously powerful. I haven't tried this yet; but I hear that a Progenitor Mothership can take out the militia at a Terran or Desert world [i]by itself[/i] with level 1 Shield Regeneration. More so th

Reply to Moving a capital in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]That's actually a really good question, Dante - what effects would moving your capital to an asteroid have? Does it matter what kind of planet your capital is on (other than ease of destroying it)?[/quote] [quote]The capital gives a tax bonus, but I forget if it's percentage based or just straight added in.[/quote] I believe the capital gets a tax bonus based on the type of planet it is (or possibly based on its population cap) . . . I've seen Terran worlds get a 4.0 cr

Reply to Moving a capital in Strategy Sins Forums

Culture can also influence whether or not it's a good idea to move your capital. Moving the capital changes the [i]max[/i] alllegiance value for each colony, leaving the [i]actual[/i] values to slowly shift to the new equillibrium. If you've flooded your empire with culture, however, you get to cheat a little: the allegiance values that are [i]lower[/i] than their new caps rise quickly (.05% / s), whereas the allegiance values of your old core-worlds float downward more slowly (.02% /

Reply to Press ctrl+f6 twice fastest to win - fix please? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]See, random would be even worse, and even stupider. Then it'd be "who's lucky enough to catch it when it opens first?" instead of "who loads and presses ctrl+f6 twice first?"Yeah, nice there.[/quote] I disagree. The current system, at the moment, seems to reward whoever has the fastest machine / has pre-loaded the game. It also rewards blindly throwing yourself at the market without checking to see if the price for crystals is something you'd actually be willing to [i]pay[/i].

Does it Work: Vengeance + Malice in Strategy Sins Forums

Does Malice trigger when a ship takes damage from the Vengeance ability? In other words, if a fleet of ships is attacking a target protected by Vengeance, and the fleet is currently affected by Malice, does a part of each ship's Vengeance damage get applied [i]again[/i] as Malice damage to the entire fleet? I could see this getting really ugly, really fast, considering that [i]your[/i] fleet is also shooting the affected ships, and their damage would [i]also[/i] be boosted b

Reply to Speeding up the cleanup after you are "winning"? in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]How does this help the problem of long end games online?[/quote] Well, one problem it should fix is the "opponents disconnect" issue, since the patch notes also say: [quote] -AI will now take over for dropped players.[/quote] . . . so if your opponent disconnects when you destroy his fleet, the AI will take over; and if the AI feels the same way about its chance of winning that your opponent did, it'll turn right around and surrender. At least, we c

Reply to HuntingX's Efficient Build Order Set #2: Advent in Strategy Sins Forums

Hey, HuntingX; what's your opinion on the Animosity/Vengeance combo for a small 1v1? Do these games of yours last long enough for a second capship to become a viable option for either player?

Reply to A possibly game-unbalancing combo in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]This is unlikely (but not impossible if you're ninja enough) if I jump a ship in ahead of time and find out where your capital ships are at, then jump the disciples toward the one that does this and drain it before it closes in to phase out the Progenitor or Revelation.[/quote] Does the Disciple's Steal Antimatter ability work on capital ships? I tried to deliberately target a capship with the ability once, and was told that I needed to target a frigate or cruiser instead. I mi

Reply to This may sound like a noobish question but.... in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]Thanks Hiriako I had totally forgotten about the distance from home world thing. For some reason I had it in my head that Broadcasting towers countered that.[/quote] Broadcasting towers [i]help[/i] against the "distance from home world" thing, but they don't counter it. When your planet is under the affect of friendly culture--like when you have a broadcast tower near it--you can boost its allegiance by up to 10% (which is about as much allegiance as one jump away from the homew

Reply to Someone please explain "Shield Mitigation" to me! in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]But saying things like "Damage mitigation increases when a ship is focus fired upon" will lead to much confusion and result in many ridiculous tactics and suggestions.[/quote] Agreed; and like you said, shield mitigation isn't affected [i]at all[/i] by the number of ships attacking the target.

Reply to Someone please explain "Shield Mitigation" to me! in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]1000 point of damage will always increase Shield Mitigation by the same amount (which varies from ship to ship). It doesn't matter if that 1000 point of damage was dealt by a single ship or a whole armada. It doesn't matter if that 1000 point of damage was dealt in a second or an hour. It doesn't matter if that 1000 point of damage was dealt by ships doing 0.25 DPS or Death Stars(tm). 1000 point of damage will always increase shield mitigation by the same amount. [/quo

Reply to Self Induced Bounties in Sins Modding Sins Forums

[quote]Unless you try to intercept the one that is sent to attack the enemy. That would be the only thing I can think of.[/quote] Hey, the beautiful thing about this approach is that, when you're done, your enemy will [i]still[/i] most likely have the highest bounty on his head, because the pirates wound up attacking your ships instead.

Reply to "Metal from other sources" - What is it? in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]If they were sporadically exploring and discovering metal, then you would expect to see periodic spikes of "discovery" amounts. Their summary curves all resembled a steep upward line from the start, then around mid-game slightly leveling off to a more slowly rising, but still rising, and continuing to the end. There was no stepped activity as one might expect.[/quote] I'm pretty sure that the end-game graphs don't properly represent values changing over time when the value chan

Reply to Prequel to Advent Builds: Advent Ship and Strategy Analysis in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]Anyone building temple of harmony early on a small 1v1/2v2 map really fights the wrong opponents.[/quote] What about the smaller maps where the only readily-accessible non-asteroid worlds are Ice or Volcanic? If you don't build up to Harmony 2, are you supposed to field a game-winning fleet with nothing but your homeworld and 1 asteroid? (Or does that strategy involve taking [i]their[/i] asteroid by force as soon as you possibly can?)

Reply to How in the world can i Micro this? :( screenshot available in Strategy Sins Forums

The Empire Tree is your friend. :) You can select any of the units in the gravity well from its icon in the Empire Tree, and then right-click on an enemy unit's icon (also in the Empire Tree). I don't try to select units in the actual display if I can help it. You can also SHIFT+click or ALT+click icons in the empire tree to select additional units, or all units of a specific type, respectively. (Also; if the fleets take up too much space in the empire tree, try cli

Reply to Prioritize Targets w/o Focus Fire? in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]How many of the 9 Cobalts would survive if they had focussed rather than spread? 5? 6? Maybe more?[/quote] If you go with Alacer's tool for results: * 4 Cobalts survive when spread-firing, with one badly damaged (1/8 health) * 5 Cobalts survive when focus-firing, one badly damaged (1/8 health) and one at 1/3 health. I don't believe it's a convincing argument in favor of spread; as a friend of mine points out, however, it's a convincing argument in favor of shiel

Reply to Prioritize Targets w/o Focus Fire? in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]* 8v9 Cobalts, where the superior force is spread-firing: the larger force (SG) wins, with about 4 ships surviving. [/quote] It looks like focus-firing, at least with nothing but Cobalts, gives you something around a 6-7% effectiveness boost. 11 SG Cobalts will beat 10 FG Cobalts, but 16 FG Cobalts will beat 17 SG Cobalts. Numbers, of course, will vary based on the units being considered (health, damage, regen.)

Reply to Prioritize Targets w/o Focus Fire? in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]I have 10 . . . I dunno. Let's say "Flak Frigates." Or fighter squadrons. My opponent has 10 LRMs. I've enabled stacking in my empire tree, so both my force and my opponent's force take up one icon each. I click my "10 Flak Frigates" icon on the empire tree, and right-click on my opponent's "10 LRM" icon. Do my 10 flak frigates split their fire among the closest available LRMs? Or do all 10 flak frigates focus-fire one of the LRMs, and then do something else when it e

Reply to Advent - Flipping homeworlds like pancakes in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]wow that's going to take a long time. And what do i do if there's no planets where I can put media centers?[/quote] I believe that capital ships reduce the presence of hostile culture in a gravity well; so you could park one over the colony in question until enough culture was gone for you to colonize. (Does that work, beta veterans? Or do capships only push back culture on worlds you control?)

Two Questions about Trade and Culture in Strategy Sins Forums

1) Do uninhabitable gravity wells (gas giant, asteroid belt, plasma storm) count as wild cards for the purpose of developing your longest trade route? Or does the fact that you can't built a trade port there restrict the length of your trade route? If the latter is the case, does this mean that if you and an ally have a trade pact, but you have an uninhabitable planet or a buffer zone between you, neither of you benefits from the trade pact? 2) Someone said elsewhere on the f

Reply to Culture Boosts Your Allies! in Strategy Sins Forums

Signs point to [b]no[/b]; I noticed that while my ships has a 19% shield mitigation bonus in my core worlds, one of my partner's ships in her core worlds (under my culture) still had a shield mitigation of 15%. So, barring subtleties that I missed, allies don't get benefits from your culture besides an allegiance boost. (However . . . I've never played Culture with Vasari, so I don't know how I'd read the damage boost on their info card; maybe my partner got her damage boost in my cult

Reply to arrogance in the threads. in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]The best thing you can do is create more positive/constructive posts...and the let the trolls sink into the depths of the forum, unanswered and alone.[/quote] This is the best thing I've read all morning. :) *toasts* I'm wondering if the mix between RTS and 4X gamers here on the forums is contributing to the toxicity; you've got two very different player bases with different tastes in playstyle, from pacing to scope, and [I]Sins[/I], as a genre-bender, tries to compromis

Reply to Prioritize Targets w/o Focus Fire? in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]If you're dealing so little damage that the extremely slow decay even has an effect, natural regeneration is going to overcome the puny excuse for damage you're doing anyway.[/quote] That doesn't make sense; .0125 /s is non-trivial decay, 1.25% a second. In the exercises this thread was running earlier, we were hypothesizing 12.5 DPS as the break-even point: if you're doing more than 12.5 DPS to a ship, you're pushing its shield mitigation up. Most frigates (exce

Reply to Prioritize Targets w/o Focus Fire? in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]I checked application calculations 4 or 5 times and seems its all fine.In case of similar size groups the best tactic is...SPREAD FIRE.Check Yourself[/quote] Brilliant work, Alacer! To check your results against my much-less-sexy Excel spreadsheet, I set your program to 4 ships v 4 ships, 1600 health, 2.75 damage regen. All the numbers checked out completely, up to the moment the first SG ship was destroyed; to the second, with the same amount of health remaining on all

Reply to Prioritize Targets w/o Focus Fire? in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]Using those numbers I find the focus fire group to win, even though this test is biased towards the spread fire a fair amount.[/quote] Durikkan, I think you're right. I adjusted my spreadsheet to assume that each ship heals 2.75 HPs a second (is that what you meant by 2.75 of hull regen?) when actively attacked; this adds about a dozen seconds to the life of the ship being focus-fired, which in turn gives the entire SG fleet more time doing damage. Even so, when every FG ship i