Thomas Bloxham

Reply to Should ships just stand completely still in battle? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I think the real problem is that ships like frigates, and honestly anything that fires its guns primarily forward makes you look at it and say "That ship should be making a strike run on the bigger one, not just sitting there" The ship which looks realistic and stately is the Kol Battleship and the Battlecruiser. The Kol looks right because it does look huge, and its forward gun arrays give it a reason to be pointing at the target, the battlecruiser because it turns to broadside the tar

Reply to Fleet engagements- what to kill first in Strategy Sins Forums

Fighter/Bomber heavy (as in most of your damage comes from them) Flak Engineering/Support Cruisers Support capitol ships Offensive capitol ships As you like This removes first the ship that primarily stops your damage, then the ships which repair and inhibit your damage, and then the ships which can do annoying things to your ships to prevent them exploiting the advantage, and then the primary objective of the battle which is to remove your opponents experienced

Reply to Easier to build than destroy in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Increased build times might be a way to reward larger empires too, since they could use their increased logistics points to build more frigate and capitol ship factories which would give them full efficiency as opposed to resource structures which give diminishing returns with size. This would mean in a duel with a smaller empire, the larger one might actually have an advantage of being able to replace its losses, whereas now a larger empire doesnt really have much going for it once a certain re

Reply to Some AI aren't using thier resources in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Did you check that they had all three resources (cash, metal, crystal) in a recent game I played the AI had vast reserves of crystal (30000) but a metal income which wasnt enough to spend the crystal as fast as they gathered it so they built up enormous reserves of crystal. I dont think the AI is aware it can sell one resource, get cash, and buy another.

Reply to Carriers overpowered? in Strategy Sins Forums

Bombers are why I support my fleet with vast wings of nothing but fighters. Fighters tear bombers to pieces before they can do anything (there are plenty of more fighter damage upgrades, but very limited more bomber health upgrades), and leave you with nothing, whereas I still have about 50% damage on average from my fighters (and bonus damage on fighter appropriate targets).

Reply to More impressions from a newb.. in Single Player Sins Forums

My advice to new players is that, for now, you should set any large skirmishes you play to fixed teams. The diplomacy AI right now is a bit nuts, and the last two games I played with fixed teams I could actually enjoy the game, and do things I wanted to as opposed to rushing around being attacked by 7 allied AIs. Also, in a big map, be first to any spare star systems. So your research target should be the tech that gives you inter stellar jumps. Another useful tech is anything that make

Reply to Where would you like us to advertise? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I think you should simply blast the sins logo into the surface of the moon. Failing that, once you have a demo, get some space on the gaming sites. People who arent decided yet might be swayed by a demo, and you don't want to waste your advertising budget when you havent got the demo ready for them to try immediately when they come to your site. Also, once te 1.03 patch is out and mods are being made, people will be much happier since they can start fiddling with bits of the game they w

Reply to Fighers and Carriers in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Could you perhaps make new squadrons require anti matter to build, and give the hanger bays an ability which can restore anti matter to nearby ships of the carrier class? Then you would stock the carriers up with anti-matter, build the squadrons and send them forth to attack.

Reply to Phase jump inhibitors in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I still reckon that Phase Jump Inhibitors should cause ships to have a % chance to fail to achieve jump power and receive a "no jumping" debuff for 60 seconds. You want to flee? Or to jump through enemy lines? Then you will need to be willing to take losses to do so. The current system favors attackers far too much. Heck, your "perfect defense point" argument with the blocking Inhibitors only works when you have only 1 access point to your empire. If you have 2, and are not Vas

Reply to Death by diplomacy in Strategy Sins Forums

On say, a 3 player, or 4 player map where one player is swiftly eliminated the diplomacy vaguely works (and may even be too easy). You pick a target, and blow it to pieces, one of the AIs will have given you missions to do so, and will soon be your ally. The problem comes on a larger map. Lets say you, and your ally player B, are fighting player C. Your relations with B are good, but you have no resources to spare. During the war, player C will suddenly decide you need to kill 15 resource buildi

Reply to Why use basic frigate? in Strategy Sins Forums

And they're also a speedy way of getting reserves from a production point into a fight, since they turn and move quickly accross a gravity well. They are also so cheap that you can afford to build them almost constantly, which is vital for holding off the eneamy when you are expanded beyond about 8 planets. By that point its not about the fleets you have, but how fast you can replace and redeploy your losses, you'll be fielding fleets about 70% (hopefully) the strength of your attackers and the

Reply to "Longest uninterrupted trade route" - not really the longest? in Technical Sins Forums

I think what the system is doing is finding the shortest routes between all your planets, it then uses the longest remaining one of them to calculate trade.

Reply to Simple Question: Scouts in Strategy Sins Forums

As TEC your only chance is fighter swarms, I believe that both scouts and siege frigates have very light armour and so get bonus damage from fighters. Your forces should be at least 50% fighters anyway, your bombers are so silly in their targeting that the AI will chew them up before they can do any real damage

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

[quote] A fix for the issue where the game doesn't actually shut down. Ever. https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?forumid=408&aid=176790 And yes, some sort of improvement to the PJIs. I thought that they DID cover the entire grav-well. They don't?! The hell am I building them for? "Block jumping deeper into territory" as an improvement doesn't actually work on maps where "deeper" leads to a plasma storm or gas giant where you -can't- build, right

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

While I dont agree with the PJI totally shutting down a phase lane, since breaking through the lines should be a viable tactic, and a bit of clever placing and a massive fleet could give a player a titanic advantage, using such a tactic should be accompanied by large casulties. You have just ignored a players battle fleet and moved past it, you should have been shredded. Decreasing uni health may be a bad idea, as it would make the battles even more hectic. I think that what the PJI sho

Reply to Diplomacy useless - can ruin a game in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I think the first step is the ability to see the relationships between AI empires, once we can see that, we can at least get some kind of idea whats going on out there beyond the endless battle to hold onto our borders.

Reply to Map 'Gateway' illustrates perfectly why Phase Inhibiting is broken in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I like the % chance of catastrophic failure idea, withdrawal is an important part of fighting, however in this game its too easy (compared to many games where it is too hard) The durability of ships means that if you decide to withdraw, you are likely to take no casulties at all, meaning all your opponents manoevering to place you in a bad position is pointless.

Reply to Frustrating Game in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Also remember that your entire fleet is filled with an overwhelming hatred of siege frigates. If it sees them, then no matter how much damage it will take flying over to attack it will do so, and by darned if it wont divide up its fire in the silliest possible way once it arrives. Watch for ships moving in a big engagement. A moving frigate is almost always not firing, give it a closer target. Also watch your capitol ships, you want them engaging at maximum range, with engineering ships nearby s

Reply to Defense is useless. in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I think the real problem might not actually be the defences, but the diplomacy. I'm almost sure the AI is (after an hour or so) totally allied against me. This means you have no reserve fleets to plug gaps, since they are all fighting losing battles waiting for anything you can spare to help clean out a system. If the AI had to fight itself a bit, then it couldn't commit every single ship in its armada to attack you, and count on 6 allies to do the same thing. I've seen capitol ships si

Reply to Diplomacy useless - can ruin a game in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I played a few games over the last day or so, including some with the new 1.02 patch. The computer player really needs to be reprogrammed to be more agressive towards each other. If you're playing a game where you end up sharing a border with multiple AI opponents they will ignore each other to trash you. I was held up fighting a massive battle against red in my own system, continually pouring in reserves to try and counter his seemingly indestructible capitol ships. Whenever I built up

Reply to Dreadnaught sized ships in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

What Id do with this is perhaps octuple the volume (double all lengths) of a standard capitol ship, and scale up the weapons with it, so dealing perhaps 300-400 damage with its main guns (not abilities) However I'd only double the shields and armour compared to a normal cap ship, in fact I'd consider not increasing shields at all, This would give you a massively powerful leviathan, but with a weak jaw which a concentrated attack could deal with. Another thing I might suggest is requirin

Reply to Siege Frigate and Pirate tips for newer players! in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Another point is that if you don't have a convenient buffer system to place your fleet in to defend, say you have 2 systems, then withdraw your fleet back 1 system down your phase lanes to somewhere which links to both, and place a scout in each system linking to the ones you want to defend. When you see ships coming in, just have your main fleet jump to the appropriate system. Furthermore, you should have about 5 hangers for a serious defense, with 8 bombers and 2 fighters. That will h

Reply to Is Sins a True 4X Title? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

And in Civ the settler unit costs one population to build, if you build a settler in a 2 pop city, you will get a settler and a 1 pop city. Still, this isnt that important, the population hit from building settler units, in most games except civ, rapidly became unimportant. The weakest aspect of the game is the tech tree. The diplomacy is also weak, but I can forgive them that because writing smart diplomatic AI is incredibly hard. The absence of an interesting tech tree really drags me

Motivations for the individual conflict - creating an immersive skirmish game in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

An idea I had which might be fun would be an "auto plot" option. It would create a sequence of bonus objectives from a list for each player at the start of each game alongside a reason for them, with rewards if they were achieved. Each would be tailored to who else was in the game, and what the map had available. For example.... "Hostilities between the TEC and Vasari in this region of the galaxy have recently become incredibly vicious, after the bombing of TEC colonies throughout the a

Reply to Kol only good capital ship for TEC? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Always start with a Kol, its the one which becomes most increased in power (its guns actually hit hard at high levels) with xp and having a high level kol gives you something that might almost be described as an enemy capitol ship killer.A top level Kol is the only ship I've seen that the TEC has which offers a damage output which can genuinely be said to be high compared to eneamy armour and shields. I usually go Kol -> Sova -> Shield Restore Guy.