lbgsloan

Reply to ATI or Nvida in Personal Computing Sins Forums

I tend to go with whatever company is offering the best value for money. This was NVIDIA back with their 7000 and 8000 series, and then ATI's 4000 series. Competition between the two is important, or they get arrogant and start selling their mid-range cards for $300-400, instead of the $150-200 you see today. However, I dispise NVIDIAs business practices at the moment. Their constant rebranding to confuse less technical people (8800 GTX, 9800 GTX, or GTX250? Guess wh

Reply to NVIDIA & AGEIA Technologies in Personal Computing Sins Forums

Was this recently, or from over a year ago? Because indeed the PhyX card is totally obsolete now, and Dell are complete dicks if they included this by default on a modern system.

Reply to Dragon Age 2 Announcement comes with DA: Awakening !!! in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote who="synnworld" reply="17" id="2566945"]All I want to know is what the hell did morrigan do with the baby?[/quote] Nothing; moody bitch didn't get one in my timeline.

Reply to I cant get the "Hight resources" button after update in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I don't even remember that option existing it's been so long. The best you can do is play with Quick Start enabled, and all speed options set to Fast. This starts you with a fully upgraded (except for one logistic upgrade) homeworld, all your extractors built, two scouts, a frigate factory and capital ship factory. Not the same as starting with tons of money, but you can get going pretty fast. I shudder to think how lame online play would be if there was still a high

Reply to When to get the Expansions? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Play an aggressive AI and then a fortifier AI or economist AI. It's like day and night. The aggressive AI plays the game like original Sins; it masses lots of ships and attacks. This is not difficult or exciting to beat, and I don't mean having to exploit it with a chokepoint starbase or Marza. I also didn't load up Sins to play C&C. The fortifier AI and economist AIs build a much more balanced empire, building up their defences and economy while slowly build

Reply to Four Capital Ship Abilities that Need Help and the Problem of Balancing With Ultimates in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote who="ZombiesRus5" reply="22" id="2566530"]This is an existing ability given to TEC turrents already so it fits the damage type for the Kol guass blast as well, plus it would allow some scaling of this abilitity to later game. It would also still be far less than the 4.5 armor decrease the Egg gets with Level 3 of nano dissambler. Adding a non-stacking armor debuff like this actually makes more sense then increasing the damage done by the Kol's guass blast beyond it's cur

Reply to Pirate missions break the game in Sins Diplomacy Sins Forums

Yeah, I noted this in another thread. You don't even need 8 player games, even in a 2v2 the first team that can afford a major pirate mission strike will win. No questions asked. Combined with the normal raid, you can easily have 2000+ supply of ships that are better than yours smash someone non-stop. Even if the person lives, it just gets worse and worse and the pirates keep upgrading. Eventually not even fully upgraded starbases backed by other tactica

Reply to Four Economic Technologies that Need (major) Help and What to Do About Them! in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I'd suggest a different route with communal labour. Make it so that you don't need two constructors, it simply becomes an togglable option all constructors have to greatly reduced build time for slightly increased cost. With Illums finally under control, the weak Advent economy needs help and this would be a good place to start. I'm honestly not sure if anything can be done to make Civilian Safety Act worthwhile. Reworking all trade ships just to make one unimportant

Reply to Four Capital Ship Abilities that Need Help and the Problem of Balancing With Ultimates in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

The major problem with the Kol is simply that is needs the shield ability to become a passive. If it could spend 100% of its AM on GRG or flak while still getting a toughness bonus, it wouldn't seem as terrible. [quote who="ZombiesRus5" reply="20" id="2566104"]2) Add the secondary affect of the GausDefenseRailGun and have the target's armor decrease by 3 or some variation of that such as -1,-2 and -3 by level of GRG.[/quote] Only reason I'm against such a debuff on GRG i

Reply to When to get the Expansions? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Entrenchment is better as the additions are right there in your face, but you don't have to use them if your strategy doesn't call for them. It adds new content to the game without changing the core game. The additions are all in the form of early-mid game defensive options, and makes the AI more interesting as it will make good use of these options, so mastery of the game certainly isn't required to benefit from them. Diplomacy is more subtle, and the changes do affect th

Reply to Four Military Technologies that Need Help and a Discourse on their Enhancement in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

It occured to me that the Gravity mines could simply be made to explode in addition, as well? Change them from Gravity Mines to 'Nanite Mines' or something. Instead of disabling just jump drives, they would disable numerous systems. As for TEC mines, change the way they're built. Instead of having to build all 10 mines, have the constructor build one 'mine' that fires off like the Visari mine drop once built.

Reply to No Diplomatic Victory, No Envoys?! in Sins Diplomacy Sins Forums

Researcher may be messed up too, I don't think I ever use it. I have definitely seen envoys from fortifier and economist AIs, but Aggressor AI definitely does not. In general fortifier and economist AIs seem to be the most difficult depending on the map layout, as they both concentrate on building up their infastructure before commiting to huge fleets. [quote who="1Tiberius1" reply="10" id="2566305"]I dunno man, they send Envoys in my game still. When I was doing a 2

Reply to Dragon Age 2 Announcement comes with DA: Awakening !!! in PC Gaming Sins Forums

Developers promising the world and not being able to deliver is not news. Seeing as Bioware has a repuatation to uphold, the most likely scenario is that the overly optimistic release date will slip.

Reply to Four Capital Ship Abilities that Need Help and the Problem of Balancing With Ultimates in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote who="DesConnor" reply="15" id="2565106"]I'm not even convinced that the entire carrier capitals fad isn't because of TEC finally having a 'fighting' capital that isn't too slow to survive- TEC is forced into Sovas and the other factions then follow. Perhaps?[/quote] No, the other factions have good reason to go carrier cap first regardless of what TEC players are getting. Carrier caps have all been majorly buffed since earlier versions, to the point where there

Reply to Are you worried about the sudden popularity drop of PC games? in PC Gaming Sins Forums

It was always this way; the NES and Super NES era saw far more console titles than the PC had. Nothing new about the way things are today. In fact, it's actually a bit better for PC gamers right now as more and more big name console games get PC releases. Some big publishers are moving away from this as the don't see the sales on PC that they do on consoles (for various reasons, that the publishers blame piracy on no matter what). I really don't care a

Reply to Four Capital Ship Abilities that Need Help and the Problem of Balancing With Ultimates in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

The Dunov can never be good simply because people will always focus it first. You make Shield Restore as crazy as you want, but if the Dunov can't save itself, it simply does not matter. Make it self-targetting, and throw in Darvin's mitigation buff, and you have a real counter to LRF focus fire spam for TEC.

Reply to Priority of the Fixing of Underpowered Capital Abilities in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Change Guass Rail Gun damage type so it ignores mitagation, and tweak damage/cooldown accordingly. It doesn't need a debuff, the Kol is a straight-forward ship with simple abilities. What it needs is to stomp opposing non-battleship cap ships in 1v1 fights.

Reply to The new AI cheats... in Sins Diplomacy Sins Forums

I don't really see the point of an AI that cheats to that degree. You're basically forced to abuse the AIs stupidity in dealing with chokepoints. I'd rather play hard or unfair AIs and beat them without starbase or Marze abuse.

Reply to Antimatter Rechargers: Structures to use with? in Sins Diplomacy Sins Forums

It became even worse with Diplomacy with the antimatter pact giving you a +20% boost on top of your normal upgrades. It's not hard for Advent to have +30-40% charge rate, negating any real purpose for the buildings. It needs to affect buildings, and it needs to become an aoe ability.

Reply to No Diplomatic Victory, No Envoys?! in Sins Diplomacy Sins Forums

Double post. Forums sucking it.

Reply to No Diplomatic Victory, No Envoys?! in Sins Diplomacy Sins Forums

I've noticed this to and I think the problem is with certain AI types (ie aggressive AI). Aggressive AIs do not seem to bother making envoys no matter what the situation. In fact, aggressive AIs are borked in general as they will tech up to maxiumum fleet supply (ie 75% upkeep!) without any concern as to whether their economy can support it. At the end of one game, an aggressive AI I was at peace with had a credit income of...3. Sure they had a huge fleet, but if they

Reply to So long...farewell... in Sins Multiplayer Sins Forums

What pushed it over the edge was Diplomacy's further subdividing an already small community Incorrect. Sins Trinity should have injected new life into the online game, not put the last nail into the coffin. When the awful Tales of Valor expansion got released for Company of Heroes, a lot of veterens finally left. But I saw a lot of new faces as well before I too moved on. Though the competitive scene has largely died off, the casua

Reply to 'Pirate Strength' Game Setting Needed in Sins Diplomacy Sins Forums

Pirate strength is fine. Pirate frequency is not. 13 minutes between raids and 5 minutes between missions causes problems now that the pirates are much stronger. Increasing both timers to 15-18 minutes would be more in line with their current strength. Also, the AI bounty bug isn't helping matters. [quote who="Agent of Kharma" reply="3" id="2562154"]Personally, I'd just play with the pirates off. I really don't know what they would add in a game pitting f

Reply to I would pay $10 for another expansion if... [epic long post] in Sins Diplomacy Sins Forums

I think it would be far better to move on to Sins 2 or another project entirely at this point. The engine is starting to show its age, and the multiplayer community is pretty much dead. They need to step back, look at what worked well and what didn't, and make a new game. A few things need to be fixed still, but generally Sins Trinity is about as good as the game will get without a major (ie $30-40) expansion. I'm talking new faction, more planet types, more ships, gra

Reply to Patch Stat Changes Forum Version 3 [First Up: BUGS!] in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Advent Beam Pact is horrible for everyone but Advent. IMO, change it to a +20% Laser Pact that also covers pulse guns. This would be about as good for Advent, much better for TEC, and at least somewhat useful for Visari. It would also go a long way towards keeping LFs competitive with other ship types late game. As for the Missile Pact, I'm not sure what they can do to include Advent while still making sense.