CommanderMadCat

Reply to Why PC Gaming is Dying in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]Falkir I am afraid there was no lapse of memory, as it's known that all cutting-edge/new hardware also comes with high-demand, limited-supply, high-manufacturing costs, and early-adopter premiums. As time goes on, the price of any new hardware drops in cost due to increased manufacturing efficiency and so on (more so with consoles). The only current-generation console still sold at a loss is the Sony Playstation 3, but we already observing significant drops in manufacturing costs (ori

Reply to When is an opponent Defeated? in Strategy Sins Forums

Are you sure you didn't get the Victory screen already? If you get a Victory screen but select "Keep Playing", you won't be able to get a Victory screen again. Mad Cat

Reply to I Have Decided To Do The Right Thing... Now I Need Some Answers in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]I don't pirate and I spend a really impractical amount of time researching to ensure that when I do buy a product it won't piss me off and that goes for all media. That said, I felt burned pretty badly by the Pool of Radiance remake from a few years ago. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic was another one since I can't even get it to play well at all and I blow the min specs away. Bought a Mahjong game a few weeks ago and found it wouldn't work on my ATI card. Also come across too many games

Reply to I Have Decided To Do The Right Thing... Now I Need Some Answers in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

GoJoe, could you give us a brief rundown of all the games that you paid for that you thought were so terrible that you eventually turned to piracy? Mad Cat

Reply to Piracy ain't the only reason why PC gaming is dying (my rant) in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]Agreed. If the companies weren't so obsessed with DRM, making backup copies wouldn't be a problem, and there would be no need for GameStop to offer "insurance."[/quote] I think you misunderstood my point: the "insurance" being sold by EB Games is USELESS for PC games. They might be worthwhile for consoles, cause if your disc goes, so does your game, but for MMORPGs and Valve games for PC, offering trade-ins / insurance is a pretty stupid thing to do. As for DRM, I think

Reply to Piracy ain't the only reason why PC gaming is dying (my rant) in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]CobraA1 The new release shelves for PC games were larger and pretty empty at the WalMart, and the store is packed with ads for Spore, including some big ones as you walked in. Looks like new PC games are flying off the shelves there, and they can't keep up with demand. [/quote] Er, it sounds more like they're clearing shelf space. Of course, I could be wrong. [quote]CobraA1 The GameStop, on the other hand, had a small section of PC games with pretty much no

Reply to I Don't Feel Enough Like I'm Drowning.... in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]But nowadays' fashion is fast action with superb graphich and without much depth. [/quote] Well, in all fairness, a lot of people play games nowadays, but most of said people also have lives, so they cannot realistically spend a lot of time playing games. That's probably why so many games are so much shorter nowadays, though I don't think the devs are complaining. Mad Cat

Reply to I can't travel from start to star in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Hmmm...strange. Are you absolutely SURE you've researched the Long-Range jumps (wormhole navigation is only good if you have wormholes)? It took me a while to figure out that there are IMPLICIT phase lanes between stars, but the UI should automatically command your ship to go to your star and make the hop from there. Mad Cat

Reply to Usefulness of some TEC ships in Strategy Sins Forums

Well, after playing Systems of War, I've come to realize the usefulness of the Percherons and Akkans. The last enemy AI was massively spamming their Vasari carrier cruisers and they were tearing up my fleet, namely because I didn't have any flak frigates and so could barely defend myself. I responded in kind by creating tons of Percherons myself (plus no less than 4 carrier caps) and dozens of flak frigates. We'll see who's laughing now, fat boy! I started to rely more and mo

Reply to Increasing ship build rate? in Strategy Sins Forums

For the TEC (the only faction I know at the moment) there is a Civilian Research topic that allows you to build ships faster, I believe. It's pretty far into the tree (6 or 7 Research stations are needed) and I think it's listed under Industry. Other than that, do what Fes said: build multiple factories to build the ships in parallel. Mad Cat

Reply to Killing another fleet? in Strategy Sins Forums

Not that I know of. If they happen to jump to a system where you have a Phase Jump Destabilizer, it will take them a lot longer to jump. Also, using the Ion Bolt / EMP Charge on ships disables their ability to make phase jumps. But yes, I agree that it's annoying. The BEST way I've found of dealing with it is simply ignoring it. If your fleet is really that big, then you might as well just go for their capital. Hopefully whatever planet of yours they are attacking is well defended

Reply to Why PC Gaming is Dying in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]MeestYk Indeed. I've been told the same thing by a Gamestop rep. However, in the long run, I see more and more console users out there, thus, adding support. We will see more costly consoles for sure, and better games/applications for it, translating to more willing spenders. Look at the gas prices rising everyday. It hasn't killed customers. It's all about supply/demand. [/quote] Back in the '90s, video games were for kids. Now, those kids have grown up and have money and e

Reply to Piracy ain't the only reason why PC gaming is dying (my rant) in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]Kyro Specialty game stores like EB and Gamestop have cut back because their profit is almost entirely based on used game sales, and they no longer take PC tradeins because of piracy fears. As such, they've tried to minimize PC shelf space in favor of more profitable items (used console games). [/quote] n York region (Ontario, Canada) where I live, there was actually a law forbidding the resale of open PC software for a while, which meant that the EB Games stores could not buy

Reply to Piracy ain't the only reason why PC gaming is dying (my rant) in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]CobraA1 Well, with my computer I use a DVI to VGA adapter, and my monitor supplies me with a nice 1600x1200 resolution @ 75Hz, non-interlaced. Have a good old fashioned CRT, although a new LCD is on my wish list. Problem is, with all of that width, they lose some height. You'd think that with the new technologies I'd get higher resolutions both ways, but I guess not . It's basically the same thing as 1080p but with a different aspect ratio. [/quote] In my experience, widescre

Reply to Why PC Gaming is Dying in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]But is there a significant performance gain? That's the key issue.Hard to say, as none of the cores were maxed out, even with the affinity set to use only two of them. My bottleneck isn't my CPU.[/quote] In which case, what good is it? Mad Cat

Reply to Problems with Tac/Logistic slots... in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

The idea of structures using both Tactical AND Logistical slots is a good one. For example, both ship factories use up Logistical slots, but it's hard to see how they could be used for anything but tactical purposes. It's an interesting idea that I think the Devs could look into. Mad Cat

Reply to Why PC Gaming is Dying in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]EDIT: Just tested the Crysis demo. The menus and intro videos seem to be single threaded, but the game itself is multi threaded. It does in fact use all four cores, although not always equally. The CPU usage on all four is increased, although two or three will often be used more than the fourth. It will definitely use more than two cores when it needs to. [/quote] But is there a significant performance gain? That's the key issue. Mad Cat

Reply to Piracy ain't the only reason why PC gaming is dying (my rant) in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]Have you not noticed the problems with the economy and gas prices, of course people aren't going a $250 Wii, or a $350 Xbox 360 or a $600 PS3, because they are payiing a shit load of money on gas or food. This all because Bush started the war with Iraq, because i belive that the high gas prices are being used to secretly fund the war in Iraq and the military, why else wouldn't Bush lower the prices,[/quote] At the risk of going off topic, oil prices are determined by supply and d

Reply to Expansion Ships.... in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote][U]TEC Interceptor:[/U]A new crusier that has "strikecraft" that lockdown trade ships and refinery ships and steals the credits and resources. Seems logical that the TEC would have a unit that further increases the economic advantage they have. [/quote] This ability ALREADY exists - it's the Sova Carrier's Embargo ability! [quote][U]Vasari Enslaver:[/U] A new support frigate that can use an ability to steal resource asteroids from its enem

Reply to Why PC Gaming is Dying in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]Starhaus For example, if programability is limited to just a few highly capitalized firms that can afford the royalties for access to the platform, then the whole reason for a PC-like console will be strangled: the software. [/quote] In other words, it will be like a Mac. :p [quote]CobraA1 Yes. Both XP Service Pack 2 and Vista have full support for multiple cores.[/quote] By "support" I meant "take advantage of". Is there an actual performance gain

Reply to Why PC Gaming is Dying in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]MeestYK Now I see why the crowd would rather go for a console than a PC. Some say that PC is so "easy" to use. Well, it's true to someone who took the time to learn it all, but not to someone who never owned any piece of technology (TV, Cell, Microwave, you name it) [/quote] Ok, seriously, who are you marketing these next gen super-consoles to? The current generation, or a bunch of senile 70-year olds living in an old folks home? "Never owned a piece of technology" my ass!

Reply to Piracy ain't the only reason why PC gaming is dying (my rant) in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]many of the original games had no protection and were insainly popular.[/quote] That's because back then there weren't any commercial CD burners, very few people new what the Internet was, let alone have access to it, and even if you were lucky to have access, a 1 megabyte picture (which you could only hope was nude as advertised since you couldn't see the thumbnail because the Internet was mostly textbased and bandwidth was ridiculous small) took 30 minutes to download. <br/

Reply to How Can You Change What Empire You want To Be??? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

You have to click on the "?" on the game screen just after you select the map. Mad Cat

Reply to Piracy ain't the only reason why PC gaming is dying (my rant) in PC Gaming Sins Forums

[quote]Marketing is a major factor in gaming sales and devs that make great games don't want to have their awsome games be ported to an unpopular system like PC.[/quote] More likely they don't want to spend the time and money porting a console game to the PC given how low the sales will be. It's not just piracy, it's the fact that console-to-PC port games are aimed at a rather small minority of gamers who only own a PC. If you already own game X for your console, you're not going to bu

Reply to A few noob questions in Strategy Sins Forums

Thanks again for the info. Got a couple more questions here: 1. Will building more Shield Generators increase the amount of shielding my planets receive, or is it useless beyond the first generator? 2. I noticed that some of my colonies have their allegiance peaked at rather low values like 65%, possibly due to their distance from the homeworld. Is there any way of increasing their maximum allegiance without moving the capital? Mad Cat