DesConnor

Reply to NEW Patch Stat Changes Forums [NEW TOPIC: CAPITAL SHIPS!! 1/2/10] in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

The obvious solution to the flak/LRF combination isn't a flak nerf though, its the much-needed LRF nerf? Carriers have the option to change to bombers... if a slight adjustment is needed, then why not buff bombers against flak? As it is bombers have 100% damage against very heavy armour and only 50% against heavy and medium... how about 75% against heavy? Also, LRF are supposed to be anti-medium, yet have 75% damage against very heavy and capital armour... anti

Reply to Help with 'Centrifuge?' in Strategy Sins Forums

Vastly overpriced for multiplayer games, and normally next to useless, this situation is made for the humble point defence unit... The roids are small enough to be defended effectively by point defence and will be attacked often and blindly enough that immobility isn't an issue. They are still expensive for what they are, but if you don't use them for this, never build one. For the price of your hangars you could have five on each roid... you'd still require an upgrade

Reply to NEW Patch Stat Changes Forums [NEW TOPIC: CAPITAL SHIPS!! 1/2/10] in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I don't want to deprecate this thread, as it's almost all the platform that we have, however I won't believe that there is a serious attempt to balance the game until the very best players will play each other 1v1 with all the various factions. With version v1.041, would any of them play any other faction against Advent? Replays of 1v1 games would be more of a challenge to the developers than exists at present. Until we have balance, Advent=easy. Adven

Reply to A Radical Suggestion: AI Personalities in Sins Diplomacy Sins Forums

I find that singleplayer Advent AI is badly broken in the current version, as the AI Drone Hosts fail to produce strikecraft once mines are researched... does this affect anyone else? If very basic bugs like this and the illuminator bug are allowed to persist there doesn't seem to be any prospect for a general improvement at all. I agree that it might add character to the game if the faction names were matched to the traits. Associating the names with the ex

Reply to Robots and Mechanical Men in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

This was on the small map posted in reply #4. Vasari on the left, Advent on the right. Normal start, I played it on normal speed to allow the AI more time. Both AIs are Aggressors. The extractors seem to produce at the home planets before they have been built. The three neutral gravwells produce a grand total of one crystal extractor. The Egg and the Rapture are the first caps- 5 Skirmishers also for Vasari, 5 Disciples for Advent..

Reply to NEW Patch Stat Changes Forums [NEW TOPIC: CAPITAL SHIPS!! 1/2/10] in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I'm included! I exist! Perhaps the simplest method of fixing the minefield z-axis blindspot would be to allow the area of effect of mines to extend to the top and bottom of the gravwell, so that it was a column not a sphere...? The z-axis should be included as a bug however... anything that allows an exploit must need a patch? Anyone prepared to confirm the problem of queued extractors yielding income before they are constructed on normal start (v1.041)?

Reply to Robots and Mechanical Men in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I next tried a TEC aggressor against a Vasari researcher. This nearly became a TEC victory, but after seven hours it was still too level, as the TEC had only taken the Vasari roid... what made the difference was that the Vasari reseracher stayed a level of fleet lower for too long, and having almost double the supply meant that the lobbers were affordable for the TEC.. also while the Vasari AI had 9 caps at one point the TEC had 2 very well-placed starbases. <p

Reply to NEW Patch Stat Changes Forums [NEW TOPIC: CAPITAL SHIPS!! 1/2/10] in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Bugs: On Normal Start extractors seem to produce once queued rather than when constructed- I'm not sure whether this is a more general bug yet, can someone confirm it? Once an Advent AI has researched Homing Mines, its Drone Hosts become entirely ineffective. Kol and Kortul graphics bugs need to be added. Balance changes: No to starbase deployment in magnatic clouds, though I favour the suggested jump time increase. If starbases can't be deployed

Reply to Robots and Mechanical Men in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I venture to differ with you on that analysis sirrah, though it seems unlikely that we'll ever get the ability to produce custom AI's to settle the matter appropriately, in the style of gentle-androids! Many of the AI problems caused by Entrenchment are simply due to the nerf to fleet composition, so the Vasari AI becomes superior, as it builds far less mining ships than the other factions build lobbers... Again as I expected, the Vasari Fortifier was able to dispose of the TEC

Reply to Robots and Mechanical Men in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

If at first you don't succeed, fail, fail and fail again. Finally got an AI vs AI win on 1v1. I had to abandon the multi and simplify further, and it still took 3 hours. I used this map: [IMG]http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/1026/restraintai.th.jpg[/IMG] The winner was a TEC finance AI against an Advent researcher... somewhat of a cheat, because as I expected the Advent AI researched homing mines, and its drone hosts began to carry mines everywhere- making th

Reply to Robots and Mechanical Men in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

The method I used was to have the player occupy a planet that is entirely detached from the rest of the system. Of course the enemy TEC researcher AI then went for Insurgency, but that only takes one cap to defend and shouldn't affect the rest of the battle... Pirates might be a problem if I had them on, as the non-allied AI would have to split its bounty. For the second expansion a proper observer slot would help greatly with testing. Once detached from the res

[Bug?] Extractors in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

When I start a game on normal start using version 1.041, the extractors at my home planet seem to produce as soon as they are queued, rather than after they are constructed. Is this bug present for anyone else?

Robots and Mechanical Men in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[Bug v1.041] Once an Advent AI has researched homing mines, its fleets no longer have the support of strikecraft from its carriers. The Drone Hosts might need a limit on how long they will carry mines. I had decided to test the strength of the AI against each other on a custom 1v1 multi, but as the first match has taken three hours with a final result unlikely, the full test might proceed slowly! The first co

Reply to 1v1 Ladder in Sins Multiplayer Sins Forums

You could play ladder games from a saved map. so that the militia and extractors wouldn't vary, but it seems unnecessarily complicated. The new expansion might help if it included a 'standard' and 'random' option in setup, so that under 'standard' the extractors and militia were always the same for each different type of grav well?

Reply to How will this benefit online players? in Sins Diplomacy Sins Forums

One method of helping both multiplayer and singleplayer would be to have an option to play under a handicap (rather than boost AI resource and credits cheats to new levels). Thats why it might be useful to have four divergent forms of each faction monarchy, theocracy/oligarchy and republic, with anarchy being a handicap form. Faster play won't encourage newcomers, while a method of being able to play at a more equal level might. The devs will simply never be

Reply to Any Guides For 1v1, By Faction? in Strategy Sins Forums

I would have the returning fleets free, but not at the previous level. As it is there is a double handicap to the tech, you can't get the ships that you want, and you have to pay part of the cost. I would like the size of the fleets reduced to the existing point of economic advantage, and made free. The ships might get scrapped for extra resources, but this is very micro-intensive, and it might be much better that the abuse of the tech be micro-intensive, rather than it

Reply to More Espionage Options in Sins Diplomacy Sins Forums

The counter-envoy option suggested by Shadowhal seems useful, as does the option to lower planet health because of spying on defences. Envoys were more often a means of promoting trade with their hosts, rather than suppressing trade with other empires... perhaps the ships could also have some element of a trade port? What changes to trade have been made? Options like the game being faster, the AI having a larger scale of production cheat and the pirates having more s

Reply to Any Guides For 1v1, By Faction? in Strategy Sins Forums

Hoshikos have to be among the top two, anyway- while I consider the Overseer more useful for its function, it and the Subverter seem very flimsy for a faction that is supposed to have the most survivable ships. I've often asked that most of the Subverter (and RA) nerf be revoked. However I wanted to discuss what could be a balanced 1v1 map, if the random map isn't considered suitable. All the features might have to be included,

Reply to MINES - A break from the Scout discussion... in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Only Advent mines seem to achieve any results, other mines can be detected safely and easily avoided and destroyed by fighters. Perhaps all mines should be types of homing mine? How about Tec chain mines, which activate when a ship crosses a line between a pair of mines, exploiting a spread? The scout might have to get close enough to centre of the line to detect the pair. Phase mines could activate only on a phase jump- and chase enemies out of a grav well, may

Reply to Flak vs. lrm in Strategy Sins Forums

Perhaps a worry about a Tec scout/LF fleet backed with hoshikos would be the very low dps? Scouts only have the edge on LRF when massed, and the fleet just seems very vulnerable to the enemy capital. An Advent colony ship could just ignore it, and kill scouts to level? And what is the right cap... any cap that the Tec use instead of a Marza, isn't helping to level a Marza.. a carrier is hindered by flaks and the Kol hardly ups the dps. A Halcyon could kill all the scouts, an

Reply to Any Guides For 1v1, By Faction? in Strategy Sins Forums

I'd be surprised if there were a few 1v1 on ICO, as I haven't seen many, I suppose they might fill quickly and a game list would help, but there rarely seems to be one open. If we are agreed that a random map can't be used for 1v1 balance, can any of the set maps be used? What would an ideal balanced map be composed of? It should probably be mirrored, as has been suggested. One of each of terran, desert, volcanic and ice for each side seems good? Two roids an

Reply to Any Guides For 1v1, By Faction? in Strategy Sins Forums

I wanted to establish whether the game has a widely-agreed balance problem, leading to a need to fix it. RTS games seem to need to be extensively balanced for 1v1 play, and there is scarcely any 1v1 online. If it does need fixing 1v1, is this even possible on the current random map? Which 1v1 map should be played? Darvin's point that the 1v1 random is out of line with the other maps is well made- though this tends to be true of all other RTS as well..

Any Guides For 1v1, By Faction? in Strategy Sins Forums

Guides for multiplayer 4s and 5s are useful, but shouldn't the game be balanced at the 1v1 level? The game really suffers from the lack of structure in multiplayer. We might need the top players to produce guides for 1v1 play with all the factions, against each faction. If the random map variations are unacceptable to the top players, is there a standard, balanced 1v1 map that could be used? Shouldn't the 1v1 random maps be fixed, if they are unusable?

Reply to NEW Patch Stat Changes Forums [NEW TOPIC: CAPITAL SHIPS!! 1/2/10] in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Another factor in map imbalances is that ice planets are often very weakly guarded. As they have three stages of infrastructure, shouldn't they have the same posible militia groups as desert planets, rather than the less populous volcanic planets? I suspect that this has been requested before, but it wasn't yet on this list. Militia could be a topic on its own, the potential is there for huge improvement to the game without any extra development time, just by alterati

Reply to Multiplayer GalaxyForge Compilation - Third Version Available in Sins Multiplayer Sins Forums

I should note that my maps may not have been set up for Quickstart, as I'm not keen on it and they haven't been Quickstart tested by me. I've started to test the maps in the pack, after removing the ones that were noted as not working. Some don't seem to have pirates on... shouldn't this be a player choice..? I'd alter my maps if necessary, but to me Quickstart just encourages early spam and rushes, reducing choice at the start and allowing less time for sco