Darvin3

Reply to Purchasing Cap Ship Levels in Strategy Sins Forums

The best way to use these upgrades is to "finish off" a partially completed level. A big example is a capital ship that's level 2 and halfway to level 3 just before a rush; it's [i]well[/i] worth it to fork out some cash to make it level 3 for your attack. This means that it will only cost me 500 or so credits, but having something like level 2 shield restore or raze planet can really make the difference between a successful or failed attack. As you've already pointed out, t

Reply to Need large map help please in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]By the way, it just blows me away how many people here seem to know soooo much about every ship and it's special abilities. [/quote] If you play long enough you'll eventually get to know them all, but anyways on to your main question... The issue here is that you're playing on "unlocked teams" settings. The AIs tend to make alliances amongst each other early and often, but expect you to complete missions for the right to be considered for such a pri

Reply to 2 Questions: Flak to SC Ratio and Shield Mitigation Impacts? in Strategy Sins Forums

Bombers are your problem here, as Carbon says. You'll need fighters of your own to beat those. Use the Kol, Kortul, or Halcyon depending on your faction for their useful anti-strike craft abilities. A combination of the right capital ship, some fighters, and some flak can really hammer a strike-craft based army. As for shield mitigation, anything that is shield bypass will ignore it (including phase missiles). I'm not sure how malice interacts with mitiga

Reply to Suggest an effective way to go through enemy Starbases. in Strategy Sins Forums

If you just want to bombard a planet you've already conquered, Novalith is a very poor choice. It will leave fallout for several minutes preventing you from colonizing, delaying those critical forward factories, broadcast centers, and repair bays. Buy a new Marza if you need to speed up bombardment, use Novalith pairs to destroy planets deep in enemy territory to screw with his econ.

Reply to Halcyon Carrier's Weapon Cooldown/rate of fire boost and Starbases and Turrets in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]all you are writing is more of a theorycraft then game itself[/quote] Except, you know, I [i]play[/i] the game and this is what I've actually learned by playing the game. [quote]The Halc + meteor isnt unbeatable, but its tough as nails w/o a doubt.[/quote] Again, never said it was unbeatable, just ridiculously powerful. Nothing constitutes a hard counter, so you're in for a battle of attrition. Now, before I forget, Vasari [i]do[/i] have a very nice

Reply to Halcyon Carrier's Weapon Cooldown/rate of fire boost and Starbases and Turrets in Strategy Sins Forums

Problem with assault cruisers is that meteor control outranges them, so this really doesn't solve the problem.

Reply to Halcyon Carrier's Weapon Cooldown/rate of fire boost and Starbases and Turrets in Strategy Sins Forums

I never said that static defense was worthless. You have to use them effectively, however. Certainly starbases are far better investments than turrets. As for the player in your example, he was foolish to charge an Advent starbase directly, particularly if you had mass disorientation or meteors. The Halcyon presented a big problem for him, but he would have been much better off avoiding it. In fact, as a general rule, [i]never attack an Advent starbase head on

Reply to Making Cap abilities viable in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Yes, vertigo can be (and is) used to help cripple flaks and enable strike craft to do their job. It also serves as one of the best anti-illum abilities in the mirror match, preventing them from ripping apart your fleet with their usual amazing efficiency. You can also use it to keep your already tough carriers alive if the enemy gets too close. I used to go Radiance second in the mirror match to cancel shield restore, but now I go Rapture second for Vertigo. &

Reply to Halcyon Carrier's Weapon Cooldown/rate of fire boost and Starbases and Turrets in Strategy Sins Forums

Problem is that end-game usually involves swarms of bombers over a hundred squads strong. Structures just evapourate before such fleets, and personally I'd rather spend my precious precious tactical slots on repair bays and hangers in these situations.

Reply to The Best Capital Ships in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]Egg ... some abilities also stink, although disassembler is decent. Needs to be more durable and potent.[/quote] You're kidding me, right? It's arguably the best capital ship in the game (Progenitor Mothership being the other candidate, and also my personal favourite). Nanos are the most feared direct damage ability in the game, scrapping frigates and capital ships alike in their path. Gravity bomb is underrated, but it's a great way to get a kill against retr

Reply to Halcyon Carrier's Weapon Cooldown/rate of fire boost and Starbases and Turrets in Strategy Sins Forums

What a useful response. I can now begin to have a dialog with you and address the differences in our perspective. /sarcasm If you can't articulate what you think or why you think it, maybe it's you who has to sit down and consider whether your own ideas are rational or emotional.

Reply to New players go where? in Sins Multiplayer Sins Forums

Game times are typically around 1-2 hours, rarely longer. The reason is that (unlike singleplayer with an AI) there is usually a gentleman's surrender by the losing team once they know it's only a matter of time before they're defeated. There are good mannered players... and bad mannered players. If you can take those things in stride, you should be fine. Above all, just keep an open mind and take the suggestions of your allies. If you take some time t

Reply to Impulse-based Matchmaking for Sins? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I think the confusion here is that people anticipated something like battle.net's ladder, where every player's performance is tracked and when they search for a game they are paired with an opponent who most reasonably matches their own skill level. Instead, this appears to be a service designed to help you find who is available currently for any impulse game. The Sins community is small enough, however, that frequent online players will get to know each other,

Reply to Halcyon Carrier's Weapon Cooldown/rate of fire boost and Starbases and Turrets in Strategy Sins Forums

It's not dogma if I have a reason for it. You've failed to give any reason as to why you think turrets are viable for wide-scale deployment. It seems the dogma here is your belief that there is a dogma. I'm well open to discussion on the usefulness of turrets, but as I mentioned there are some strong reasons to avoid them. Too expensive and too easy to bypass are the big ones. I have strong reasons for not building these things very often, and my exper

Reply to Thousands of Players and No One To Play With in Multiplayer Organizer Sins Forums

You know what? I don't mind the small community. Sure, you sometimes have to wait a while for games to fill up, but on the flip side you actually get to know a lot of the people who play online, and build a reputation yourself. Now, I will totally agree with the balance statement and the issue of beginners getting into multiplayer. I've long since learned that there are two ways to pick up a multiplayer RTS game: learn the hard way and take your beatings in str

Reply to Diplomacy News - Dev Posted Here in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Guys, you do realize that a new patch and possible the diplomacy beta is on the horizon. In other words, this is "crunch time" for IC's team. Having worked on many software projects as part of my coursework, let me tell you something about crunch time: [i]it is the most [b]hellish[/b] time of your life[/i]. I had about 10 consecutive days last year where I got up, worked for about 15 hours stopping only for meals, then went to bed. I can fully

Reply to Making Cap abilities viable in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote] Off the top of my head, nano does 30 DPS for 20/30/40 seconds. I believe someone found that it killed Destra Crusaders in one shot at level two.[/quote] This is all correct, but it only [i]just[/i] kills the destra, so if the Advent player has enough hull upgrades researched it survives. This still shows the immense power of the ability. Its power against capital ships is formidable, for obvious reasons. In fact, it remains Vasari's best anti-starbase tool we

Reply to Let the "noobs" learn in Sins Multiplayer Sins Forums

People who complain after the fact are just whiners. If you've got a real complaint, lodge it early. Shouldn't matter whether you're winning or losing. Now, to be fair, some times you're busy on your own front then you look back and see someone in the pocket who masses static defense, but if you're just playing the blame game after the fact that's another matter. The real problem is stacked teams, when you have a newbie and a smurf and it's just a guess as to which t

Reply to Making Cap abilities viable in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Uh... Chris, nano disassemblers [i]already[/i] does major damage; at level 3 it kills any unit except capital ships and carriers in a single use!

Reply to Best Battleship in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]To be honest, I'm starting to think that the Kortul is the most underpowered of the 3 battleships.[/quote] Oh definitely; the only reason it gets used online is for jam weapons, since Vasari really has no other alternatives to deal with swarms of strike craft. It does this role effectively, but its other abilities just don't stack up to the "great" capital ships like Kol and Radiance. As for how to buff it... well, that's a subject of fierce debate. Th

Reply to Best Battleship in Strategy Sins Forums

If you're looking for sheer weapons and health... well, you probably should be buying frigates and not capital ships :-P Although I love the Marza in combat, I've taken to viewing it more like a super-siege frigate, for blowing up planets quickly and keeping up momentum. I will often fork out a huge sum of money to get level 2 raze planet so I can quickly take an enemy world and keep up my push.

Reply to Let the "noobs" learn in Sins Multiplayer Sins Forums

I don't think we have a large enough player-base to support a proper match-making system. There are few enough people in the lobby at any given time that you can actually sift through everyone's record by hand. I've seen both sides of the "newb" issue. On the one hand, you do get some people who just won't listen or do irrational things. A good example was someone who was in the pocket and decided to build lots of static defense while his allies were gettin

Reply to Halcyon Carrier's Weapon Cooldown/rate of fire boost and Starbases and Turrets in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]There's a strange dogma around that turrets arent worth to be built[/quote] This is because, unless you're against an AI, no one will stray into range of your turret cluster. They're going to destroy it from far away and never give it a chance to fire. This is compounded by their cost (250 credits is reasonable, it's the metal/crystal and tactical slots that are the real cost here). Turrets work great against the AI, but that's the qualifier: against the AI.&n

Reply to Can we have Super-Vessels Please.... in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]SO LONG AS IT IS COUNTERABLE[/quote] The problem with "countering" such big units is that either the counters work too well and make the units worthless, or they don't work well enough and leave the units unstoppable. Due to the advantage of decisiveness, the counter to these huge units has to be much more effective than the counter to smaller units. If I am countering long range frigates with fighters, even if I don't have enough fighters I will still kill some LRF

Reply to Single Players who want better AI and who desire human opponents but want to avoid Jerks in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Can't solve everything; personally I think PUG is a necessary evil if there's no obvious ways to split the teams evenly. Certainly if it's done [i]right[/i] it should be pretty quick. The alternative is to play 2's where it's pretty easy to get consensus. People don't seem to like 2's, though.