Darvin3

Reply to Patch Stat Changes Forum [NEW TOPIC: Adjudicators 8/25/09]!! in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]When bombers come between anti-strikecraft weapons, those weapons fire at their closest target. When 30 bombers approach a horde of flaks, 5-7 out of them will receive more than enough to wipe them out threefold, just because they happened to be those closest ones for more than one frigate. Just as well, when 90 bombers are passing the same blob of flaks, it will not be 15-21 bombers shot[/quote] Flak frigates have multiple guns, each facing different directions. A single

Reply to Rock Vs Rock (rebalance needed) in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]well, it might be intresting to see what happens with different set ups...[/quote] The typical proportion that most experience players use is one flak per squadron of enemy fighters. I think the results show why; it cleans them up very nicely. Yes, you could overkill it, but that takes away from other units. [quote]it would be intresting how bomber sqauds fared against flacks.[/quote] Problem is those bombers might actually kill a flak, which wo

Reply to Patch Stat Changes Forum [NEW TOPIC: Adjudicators 8/25/09]!! in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]May I add the strikecraft longevity against flak is hugely effected by behavior- i.e setting strikecraft to hold position behavior allows them to live longer against flak frigates, but requires more micro to be effective attackers.[/quote] While this is true, in practice people don't use hole position when flaks are around. In fact, the opposite is true; they micro them to avoid staying near the flaks. [quote]We're talking about bombers. Focus please. I'm saying V

Reply to Rock Vs Rock (rebalance needed) in Strategy Sins Forums

Unfortunately, the "no micro" case is unrealistic enough as it is. A "hold position" case is just way out there, becuase no one uses this stance when there are flaks on the field. Kind of pointless to test what would happen if fighters just stood still in the presence of flaks, when no one uses them like that. Then we have the issue of flaks gun ports. Flak gun ports face and fire in multiple directions. This is to give them an advantage against those fast-movi

Reply to Patch Stat Changes Forum [NEW TOPIC: Adjudicators 8/25/09]!! in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]1] Ready to be healed means you need to manually bring them into your Skirantra's repair cloud range, which is SMALL. So you either have to micro the strikecraft into the repair cloud, which takes time and their DPS off, or you have to park the skirantra right next to what the strikecraft are attacking, which is hardly a good idea against supported starbases.[/quote] Okay, who uses fighters and doesn't micro them? If you want an attack-move army, fighters are po

Reply to Rock Vs Rock (rebalance needed) in Strategy Sins Forums

I decided to go ahead and try the test out myself. The flaks were moved to the center of the gravity well, and the carriers warped in (full antimatter when they departed). The flaks were in a fleet, otherwise no micromanagement. I considered the carriers don't for the count when [i]all[/i] fighter squads were reduced below 20%. I also recorded how long it took before the first fighter squad was totally wiped out. It's worth noting that no carrier ever ran out of

Reply to Patch Stat Changes Forum [NEW TOPIC: Adjudicators 8/25/09]!! in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Again, I'll reiterate: if we're talking about a massive fleet battle, armour types won't mean much because three dozen LRF are going to focus fire those siege frigates, and they will not survive. It's small harass teams that these armour types really matter for, and light frigates and scouts both are fully capable and respectable in small engagements.

Reply to Rock Vs Rock (rebalance needed) in Strategy Sins Forums

Actually, if there's one test I would like to see, it's a test of how long it takes each type of flak to clear out each variety of fighter squads. That is, put 6 flaks up against 6 fighter squads (for each racial combination) and time how long it takes for them to go down. If there's one thing the community lacks right now, it's much consensus on whose flaks are better at killing fighters and whose fighters are best at surviving flaks. We all know fighters lose across the bo

Reply to Quick Question about the version you play in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

The only thing I dislike about Entrenchment is the theme song that plays in the menu. Starbases and mines can occasionally be a pain, but the gameplay improvements brought by these units far outweigh the occasional annoyances.

Reply to Patch Stat Changes Forum [NEW TOPIC: Adjudicators 8/25/09]!! in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]Siege are tier 2 and so are hangars.[/quote] Siege are tier 1 for Advent and Vasari; they're only tier 2 for TEC, who will be getting LRMs anyways. Hangers are immobile, siege frigates are not. You have to hanger up each of your planets (this isn't an AI we're talking about, this is a player who knows how to scout and pick the most vulnerable targets), and that's extremely expensive. So a team of two or three roaming siege frigates can become extremely diffi

Reply to Rock Vs Rock (rebalance needed) in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]That army doesn't just take upkeep, it also takes the money to build the individual cruisers/frigates...[/quote] So basically you're including the opportunity cost. In practice, the opportunity cost of building something other than a warship is fairly large, since you now cannot capitalize on an enemy's vulnerabilities or defend yourself as well if you come under attack.

Reply to Neutral Balance in Strategy Sins Forums

Look at the URL. That's the preview image for a file download. http://www.rtscommunity.com/mw/map.php?itemid=238&game=26

Reply to Nonviolence, what MLK can do for you in Strategy Sins Forums

Super-culture isn't that dangerous. Culture takes so long to actually a kill a planet that its owner has plenty of time to raise a fleet and launch an offensive. You need to have strong defenses to be able to defend your culture centers for a long period of time to successfully bring down planets with culture. However, it is a great way to be passive-aggressive and pressure the enemy into attacking you. Culture on its own doesn't win games. Culture is used as a t

Reply to Quirks, Irks, and Things that Bother Me TAKE FOUR in Strategy Sins Forums

"Mazda" is a brand of car, and "Kia" is another brand of car. He's making a joke based on the other guys typo

Reply to Neutral Balance in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]I'll bet though that somewhere out there is a good map thats well balanced for all races, now if only there was an auto d/l system.[/quote] I actually do a lot of experimentation with galaxy forge. To date, this is (imo) my best balanced map: The problem is, there's only so much I

Reply to Patch Stat Changes Forum [NEW TOPIC: Adjudicators 8/25/09]!! in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]All you've said just does not matter. Their superior armor and HPs matter only against, say, three flaks. Five or more flak frigs or one fighter squadron will one-shot a bomber.[/quote] Highest DPS flak frigate is the Advent's, dealing 18 dps. It deals 150% damage to fighters. Vasari fighters have 85 hit points, and would take 27 damage per second per flak frigate. Takes four hits to kill. Seeing as flaks can't actually aim all their guns at the sam

Reply to Patch Stat Changes Forum [NEW TOPIC: Adjudicators 8/25/09]!! in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]trust me, you don't want to go back to the days of Marauding siege fleets blowing up your worlds before you can even kill them[/quote] I'd agree, but they're a far cry from that right now. They could be buffed quite modestly and still be easily taken down. Remember that siege frigates have the same armour type as LRF, so a scout rush will be a perfect answer to a siege frigate rush. No tech cost, a cheap unit that can easily outrun the unit it's countering, an

Reply to Rock Vs Rock (rebalance needed) in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]egrigious military budgets always leave shortcomings in other areas[/quote] I think that's what upkeep is supposed to represent.

Reply to Patch Stat Changes Forum [NEW TOPIC: Adjudicators 8/25/09]!! in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Siege Frigs: increase shields/hp/armour: yay (don't care which) change armour type: nay decrease resource cost: yay decrease command cost: yay increase bombard damage: nay make TEC heavy fallout active: yay reduce heavy vallout duration: yay reduce experience value: yay (~40) apply fixes to militia: yay (why wouldn't this apply?) apply fix

Reply to Light Frigates--The Unused Frigate in Strategy Sins Forums

That much is true; when it comes to running away light frigates, carriers, and scouts are kings. Unfortunately, it's hard to win games by running away.

Reply to Patch Stat Changes Forum [NEW TOPIC: Adjudicators 8/25/09]!! in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]And while we're at it, why not make the TEC Heavy Fallout upgrade autocast so we could actually turn it off if need be.[/quote] There's a good one! Totally in agreement! [quote]the supply is negligible of course but either way[/quote] 14 supply is NEGLIGIBLE? Let's not forget their cost! These things take a [i]huge[/i] chunk out of your fighting force. I also don't think you appreciate just how weak they are in combat. I had [i]st

Reply to Another person with ideas and opinions of Sins in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Discussions about the LRF and the LF are going on across the boards even as we speak. The power of the LRF and the lack of power of the LF are two issues that have player attention, and likely developer attention as well. As far as flak go, they're very powerful currently. Unless fighters get a massive buff, I don't see any justification to give flaks additional special abilities. In most cases, fighters are nearly worthless against a mature fleet because flaks are s

Reply to Rock Vs Rock (rebalance needed) in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]+100 illus > all[/quote] Encountered an illum masser who didn't build flak the other day. Built carriers and laughed as his pretty illuminators got toasted. Now, hundreds of illums backed up by dozens of flaks and guardians, while packing a high level holy trinity, [i]now[/i] we're talking something that's > all.

Reply to Strategy vs. Tactical in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]Capitalship Manual Cast isn't a problem for me[/quote] Then you're fine. [quote]I would still likely leave Autocast on when clearing out an asteroid or a planet with only 4 militia[/quote] If you're not worried about depleting your antimatter, then most of the offensive abilities (like radiation bomb and nano-disassemblers) can be left on autocast. Hard to screw up an "attack the enemy" ability. That said, a good strategy is to single out the

Reply to Rock Vs Rock (rebalance needed) in Strategy Sins Forums

I think the LRF, HC, and fighter comparisons are all valid, because these are cases where people do actively counter rock with rock. For all these other units, players [i]don't[/i] frequently use them against their own kind. You don't build scouts to fight other scouts, you build them to fight lrf. As a result, I don't think scout on scout is a useful test. The same can be said of flak. A more useful test would be to compare their performance in