Darvin3

Reply to Your Thoughts On Scouts & Timed Explosives? Good / Bad??? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]That said, if the AI is too stupid for a human to rely on it. It also means the AI is too stupid to be a reliable opponent to a human.[/quote] Very much so. The AI is largely an incompetent opponent capable of only the most basic strategies. It mismanages its resources and fleet and depends on a hefty resource cheat on higher difficulties to have any chance of beating a human player. I've yet to see a RTS with a great AI. Auto-cast is just a symp

Reply to 3 Kols would kill 200 bommer easy in Strategy Sins Forums

Kol absolutely annihilates strike craft, although your opponent was foolish to build so many bombers to begin with. Against a Kol, you absolutely must keep your strike craft spread out so that they cannot blast them all in a single volley of their flak barrage. If you can't do this, you shouldn't be using a primarily strike-craft based army against Kols. Great ability, definitely one of the game's strongest.

Reply to Your Thoughts On Scouts & Timed Explosives? Good / Bad??? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

You need several scouts using explosives to make it lethal against the target structure. You have to kill, otherwise it's not useful. This means you need several scouts, and you need to coordinate their attak. If you don't want to do this, don't bother with the ability. If you do have the time and effort to do this management, it's a decent ability to use.

Reply to Your Thoughts On Scouts & Timed Explosives? Good / Bad??? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]to get the most out of the skill you really have to go in and target stuff manually.[/quote] That's true of almost every ability in the game. The auto-cast AI isn't very good, so you really have to be ready to manage manually. If you aren't ready to do that, the ability is largely worthless.

Reply to Nerf the damn marza in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I don't think all capital ships can be viable first choices. Without a fundamental rework, the Dunov will never be a serious first pick contendor. Kol, Akkan, and even Sova, on the other hand, all have potential as first picks. I think this can be extended to the other factions; very few ships have abilities that are exclusively useful in a secondary function. I don't think it's wrong that the colony caps are the best choice for booming, but I do think it's wrong that

Reply to Throwing in one of my secret techniques in sins... in Strategy Sins Forums

I typically move around by double-tapping a hotkey I've assigned to a unit group. Doesn't work for queuing up structures or upgrades on a random planet, but when you're jumping between multiple fronts it's an invaluable tool. I'm always amazed by how many people who don't know about this (I do LAN parties and people will ask me how I'm jumping between my armies so fast)

Reply to Nerf the damn marza in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote] 1) it is not a true statement that the TEC faction is somehow deeply flawed and the only thing keeping it viable is Missile Barrage. the TEC faction has a better economy and a comparable military to the other factions. the only noteworthy point of difference is that the TEC Colony capital ship is not as strong as the Advent or Vasari colony capital ships. [/quote] While this topic may focus on the Marza, I also believe the mothership and evacuator are generally

Reply to Your Thoughts On Scouts & Timed Explosives? Good / Bad??? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

It's a harass tool. Get some scouts in behind enemy lines and destroy structures. They either need to put up some hanger defenses to chase down your scouts or live with losing a lab every five minutes or so. It's not bad if you actually have five to ten scouts running around, but if you only have one or two you won't destroy anything, just damage it. So, overall, it's mediocre. You either commit to using it extensively or don't research it at all. Way bet

Reply to Capital Ships, Nice But... in Strategy Sins Forums

The only faction that can get away with cap ship spam (and even then you want some other ship types in support) is Advent. Mass transcendance means you get level 4 for free, plus more experience to go around. It's actually feasible to get a full fleet of 16 caps all higher than level 6 as Advent in a two-three hour game. However, you really can only start building them in such large numbers after researching mass transcendance, and will always need units like guardians, illu

Reply to Nerf the damn marza in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I think there are a lot of people who want to see capital ship abilities scale better with larger fleets, and to them the problem is that there aren't more abilities like missile barrage. While I still maintain it's too much to have an "act now or lose" ability on any single capital ship, I do tend to agree that the ability being uncapped is not necessarily a bad thing. I think it's perfectly acceptable to say that missile barrage should remain uncapped, but to maintain that posit

Reply to Turning Point in a Game. in Strategy Sins Forums

[QUOTE] use unfair ai? [/QUOTE] His problem isn't with the difficulty persay, but rather that the AI will throw all its eggs in one basket so if it loses one big fleet battle the game is effectively over. The AI doesn't use many high level abilities, and often won't use them well even if it does. It doesn't retreat units and lets its high level capital ships die. It will get huge fleets destroyed by throwing them around recklessly and

Reply to Nerf the damn marza in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote](in the sense that nerf means: to make harmless)[/quote] Typically a "nerf" means to make weaker, not harmless. I don't think anyone here wants that of missile barrage, or any unit or ability. I think the best way to deal with missile barrage is to lower its cooldown and number of salvos. This has two effects. First, it lowers the penalty if you don't/can't counter it, because it's going to end sooner. You're still going to take a

Reply to Your "Ideal" Fleet: 100 ships for any race in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote] you will have a lot of fighters .. so you wouldn't deal alot dmg vs caps so if your enemy brings some flak ~20-30 [/quote] With drone hosts, I'd go with 2 fighters - 1 bomber. It should also be noted that even with only fighters a drone host will defeat any flak frigate in a 1v1 fight. Command-wise, you get multiple (5 for most factions, IIRC) flaks per drone host, but under the rules described above this doesn't happen. It's 1 drone h

Reply to Second expansion suggestions (Part 1: Economy Suggestions) in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]I was thinking about uncapping. However, I can see how it would get pretty annoying, very fast, especially if you have a random map with unbalanced resources. It would also cause things to be unbalanced towards TEC, as if they simply start buying up things no matter what the price, they will drive everyone out of the market.[/quote] The TEC's "favoured client" upgrade is still percentage based. It's not like they don't already have an economic advantage; I don

Reply to Nerf the damn marza in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote] The main reason people get killed by it so easyly is because you can barely tell the player has activated it. If it was visualy significant people would be able to react in time. [/quote] I don't think it's simply a matter of reaction. As I've said about missile barrage (and about starfall in Warcraft III, a conceptually identicle ability) don't use it if it's just going to get interrupted. You control when it gets activated, not your enemy, and bec

Reply to Nerf the damn marza in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote] The main reason people get killed by it so easyly is because you can barely tell the player has activated it. If it was visualy significant people would be able to react in time. [/quote] I don't think it's simply a matter of reaction. As I've said about missile barrage (and about starfall in Warcraft III, a conceptually identicle ability) don't use it if it's just going to get interrupted. You control when it gets activated, not your enemy, and bec

Reply to On spam in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

In this context "spam" is not well defined. Some people do consider it a run of units that make the bulk of your army, others define it as exclusively building on unit type. I tend to avoid the term because it causes more confusion than it's worth.

Reply to Second expansion suggestions (Part 1: Economy Suggestions) in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Most of those economic ideas would suit a turn-based game well. However, the real-time nature of Sins may make them too much to manage on the fly. Some things have to be kept simple because otherwise they detract from the more important parts of the game. I think a good economic system should be lean, requiring little action from the player to manage, but still supporting a great deal of choice. One thing I'd like to see is the concept of inflation. As it is, the bla

Reply to Nerf the damn marza in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I think a lot of capital ships need reworking. As it is, Vasari and Advent are hopelessly dependent on their overpowered colony caps, and the Marza has a special ability to which there simply is no comparison. No matter how much you say that it's beatable or that TEC need it to be viable, the fact remains that it is overpowered and overshadows other far more interesting abilities. It's the very definition of imbalanced when one choice is the best choice 90% of the time.

Reply to Your "Ideal" Fleet: 100 ships for any race in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote] maybe cancle the illus and put all Aerias in [/quote] I was considering illuminators, too, but the simple question is this: three beam attacks, or there strike craft squads? It's tough to get over the 20 command drone host gag reflex, but in this case we have to presume that illums are of equal cost to carriers, in which case I see no real role for them.

Reply to Your "Ideal" Fleet: 100 ships for any race in Strategy Sins Forums

The big factor here is that we're talking about 100 ships, not 100 command of ships, so there's no penalty for picking the highest cost / command value ships. This leaves many of the low command ships less useful than they are in reality, and makes some units like drone hosts harder, if not impossible, to counter. There's no frigate or cruiser in the game that can take on a drone host in a 1 on 1 battle. You typically need one flak frigate per squad, which is not possi

Reply to New grunt ship in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

There isn't a clear "grunt" frigate, and part of that is the fault of the rocks-paper-scissors game balance we have. No matter what unit you pick as the workhorse, there is a hard counter to it, so if you rely heavily on them you're going to get countered.

Reply to Opening moves in Strategy Sins Forums

For Vasari and Advent, the colony cap ship is virtually the unassailable first choice. They double as some of the best overall support caps for their respective factions as it is. For TEC, the choice is a little more dubious. The TEC colony cap is a support capital ship and is mediocre in a direct confrontation with a powerful high DPS enemy cap. This makes it highly tempting to just go with a hard hitter like Marza or Kol and suck up the cost of a colony frigate or tw

Reply to Illuminator Special Ability in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote] I guess theyc an eat side bank damage from thigns liek cap ships, flak, and other illumiantors. [/quote] That's the primary use of the ability, of course. As I said, nothing special, but certainly worth your time. I also like the concept of using it as mine removal.

Reply to Trade port routes in Strategy Sins Forums

The reality of the game isn't quite like that, since planet bonuses (ie: +30% trade revenue) may be enough to convince you to shorten your longest trade route, and in reality you are unlikely to fill every viable logistics slot before the game ends. As well, the longest chain disperity between trade spam and a planned build tends to only become significant after you control more than half the galaxy. This is particularly true on those huge sprawling single-star systems. &n