Darvin3

Reply to So What's The Big Deal About Carriers Anyway? [New To Forums, Please Don't Flame, Just Explain] in Strategy Sins Forums

One thing to remember from a singleplayer perspective is that the AI will build hordes and hordes of light frigates ("LF"). This is a [i]ludicrously[/i] bad strategy in most situations, but it just so happens to be a counter to carriers. Because of this, carriers come across as mediocre in singleplayer, but this is more to do with the fact that the AI masses the counter to carriers for the first hour or so of the game than the strength of the unit. Typical early game strat

Reply to TEC All Capital Ship Fleet (Well, Almost)... Thoughts, Comments, Discussion and Debate Wanted! in Strategy Sins Forums

An all-capital strategy is a novelty, and unless someone shows me strong evidence to the contrary I wouldn't even attempt it in multiplayer. Capital ships are lovely for their special abilities, but if you want sheer combat power or a support niche it's frigates and cruisers all the way. Capital ships provide invaluable and irreplacable abilities to your fleet, but you need to get the experience in them before they really pay off. If you have lots of capital ships, getting t

Reply to Nuking planets is evil in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

The actual representation of population and crews in this game are purely abstract in nature. We cannot simply say that an entire crew dies when the frigate is destroyed; for all we know the majority escape in life vessels and there is a space-age geneva convention covering POW's. Similarly, we can't make too many presumptions about planetary bombardment. I think we can say that the population number in game does not actually reflect the number of people living on the plan

Reply to Gaian Crescent in Strategy Sins Forums

Gaian Crescent strikes a wonderful balance between being a rush and colonization map, and both approaches are totally viable. Without actually playing a bunch of games against players on that map (because I've only played AI's on the crescent) I couldn't say which approach is better, but I can definitely say both are playable. I suspect because it's five jumps to the enemy homeworld that you'd probably want to be in more of a harassing position than a hard rushing position.

Reply to Using the Kol as your first Capital Ship in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I usually get a Kol second to support my Marza, then use them as a team. They're actually a great duo, with the Kol providing strike craft cover while the Marza just does its thing by being a beast against frigates.

Reply to Fleet Tax Level in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

No, once researched there is no way to reduce your tax rate. Make sure you only increase your fleet research level when you need it, because it can backfire!

Reply to Rushing in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]Afterwards, scuttle you capital ship factory because you won't need it for a while.[/quote] Now, I personally think that's needlessly risky. If you're good enough to kill off an opponent on the rush, then you don't need the tiny extra amount of cash you get from scuttling the capital ship factory. If you don't kill them off on the rush, you're better off just leaving it for future use. The hard rush doesn't work so well anymore because fast teching to carriers

Reply to Gaian Crescent in Strategy Sins Forums

The AI is attacking in force before you even have your second planet? You playing against unfair or something, because typically in my experience the AI might send a few harassing cobalts but otherwise goes straight for those three terran planets. I'd recommend starting with a Marza if you're TEC; I don't think Akkan cuts it here. Evacuator and Mothership for Vasari and Advent should go without saying. Your first goal on gaian crescent (or any map) is to immediatley

Reply to The Power of Flak in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]No amount of anything will, until you suppress the strikecraft.[/quote] Which is my point, flak on its own can't suppress strike craft. If you want a functional strike craft supremacy, you need either a fighter dominance or some special capital ship helping out. Flak works wonders to mop up stragglers and keep strike craft down once they're suppressed, but on its own it won't get you there, which is I think where people are disappointed. As I said, it's not a

Reply to Help with Advent economy. in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

You can beat an unfair AI in 1v1 just by building three labs and rushing with a bunch of illuminators lead by a mothership (don't upgrade your homeworld population infrastructure; spend all your starting cash on illuminators). Try it.

Reply to Huge Number of User Actions - Ever Seen This? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Not actions per second, but actions per minute. A typical mouse and keyboard system can't physically process 400 actions per second. Typically, APM counts every click with the mouse and hotkey press, which I would presume is what Sins is counting in this metric.

Reply to Help with Advent economy. in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Advent have arguably the weakest civilian technology tree when you only have two labs (although easy access to culture is nice, any map small enough to make that dangerous is too small to pursue civilian techs early on). For me, I don't even touch the Advent civilian tech tree until I'm ready to put up three labs, then I go straight for trade ports. Now, you have to remember that light frigates beat carriers, carriers beat long range frigates, and long range frigates beat light

Reply to The Power of Flak in Strategy Sins Forums

I think you're mistaking what I said for opinion rather than observation. I made no indication of whether I think the current state of flak is fair or unfair, I merely expressed my experiences with regard to it. My remark about miracle workers isn't that I believe you're presenting them as more powerful than they are, but rather that many people have higher expectations of them than they deliver. Depending on what you're doing, flak can be very effective or very ineffective.&nbs

Reply to The Power of Flak in Strategy Sins Forums

Problem with flak isn't whether it kills fighters (because it does) but rather how quickly it kills fighters. A group of fighters can decimate your LRF units before flak on its own can suppress them. Flak is great for cleanup when supporting light frigates which drain carrier anti-matter or destroy them outright, and also offers great durability for a very reasonable cost. If you've got an anti-strike craft capital ship to give you breathing room, this lets flak shine even m

Reply to End game help in Strategy Sins Forums

Culture is a great way to prevent recolonization, but actually killing someone off with culture takes way too long when you're approaching a capital, especially if a few capital ships are sitting around providing cultural resistance. Can't speak too much about entrenchment as I don't own it yet, but I'd imagine that you could build your own starbases quickly to consolidate and fortify captured territory quickly.

Reply to End game help in Strategy Sins Forums

The AI can be quite annoying to finish off. There are two approaches to killing them outright. The first is what I call the "steamroller" and the second is what I call the "constriction". In a steamroller, you literally sweep across their remaining empire with your fleet, destroying everything in your path. Don't colonize anything you don't want to leave a fleet behind to defend, just keep moving. You don't care if they colonize new planets or run away, bec

Reply to What should my second cap ships be for vasari in Strategy Sins Forums

A second evacuator isn't a bad idea either. That thing is scary powerful, and doubling up the nano-disassembler fun works wonders at times.

Reply to Tips: Beating the CPU in entrenchment (TEC) in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Marza is definitely TEC's strongst capital ship in the early and middle game. Great damage output, fairly tough, and against the AI absolutely brutal with missile barrage. Late-game there are better picks (namely Kol with flak burst and Dunov with shield restore), but early game Marza is unparalleled for combat power and presence. In my opinion, the only reason to ever get a Sova is embargo. If you want strike craft, get more light carriers. If you want missile

Reply to How do you lower bounty against you? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

You can easily rack up hundreds of thousands of bounty if an enemy player gets Karmic Retribution. It would be hopelessly rigged if the owner could claim that bounty.

Reply to About those Aeria Drone Hosts... in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]And I learned that Gravity Warhead plus Phase Jump Inhibitors is a really evil combination. [/quote] Have you ever seen guardians using repulsion to push an enemy fleet away from the edge of the gravity well? Preferably with subjugators and revelations preventing enemies from running. Now THAT'S evil when combined with a PJI. I once killed an entire 2000 command computer fleet like that. Not a single survivor.

Reply to Some helpful tips for newer players in Strategy Sins Forums

I did the same thing when I was beginning. I was under the impression that bombers were attack specialists and were better then fighters against everything. This is not true; bombers are better against some targets - namely cruisers, structures, and capital ships. Until late game, however, the workhorses of the fleet are strike craft, long frigates, and (to a lesser extent) light frigates. Against these units, fighters have a strong advantage. If you choo

Reply to Some helpful tips for newer players in Strategy Sins Forums

The mothership and evacuator for Advent and Vasari are definitely your best picks, no questions there. For TEC, the Akkan has very questionable combat strengths, so a Marza is often the better choice. [quote]If you have a group of drone host. Lets say 6-12. How many fighers and how many bombers is ideal?[/quote] Depends on how late in the game we're talking and what type of units your opponent is using. Usually people use only fighters and ignore bomber

Reply to About those Aeria Drone Hosts... in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]I can't seem to counter carriers with anything but carriers. [/quote] Carriers are the workhorse of your fleet, no getting around it. You don't need to spam them, but you need to have some of them. Flak can clean up strike craft once carriers have been neutralized, but you can't gain a functional strike craft supremacy without strike craft of your own.

Reply to A 3 player FFA and 2 wtfs in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote] While we're at it, what's a good counter against mass HCs ? [/quote] Bombers will slaughter them, but that's only viable if you can cover them from enemy fighters. If you have strike craft supremacy, though, you can just deploy bombers with impunity and heavy cruisers won't be a problem anymore. Most support cruisers can disable them with ease, as well. The Hoshiko can pretty well disable all heavy cruiser damage, while both guardians (with re

Reply to question in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Every time you kill a trade ship, the trade port that created it suffers reduced income until it is replaced.