Darvin3

Reply to Early Game problems in Strategy Sins Forums

Honestly, once front-line worlds become instant death to a scout passing through, I highly doubt that any reasonable AI would suffice. Personally, I'd just be happy if the AI had a little more prioritization. When a scout would rather revisit that dead-end volcanic behind your homeworld than move towards the unexplored gravity well right next to it, there's a problem. Similarly, when scouting the enemy there are usually 4 or 5 front-line key worlds of interest.

Reply to Help against the AI in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]Recently, i ran into a fleet of mostly carriers (20 or so), a level 8 Kortul, and level 10 Skirantra, and a few other ships.[/quote] If we're talking about capital ships level 5+, then it's very likely that we're over an hour into the game. With a normal difficulty AI, possibly as far as two hours. Basically, by this point, [i]anything goes[/i]. I've heard of people achieving over 600 credits per second income within two hours. The bottom line is that if

Reply to Balancing the 3 factions...for real... in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]I may not play MP of any kind (no local friends with Sins, not really into online), but I routinely read pretty much all sections of the Sins forums. And there's reason that Distortion Field outranges Repulse.[/quote] In the current version, Vasari can go toe-to-toe with a battleball with nothing but massed assailants. The days of Advent "pushing around" Vasari with repulsion are over now that the illuminator isn't completely rigged. Vasari's need for a hard coun

Reply to Early Game problems in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]Would you suggest to put them on auto-explore or manually enter in their routes?[/quote] Manual, definitely. If I'm feeling lazy I might go half-and-half, but I would never go all-auto. Auto-explore has a habit of back-tracking, gives you sub-optimal coverage, and often get killed by cutting through pirate bases (that was doable in entrenchment/vanilla, it's suicide in diplomacy with those longer range turrets). You need to keep active tabs on the enemy's

Reply to how do i use diplomacy? in Strategy Sins Forums

First of all, check that you don't have locked teams enabled. Locked teams prevents you from making (or breaking) alliances. Great for multiplayer, probably not what you're looking for in singleplayer. Second, you can't make alliances or pacts if this is a 1v1 game. You can only make alliances if there are multiple AI's. Third, you must build a relationship with the AI. That involves completing its missions and sending envoys to its worlds to boost your s

Reply to Balancing the 3 factions...for real... in Strategy Sins Forums

Welcome to the forums kgf [quote]To solve the first issue, I'd propose making flak slightly less durable (especially vs. LFs) and about as effective versus fighters as it is versus bombers currently. Fighters AND bombers would be able to get in a few good runs on a fleet with flak and there would be a viable early-game flak-killer without having to wait for HCs.[/quote] This is very similar to the old 1.15 balance, which was [i]very[/i] carrier-dominant. Some peopl

Reply to Dead Asteroids in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Look at Google maps and zoom in on some of the tiny islands in the middle of nowhere. Surprisingly often, you'll see an airport there even though there are only a handful of small buildings. If you want to control the location, there are going to be operating expenses to do so even though economically it's probably useless.

Reply to Dead Asteroids in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Still costs money to control/administrate the roid even if it's economically worthless.

Reply to Resource Gathering in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Ice and Volcanic planets become colonizable once you've done the necessary research. For gas giants and gravity wells without a planet, the extractors can be captured individually by colony frigates or the Vasari scout (major Vasari advantage on maps with lots of these so-called "neutral" extractors)

Reply to Early Game problems in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote] I have one, it's probably one of worst ive done, and it ends abruptly at some point cause i got frustrated and just quit and went outside[/quote] You can show me whatever replays you like, so long as they start from the beginning of the game. When you load a saved game, the replay starts from when you loaded. Usually the first 15 minutes tells me the entire story, so a replay that begins 40 minutes into the game isn't very useful for me. Just make sur

Reply to Just A Thought? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Investing in civilian infrastructure increases the tax income produced by the world. It's an economic investment, plain and simple. For emergency infrastructure, this is literally building defenses on the planets surface to maintain control even when under planetary bombardment. Again, investing in protecting assets you control. Think of it from the perspective of a player; you don't really care about the imaginary people on the planets, you care about the tax income

Reply to Siege Engine Variety in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]Massive plasma and laser cannons[/quote] It's called an Orkulus. [quote]in-gravity-well Novalith cannons[/quote] So... basically a stronger version of the Ogrov with more range/firepower? That's not more variety, that's just two units with identical roles. [quote]a massive anti-matter blaster which would vaporize not only chunks of the starbase's healthpoints away but also anything in between it and the starbase.[/quote] The Radiance alread

Reply to Early Game problems in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]When i first started playing this game, i'd always go really slow when it came to colonizing planets and made sure they were up and fully upgraded etc before moving on to the next. I read that rapid expanding is much more efficient and a better way to win the game so lately i've been trying that.[/quote] Very much so; fast expansion not only provides you the best early-game economic base ([i]lots[/i] of extractors) but also provides you plenty of room to grow in the mid-l

Reply to Star Strike by Ian Douglas in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

The Kostura superweapon already has this ability, enabling Vasari to open a stabilizer node on any world of their choosing then jump directly towards it.

Reply to Capship balance list in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Hmmmm... did I not comment on any of this when it was discussed last year? Odd, I usually do... so anyways Seleuceia and I did some experimentation with capital ship balance in a mod over the summer, and we actually made one change that I ended up falling in love with: changing capital ship move speeds. Currently, most capital ships have 525 move speed, while colony caps have 475. This means that LRF (with move speed of 500) can keep pace with cap

Reply to Sins Live -- solve low online multiplayer counts by making an advertising-supported Sins Live ala Quake Live in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote](I know, it's not going to happen, but one can dream.)[/quote] Unlikely, yes, but impossible? No. Definitely doable and would be an interesting approach.

Reply to So what should be in the new expansion? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]What i wish is a option to disable superweapons. I dont like it that a friend is killing the enemy just with the TEC superweapon.[/quote] If you're up against the AI, this is a moot point. Just mass bombers; this late in the game the AI doesn't know how to counter it. If you're up against a human player, use auxiliary government (or equivalent) on

Reply to What's it measured in? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote] Darvin, why would the new management build regional distribution centers when they acquired a certain number of settlements? [/quote] Relative advantage; you can increase economic productivity by specializing local economies. The downside is that such specialized economies required highly developed transportation networks to support. Obviously having a faster, less expens

Reply to Early game help in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote]This might be the SMAC player in me, but I also prefer to get my economy rolling first over going hard on the military[/quote] That's fine; you don't need a big military to colonize quickly, especially if you're smart about it. That doesn't change the fact that you acquire planets first and develop them second. I usually avoid trade ports until I have 5 or 6 planets, then string them all up in rapid succession in a big line for maximum revenue. I'll leave one

Reply to Need help explaining something to a fellow player. in Strategy Sins Forums

This is a very common problem across the entire RTS genre, but I find that from one player to the next there's often very different reasons for doing this. Without hearing your friend's particular vantage point, it's hard for me to gauge what specifically his issue is. Certainly having been penned in repeatedly, he must understand the urgency of expansion, but still isn't doing it. If you're just looking for words to put it succinctly, I recommend "time is money". If

Reply to Continuous Pirate Attacks in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Unfortunately, Diplomacy pirates had their difficulty rebalanced so they would be credible threats to veteran players. The problem is, a credible threat to a veteran player can be completely overpowering against a beginner. Especially at the lower skill/difficulty levels, winning the pirate bid to subject your opponent to their raids is really all that's necessary to win, as a lower-difficulty AI and beginner players cannot withstand the powerful pirates of Diplomacy. For th

Reply to How Are Games Deleted? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

To delete replays and saved games, go to: Options -> Manage Files

Reply to Early game help in Strategy Sins Forums

The key to early-game is fast colonization. You want to acquire as many worlds as possible and build bare-minimum developments there. That means just enough civilian infrastructure to avoid underdevelopment tax and maxed out extractors. This has three purposes; first it grows your income at a relatively low cost, secondly it gives you [i]a lot[/i] of room to work with to expand your economy in the mid-late game, and finally this allows you to secure key worlds before the ene

Reply to superhard enemies in Sins in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

They're not invincible, and some people have managed to beat three or four vicious at once. The only difference between vicious/cruel and unfair is resource cheat; they get [i]a lot[/i] more. Of course, there are some known defensive and offensive combos the AI simply cannot beat, so if you can survive long enough to field them the difficulty stops mattering because the AI cannot beat you no matter how many resources they have. The trick is surviving that early game, which

Reply to Cease Fire in Strategy Sins Forums

Against the AI this is doable and indeed largely uncounterable, though for the record if you survive long enough to get it the AI's chances of winning are close to zero anyways. Against a human opponent... I almost never see three level 6 capital ships, and having three Akkans at once is pretty much unheard of and quite useless until they're level 6. This is effectively infeasible, and you will [i]never[/i] see it happen. [quote]well thanks but it actually happens fairly