Daily Feedback Roundup -- Beta 4 Edition

kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 2 -- Beta 4 begins!

Gameplay

+ Discussion -- Are phase missiles really useful? (Link)

With the phase missile techs i have the chance to let 30% of my torpedoes bypass the enemy shields.
This means 30% of the damage is directly done to the hull, while shields are still up, right?
In my eyes this barely any matters as ships don´t have 30% in hullpoints instead of what they have in shields (dunno about advent, though)
A negative side on the early damage to the hull is, though that the repair system kicks in.
So a ship damaged by phasemissiles can repair the damage by both its hull repairrate and the shield regeneration rate, effectively countering more of the damage.

+ Feedback -- Everybody loves the new Kol model (Link)

+ Request -- Different damage effects for non-TEC races (Link)

I have noticed, that the vasari are using the very same damage effects (flames, spewing vapor) when their ships get damaged.
I think it would be really cool if those would vary from the TEC ones, as they are using other building materials (which would produce other flame colors) and stuff.
I also think that green flames and explosions if their ships blew up would fit much more into their scheme of color.

Ongoing Discussions

+ Idea: Gradually paying for stuff (Link)
+ Losing a cap in a small game is too punishing. (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 3-5

Technical

+ Autocast AI -- Vasari ability autocasting very bad (Link)

Specifically ability use. Autocast is unusable on nearly everything, I'm assuming it sucks now because it's a new release and you haven't gotten much work done on it yet, but it is awfully bad so I'm posting anyway.

+ Audio -- Music doesn't stop after alt-tab even with appropriate option set (Link)

If I select in the Sound options menu to stop the music when the window losses focus, and apply the change. This option doesn't seem to work i.e. I can ALT+TAB to Windows and still hear the music.

+ UI -- Cannot cancel builds via Construction Frigate command menus (Link)

If I order a LEV construction frigate to build say a Gauss Platform it moves into position and begins construction as you would expect. However if I try to cancel the order at any point (e.g. if I positioned it incorrectly and want to move it or build something else before or during construction) the frigate just ignores the cancel order.

+ Abilities -- Antorak tosses enemy ships huge distances out of the gravwell (pics) (Link)

So, I played a single player game as the Vasari and it was awesome. I tried to get a feel for all of the cap ships. They were all cool especially the last one I tried...the Antorak (harassment cap. ship). It had the amazing ability to fling enemy cap. ships about a distance between planets away from it's current position repeatedly. An amazing ability that I think may be a bug.

+ String errors -- Culture-related string errors (non-crash) (Link)

Failed to find StringID: 'IDS_PLANETDETAILSINFOCARD_CULTURETAKEOVERSTATUS_ALMOSTLOST'. NOTE: Any following StringID failures will be supressed.
Failed to find StringID: 'IDS_PLANETDETAILSINFOCARD_ALLEGIANCEDETAILS_DELTAFROMCULTURE'. NOTE: Any following StringID failures will be supressed.

+ Opponent AI -- AIs ignore pacifist culture conquest strategies (Link)

Single player game on Kronac's Cross. AI's all on hard, random faction. Started the game by building 3 Imperial labs (the civilian ones), researching the culture tech, and then building 2 Media Hubs. Upgraded logistics and scuttled my light factory to make room for them. Then I sat back and watched my culture take over the galaxy. Just built a few more media hubs when I could and some trade ports and upgraded my planets.

Gameplay

+ Discussions -- Vasari playstyle and role in the game... (Link 1) (Link 2) (Link 3)

+ Feedback -- Light Frigates too slow to turn? (Link)

Does anyone feel like those two ships in particular are too sluggish? I mean, when you show them to move their arc is almost as wide as a capital's, and they're much smaller. Combined with their weapon firing arc being pretty much directly in front, a really cheap way to make cobalts/skirmishers ineffective in combat is to just move whatever they're attacking behind them, and it will take them ages to turn around, as well as making them move closer to your fleet/defensive line.

+ Feedback -- AI too chicken to be a threat to human players? (Link)

I noticed that.. the AI runs like crazy now. It saves their capitals more often, but it makes winning battles that way a bit too easy, you just need to get their shields down and dip into their hull a little and they start running. At that point you can stop shooting and they'll still jump out

+ Request -- Make ships actually go through phase gates (Link)

its really sucky as it is graphically at least, it just sits there, and no ships actually go THREW it, AND it should be like 5x bigger than its current size...

+ Request -- Make Returning Armada ships respect waypoints (Link)

It would be really nice if you could set waypoints for your phasegates so that when they use the returning armada ability, the summoned ships go to that point (or are added to a fleet or whatever.
As the ships currently even go over your supply maximum its really bad to search for the little bits of fleets that sometimes appear.

Ongoing Discussions

+ Idea: Gradually paying for stuff (Link)
+ Losing a cap in a small game is too punishing. (Link)
+

the KOL (Link)
+ Suggestions for the game!! (Link)

Unsorted

+ my take on beta 4 so far (Link)
+ Multianna's feedback!? (Link)
+ Major Stress's point of view of Beta 4 (Link)
+ A Modest Proposal (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 6

Technical

+ Crash -- Failure reading stats on save load (Link)

Failed to Read File 'C:\Documents and Settings\alex\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Save-SinglePlayer\1234.stats'. desired read bytes = 1, actual read bytes = 0. After about 4 hours of play I suspended my computer for the night in the morning I tried t again and it didn’t work this happened with another saved game i had.

Gameplay

+ Request -- Add antimatter regen / ability cooldown modifiers to game speed settings (Link)

I don't see an antimatter regen scalar in there, and if not then that means that colony ships will be colonising at the old slow speed, while your ships are clearing planets faster. This also *seems* to actually be happening. It seems like I'm clearing way more planets than I'm colonising, more than I used to.

Also, I'm not seeing a weapon/ability cooldown in there either, so ships will be moving faster, but not firing any faster. This could lead to an ability to retreat easier, etc.

+ Idea -- Lower phase gate tech and limit it like capship crews (Link)

Ok remember how caps were part of the research tree and people were going rabble rabble at this with various arguments about where Caps should be on the tech tree. THen IC decided to make caps available from start with a progressive tech tree to increase cap fleet , and everyones like wow...cool this works pretty well.

Well i think phase tech with all the rabble rabble about it being too high for mp games , but being too superpowerful for low tech ,mirrors this problem.

+ Idea -- Illuminate planets with free logistics when building (Link)

However, one of the most annoying thing about it is when I have many planets, I have difficulty finding the best place to build some structure, typically a research station. That's because I have no idea where I have the free place on mine 10+ planets.

Ongoing Discussions

+ Multianna's feedback!? (Link)
+ Vasari is underpowered!? (Link)
+ Consolidated Vasari Opinion Thread (Link)
+ Possible suggestion for more interesting lasers? (Link)
+ A Modest Proposal (Link)
+ Phase Gate Vasari (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 7

Technical

+ Graphics -- Effects failing to display in battles (Link)

When i have a huge battle (100's of ships in a grav well). The FX seem to stop displaying when zoomed in close. You cant see who is shooting at who. No explosions. No nothing. Just ships vanishing when they are destroyed. I would send a save game, dump, or replay, but the game freezes when you end it. Making me have to use the task manager to exit.

+ Graphics -- Ship icons randomly failing to appear when zoomed out? (Link)

This is a picture of Terran planet which seem to be the only ones haveing this issue. It occurs however randomly, meaning some terran planets are fine you can see and select your units without problem.
Space craft do not have icons and are very difficult to locate you have to visually find them.

+ Fighters -- Mysteriously unable to launch strike craft (NOT in plasma/nebula) (Link)

Sometimes when I try to launch my fighters and/or bombers from my carriers, I get this message "Launching Squadrons is Currently Prohibited" and then nothing happens... anyone know why?

Gameplay

+ Feedback -- Never-depleting asteroids have bad effects on gameplay? (Link)

Yeah, So I think I may very well be the only person to say this. So I have small hopes. But the infinite economy is breaking the fun a bit for me... Cap Ships are no longer amazingly important once the very beginning is over. I also find that smaller players just cannot compete at all with a larger one, before the larger empire could perhaps be over extended by the smaller one, and before the economy didn't really allow for cap ship spamming.

+ Idea -- Thinner planet atmosphere and consistent tactical grid scale (Link)

A simple idea to make the scale seem more space like: Make the atmospheres on planets smaller. if you shrink the visible atmosphere to maybe half its height right now it would make the planets seem bigger.
oh and also, another aesthetic thing. if any of you have played with the tactical grid "on" youll see that the grid spacings are different for planets/asteroids/stars. Right now it seems the squares around a star are much larger then around an asteroid or planet.

+ Idea -- Replace resource asteroids with moons (Link)

I was just thinking.. how many planets do you know of that have asteroids around them (sans Saturn)... so why not consolidate some of the resource asteroids around planets into a singular moon. Of course some planets could have asteroids as is the case now, but wouldn't it be more realistic and a lot more interesting if some planets had moons instead of just boring asteroids?

Ongoing Discussions

+ Possible suggestion for more interesting lasers? (Link)
+ Bring individual characters into the game (Link)
+ Consolidated Vasari Opinion Thread (Link)
+ Comparison of the lore with the game (Link)
+ Vasari is underpowered!? (Link)
+ Phase Gate Vasari (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 8

Technical

+ Events -- Erroneous ally culture message (Link)

When an ally gains a planet through cultural dominance, the message mistakenly states that they've lost a planet.

+ Weird -- English.str mysteriously deleted? (Link)

Im not sure why but once in beta phase 3 the english file was deleted after sins crashed (cannot play the game unless I re-install since it cannot find the file), now since it only happened once it wasnt worth mentioning, but it was deleted yesterday after I downloaded the hotfix (beta 4 was working beforehand). After which I had to re-install completely and it was there (for now I will just make a backup of it somewhere so I can just copy it back).

Gameplay

+ Discussion -- Small hit and run raids not a viable tactic? (Link)

A successful raid will damage the economy more then the losses of the ships. A unsuccessful raid will damage their economy but the cost of your lost raiders hurts more.
How is raiding now?...(non-exisitent)

+ Request -- Timestamp in autosave filenames (Link)

can you guys add some kind of indicator to saved games so you know when they were saved? I think ordering the list by last file modification would be ideal, but even just adding the date & time would help.

+ Request -- Ability to reposition construction 'ghosts' without scuttling (Link)

I have not seen this suggested yet but one thing I would like to see is the ability to move a structure that is in the build queue. I will often build a few things then want to move a turret that is in the middle of the queue and have to remove everything in order to change its position.

+ Idea -- Issue system-wide orders via sun (Link)

Clicking the star would select it as if it were your own planet, letting you choose logistical, (possibly not defense), and military.
Of course, the sun wouldn't build any of these. It would automatically pick a random building/planet that meets the restrictions, than build it. I'm probably explaining this badly, so I'll give a few points that it would have (hopefully letting you catch on)

Ongoing Discussions

+ Possible suggestion for more interesting lasers? (Link)
+ Yet Another Vasari Opinion: But I swear its different. (Link)
+ "Launching Squadrons is Currently Prohibited" (Link)
+ Regional Governors - we need them! (Link)
+ Suggestion for Asteroids around planets (Link)
+ Dear Devs: The infinite economy makes me sad. (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 9

Technical

+ Freeze -- Game hangs on attempting to load a save (Link)

I'm having problems getting a saved game to start. When I enter game n go to load saved games I select the game I want loaded the bar goes across the bottom of the scren n then everything locks up. The only way to get out of the game is to cut the power. Anyone else have this problem? Any advise?

Gameplay

+ Discussion -- Pirate strength: more or less? (Link)

+ Idea -- Consider surrounded uncolonizable areas as part of player's territory for inhibitors (IC) (Link)

I'm playing a random map which has an uncolonizable asteroid belt between my homeworld and another of my planets. I have a Jump Inhibitor at the planet, but it doesn't stop anything because of the asteroid belt. There are no other jump paths from the belt, so it should really be considered part of my territory for the sake of the inhibitor.

+ Idea -- Vasari Kortul looks better upside-down? (Link)

I was looking through the units last night and noticed this. It looks to me that the Kortul is inverted, the ship looks sleeker and more menacing when observed from the bottom. Observe:
Was this a mistake? Or maybe if enough people prefer the inverted ship we could change it easily? Which one do you all like better?

Ongoing Discussions

+ Suggestion for macro-managment (Link)
+ Aesome opening main menu music!!! (Link)
+ Dear Devs ,please Introduce raiding into Sins. (Link)
+ Dear Devs: The infinite economy makes me sad. (Link)
+ Suggestion for Asteroids around planets (Link)
+ Yet Another Vasari Opinion: But I swear its different. (Link)
+ Vasari is underpowered!? (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 10-12

Gameplay

+ Feedback -- AI group-jumps during retreats, increasing vulnerability (Link)

The way AI handles retreats, if a fleet of ships is retreating, the ships closest together group moves.
This allows a player to destroy the ships before they can jump.
With a retreat feature mentioned above, that should resolve this issue or AI will have a hard time surviving any battle that goes against them.

+ Request -- Middle-mouse button camera panning (Link)

I don't know if this has been posted previously. in other programs when pressing and holding the mouse wheel it allows you to pan the screen.
there are numerous time i would like to use this ability but to my knowledge this isn't available.

+ Request -- More 'big game' maps (Link)

Just for the beta as it is now. I just think we dont have enough 6p-10p custom maps. random map medium surfices most of the time but sometimes we could do with a few structured maps just for increase fairness or team-orientated games. I got some ideas too if anybody wants them

+ Request -- Don't include civilian ships in the pip-arcs on planet icons at distant zoom (Link)

The constructor ships should be along the bottom of a planet were the planet items are and only fleet ships should be at the sides.
And is it possible for trade and refinery ships to go under said fleet bars on the side of planets, they keep interfering in seeing the fleets at planets, keep picking up trade ships when trying to see what ships are at different planets.

Ongoing Discussions

+ Dear Devs ,please Introduce raiding into Sins. (Link)
+ Suggestion for macro-managment (Link)
+ Pirate Balance (Link)
+ Dear Devs: The infinite economy makes me sad. (Link)
+ Consolidated Vasari Opinion Thread (Link)
+ Vasari is underpowered!? (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 13

Gameplay

+ Request -- Planetary development overview screen (Link)

1. are there any plans for the final version to provide a hot-key or hot keys which will allow the player to view an overview of all of their planets? for example i am thinking similar to Civilization and Alpha Centauri which permits you to see the status of all the cities, what is being produced, what has been produced, etc.

+ Request -- Shrink "empty" gravwells (Link)

I was thinking about this for a bit and i find it a bit weird that the empty gravwells (asteorid belt and the nebulas) have such a big gravwell. There is really nothing there to create it. I know that they are there as neutral grounds, but without a celestial body in the middle there is so much space. I would suggest to reduce the size of those empty gravwells a bit, maybe to the size of an asteorid with a porous core. That way you could traverse them a bit faster and they would make better battlegrounds rather than huge empty spaces.

+ Idea -- Make new colony income penalty go away on its own after a time (Link)

I like this idea over-all, it increases the cost of huge empires that grow rapidly. But I noticed that the 'negative' income never changes if you don't build up some infrastructure... this is Really annoying... it means I have to micro manage my planets even more.
Why doesn't the effect last for say 10 minutes of RT and then disappear... eventually the colony would 'pull itself up by its own boot straps'.

Ongoing Discussions

+ Schem's 11.5 commandments of fleet management! (Link)
+ Pirate Balance (Link)
+ Not able to jump back into game when disconnected? (Link)
+ Suggestion for macro-managment (Link)
+ Dear Devs: The infinite economy makes me sad. (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 14

Technical

+ UI -- Back button on load-game player list doesn't work (Link)

Also, similarly odd, try selecting any saved game, viewing the profile screen with the team members, etc, and then click the back button in the bottom left portion of the menu. Then click it again. then click it repeatedly as the maddening frustration of the fact you didn't REALLY want to load THIS game because you couldn't tell which save was most recent and now there's no way to pick a DIFFERENT game to load because the back button's only there to torment and manipulate your fragile psyche.

Gameplay

+ Feedback -- What the AI needs to be better (Link)

1) Fix the mass retreats: Make it to where 75% of an AI fleet is destroyed before the mass routes begin.
2) Make the AI concentrate fire on key targets. Like that Marza that is razing the AI's planet. Right now the AI seems to match units 1 for 1
3) Stop the AI fleets from scattering all over the grav well. This is IMO what makes the AI too easy to beat. They spread out all over the place so you can pick them off 1 by 1 at your leisure.
4) The AI should NEVER retreat from its capitol world.

Ongoing Discussions

+ Consolidated Vasari Opinion Thread (Link)
+ The new colony negative penalty (Link)
+ Dear Devs: The infinite economy makes me sad. (Link)
+ planet management (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 15

Ongoing Discussions

+ Consolidated Vasari Opinion Thread (Link)
+ The new colony negative penalty (Link)
+ planet management (Link)
+ Initial Impressions and ideas - Finally Pre-Ordered Got BETA4 (Link)
+ the AI combat good and bad (Link)
+ Should empty gravwells be smaller? (Link)
+ How I envisioned the Vasari (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 16

Technical

+ Targeting/Ship AI -- Akkan turns to face left side at target even if right side (same armaments) already faces it? (Link)

has anyone else noticed that the akkan is left handed. if it's primary target is any where but on it's left it will rotate to the left even if it already has a right broad side on it. which i thought was to protect the hanger but the hanger is on the left side.

Gameplay

+ Discussion -- Strike craft balance and behaviors (IC) (Link)

+ Feedback -- Ideas to improve AI's situational awareness (IC) (Link)

OK so a week passes, and now I'm playing on (H)ard (damnit!) and though I actually have to TRY, I am still whooping butt in all scenarios. I know the difficulties faced in programming a good non-cheating AI, so I'll chip in my two cents in regards to what *I* am doing that the AI doesn't seem to be.

+ Idea -- Method to allow dropped players to rejoin (Link)

In (large) multiplayer games the chance of someone tripping over his/her powercord is always a danger. This is especially bad when it happens a couple of hours into the game. The multiplayer game will have to be ended, and a save loaded. I wish to suggest using the existing savegame mechanism and expanding it.

+ Idea -- Supply lines and effects of cutting them (Link)

Anyways, I started thinking about supply lines (à la Company of Heroes) yesterday. Basically, the idea is that if a planet is not connected to your home planet, directly or indirectly (via your other planets, allies, empty planets, etc.), you won't recieve any income or resources from that planet.

Ongoing Discussions

+ Kortul Model Upside Down? (Link)
+ Initial Impressions and ideas - Finally Pre-Ordered Got BETA4 (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 17-19

Technical

+ Performance -- Regular momentary pauses in large games (Link)

The game is pausing for a split second maybe 1.5 or 2 seconds. It's not an FPS issue, as the pausing happens even when zoomed out. Almost like the load of having a huge map with 9 enemies is too much, and it can't finish all it's processes before the next cycle, so it hiccups. It is regular, though, not condition-dependent; you could set your watch to how regular the pauses are.

+ Freeze -- System hangs on exiting game (Link)

Each time I exit the game it locks up my computer - other than that it run great. Any ideas? My OS is Vista 32 bit home premium.

+ Resolution -- No "time out" on resolution changes--have to revert manually in settings file (Link)

The problem is simple, if you pick a res/refresh rate that your monitor can't handle (but your video card can) you get stuck with a black screen, with no way of reverting in-game. You have to go and edit your user.settings file.
The solution is one of the usual 'Click here in 15 seconds or I change back to the previous res' dialog boxes.

Gameplay

+ Feedback -- Random maps still *too* random (Link)

there are already patterns of symmetry in random maps, however there are some issues. for example assymetric placement of planets on a random-small map end up deciding the game largely free of skill (a terran or volcanic planet, for example, spells instant victory if you can hold onto it, even against comparably powerful planets, like desert or ice) also there are still some issues with pirates being directly connected to homeplanets and homeplanets to stars, which end up being a bit of an issue

+ Request -- Designate new flagship when one is destroyed (Link)

I just wanted to suggest to you devs that you should be able to designate a capital ship to be you're flagship. I was just playing a game and my flagship blew up (I as deeply saddened) so I got this idea. Of course you're first capital ship would still be your flagship but then later on you should be able to designate new ones (like if it blows up )

Ongoing Discussions

+ 5 Fighters 2 1 (Squadron)?! (Link)
+ Bombers need to be fixed/ fighter craft (Link)
+ Battles around the sun

(Link)
+ Kortul Model Upside Down? (Link)
+ Game Speed Request - Important (Link)
+ AI's SA is FUBAR (Link)
+ Couple things that are driving me nuts! (Link)
+ Influence sux - RANT (Link)
+ How I envisioned the Vasari (Link)
+ Beta Feedback from a MP biased point of view (Link)

Unsorted

+ Anti-Fighter needs some tweaking (and more feedback) (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 20

Ongoing Discussions

+ Beta Feedback from a MP biased point of view (Link)
+ Battles around the sun

(Link)
+ Couple things that are driving me nuts! (Link)
+ Flagships (Link)

Unsorted

+ So, after 10 games... (VERY LONG !!) (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 21

Technical

+ UI -- Disappearing mouse cursors (Link 1) (Link 2)

Gameplay

+ Discussion -- Are there enough artifacts, and are they worth exploring for? (Link)

Ongoing Discussions

+ So, after 10 games... (VERY LONG !!) (Link)
+ Flagships (Link)
+ Influence sux - RANT (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 22-26

Gameplay

+ Feedback -- Thoughts on culture and momentum (Link)

Although there are systems in place to deal with players getting a slight upperhand which results it being impossible for other players to fight back, while they are slowly annihilated... (which is not fun, by the way.) I personally don't see it as being enough, since I've seen it as being an issue that as soon as you start winning, you never stop. And as soon as someone starts being you, it's incredibly hard to stop them from winning.

+ Feedback -- AI should buy crew training (level) upgrades (Link)

Just realised after looking at end game stats of a 10 player (9 AI) game and none of them spent any money on capital ship upgrades.
Now just looking at an AI wallet they seem to delplete thier funds before it ever hits higher than 1000 which would of course make it impossible to ever upgrade a capital past lv 2.

+ Feedback -- Multiple Dunovs restoring each other is overpowered (Link)

I'm of the opinion that although the Dunov is the weakest capital vs any other one on one, a group of them with their stats as they are now is overpowered. The antimatter of a Dunov is rather high in comparison to that of other capitals so perhaps a straight forward fix would be a wee nerf, if one is thought to be necessary.

+ Request -- Make sizes of health/shield/antimatter bars fixed and equal (Link)

May have been mentioned before but why do the health/shield bars not show a 1:1 ratio of bar space ?
The Health bar seems disproportionally large compared with the shield bar. Before I realised I thought that the ships and therefore the weapons I was using had less effect on shields.

+ Request -- Mark "home" point that ships will return to in alt-view mode (Link)

Local area will only alow them to auto-follow for 1/4 of the grav well from their "default" location...
hmmm it would be helpful if a green marker was placed where this 'default location' was. With a diameter circle marking from there.

+ Idea -- Antimatter supply system (Link)

Thought it might be nice if antimatter was a depleteable ship consumable no regen.
How would this work ? Planets would manufacture antimatter through an orbital structure. Antimatter tanks would be needed to hold (fleet sized) quantities. extra production facilities increase production rate. extra store tank increase max supply held at planet. Ships would then need to get within its supply sphere range to be re-fueled (similar to a repair station transfer).

Ongoing Discussions

+ So, after 10 games... (VERY LONG !!) (Link)
+ Flagships (Link)
+

the KOL (Link)
+ Battles around the sun

(Link)
+ Played for 5 1/2 hours yesterday: a few more comments/questions (Link)

Unsorted

+ Why I like Sins. (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 27

Technical

+ Movement -- Reports of sublight interplanetary travel persist... (Link)

I was playing a multiplayer game yesterday and had a very large fleet in a single group. I ordered them to all jump together at the same time between planets. Half of the fleet jumped normally, and the other half... to my suprise, just started flying to the planet at their normal rate of speed.

Gameplay

+ Request -- Don't select civilian ships when mass-selecting combat vessels (Link)

When playing and selecting the whole battle group on a planet, I often have to de-select the construction frigate icon to not make it move away... make us easy to select it to move away from harm if a enemy attacks or not de-select from the whole battlegroup if i want them to go to another planet.

Ongoing Discussions

+ remove regen from antimatter (Link)
+ formations (Link)
+ Balance concern - triple Dunov (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 28

Technical

+ Tutorial -- Unclear goals and getting 'stuck' in the script (Link)

"In order to Phase jump to another planet, ships must be within a limited arc centered on the Connection Line. Also notice the movement lines for your fleet are blue to signify their current movement orders will involve Phase Jump."
Then you reach the new planet but nothing really happens, and no new message appears.
Oh and here's another bug - phase jump is written first as "Phase jump" and then as "Phase Jump". I guess the first "jump" should also have its 'j' capitalized.

Gameplay

+ Request -- Do not move mouse cursor when rotating camera (Link)

I don't like how the cursor moves away from a selected/centrally focused object when rotating the camera. I expect it to stay on the object in the center because it can sometimes reach the edge of the screen when you stop which then asks the UI to scroll the view in that direction when you 9/10 wouldn't have chosen to do that as your next command.

+ Idea -- Capture or destroy orbitals on culture-flip (Link)

I like the way it works atm and how you can fight it off. The only thing I don't like is that if it is just one planet you are taking it leaves the enemies equipment intact and functioning.
One would assume that the people of that planet are the ones manning that equipment so when they revolt so should the equipment with them.
Only thing is you shouldn't be able to use a different races equipment. So in that case it should all be scrapped and salvaged for some materials.

Ongoing Discussions

+ Balance concern - triple Dunov (Link)
+ Influence as a mop up tool (Link)
+ Fleet Movement - how do we control this? (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 29

Gameplay

+ Idea -- Orbital autoplacement 'templates' (Link)

maybe the autoplace function could let you choose between different layouts, how it places buildings. like a cluster of defensive buildings surrounding logistic buildings vs a ring of gauss around the planet plus some hangars. something like a formation for buildings.

Ongoing Discussions

+ Influence as a mop up tool (Link)
+ Balance concern - triple Dunov (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

November 30

Technical

+ Camera -- Mysterious camera drift (Link)

i've loaded up a game and about half an hour into the game the screen started going funny.
I have it in windowed mode.
the screen won't stay on target, instead the whole view drifts upwards and makes the game unplayable.

+ Sound -- Unit-voice mismatches (Link)

Both the Tec light frigate AND the scout are using the "FRIGATE_TECHSCOUT" soundfiles.
Thing is, these files don´t exist, so ingame they are using the flak frigates (antifighter) soundfiles, SOMEHOW.

(...more mistmatches in thread)

Gameplay

+ Idea -- Crews for all ship classes rather than prototype research (Link)

I know it is too late to change and there isn’t anything particularly wrong with the tech tree system for ships, but I wanted to put this idea out there.
I’m just talking about the basic idea of doing it this way not the number of ships that should be given. It might also help limit huge fleets of cheap ships, but I’m not sure if that is a real problem. It could also just be done as a mod.

Ongoing Discussions

+ Balance concern - triple Dunov (Link)
+ Auto-Placement (Link)
+ Influence as a mop up tool (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

December 1-3

Gameplay

+ Request -- Stop pirate base from being culture-flippable (Link)

granted in midgame pirates are not much of an issue currently, but I still think that if you want to take their base (and get some reward for it), you should still have to fight for it. or have the remaining pirate defenders go on a suicide run against those who took their base. just anything, but degenerating them into sitting ducks.

+ Idea -- Increase only travel speed to accelerate gameplay (Link)

I would like to suggest instead of just changing the over all game speed, the travel time should increase instead. Because most of the time that is used is on the travels, not the combat.
I bet none of us wouldn't like the battles to be over too fast, as it wont allow us to do alot of things in them.

So the travel speed could either be made by coding or by research

Ongoing Discussions

+ Played beta entire weekend: my two cents (Link)
+ Phase inhibitor (Link)
+ RTS vs 4X Poll (Link)
+ Beta 4 now, game still overall lacking fun !?! (Link)
+ Would the research system for Frigates/Cruisers have worked like this? (Link)
+ Auto-Placement (Link)

+ Will the AI eventually be z-axis aware in a meaningful way? (Link)
+ Z Axis (Link)
+ (Was)Disappointed (Please Read) (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

December 4

Gameplay

+ Feedback -- Should fighters not be allowed to hold position? (Link)

last night we played a 8 player FFA game where paradoxnt put his fighters on hold position and used manual targetting to move them around. Now fighters don't move around at all when they hold position, which makes them look like some kind of mini turrets AND they probably fire more often, because they are out of range less often when their weapon cooldown is over.

Ongoing Discussions

+ Phase inhibitor (Link)
+ "EPICness" What can done before SINS hits the store shelf!?!? (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

December 5

Technical

+ Crash -- Replay crash (files in thread) (Link)

Here is the replay of the game:Link
Another problem with that game was that it crashed at the end. =/
The minidump ( WWW Link) is from watching the recorded game. In the actual game Sins didn't crash for me, but the game stopped possibly because *someone* got the culture string missing pop-up/pop-under (:/) and didn't notice it.

Gameplay

+ Feedback -- Assorted feedback (Link)

+ Feedback -- More important techs should take longer to research than other techs of the same tier (Link)

I would rather see a re-shuffling of the Tech Tree, (which iirc is already in the works) and making certain specific techs more time-consuming than others. i.e. the ship prototypes, building types and other core features necessary for ANY empire research quickly, while the empirewide bonuses like damage increases and Resource mining rate increases take a significant investment in time, forcing players to choose EITHER one OR the other, not both. (in the short term at least)

+ Request -- Exclude fighters and colony frigs from bandbox if larger/combat ships are in the selection (Link)

Colony Frigates need to be regarded as "non-combat" so that if you select all pips in a system , they wont get selected with your fleet.
Fighters , should be given low priority for bandboxing. the problem is that it is very hard to band box your frigs whilst your fighters are wizzing around. Often what happens is a few fighters get caught in your bandbox and they start attacking the frigs targets rather then continue chasing bombers. Lets have it like Supcom where you can bandbox engineers , but if theres a combat unit in the box , the bandbox wont box the engineers , only the combat units. Same for the fighters.

+ Request -- Attack range setting on shipyards to set default for new ships (Link)

Shipyards should have a hold position, localarea ,gravwell selection button. All ships that come out of the shipyard will have that stance automatically assigned to it.

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

December 6

Ongoing Discussions

+ List of micro annoyances , might need fixing (Link)
+ "EPICness" What can done before SINS hits the store shelf!?!? (Link)
+ RTS vs 4X Poll (Link)
+ Phase inhibitor (Link)
+ Beta 4 Feedback - Seasoned game player/tester (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

December 7

Technical

+ Clipping -- Fighters fly through other objects (Link)

Not a big thing but I noticed and three and noticed again in Beta 4 that frigates and caps don't fly through the stars but fighters do. I had mine atack a a ship on the other side of the star and it flew right on through the sun.

Gameplay

+ Idea -- Thoughts on fleet organization and management (Link)

What I would like to see is a simpler way to control(player and AI friendly), craft, and maintain, a fleet. Thus this fleet system sketchingly conceived by my class induced lack of sleep...

Ongoing Discussions

+ Phase inhibitor (Link)
+ Beta 4 Feedback - Seasoned game player/tester (Link)
+ RTS vs 4X Poll (Link)
+ Beta 4 now, game still overall lacking fun !?! (Link)
+ "EPICness" What can done before SINS hits the store shelf!?!? (Link)

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

December 8-10

Ongoing Discussions

+ RTS vs 4X Poll (Link)
+ Phase inhibitor (Link)
+ Still disapointed in the race similarity (Link)
+ Beta 4 now, game still overall lacking fun !?! (Link)
+ "EPICness" What can done before SINS hits the store shelf!?!? (Link)

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Daily Feedback Roundup -- Beta 4 Edition

Daily Feedback Roundup -- Beta 4 Edition

The final roundup thread of ultimate doom!