Seems we need a lot of things added or clearified in the manual, and an in-game reminder to read the dang thing.

On the other hand then I wont get to laugh at all the culture is worthless chat....hmmm.

I haven't patched yet (no internet connection on my other computer at the moment) so maybe this is no longer relevant, but it bothered me so much I thought I should post about it anyway.

In the post-game stats of a recent game which lasted just over 10 hours, involving 7 AIs (me +2 medium vs 4 medium vs 1 on hard), I was surprised to find that none of the computers had built even a single trade station. They had also built only a handful of refineries among them. Myself, I made more money with trade stations than I did with taxes by the end of the game. It's a wonder the game lasted so long with them economically crippled like that!

I really like this game, I think the AI is better than many I've seen too, but little things like this must surely have a big contribution to the game's relatively low difficulty.

I'd like to see an AI partner/s that actually work. You rarely get assistance when needed and there is no way to co-ordinate attacks when playing with an AI team mate. Quite frankly the AI teams are a total waste of space and development time and need some serious love to make them worth while otherwise there is just no incentive to play single player on the larger maps.

Diplomacy is also broken to the point of uselessness. When playing with unlocked teams, unless i'm seriously missing something (ever thought of a downloadable manual for those of us who took the digital download option?) there is no way to requesting/demanding anything from other teams/AI players yet all they do is persistantly demand everything including the shirt off your back. As if this wasn't bad enough, your AI team mate/s demand actions from you outside of your current researched abilities, for example, demanding you jump to another system to attack such and such, two minutes into the game when youu haven't even got a lab up let alone the required amounts to research the tech. This then leads to a drop in relations where upon they then demand the exact same thing next time resulting in the concept of unlocked teams as being unplayable.

Fix the AI issues, please because as things stand, it's ruining the game for people like me without the time to play lengthy online games right now.

Did you look in your folder?

I'd like the pirates to be able to use Wormholes, as it is right now, they just use the phaselines and attack the first planet they come to. Using wormholes they could penetrate your empire a little farther and hit a better target. This would also allow some great custom map opportunities where the pirate base isn't connected via phaseline to anything, and has a wormhole connection that keeps players from attacking the pirate base to early or even knowing where they are.

Also, could wormholes have the ability to send ships on multiple routes. I'd like to be able to make a map where everyone is split up and has wormhole connections to one wormhole that then leads to really rich worlds via phaselines. Right now, you can only take a wormhole to the first destination that you discovered.

I think they are good as they are...look at capital ships today, a carrier can be out of action with just one or two torpedoes.

I agree with other posters about turrets being kinda lacking right now. I think what they really need is just more range and maybe a SMALL boost to their damage. They're all about overlapping fire, but right now it's difficult to get more than 3 or so to have overlapping arcs without spreading your defenses too thin. In my opinion, you guys need to brainstorm and figure out more distinct and well-defined roles for turrets and fighter bases. As it is right now, they accomplish the same thing... as a game designer, I've learned that this is one of the things players dislike most - units with ambiguous roles. They decide to just not bother with them at all and just use whichever one they think looks most powerful.

I don't really agree with repair yards needing a larger range - actually right now they're not being used for what I think they were intended for: ship repair. Am I wrong on this, were they really supposed to be used in clusters around one's planets to make defenses nigh-invincible?

I think the issue is, ships are already very good at repairing themselves, and the ones that need repair most probably don't survive to get it. By the nature of any intelligent person, if they see you're running from a fight, they're going to go like mad after the damaged ships first, meaning there aren't a lot of ships that actually *need* repairs because the ones that were only a little damaged repair themselves almost instantly. I understand you want to minimize micromanagement by having ships auto-repair, I totally get that, and it's a good idea. But it seems the auto-repair ability becomes so powerful even at low-tech that there's no good reason to do anything besides just go back to a safe planet and sit there. Right now, I'd sooner send my ships someplace safe and let them repair themselves; To repair an average ship from 10% health to 100% health and full shields it takes, what, 3 minutes?

(edit: I'd also suggest moving them into the logistic category... maybe. Not sure on that, probably a really bad idea actually...)

I think the solution is to reduce auto-repair significantly (~75% ?) as well as add a fair bit of extra waiting time before it starts at all. A fleet of ships should not be able to just soldier on through battle after battle and shrug off the damage so easily. Sins seems to replicate a lot of famous sci-fi titles in its style of combat, but when it comes to the aftermath of a battle, it goes back to Starcraft or something. If you don't destroy a ship entirely, you might as well have not fought it at all, since within a couple minutes it'll be like new.

This will also solve the problem I perceive with players using all-capital or nearly all-capital fleets... From what I can tell about the developers' way of thinking based on playing their game, they didn't intend for that kind of exploitation. You can send 10 capitals alone and just retreat individual ships as they cross half HP. They'll almost always survive long enough to escape the battle, and in minutes they're as good as new. It just doesn't fit with the game's otherwise semi-realistic model. You've got realistic physics without ships that turn on a dime, realistic battles with ships that aren't paper-hulled, realistic ships that are designed for function not form, realistic movement speeds, a relatively realistic resource model... but hulls that leave me expecting to see a Intel-ish "Borg Inside" logo hidden somewhere. Sorry if I'm going on too long about this, I'm not trying to be critical, just helpful.

Furthermore (*facepalm* here he goes again) the ability to inflict *lasting* damage, however minor, on an enemy's ships, gives a weaker player the ability to cause some kind of significant harm to an attacking fleet. Even if they don't make a single kill, and that happens a lot, they'll have worn down maybe a dozen ships to half HP. In the next battle, there's another dozen at half HP. And another, etc. Soon you're able to maybe, maybe fight him on even ground.

1. Slower battle speed option
2. change pirate count down to a random time or do not show the count down. I end up watching the timer and can pretty much guarantee winning the bid as long as I have the cash.
3. basic fleet formations...battles look like a little league soccer game (everybody bunches toward the ball)


biggest area in need of help is diplomacy (pirates included) IMO so I will hold on my other suggestions when talking about a new version, add-on etc.

That's it for 1.03.

I typed, "This game will never be successful as a single player RTS but from what I have seen the multiplayer aspects has TONS of potential" above, and after I posted I couldn't figure out how to edit it. It didn't come out right and I don't want to get accused of flaming:) I just mean to say that the longevity of the game relies heavily on the multiplayer aspect and not on the single player game. For example, WalMart still sells Starcraft 10 years after it came out and those sales are based solely on the multiplayer aspect of the game. Thanks.

I didn't read all of the posts, but what about engine upgrades, so you can move around faster in your gravity well.

Thanks

I'd like to be able to play MP games without getting a minidump/crashing.

What I would like to see is an option to specify what each side will start with in terms of money, metal, crystal, structures and space craft. I personally, like playing games starting with the two construction drones, a space port and the standard resources. I don't like playing maps where you already have a small fleet already put together.
Other than that, the game is great! Thanks for putting together this wonderful game.

Rhy