One of my long-term Sins regrets is that the game fails to differentiate between games played against humans and against AI online when it compiles player stats.  Despite the inevitable jibes, or perhaps because of them, my own record has been compiled entirely against humans, but I wonder whether playing new players 1v1 is a good introduction?  What new players seem to need most is a conception of how to play the first twenty minutes of a game, which is difficult to provide simply by turning up on their doorstep with a much larger fleet.

This reluctance to play the computer in online coops perhaps makes it difficult to introduce newcomers to the game.  5v5 is just not a good way to get into Sins multiplayer, and there are suspicions that it just allows good players to bully poorer ones without the stigma of 1v1...   Maybe ladders will change this.

Attempting to teach a new player during a 1v1 just means that most of the comments have to be generalised and made after the end of a match, whereas in a coop a good player is able to be over the shoulder of his human ally, and the newer ally is also able to watch what the experienced player is doing.  I just wondered from recent threads whether there were many players who would profit from this style of teaching, rather than have them swallowed up and spat out by the vast impersonal 5s.  Playing the computer is very dull for any good player, but I have known some sadly missed players who were prepared to take the task on in order to help others.

Of course, to profit from this you have to want to play as competitively as possible, so no 'role-playing' or mods, and it is difficult to play FFA online, the style many expect, as the games are very long.  Are there many would-be online players simply unable to get enough of a start?