Lharrs Lharrs

Beta 3 Review - My 2 cents

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Beta 3 Review - My 2 cents

from Sins Forums
Howdy all,

Haven't posted for a while but I've been playing and have some things I wrote down.

Technical

1) I noticed that some of my save attempts the "Accept" button disappered and had to rely on my enter key. nothing big there just an FYI.

2.a) Not sure if this is technical/Game Play/ or both, but I noticed that after a lot of ships and structures are out and about on the map, zooming in to watch a battle up close lags the rear out of the game. I have to fight in the 2nd stage of the zoom levels where u can see the icons of the ships and structures but only hte rendered planet is visable.

2.b) I ahve also noticed that when you zoom in really close, that these planes( as in a 2-D plane) are generated that disort stuff and look weird. Doesnt happen all the time but I have noticed that they generate with increased frequency in bigger games and in hte laterstages of a game when higher unit and structure counts are present.

3) Upon loading up a game I have noticed that it takes atleast five minutes but mostly about ten minutes for the game to get going. It loads up and you can play but there is 5-10 minutes of skipping (both sound and graphics skips) and temporary screen freezes. This happens with small saved games and big saved games, no diffrence if I have 1 star system with 5 planets or 3 with 10 each.

Game Play

1) Please bring back the option to create your own custom game with specific numbers for planets and stars and the like.

2) While it isn't neccassary, it would be nice to have a Cap ship easy tab. This could be place on the right or left side of that ship pic in the bottom center of the screen. Often I have not heard/seen the message or the animation of my capitol ship rising in level. I am force to have to keep cycleing through all my ships just to get to my capitol ships. Since there are only 16 ships allowed, atleast for the TEC, the tab could open a list of the cap ships with the ship type/group number ( if it is in a group; I order my fleet by mission, so a cap ship in fleet 1 might skill up differently then on in fleet 2 or 3), level and finally the number of skill points availible to use if any.

3) Again, while not neccassary, a Fleet warp option would be nice. To me, it just doesn't seem tactically sound for my ships to warp in piece meal especially since all my heavily armored capitol ships are slower to warp then my smaller ships.

4) Just now thought of this but is it a good one, on the right hand side of hte screen where the buttons for individually ships are located should be a tab at the top of the box to allow for switching from individual ships to a fleet options panel. There you could indicate warp type(standard/fleet or group warp), formations, etc.

Game Play irritants, seeking clarifaction

- Slow pace of the game and the Domination of credits over resources.
I don't understand why it is that I have played for 6 hours on a Random Medium Game and have only conquered one star system. Not because I am a terrible general but because it just took that long to be able to do everything to get that one system. Not to mention that nearly all the metal and crystal are gone in my system so I am forced to buy huge quantitieson the market.
This brings up another point with that, if it is indeed the case that credits drive so much of the game, then won't be harder for the other races to compete or is it that we are just seeing the TEC (credit driven faction) part of the 3 race/resource triangle?

- I magine that you dont use Garda frigates (or whatever the PD frigate fothe TEC is called) because you wish to maximize you ship to ship/ship to structure dmg. Then imagine that the two Battleships in your fleet dont fire their PD guns at fighters because aparenlty in order for them to use PD guns they need to have the Flak Burst ability selected.
Irritating right!? Well, now imagine after learning that little lesson, you make other cap ships (because they automatically have PD gun on them) and you produce more Battleships w/ the flak burst going. Have you imagined it? Well now, lets siege the enemy sytems Caps in front. The enemy has about 8 bomber squadrons coming for you cap ships. No problem there, because your cap ships all have PD.... Now imagine that all you PD guns that fire are firing at frigates because the ship ai is stupid.
Please fix that I really dont want to HAVE to put garda frigates into fleet because of ship ai. I dont mind it if they are needed because my opponent using nothing but carriers and LCVs but I dont like it if it is because of ship ai not shooting the right thing.

I am sure I will think of more things later on, those are it for now. Happy Hunting

Take Care and God Bless,

Lharrs
66,116 views 45 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top
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Reply #27 from Sins Forums Top
WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!

Party ova HERE!

TouchTasks - Access tasks with ease on Windows touchscreens.
Reply #28 from Sins Forums Top
Welp, figurd it out. I am needing to use a little tiny code for a site and not forums since we are clearly not on forums or something.


any hoo, First up is the pic of the closest zoom level I can get to before the hinkyness"/>

next up are all the weirdo things, mind my comp can easily run this game... atleast it said I could a long time ago, but things change.

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Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top
Wow, that looks really... interesting.

It might be graphics, but its not a glitch i ever got on my old card(that Sins burned up by the way )
Reply #30 from Sins Forums Top
lol I have to do these individually
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ok, think that oughta doer for the pics be back later for other replies.

later

Take Care and God Bless,

Lharrs
Reply #31 from Sins Forums Top
Wow, thats weird.
Reply #32 from Sins Forums Top
Hehe, indeed it is. those last pics there are only from camera turns and pans of the space around that one planet shown in the pics. Any time I zoom into that level, the game slow down to a crawl and the distorions happen. When I zoom out everything is hunky dory.

Responses:

To Ron Lunge - hmm, ok mate if you say so. I thought the little guns on the BB were Pd but guess not, anyoo I stock up on fighters anyway so points for me lol and planet seiges.

To Shadowhal - I know that refineries are for that, that is why each system has atleast one, but the problem I find is that I spent atleast 100k on crystals and sold atleast 5k metal to help in the early game after the crystal reserves had been depleted. What I wanted to know is if this was an intended thing or not; If it is, then is the large amount of Credits I am using AS TEC because the TEC's main resource are credits( and the other races will end up using significantly less credits and compansate in some way with the other resources) or are the credits going to become the late game resource to have for everyone?

This brings up another thing. Since Crystal and Metal have reletivaly EXHAUSTIBLE supply (ie once the rocks with the resource are depleted you are essentially cut off from heavy usage) When that happens all you have are the Refineries and will most likely need a refining system (depending on game size) to keep you going unless your the TEC which can just raise credits. So I am wondering if the other races will have a way to compensate and remain viable in the late game given that at around 3-4 at most you mines dry up. How will the other races compensate?

Also one breif thing I noticed is that the Fighter Ai isnt all that bright. Yall may need to take a look at it. I have with my assault fleet a fighter contingent of 14 wings, about 4 bomber and 10 fighter. I noticed that the bombers did alraight, but the fighters sort of branched out, 2-3 wings went after frigates, ATLEAST half went after the System guns (which my BBs were making short work of) and like 1-2 wings would only stay to intercpt like 12 enemy bomber/fighter wings. Perhaps the first priority of the fighters should be to take on the enemy fighters/bombers, or atleast let us desigante what the fighters priority should be.

Anywhoo all I can think of right now.

Take Care and God Bless,

Lharrs
Reply #33 from Sins Forums Top
This brings up another thing. Since Crystal and Metal have reletivaly EXHAUSTIBLE supply (ie once the rocks with the resource are depleted you are essentially cut off from heavy usage) When that happens all you have are the Refineries and will most likely need a refining system (depending on game size) to keep you going unless your the TEC which can just raise credits. So I am wondering if the other races will have a way to compensate and remain viable in the late game given that at around 3-4 at most you mines dry up. How will the other races compensate?


Well, the Vasari suck up whole planets, so I don't think they'll have problem with resource asteroids.

Also one breif thing I noticed is that the Fighter Ai isnt all that bright.


The AI in general is not very bright. But don't worry. The devs are aware and have promised a superior AI for beta 4.
Reply #34 from Sins Forums Top
ty for the FB gents.

Take Care and God Bless,

Lharrs

Thought that I would add the DX File thing if you guys need it, maybe it will help. Just let me know.
Reply #35 from Sins Forums Top
I actually had a problem with zooming in and looking at planets before I updated my drivers.

Did you have the latest?
Reply #36 from Sins Forums Top
What I wanted to know is if this was an intended thing or not;


Its not, you should easily have refineries out before you run out of crystal. Either your reserves are way low, or your play style needs adjustment.
Reply #37 from Sins Forums Top
I would like the AI improved too.

I do not see the AI level up Capital ships on its own via purchase training crew.

Cap ships abilities seem to fire off when not needed, or the Flak Burst is borked.

Fighters do not target high value threats that well...maybe the same for all ships to some extent.

Sound issues come and go. Wild Zoom in/out annoyance. Hard to find my main Cap ships when getting attacked. Message filter to find under attack, and leave out the one scout looking at your planet for intel...tell me when a HUGE fleet is actually attacking, not a small flea.
Reply #38 from Sins Forums Top


To Shadowhal - I know that refineries are for that, that is why each system has atleast one, but the problem I find is that I spent atleast 100k on crystals and sold atleast 5k metal to help in the early game after the crystal reserves had been depleted. What I wanted to know is if this was an intended thing or not; If it is, then is the large amount of Credits I am using AS TEC because the TEC's main resource are credits( and the other races will end up using significantly less credits and compansate in some way with the other resources) or are the credits going to become the late game resource to have for everyone?

This brings up another thing. Since Crystal and Metal have reletivaly EXHAUSTIBLE supply (ie once the rocks with the resource are depleted you are essentially cut off from heavy usage) When that happens all you have are the Refineries and will most likely need a refining system (depending on game size) to keep you going unless your the TEC which can just raise credits. So I am wondering if the other races will have a way to compensate and remain viable in the late game given that at around 3-4 at most you mines dry up. How will the other races compensate?


ah ok, I just wanted to bring it to your attention. currently I lack enough long challenging games to see whether refineries are sufficiently boosting your crystal income or not.

maybe you could give the refineries increased rate, but let them have a per second cost or something to account for maintenance. this way you import the stock market trading into the system. you could make it an upgrade for players who want/ need more crystal.

also on the stock market: so far I have not seen any dramatic change in the prices depending on how much I buy. I would like to see prices rising dynamically the more a certain ressource is purchased. to prevent it from becoming completely uneconomical you can make it move towards a reference price so that even if you bought a lot in the past prices will go down a bit again. just an idea, because the stock/ black market doesn't like incorporating supply and demand enough for my taste.

oh, and xerxes got me another interesting idea: how about a special notification if one of your ships detects a large enemy fleet. you don't always keep tabs on every single scout or at least as a more casual gamer I can't and I would like my ships and scouts to have enough ai to tell me when they found something really important apart from the standard few ships, defenses and so on ( also a report highlighting a good target could interesting if the scout detects an almost undefended system with lots of structures present.)
Reply #39 from Sins Forums Top
also on the stock market: so far I have not seen any dramatic change in the prices depending on how much I buy. I would like to see prices rising dynamically the more a certain ressource is purchased. to prevent it from becoming completely uneconomical you can make it move towards a reference price so that even if you bought a lot in the past prices will go down a bit again. just an idea, because the stock/ black market doesn't like incorporating supply and demand enough for my taste.


Is already in.

In large maps, buy some crystal fore some 10k credits and you'll see how expensive it can get...
Reply #40 from Sins Forums Top

also on the stock market: so far I have not seen any dramatic change in the prices depending on how much I buy.


Well, I've seen it skyrocket to 20K credits for 100 crystal, so...
Reply #41 from Sins Forums Top
Me too, one thing I don't get though is why when you sell crystals the price for them increases.
Reply #42 from Sins Forums Top
Me too, one thing I don't get though is why when you sell crystals the price for them increases.


Huh? It should definitely decrease. Are you sure that nobody else bought massive amounts of crystals at the same time? Else it's a bug.
Reply #43 from Sins Forums Top

also on the stock market: so far I have not seen any dramatic change in the prices depending on how much I buy. I would like to see prices rising dynamically the more a certain ressource is purchased. to prevent it from becoming completely uneconomical you can make it move towards a reference price so that even if you bought a lot in the past prices will go down a bit again. just an idea, because the stock/ black market doesn't like incorporating supply and demand enough for my taste.


Is already in.

In large maps, buy some crystal fore some 10k credits and you'll see how expensive it can get...


I will and will post again if I fell that improvements are still needed.
Reply #44 from Sins Forums Top
Welp, in response to the low amounts of Crystal I always have, I know that I play way ahead of the ai. I mean my fleet is always more advanced in ships, types and the like plus I have tons of planetary defenses and high research. In my last game before claiming victory (and by that I mean looking at all the other races and laughing at their fleets because i could wipe them) I had all of my systems upgraded to full with the fleet cap boost, civics stations boost, planetary boost, and the expidition thing. Plus all civics slots were built, and the majority of the worlds/asteroid colonies had all defense measures in place. Note the only systems not fully tricked out were the ones I just conquered. I also had max capital ships and virtually all the reseach in all categories. I played 6 hour on the medium-random setting. I had clear superiority of the other races at about 3hrs into the game. So I dont know what that does or does not say.

I would love to play with someone to see where it is that I may be going wrong but I have have had no luck with chatting peoplein the Online lobby to get a game going.

Take Care and God Bless,

Lharrs
Reply #45 from Sins Forums Top
Lots of people in there playing now