The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

from Sins Forums
Ok so I just have to say that somehow and I can't explain, this is the most addictive game I have ever played. The scale and the seemless zoom is incredible. I just all-around like the game except for some little problems.

The ships, oh the ships so many and so worthless. I have to say I was more than a little disappointed with the fleets and combat. Ships are too weak and too easy to build. A single ship should have much more strategic value than it does presently. I was hoping for a more Star Wars: Empire at War feel to combat. Where every ship is strategicly valuable and you are much more careful with your placement and defence of ships. The ships in sins are too weak and it just turns it into a numbers game, who has more. Then all they do is stop and go one-for-one with the enemy fleet, the combat is a joke.

Fleets - are - ugly. Never did I expect, as I downloaded this game, that your ships would simply make a wall of themselves. If I knew what to expect from this I would have never downloaded this game, I would have waited for release and just pirated it. Secondly I just don't like the way you need flak frigates to destroy fighters, lights and kodiaks to be the backbone of your fleet, you need siege frigates to bomb planets, and robotic cruisers to repair. Every ship type should have a speciality, but no one ship type should be soly responsible for a particular job. No self-respecting military would ever do such a thing. What it needs are smaller more powerful fleets that rely more on the tact and play-style of the player.

I know I've really cut up Sins alot, but it is all to guide the devs to a better creation. I'm not the kind of person who just wants to hate this game, on the contrary I just want to see this game succeed. I am just afraid it won't if it continues with it's current trends. Thoughts?
10,081 views 41 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks for the accolades and constructive criticism and deciding to not pirate the game when it's done. We've sacrificed a lot to make this game and gone out of our way to minimize all the silly copy protection hassles that a lot of games use. We are just trusting that most people will do the right thing.

The ships in sins are too weak and it just turns it into a numbers game, who has more. Then all they do is stop and go one-for-one with the enemy fleet, the combat is a joke.


I think you'll find that the 'numbers game' approach will get you destroyed by a decent human player. The AI still has a long way to go but he should be able to counter a larger force as well. A superior fleet mix or a superior tactical player will always beat a larger force. I've seen this proven time and again in our multiplayer games.

Never did I expect, as I downloaded this game, that your ships would simply make a wall of themselves.

Wall is the optimum for DPS and each ship class is organized from front to back in consecutive walls in a manner that is suitable to their roles. (e.g, the light carriers are at the rear and the kodiaks are near the front). Is there a more suitable formation you would recommend?

Secondly I just don't like the way you need flak frigates to destroy fighters, lights and kodiaks to be the backbone of your fleet, you need siege frigates to bomb planets, and robotic cruisers to repair. Every ship type should have a speciality, but no one ship type should be soly responsible for a particular job. No self-respecting military would ever do such a thing.

This isn't quite true. There are multiple ways to accomplish things in Sins. For example in addition to the siege frigates, you can use capitalships to bomb planets as well as capture them with culture. Flak frigates aren't the only thing that can destroy fighters. Fighters are great against fighters, bombers can attack fighters, the Kol has Flak burst and the other races have other tricks. Repairing can also be accomplished by certain capitalships, repair bays, parking your ships in positive culture orbit wells and other things that aren't in the game yet. Finally, lights and kodiaks don't neccessarily have to be the backbone of your fleet - it really depends what your strategy is and what the enemy is throwing at you.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I feel similarly with regards to how invaluable the ships seem to be. though i dont agree with those who want LESS ships. im hopeing that when the "crew" feature is intigrated that this will help make us more carful to not just commit suicide with our valuable crews. im hopeing that we will need to take into acount the value of human life. say by making great loss of life affect moral and tax income. possibly even causing some planets to rebell if we needlessly waist ships just because we know we can easily creat new ones. this is a game aspect that has always been difficult to balance in past RTS and 4X games alike. im very optimistic that stardock will be able to find a very realistic balance through the future crew feature.
Start11 - Customize the Start Menu and Taskbar in Windows 10/11.
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
crew feature ? what ? bueller ? bueller?
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I was hoping for a more Star Wars: Empire at War feel to combat. Where every ship is strategicly valuable and you are much more careful with your placement and defence of ships.


I agree (at least in the early parts of a game in EaW) you could cry every time you lost a precious Victory or your only Imperial -class SDs. The only things that seem to be strategic are the capitol ships. Today the AI attacked me with a Kol and 36 cobalts. I had a Kol, a Dunov, 23 cobalts, and 4 LRMs. He destroyed every cobalt and LRM I had but he was the one who lost the battle! The Kol was his Flag, my Dunov and Kol were attacking it (along with their bomber squads) and his Kol blew up. After that it was easy pickings for the capitol ships. He retreated soon after, so capitol ships can make a strategic. difference.

Secondly I just don't like the way you need flak frigates to destroy fighters, lights and kodiaks to be the backbone of your fleet, you need siege frigates to bomb planets, and robotic cruisers to repair. Every ship type should have a speciality, but no one ship type should be soly responsible for a particular job. No self-respecting military would ever do such a thing. What it needs are smaller more powerful fleets that rely more on the tact and play-style of the player.


You don't need Flaks (I never build 'em any more actually), you can use fighters or the Kol's flak burst. You also don't need siege frigates (I never build those either), any capitol ship can bomb planets. And I never build the robotic cruisers either. Ships heal by themselves (I think the robotic cruiser is the most useless ship in the game next to the command cruiser).
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
(I think the robotic cruiser is the most useless ship in the game next to the command cruiser).


makes me sad... but he has a valid point. i do hope this changes.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
And I never build the robotic cruisers either. Ships heal by themselves (I think the robotic cruiser is the most useless ship in the game next to the command cruiser).


You would so loose against me. Robots + command cruisers really improve the longevity of your vessels, a lot.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

And I never build the robotic cruisers either. Ships heal by themselves (I think the robotic cruiser is the most useless ship in the game next to the command cruiser).


You would so loose against me. Robots + command cruisers really improve the longevity of your vessels, a lot.


Well I don't mass produce them like my friend does (he made 6 CC! Don't ask me why...)

EDIT: Instead of spending my money on those I spend it on research (lol my gauss cannons had 3899 health!)
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Well I don't mass produce them like my friend does (he made 6 CC! Don't ask me why...)


For the shield restore ability.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
I'd just like to say that fleet formations shouldn't be based upon what's pretty but instead upon what makes the most tactical sense.


Wall formations make sense for "presser" units. That is big slow yet powerful units that can crush just about anything. A wall formations should allow for not only a concentration of firepower, but a concentration of point defense and perhaps shields... each ship not only adding it's weapons to the fight but it's defenses in a single wall.


Smaller units should NOT take up a wall formation and instead should rely upon, stealth, speed, and unpredictability to simply not get hit. Because smaller ships v bigger ships should probably be one hit killed. Thus very small ships should try to get in very close where the only thing that can shoot at them with any accuracy is point defense cannons. Medium sized ships should keep BACK and shower enemy units with long range fire... probably endless barrages of missiles.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
The only reason I bashed the wall formation is because it is so easy to hit. In a game like SW:EaW every shot fired by a ship is exactly that a shot. If it misses its target it continues and may hit another target. No such thing is sins. Even if the shots you see fired miss the target it still reads as a hit to the computer. Also the shot can only damage the ship it is intended to hit, except for splash damage attacks. So my fleet can fire right through an enemy formation and attack support ships. So you see the defensive aspect of the wall formation is completly useless here, because of a few properties of the game. I just want to see a more realistic game. I still enjoy the game and I will continue to play it.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
In a game like SW:EaW every shot fired by a ship is exactly that a shot.


God I hate trying to shot down a correlian gunship with Destroyers. These things just zoom around, dodging everything you throw at them.

As opposed to seeing warp in a Nebulon Frigate, which get clobbered and killed in about half a second.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah i would love to see actual shot dynamics, but i think that would be hell to calculate with all the ships around.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

Yeah i would love to see actual shot dynamics, but i think that would be hell to calculate with all the ships around.


Yeah, the system specs would jump from their current position to (roughly) SupCom's!
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
I wolud like to see ajustable formations, where the player can chang the formation depending on the situation
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
This was meant as an edit, but a certain someone posted first:

BTW, while in "stock" ships have 100% accuracy (except against fighters), it is possible to mod that. The dev's cop-out is that the technology is so high that ships can calculate trajectories with 100% accuracy. My counter-argument is thats that's only true if you have accurate sensor data -- only an idiot wouldn't even try to interfere with the enemies scanners, if they could. You could also argue the light speed limit, but thats already in game as the reason fighters can dodge shots (if you change course between the tiem the shot was fired and it "hits" you, you might move away from where you're supposed to be at impact, and "dodge" it).
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

So my fleet can fire right through an enemy formation and attack support ships. So you see the defensive aspect of the wall formation is completly useless here, because of a few properties of the game.

This is suicide as you will bring your ships into maximum focal DPS for a longer period of time. The wall formation is absolutely essential in this case, not "completely useless". We regularly use our front line ships to block up the front to prevent enemy ships from being 'quickly' able to get into a valid firing solution for our rear line support ships (which I also intentionally leave further back). When there is something in the way, the enemy units attempting to get into range to fire at the support units will be forced to make turns (left/right/up/down) which drastically slows them down leaving them in the front line DPS solution for a much longer time and reduces the time they can fire at the rear line.

Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
I've pretty much given up on Sins have tactics of any kind in it. The game simply wasn't built for it. It's pretty much a realtime 4x game... which is fine. Sins will be fun regardless.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top

I've pretty much given up on Sins have tactics of any kind in it. The game simply wasn't built for it. It's pretty much a realtime 4x game... which is fine. Sins will be fun regardless.

This is completely untrue. Have you played against a human yet? Have you watched any of the replays? A few of the best ones show a lot of great tactics and I've held my own against multiple people with larger forces using tactics alone. I know exactly what tactical elements you want and I agree, Sins doesn't have them all and won't, but it has plenty - more than a lot of pure-RTS's. I also know the other races will continue to expand the tactical aspects of the game.

 

Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
My favorite bit of "tactics" is a Sova raid on someone's homeworld, flying around the "line" of gauss cannons most people prefer to strike at the mining facilities, and research centers... all the while spamming "embargo" and leaching off precious, precious resources.

Mwa ha ha ha ha!
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
I personally would like Turreted ships with homeworld 2 esqe Individual ship AI, 3D movement within a grav well, another class of ships (destroyer class. not quite Capital but not really Crusier either), a few more usful ships for each class. Currently Cruisers are all basically worthless due to the fact only one of them has a decent direct attack ability.
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top

I personally would like Turreted ships with homeworld 2 esqe Individual ship AI, 3D movement within a grav well, another class of ships (destroyer class. not quite Capital but not really Crusier either), a few more usful ships for each class. Currently Cruisers are all basically worthless due to the fact only one of them has a decent direct attack ability.


what he said!

the ammount and versability of support ships is really great, but i think we need some more direct damage ships with more diverse role (like some heavy long range attacker or even multi purpose ships for the lategame)
As of now we have 2 attack ships for the smaller classes and then the capships, of which 3 of 5 have good anti-ship capabilities.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
Currently Cruisers are all basically worthless due to the fact only one of them has a decent direct attack ability.


um... Rofflecopter

Cruisers are quite useful if you take them for what they are: support craft. Hoshikos and Cielos greatly increase the longevity of a fleet, and carriers are powerful in their own right.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
Currently Cruisers are all basically worthless due to the fact only one of them has a decent direct attack ability.


um... Rofflecopter

Cruisers are quite useful if you take them for what they are: support craft. Hoshikos and Cielos greatly increase the longevity of a fleet, and carriers are powerful in their own right.


but you see, no army has ever won a war with support craft alone. It'd be like crashing Transport helicopters into enemy tanks or launching tins of food at people.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
but you see, no army has ever won a war with support craft alone. It'd be like crashing Transport helicopters into enemy tanks or launching tins of food at people.


ummm... and thats why you dont go to war with ONLY cielos and hoshikos... that would just be dumb and you'd deserve the beating you'd get. on the other hand if you go to war with only attack ships and you forget your tins of food... well your gonna starve to death and loose just the same