Thoughts on Sins tactics and ways to improve them.

from Sins Forums
This came from a different thread, but I felt this deserved a new thread because I was going off topic.

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.


 




No I haven't... But I have played the demo on a friend's computer against the AI...


The game feels a LOT like Frontier Wars... The concept is very similar. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Frontier wars is more tactically deep then sins as it currently stands.


There are a lot of things frontier wars also did that you might want to copy... and some others that you should really NOT copy.


Frontier wars had Officers. Subordinate AI's that you could put in charge of fleets. You would give them simple orders like "search and destroy" or Repair and refuel etc... They did all the micro stuff such as when to activate the special weapons etc. If you can copy that without getting sued, do it. It was a very smart way to deal with things. Because these ships don't fight alone. Your AI seems to be working on a per ship basis. To be useful all the ships need to work together. Thus put them all under a single AI much like all the ships of an AI player are under a single command. Obviously allow the player to override anything the AI is doing with complete impunity.


Second, supply ships... supply ships were great because they gave defending ships a huge advantage and forced enemy ships to either retreat to resupply or bring along a LOT of supply ships.


As it stands it seems like the ships can resupply if you just leave them alone for awhile which isn't realistic and tactically and strategically undesirable. You want the enemy to be forced to build a supply line from his home worlds to the enemy... just like he'd have to in a real war. Furthermore, it seems like AM is only really used at this point for phase jumping and special abilities.

It should also be used for shields and weapons. You should have a finite amount of power and when it's gone... you have to run. I'm not sure if I'd let people phase jump away without AM. Perhaps give them a special emergency AM reserve that allows you to make 3 or 4 jumps before it's dry... and I don't really mind if they can recharge their AM if they're in the GW of a star. But certain types of ammunition should require access to supply ships or supply yards. Obviously this is a weakness, so to counter that you make it more potent. Give missiles extra extra damage. Remember this is countered by their dependence on supply and likely limited magazine capacity.


Things you shouldn't copy:
2D playing field. Both Frontier wars and Sins have 2d maps... I know you're not going to ditch this as you're too committed to this already. But you shouldn't have gone this way... Frontier wars got away with it but that was so long ago in gaming time it's not even funny.



Simple things you could do which would make the tactics better:

Increase the speed difference between many of your ships. Some ships should be extremely slow, and some should be very fast. As you don't want to slow down the gameplay any more, I'd suggest just making some of the ships a lot faster.

Create harder counters for various ships. That is some ships should be completely DOMINATED by a bomber attack, some should COMPLETELY dominate against fighters/bombers, some ships should be destroyed very easily by missiles, some should be almost invulnerable to missiles, etc. That will force players to pay attention to which ships are attacking which ships. As it stands it doesn't really matter. Hard counters force players to start thinking tactically.

Add some special "modes" that ships can be in... For example, pumping more power to weapons and less to engines or shields, or more to shields and less to everything else, or more to engines. Those are just some mode ideas off the top of my head. You should try to think of something more original if possible... I'm sure others here will help if asked.

Make sensors important IN combat. As it stands, scouting or line of sight is only useful BEFORE combat because once you're in combat you can see everything. Perhaps some kind of jamming field, smoke screen, chaff, etc. Then provide some means to nullify that jamming.

Each race needs a siege weapon. As it stands each "gravity well" is it's own little map that can very easily be turned into a little castle. What is needed is a weapon that can be fired from one phase jump away that can damage defensive structures and perhaps ships without risking itself. It could be some big late game unit that camps next to the phase lane to the next system and then fires something into phase space... To counter this you could force the gun to only work against defensive structures or structures that have been previously scouted.

Increase the structure cap in all GWs. I know you have it where it is to make it important to expand, but I think it's so low that it slows the game down. You don't need to raise it by much... perhaps 20 to 30 percent increase will do it. But I think it's choking the early game.


This is just off the top of my head. I might think of something else later and of course would like everyone's input. Obviously I'm not right about everything, but this is what makes sense to me.
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Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Some additional "mode" ideas... some ships might have two or more weapons systems that can only be operational if the others are off line. This would mostly be useful on big capital ships. A given ship might be able to counter fighters and bombers VERY well or other capital ships very well, but not at the same time. Think of it like loading different types of ammo into cannons or something. The fighter ammo would be very low penetration but high splash damage while the anti capital ship weapons would be high penetration but no splash damage. Adding modes forces players to look at what ships they're fighting and configure their fleet to counter it.

Have some support abilities that are NOT special abilities. Currently there are a few ships that can regenerate shields or repair other ships. But the more interesting support abilities are the fire control supports that provide a small combat boost. More ships/abilities of that nature should be added.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I proposed the Conquest Supply system a while back; not many thought they would be interested, though it was brought to my attention that this should be relatively easy to mod into the game.

Personally I think we could have military bases that grant our ships a 2-3 system away supply bonus; ie no penalties... if you are 4 jumps away from a military base, then you begin to degrade in weapon quality and eventually even speed. It is a simply way to install a in-depth concept.

I also want sensors to matter, I want Fog of War inside systems! The mode idea would be neat as well, but keep it simple, have 2-3 modes at most, though each race could have one of these be unique.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Create harder counters for various ships. That is some ships should be completely DOMINATED by a bomber attack, some should COMPLETELY dominate against fighters/bombers, some ships should be destroyed very easily by missiles, some should be almost invulnerable to missiles, etc. That will force players to pay attention to which ships are attacking which ships. As it stands it doesn't really matter. Hard counters force players to start thinking tactically.


I(m sorry but i think, personaly, this is a BAD idea....that sort of thing could work in a standard RTS like C&C or Homeworld but not in sins, one thing they boast is the ability to either micro your fleets or leave it to the AI and move off to control your empire as a whole, and if you had to worry about ships to target because my missles will do 5 less damage to them per hit...Thats a level of micro i really dont want to go into...

Though i suppose it would be tolerable if the officer idea you mentoioned was implamented and could smart target the enemy ships with the coreect counter, but then whats the point, why not just leave it the way it is and skip the middle man?
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

I proposed the Conquest Supply system a while back; not many thought they would be interested, though it was brought to my attention that this should be relatively easy to mod into the game.

I'm not interested in mods as they're rarely widely adopted and they have to be widely adopted to matter in MP. So if the devs don't do it, then I don't really care if a third party does it.

Personally I think we could have military bases that grant our ships a 2-3 system away supply bonus; ie no penalties... if you are 4 jumps away from a military base, then you begin to degrade in weapon quality and eventually even speed. It is a simply way to install a in-depth concept.

I'd go with perhaps a "bonus" to your fleet stats instead of a penalty... also, if I used something like that I'd have it spread like the culture radio messages... But I wouldn't have it extend beyond two systems. The idea being that your ships are not just better supplied but that base has been in the area for a long time and thus your fleets are more informed about various conditions.


I also want sensors to matter, I want Fog of War inside systems! The mode idea would be neat as well, but keep it simple, have 2-3 modes at most, though each race could have one of these be unique.

Fog of war shouldn't exist in systems you own and control. Neutral systems should have fog of war... especially the star which should have very limited sensor range because of interference... to say nothing of the eclusion(sp) from the star.

That doesn't mean we can't have chaff, jamming, or something to disrupt sensors in systems owned by one faction or another.


Jamming would be useful to protect close range weapons systems from long range weapons systems. Thus allowing said systems to fight in conditions that would normally be suicide... or use the disruption to close the distance without taking much damage. Or perhaps to allow long range weapons systems to fight other long range weapons systems with impunity... knowing that their ships are pretty much invulnerable unless the enemy can get sensors into range.



An idea would be a sensor structure that works in a similar way to the fighter hangers. IT could produce clouds of sensor drones or jamming drones. You then move these effectively "free" units either into range of an obscured target or around your defensive structures.

They could jam in different ways depending on race or the devs own personal choices.


Jamming could create shadow images... causing enemy fire control to fire on the drones thinking they're enemy ships... or increase the percentage of missed shots... or make the ships entirely untargetable... The drones in fact could simply be a type of fighter class unit allowing most capital ships to produce... perhaps a new tactic could be making carriers that release big clouds of jammers giving all your ships huge defensive bonuses.


Something the game REALLY needs that it doesn't yet have is big splash damage weapons. Some kind of weapon that doesn't really target a ship per se so much as an area. Such weapons would probably need a high AM/supply cost or high cool down to prevent spamming. I personally favor high AM/supply cost... they would be very effective against small lightly armored units but do almost nothing to larger units. unless you got a direct hit... then they'd do good shield damage but shouldn't ever really harm armor that much. These weapons would be most useful in dealing with clouds of bombers, fighters, perhaps these sensors/jammers, and should do respectable damage to frigats.


Another interesting idea is "fortress shields" I forget the name of the game, it was fairly recent, but an interesting idea they had was capitalships with BIG shields. Not just powerful but wide. Allowing you to hide lots of little ships inside of a big shield umbrella.

Something I've noticed is that almost anything that damages shields does even more damage to armor. The difference in damage to shields and armor should be increased. You might consider making this a weapons fire mode... that is different types of ammo or whatever. Or you could have ships specialized in shield destruction while others are specialized in armor destruction.


The devs say they care about tactics but if the same units work against pretty much everything then there isn't a reason to have tactics. The only reason I can see to avoid having tactics at this point is that the devs want the AI to be able to play for people and the AI currently is pretty stupid. So the devs need to decide whether they'll have tactics or they'll have an AI that can play for people at some point. I haven't seen the final product yet, as it doesn't exist, so I won't speculate as to what they'll do. But if they want this to be an MP game I'm going to recommend again that they not dumb it down to the AI's playing ability. Such games are only worthy of being played by the AI.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top


Though i suppose it would be tolerable if the officer idea you mentoioned was implamented and could smart target the enemy ships with the coreect counter, but then whats the point, why not just leave it the way it is and skip the middle man?

You neither want nor respect the idea of tactics in an RTS game then... Which fine... though I will point out that in that case you'd probably be better served by a turn based strategy game.

The only reason to have REAL TIME strategy is to introduce tactics. Strategy in itself is not a fast paced concept. It's by it's very nature like chess. Tactics however are about split second decisions... formations, weapon choice, taking the high ground... when to pull your forces back just a bit and then charge... If that sort of thing is unappealing to you then what you're really looking for is an updated version of MOO or something similar.


In any event, I hope the devs can have an AI that can handle the tactics enough to please the people that don't like tactics while leaving enough tactics in the game to make people like myself happy.


I'm not sure if they can do that, so it's likely they'll be disappointing one of us. If they do keep tactics out of the game though, then they might as well drop the whole "real time" thing from the genre discription... because it isn't valid without tactics.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Things you shouldn't copy:
2D playing field. Both Frontier wars and Sins have 2d maps... I know you're not going to ditch this as you're too committed to this already. But you shouldn't have gone this way... Frontier wars got away with it but that was so long ago in gaming time it's not even funny.


Um, sins is 3D. Individual grav wells are planar, but ships still move in 3D.
Create harder counters for various ships. That is some ships should be completely DOMINATED by a bomber attack, some should COMPLETELY dominate against fighters/bombers, some ships should be destroyed very easily by missiles, some should be almost invulnerable to missiles, etc. That will force players to pay attention to which ships are attacking which ships. As it stands it doesn't really matter. Hard counters force players to start thinking tactically.


NO!

I hate paper-rock-scissors game play! As things stand, a garda frigate is not enough to take out lots of fighters on its own, but a few of them will do the job fine. Don't mess with that.

Each race needs a siege weapon. As it stands each "gravity well" is it's own little map that can very easily be turned into a little castle. What is needed is a weapon that can be fired from one phase jump away that can damage defensive structures and perhaps ships without risking itself. It could be some big late game unit that camps next to the phase lane to the next system and then fires something into phase space... To counter this you could force the gun to only work against defensive structures or structures that have been previously scouted.


Um, no. A group of LRM frigates (properly escorted) is plenty for this.

eclusion(sp)


Occlusion.
Another interesting idea is "fortress shields" I forget the name of the game, it was fairly recent, but an interesting idea they had was capitalships with BIG shields. Not just powerful but wide. Allowing you to hide lots of little ships inside of a big shield umbrella.


Um... a mod for SupCom had siege shields, where a huge shield that covered half the map existed. Its regular shields also covered nearby units -- that was a shield units function, it generated a shield that protected an area.

No clue what your talking about if thats not it, though.

The devs say they care about tactics but if the same units work against pretty much everything then there isn't a reason to have tactics.


Well then, good thing that units do have counters that you need to use! Fighters require the use of your own fighters, or frigates. Defenses require LRM ships or carriers. Line ships can be met "head on" or with frigates.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top


Things you shouldn't copy:
2D playing field. Both Frontier wars and Sins have 2d maps... I know you're not going to ditch this as you're too committed to this already. But you shouldn't have gone this way... Frontier wars got away with it but that was so long ago in gaming time it's not even funny.


Um, sins is 3D. Individual grav wells are planar, but ships still move in 3D.

The grav well are planar as well, occasionally you'll get some ship floating high up or low down but that's largely an accident that doesn't happen too often.


Furthermore, Frontier Wars had 3d units, plants, etc... Practically I don't see the difference. If you don't let me move ships or buildings up or down, then ships only go there accidentally.


NO!

I hate paper-rock-scissors game play!

It's not rock paper scissors.


How does a guy with a pistol take on a guy with a tank? Should ten thousand 9mm bullets kill a tank?


Because according to you, they should... which is NONSENSE!


It's not rock paper scissor it's just simple tactics.


You take that out and unit choice becomes almost irrelevant. That not only hurts tactics but strategy as well. Because the types of units used matter less... if they matter at all. It's sloppy.

As things stand, a garda frigate is not enough to take out lots of fighters on its own, but a few of them will do the job fine. Don't mess with that.

Why do fighters hurt frigate armor when they're designed to damage other fighter craft?


that makes no sense. Bombers should be able to do alright against Grada frights because they do have heavy weapons but obviously they should take some causalities.


Um, no. A group of LRM frigates (properly escorted) is plenty for this.

No, because the enemy can turtle in some choke point system and with a bunch of bombers sitting on top of the phase lane all the gauss cannons placed on that one part... to say nothing of having a few capital ships.


I'm not saying you can't overwhelm that with huge numbers of ships. What I am saying is that you should have some weapon that would inspire them to leave their hole.



Um... a mod for SupCom had siege shields, where a huge shield that covered half the map existed. Its regular shields also covered nearby units -- that was a shield units function, it generated a shield that protected an area.

No clue what your talking about if thats not it, though.

No, it was a space game where you had perhaps 4 to 8 ships. It tried to do space tactics but ultimately failed because most of the choices you could make with ship modes etc didn't matter much. There was a big carrier the humans had that could generate a "fortress" shield. The shield was pretty powerful but it was mostly just huge. You could keep most of your fleet in it without a problem.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top


Though i suppose it would be tolerable if the officer idea you mentoioned was implamented and could smart target the enemy ships with the coreect counter, but then whats the point, why not just leave it the way it is and skip the middle man?

You neither want nor respect the idea of tactics in an RTS game then... Which fine... though I will point out that in that case you'd probably be better served by a turn based strategy game.

The only reason to have REAL TIME strategy is to introduce tactics. Strategy in itself is not a fast paced concept. It's by it's very nature like chess. Tactics however are about split second decisions... formations, weapon choice, taking the high ground... when to pull your forces back just a bit and then charge... If that sort of thing is unappealing to you then what you're really looking for is an updated version of MOO or something similar.


In any event, I hope the devs can have an AI that can handle the tactics enough to please the people that don't like tactics while leaving enough tactics in the game to make people like myself happy.


I'm not sure if they can do that, so it's likely they'll be disappointing one of us. If they do keep tactics out of the game though, then they might as well drop the whole "real time" thing from the genre discription... because it isn't valid without tactics.


I love tactics in games, i play GC 1 and 2 constantly and now World in Conflict! and those games require far more tactics than any other RTS to date. And i do play plenty of turn based (gal civ 2 ftw) but i can also recognize tactics in this game, such as flanking around the gravity well, using super powers when they are aplicable ect.

But there should be no rockpaper scisors units like you talk about, and yes, 1000 people with 9mms could take a tank easily, they dont all shoot at it at the same tiem but you can rush the tank, board it and wait, the crew cant do much if your sitting on the damn thing, but anyway...

As i said, having units hard lined to kill a specific enemy unit = BAD, alot of companys are trying to move away from this so they can focus on LARGE SCALE tactics, not the single minded tactics of small battles. If you dont like that idea you might be better served by a game like C&C or Maelstrom.

Oh, and the game you are thinking of is Nexus: The jupiter Incident, which was just a rather...poorly made game overall...
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
But there should be no rockpaper scisors units like you talk about, and yes, 1000 people with 9mms could take a tank easily, they dont all shoot at it at the same tiem but you can rush the tank, board it and wait, the crew cant do much if your sitting on the damn thing, but anyway...

It's not rock paper scissors. It's dude with hand gun versus tank.


If I were to simply your idea to the same level it would be rock rock rock. No paper... no scissors... who ever has the most rocks wins.


Happy with that? Didn't think so... so lets be rational please.


Certain types of units should be ineffective against other units. Tanks shouldn't be useful against planes for example unless they happen to have SAMs or something... tanks shouldn't be useful against subs unless they happen to have something that can find the sub in the water or something.


In most RTS games you're playing on a planet. There is air, sea, land... that alone adds some tactics as it breaks the units up.


By keeping everything in space you have what amounts to "air, air, and air"... which matched with your Rock rock rock unit system means that unit variety and tactics are limited.


I am trying to PUNISH bad tactics and REWARD good tactics more firmly. Some things just shouldn't work. Other things should work really well.


That is not rock paper scissors... that is just simple damn logic.


To claim that rock paper scissors or whatever it is you think I'm claiming is LESS tactical and complex then the existing system is simply wrong.

As i said, having units hard lined to kill a specific enemy unit = BAD, alot of companys are trying to move away from this so they can focus on LARGE SCALE tactics, not the single minded tactics of small battles. Maybe that is something that you are not ready for? If not i think a game like C&C or Maelstrom might be better for you.

Name a game that's done that effectively while maintaining a tactical flow? Most of them do it specifically to REDUCE tactics.

Why? The only thing I've noticed in tactical games that is different is children tend to get completely owned. Tactics are harder to master generally and games with strong tactical design really punish people for not understanding them.


Lots of people want to play a game and not really pay attention to what they're doing. They want the pretty units, with the pretty noises, to go and make flashy effects, and then to be told they're awesome.


I find that boring. I'd like some skill to be involved or I'll only play the game drunk. You even basically proved me right in that you said that they are reducing the effect to increase scale. Why? Because tactics take some brain power to work properly and at huge scales you probably can't figure it all out everywhere at once.

Oh, and the game you are thinking of is Nexus: The jupiter Incident, which was just a rather...poorly made game overall...

It wasn't that bad, they just made a few big mistakes that were actually very easy to fix. Sort of like making a great car but refusing to put tires on it... and painting it lime green... and pink... with hello kitty stickers all over it.

There were some problems with the UI that were minor but the biggest problem with the resource management (mostly power and upgrade system), weapons systems weren't as crisp as they could have been, and the normal campaign didn't make much sense. All the above could have been fixed in a month with someone to give them a slap every time they strayed.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
No I haven't... But I have played the demo on a friend's computer against the AI...


Sorry, but that really disqualifies you from making any argument at all.

As long as you haven't played against a human player, how can you be able to qualify what kind of tactics exists?

The current AI is brain dead. There exists no tactics against the AI because the AI is so stupid so there is never a need of tactics.

Increase the speed difference between many of your ships. Some ships should be extremely slow, and some should be very fast. As you don't want to slow down the gameplay any more, I'd suggest just making some of the ships a lot faster.


Try fleeing with a capital ship once in a while. You'll never get away. Because they are so slow compared to other ships.

Create harder counters for various ships. That is some ships should be completely DOMINATED by a bomber attack, some should COMPLETELY dominate against fighters/bombers, some ships should be destroyed very easily by missiles, some should be almost invulnerable to missiles, etc. That will force players to pay attention to which ships are attacking which ships. As it stands it doesn't really matter. Hard counters force players to start thinking tactically.


No!

Bombers are powerful enough as they are. (Try fighting some light carriers and a Sova if you have no flak frigates.)

It already matters with what you attack.

You would be surprised how powerful an early Carrier attack is. Or how hard large group of LRMs hit against not only defenses but also against light frigates and low lvl capitals.

Add some special "modes" that ships can be in... For example, pumping more power to weapons and less to engines or shields, or more to shields and less to everything else, or more to engines. Those are just some mode ideas off the top of my head. You should try to think of something more original if possible... I'm sure others here will help if asked.


Did somebody say micromanaging?

I already have enough to micro with the capital ships abilities.

Each race needs a siege weapon. As it stands each "gravity well" is it's own little map that can very easily be turned into a little castle. What is needed is a weapon that can be fired from one phase jump away that can damage defensive structures and perhaps ships without risking itself. It could be some big late game unit that camps next to the phase lane to the next system and then fires something into phase space... To counter this you could force the gun to only work against defensive structures or structures that have been previously scouted.


LRMs are your friend. Also if possible, space superiority with fighters and bombers.

Only thing that needs change here, is that the build radius has to be made smaller compared to overall grav well radius, since currently if you build near the enough to the edge, large fleets jump right into the gauss cannons range.

I proposed the Conquest Supply system a while back; not many thought they would be interested, though it was brought to my attention that this should be relatively easy to mod into the game.


Uh, no, it's not possible to mod it in.

Something the game REALLY needs that it doesn't yet have is big splash damage weapons. Some kind of weapon that doesn't really target a ship per se so much as an area. Such weapons would probably need a high AM/supply cost or high cool down to prevent spamming. I personally favor high AM/supply cost... they would be very effective against small lightly armored units but do almost nothing to larger units. unless you got a direct hit... then they'd do good shield damage but shouldn't ever really harm armor that much. These weapons would be most useful in dealing with clouds of bombers, fighters, perhaps these sensors/jammers, and should do respectable damage to frigats.


Somebody asked for LRMs?

Something I've noticed is that almost anything that damages shields does even more damage to armor. The difference in damage to shields and armor should be increased. You might consider making this a weapons fire mode... that is different types of ammo or whatever. Or you could have ships specialized in shield destruction while others are specialized in armor destruction.


That's because shield mitigation works on a percent base, while armor works on a flat bonus base, making shields much better against high damage attacks.

You take that out and unit choice becomes almost irrelevant. That not only hurts tactics but strategy as well. Because the types of units used matter less... if they matter at all. It's sloppy.


Ok, you play against me. You only build Cobalts, while I build a mixed fleet. Let's see who'll win. Hat tip, it will not be you.

Why do fighters hurt frigate armor when they're designed to damage other fighter craft?


Did you check how much damage fighters make to frigates? Almost none, that is how much.


No, because the enemy can turtle in some choke point system and with a bunch of bombers sitting on top of the phase lane all the gauss cannons placed on that one part... to say nothing of having a few capital ships.


Ok, I had a game where only one enemy (human) was left. He built a dead asteroid up to a fortress. Gauss cannons, repair stations, hangar defenses, flak frigates, 4 capital ships. About as good as one can defend something currently.

What I did was the following, first my ally jumped in with his carrier, destroying his fighters (although loosing its own fighters to the enemies flaks), then I've jumped in my LRMs and flaks. Now the enemy had to move out to engage my LRMs with his capitals, as soon as he did that I've jumped in my own capitals with support ships. My LRMs killed his gauss cannons, the flaks killed his bombers/fighters and my capitals and light frigates killed his capitals.

Battle won. Now tell me, I didn't use tactics.

No, it was a space game where you had perhaps 4 to 8 ships. It tried to do space tactics but ultimately failed because most of the choices you could make with ship modes etc didn't matter much. There was a big carrier the humans had that could generate a "fortress" shield. The shield was pretty powerful but it was mostly just huge. You could keep most of your fleet in it without a problem.


But Sins is not that type of game. Sins is not designed for "small squad" tactics games. Sins is designed for large battles and is much more about the economy of war (resources and stuff) than about microing all your battles. (Although micro is still very necessary with the current unit AI. )
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
No I haven't... But I have played the demo on a friend's computer against the AI...


I didn't know there was a demo out. Where can I get this?
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
play the game more, then come back with better suggestions.

, u cant play one game of hw2 offline and figure out stuff like MvBr ,hyper torping , angled DDs, dockaceptors , hypercapping and its exactly the same as in Sins.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top


How does a guy with a pistol take on a guy with a tank? Should ten thousand 9mm bullets kill a tank?


He doesn't be an idiot. He takes his shovel and digs a hole and then leads the tank over it. Or any of a dozen other tactics I can't quite remember. Primary one being: don't be armed with a pistol when you need to take out a tank -- have a grenade, an RPG, or a bazooka, or something.

Why do fighters hurt frigate armor when they're designed to damage other fighter craft?


that makes no sense. Bombers should be able to do alright against Grada frights because they do have heavy weapons but obviously they should take some causalities.


I mean "fighter" as in "fighter craft" not "fighter squadron" -- blame the devs for confusing nomenclature.

No, because the enemy can turtle in some choke point system and with a bunch of bombers sitting on top of the phase lane all the gauss cannons placed on that one part... to say nothing of having a few capital ships.


Multiple jump: garda, capship, then LRM frigates. Have the gardas / capships be almost simultaneous, just in different groups so the capships don't try and jump out into the middle of the grav well.

I'm not saying you can't overwhelm that with huge numbers of ships. What I am saying is that you should have some weapon that would inspire them to leave their hole.


And I'm saying you should go around such a hidey hole, or if its not possible learn to just live with the costs of attacking any prepared defensive position.


Happy with that? Didn't think so... so lets be rational please.


We are, you aren't. We aren't saying that having units with advantages over other units (so as to require combined arms tactics) isn't a good idea; what we are saying is that having units that pretty much automatically take out other units based on rock-paper-scissors gameplay is a horrible idea. Enough of the "weak" units will overwhelm their natural "counters" in real life, and thats the way it is in Sins. Leave it that way!


Certain types of units should be ineffective against other units. Tanks shouldn't be useful against planes for example unless they happen to have SAMs or something... tanks shouldn't be useful against subs unless they happen to have something that can find the sub in the water or something.


And yet the military is working on ways for tanks to target aircraft -- planes are still difficult, but choppers are dead meat already.
The only thing I've noticed in tactical games that is different is children tend to get completely owned.


No, children as in teens tend to do the pwning -- clickfest games, which is what you want, are geared towards higher reflexes. Which means children tend to win.


Try fleeing with a capital ship once in a while. You'll never get away. Because they are so slow compared to other ships.


I hate to disagree, but capships do frequently escape if only because of the ability to jump out while other ships are firing -- combined with high HP, that means they tend to get a nice little lead once in the next grav well. Its not much, but given the paucity of neutral systems...

Only thing that needs change here, is that the build radius has to be made smaller compared to overall grav well radius, since currently if you build near the enough to the edge, large fleets jump right into the gauss cannons range.


Personally, I consider this a bug and an exploit

I didn't know there was a demo out. Where can I get this?


That was Karma being exceptionally stupid -- there isn't one.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
I hate to disagree, but capships do frequently escape if only because of the ability to jump out while other ships are firing -- combined with high HP, that means they tend to get a nice little lead once in the next grav well. Its not much, but given the paucity of neutral systems...


I should have been a bit more precise. What I meant was more like this:

If you're in a fight and see that you're loosing, it's very hard to retreat with your capship against a determined enemy. This is especially true when your not near the edge of a grav well, have to turn around (which is very slow) or have already no shields anymore. And even if you manage to jump out to a friendly system, if the enemy has some bomber squads and you are already without shields, it's very hard to rescue that ship.
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

I should have been a bit more precise. What I meant was more like this:

If you're in a fight and see that you're loosing, it's very hard to retreat with your capship against a determined enemy. This is especially true when your not near the edge of a grav well, have to turn around (which is very slow) or have already no shields anymore. And even if you manage to jump out to a friendly system, if the enemy has some bomber squads and you are already without shields, it's very hard to rescue that ship.


This is as it should be IMO. You committed the forces to the fight, moved them further in the grav well. And now the tides have turned, you're outnumbered and you're going to lose. The game shouldn't make it easy for you to fix your mistakes.

Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
The grav well are planar as well, occasionally you'll get some ship floating high up or low down but that's largely an accident that doesn't happen too often.


Apparently you haven't played beta 3 much. The Z-location of planets varies, so it's now the exception rather than the rule when ships phase out on the plane. They're most generally above or below to some degree.

Honestly, I think you'd be able to discuss things much more productively if you actually had the beta yourself, rather than just playing a few rounds versus the AI at a friend's house (especially as concerns tactics, since as noted by others such micro is not at all needed against the AI in its current state).
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
Enough of the "weak" units will overwhelm their natural "counters" in real life, and thats the way it is in Sins. Leave it that way!


Reiterating this very, very important point, along with an example. The German Tigers in WW2 were pretty vastly superior to any British/US tank, so that in order to take them out, we had to send out our tanks in packs.. a few distract the Tiger from the front (and promptly get blown up), but give the rest shots to the rear. That was the only chance to destroy a Tiger, and it resulted in friendly casualties even under the best conditions.

Same holds in Sins, many smaller units can take out a larger, but they will lose plenty in the process and the reverse, where a larger can take out a few smaller ones, but will still lose.

The guy with a 9mm vs a tank analogy has no basis in sins, because there's never that much disparity in units. Even a cobalt can hurt a capital ship, but slightly, and you need a good number of them to see a difference.

In short, leave it as is.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top



How does a guy with a pistol take on a guy with a tank? Should ten thousand 9mm bullets kill a tank?


He doesn't be an idiot. He takes his shovel and digs a hole and then leads the tank over it. Or any of a dozen other tactics I can't quite remember.

That would be fine, except for in the game all the character and player will do is noob a huge force of guys pistols at the tank that will stand around like idiots taking pot shots at it... while for "some reason" the tank loses health to pea shooters.


These aren't guys with shovels, they're guys with pistols. Did I say they had shovels? No I didn't.


And unless you're implying that you'd order your guys to build some kind of elaborate earth work to trap the tank the whole concept is cop out to begin with.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
Well, in this game there is really no "Guy with a pistol" you have ships, the smallest of which are fighters, and depending on the direction of the fighters movment (presumably forward ) the shots it fires gain that much acceleration atthe start, not to mentiontheir acceleration from the guass or chemical shots that launch them, and i can see these little pot shots as you call them draining sheilds easily...and even denting the armor on a capitalship
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top

Well, in this game there is really no "Guy with a pistol" you have ships,

Hi, there... it's called an analogy.

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Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
Its simple. Considering the volatillity of space and the availabillity of capital ships. The TEC and other intelligent races, simply don't bother having ships with weapons incapable of at least hurting larger craft.

Also one could argue that since even the smallest vessel needs a antimatter generator to achieve phase-transit, its not hard to use some of that power for weapons...

They really are not carrying pistols... if you are facing nothing but tanks, you equip your men with bazookas... that simple.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
how does a fighter craft with fast firing cannons damage a capitalship with armor thicker then the whole fighter craft itself?


The physics don't work... so it's not simple... It is in fact - Wrong. As in 1+1=12 ... incorrect.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
Hi, there... it's called an analogy.


There are times when one must take one's own advice. Assuming tank is analogous to capital ship, find me a ship in game that's analogous to 'guy with gun'. The closest you'll come up with is trade ship/colony ship/fighter squadron, and in that case the analogy holds amazingly well.

However, everything other than those two ships is not analogous to 'guy with gun', and thus your analogy becomes severely flawed. If a capital ship is a tank, then fighters would be anti-personnel infantry (holds true in Sins), bombers would be infantry with anti-vehicle weapons (still holds true), frigates would be various light tanks (we're on a roll), and cruisers (well, Kodiak in this case as it's the only pure combat cruiser) would be medium tanks (bingo).

Throw enough light tanks at a heavy tank, and they'll pound it into submission eventually. Throw enough mediums, they'll do it faster. Throw a mass of Cobalts at a capital, they'll eventually kill it. Throw enough Kodiaks, they'll do it faster. Throw a mass of fighter squadrons and watch them tickle it.

See, that's the analogy.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
how does a fighter craft with fast firing cannons damage a capitalship with armor thicker then the whole fighter craft itself?


The physics don't work... so it's not simple... It is in fact - Wrong. As in 1+1=12 ... incorrect.

again with the apples and oranges karma...

technology some 1000 and somewhat years in the future, our conjecture is irrelevant.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
I agree that good tactics should work better, as well as having a balanced fleet makeup. However, units shouldn't be limited to attacking certain targets, like saying fighters can ONLY attack other fighters and bombers. They should get damage BONUSES from attacking their intended targets (which is pretty much how it works now.)

Personally, I think the problem is that battles are resolved too quickly, at least versus the AI. I've fought some pretty large battles against the AI (I'm still just getting my feet wet, so no human competition just yet for me) and since the AI just throws it's entire fleet at you, most battles no matter how large, are over in a matter of minutes. It's hard to imagine how a hundred support ships and 5 capitals get taken out in 5 minutes. But since they don't use tactics, that's to be expected. I would imagine 2 skilled human opponents would make the fight last much longer, jockeying for prime firing range & position as well as trying to avoid each other's strong points and going for their weakness (similar to how fleets in WW2 fought, it was all about skill & positioning.)