There are autosaves (and records) taken every once in a while, as well as the ability (currently broken in multiplayer, don't know about singleplayer) to manually "save recorded game" via the main menu.

I actually like that thought. the question is if its hard to implement/ much time would be needed to do so, but the general idea sounds definately interesting.

In early Sova levels, taking Embargo means not taking squadron damage bonus and missile platform abilities, and the only way to effectively hurt a player is to embargo their homeworld because it generates a disproportionate income compared to all the rest. Aside from the obvious risk of sitting that deep in someone's space, by pumping points into Embargo you deny your Sova missile platforms and squadron damage, leaving yourself with a very weak combat ship. And while the Sova sits there and siphons off some credit income, the enemy is effectively without a flagship and your own can go to town on 'em



Tech 2 is incredibly early, you're able to get flaks as quickly as 15 minutes into the game. The only game where that can be 'late enough' is a 1v1 on something like Close Encounters, with only 9 planets total and the destruction of your flagship really is the end of the game because you have no time or income to recover. Furthermore, early level Sovas only have 3 squadrons (at level 4, 2 until level 3). And still futhermore, while it may take you longer to research flaks than for your opponent to do a beeline straight to your homeworld, you still have your own capital ship and your own frigates as well.



It can. But its direct power is bad compared to a Kol's, and missile batteries are indirectly tied to it, not directly. But on the flip side, it can't go toe to toe with a bunch of gauss platforms, or a bunch of ships nearly as well as a Kol can. And you can't keep the Sova out of combat forever. Its squadrons alone don't match the versatility and firepower of a capital ship, so if you leave the Sova out and just send your frigates in, an enemy fleet with a capital will always overpower your frigates, despite the Sova's bombers.



In the late game, it's even easier to deny the Sova its advantage. Only very high level Sovas can field many squadrons, and it's a lot easier to build a few flaks and hangar defenses than it is to get a Sova to level 10. For example, if you watch the 3v3 replay Ron posted, at one point I maneuvered my fleet behind the main defensive line to bomb a planet, while he had I *think* 2 Sovas and hangar defenses spitting out fighters and bombers. My Sentinels (Vasari flaks) managed to keep them all at bay and I bombed the planet down and only lost a handful of frigates. And while the Sova can sit there and get money, in the late game you won't feel the loss of a percentage of one planet's income, nor will he gain a noticeable increase in his own income.



But the thing is, it can't do all of that at once. It's very rare for capital ships to get very high in level in Multiplayer, because people spike them pretty efficiently. So for the early/mid levels, if you make it an effective embargo boat, it won't have fighter/bomber damage or good missile pods. If you give it good missile pods and some fighter/bomber damage, it won't have Embargo. If you focus on fighter/bomber damage, it will have very weak pods and weak Embargo. That's how it works Most Sovas will never be able to do everything at once. And really, its squadrons become fairly easy to deal with it within the first 30 minutes of the game, and its Embargo has little meaning to an empire controlling even 5 planets or with a trade network set up.

So no, I still don't agree that it needs a nerf, nor have you suggested exactly what to nerf in it In the end, you could make a case for why every capital ship should be nerfed because they stand out in one specific way. But all that means is, in the grand scheme of things, everything is unique and has a use, not that everything should be nerfed

maybe I was just influenced by the close encouters games I had the past few days. good points you made, I did forget a bit that while all of its abilites are very nice you do have to decide what you are going for and can't have all.

one thing to note though: the resource abundance need not stay that way. a few players have remarked that the change to the infinite model has created rather too many resources so that a small drop off isn't noticed as strongly. maybe we see a change there wich makes mid-game embarge more of an effect on the economy. then we will see if its still balanced.

you know, when I read through my post and then the suggestion from dthif 1980 I saw that a lot of my arguments are based on the embargo ability. which of course draws punch away from raw power. but that distance related siphoning would be an interesting nerf.

Hey guys, here are a few suggestions and questions about beta 4.

Suggestion #1. Multiplayer game setup options should include the ability to limit how many alliances players can form during the game. That would lead to more dynamic games than the 4 guys ally against 1 = all 4 guys win the game. Players would be forced to be far more choosy and sneaky about alliances.

Suggestion #2. Pathfinding still needs some work. Ships should calculate paths that don't involve them running into (and getting stuck on) structures/asteroids/planets.

Suggestion #3. The Kodiak still looks like a troop transport without wheels. Please do something to make it look it was designed with a more 3D environment in mind.

Suggestion #4. I've played some games where the firerate was a bit out of whack. Weapon cooldown rates would reset each time you would assign a new target. All I did was keep clicking on the same target and my ships fired unending bursts, effectively giving them 3-4 times the firepower.

Suggestion #5. The Kodiak 'dash' ability needs to be 'group cast' for when you have a bunch of them and want to get somewhere more quickly.

Suggestion #6. Is there any way to stop friendly weapons fire from passing through friendly ships/structures/asteroids/planets? Seeing that happen bugs me quite a bit.

Suggestion #7. Fighters/bombers still go through planets to get to their targets. I hope they will be getting the same navigation limits that the bigger ships have to deal with.

Question #1. The Kodiak 'dash' ability does cast automatically when closing on targets, right?

Question #2. The Kodiak's weapons seem that have an advantage against "Composite" targets....do any ships actually use 'composite' armor?

First post, so go easy on me. First of all, I enjoy the game and believe it can be a truly great game if a few things are changed/added. I haven't really had a lot of time to search out any lists of known coming improvements or already made suggestions, so prepare for a list which includes stuff already mentioned by others:

- Diplomacy: Galactic Civilizations, need I say more? The diplomacy system as it stands now is utterly useless (other than the black market and bounties, that is) when dealing with AI opponents & allies. Unsatisfactory, I really hope something is in the works .

- AI: I've played 3 games. Or rather, I haven't, because I've quit each game due to the fact that even on hard, there simply isn't enough resistance after the inital skirmishes. Yes, I'm a RTS and GC veteran, but I shouldn't be able to fend off my opponents so easily. I suspect that this is an effect of the economy system, which is my next point.

- Economy: Foundamentally, I enjoy the way the economy works in the game, especially in the early phases of the game where you are continually scambling for resources and really have to be selective when using them. Unfortunately, midgame (pretty much literally when you are half-way through all the research options) you end up with a ton of resources. A way to handle this would be to increase the amount of logistic points trade ports and orbital refineries require, so you can't have so many. The fact that you can build up an almost infinte amount of resources, will not only ensure stalemates so drawn out that the fun factor is diminished, but also means that economic superiority automatically means military superiority. It's way to easy to spam units and steamroll over the enemy. This leads me to another point.

- Jump lanes: I understand why they are needed, the game would probably be too messy for many if they weren't there (especially given the 3D nature of the game). But they have clear drawbacks. First of all, they make true raiding pretty much impossible. It's not even a matter of predicting from where your opponent will be coming - you already know it. And if you've reseached the right technology, you'll have had plenty of time to prepare and send reinforcements. My experience so far, have been that it's way too easy to build up defences and thereby not only invalidate raiding, but also flanking (on a strategical scale). This is serious given the fact that when coupled with the nature of the games economy, it seems to be rather impossible to turn the tide after the initial skirmishes. Overall, I dislike the absolute importance the current system give the planets/astroids which are by nature contested by both parties. Once these gateway planet are fortified by a competent opponent, the outcome of the game is decided. And this will often be a good deal of time before the actual game ends. When it comes to possible ways to change this, two possible methods comes to mind:

1. Keep the jump lane system intact as it is, but allow free movement of the ships in space as well. The speed of this movement will, however, naturally be far lower than when using the jump lanes. This will allow players to circumvent the well designed death traps that fortified gateway planets often become. Non-jump movement should be undetectable until within a certain range of a planet.

2. Jump range instead of jump lanes. Jumping from "empty" space could however require far more time to "load" than a jump from a planet.

- Empire Tree: It's too hard to distinguish the different ship icons, especially when your player color is one of the darker ones. Additionally, I would like the option to hide factories, extractors etc. from it.

- Gauss Platforms: I generally use auto-place, since the placement of most buildings simply doesn't matter. The exception is the Gauss platforms, which often is placed rather poorly. The fact is that I would greatly perfer if the platforms were able to move (albeit very slowly) so you could replace them according to the most imminent threat.

That was all for now, but let me just make it clear that I very much enjoy the game as it is, it could, however, be better (but what couldn't?).

The devs are indeed working on a better diplomacy system. Whether or not we'll see it in the beta we don't know yet, but hopefully



The AI is known to be very poor, and the devs are working on it also. Beta 4 is a multiplayer gameplay test for balance/bugs, so proper AI was not a priority.



Didn't want to quote the whole thing for space purposes, but the devs said flat out the phase lane system is not changing. In the end, there are drawbacks to every system, but the whole game is built around phase lanes



This just isn't likely to happen You can build a lot of gauss platforms, and the idea is to build them in key places you need to defend, not be able to move them from one phase lane exit to another depending on where the attack is coming from!

I actually wouldn't mind having a tug to move the stationary structures really slowly to another position. Seeing as they are in a gravity well, they really shouldn't be stationary in the first place. Make the tug a weak one-ship-per-system thing like the constructors and you won't be able to mass shift your defences as there suddenly comes an attack from an unexpected direction.

Oi Tuggah!

Actually, I would like the game to have tugs. They could even cost 1 fleet point.

Someone may have mentioned this I haven’t read the entire 5 pages of comments.

Terran, Protoss, Zerg anyone?

I think Starcraft created completely different play styles and has yet to be matched by any other game to date. I would hope to see something similar in Sins. It’s a very basic formula

Terran: adaptable, colonise anywhere, relatively balanced units able to hold their own in most situations.

Protoss: very few expensive and powerful units but very dependant on upgrades and infrastructure to fully realise their power. Also colonising a new area is difficult (pylon dependency)

Zerg: the swarm, cheap mass produced units that do little or no damage to anything unless used on mass…..seriously on mass! Colonising a new area is also a slight pain as is building up to a level where u can create a swarm.

I’d like to see something similar in sins. Seen the screens/videos of Starcraft 2 and was very disappointed. I wanted the game to go epic but they have stuck with old formula of small armies (if u can call them that) and small scale battles. Sins has potential to really create different play styles depending on who u choose. Based on the betas it doesn’t look promising tho.

Am I the only one who feels this tried and tested Adaptable/Powerful/Mass formula works?
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Annatar11, thanks for your reply. It sounds great that something is going to happen with regards to diplomacy & AI. With regards to jump lanes, I can't say that I expected anything else (nor can allow myself to be disappointed), and I do believe the issue can be alleviated quite a bit by simply adding a few more jump lanes to each map to make it harder for players to build those death trap planets.

When it comes to the Gauss platforms it isn't a that important matter to me, they jsut seem to inflexible which means that I greatly prefer buildning hangar defenses when they become available.

it has been debated a lot when the vasari got released. I'd suggest you type vasari in the search engine and also read some of the pages in this thread.

to give you a short summary: yes, it has been mentioned numerous times that the vasari - the technologically superior race - should get stronger, but fewer ships, etc etc.

I'd say the formula worked nicely for sc, but in the end I'm not unhappy about sins going a different way. I won't repeat any of my statements, I said everything I entended to say. that said, in the end you will likely see the tec putting more emphasis on mass production whereas vasari will rely more on mobility and fast strikes, so some of what you asked is there.

A lot of people do But gauss platforms still have their uses! The developers intentionally didn't make defenses too strong (see Supreme Commander /cough) so that they would only be meant to slow the opposing fleet down, not decimate it

Sure, it works. But its old and boring. Sins is going with a new approach. So far we have the economically potent TEC, the highly mobile Vasari, and we're still guessing what the Advent are going to be... I'm hoping that they focus on being powerful by, for want of better phrasing, messing around with the enemy.

it works just fine, but my god it is ancient. I think it even predates Starcraft... (speaking of which I've seen countless games be more diverse than starcraft, its only good in comparison to its own era, not in any way even close to any modern game whatsoever) Sins takes a completely different approach not based (entirely) on the concept of strength vs. numbers, in fact the strongest ship en ship armada is currently the ship spammers! (when you factor in weapons and defensive techs, capital ships etc.) as it stands the diversification is almost completely untied from that ancient, overused and abused system. and I like it this way.

Having just started playing this gaem, I have noticed some significant differences when playing TEC and Vasari. I'll grant you that the differences could be greater, but especially late game, the two races really come into their own. I have learned the ways of the phase gate and I LOVE it! Here's a thought though, since culture spreads across phase lines, why not have direct cultural spread between two planets with phase gates? Instead of having a planet 4 jumps away from a world with a broadcast center have culture need to go through three planets in between, have it directly move along the artificial phase lane created by the phase gates. Perhaps you could make it move slower to lessen the advantage a bit, but it makes logical sense. If culture move along natural phase lines, why not artificial ones? You guys have any feedback on this idea, good? bad? ugly? awesome? Thanks.

Well, the way it is now you need to actually care where to put your broadcast centers as each jump lessens its culture spread. If they moved towards anything on artificial lanes, that means your forward planet might be able to flip a bunch of enemy planets simultaneously, and otherwise mess up a bunch of things that work well enough in the game

BTW, the Sova "Embargo" ability's autocast logic needs a new check or two: "IsPlanetInhabited" and "IsPlanetHostile". Unless both are true, you really don't want to hit the "embargo" button, methinks. And I'm getting tired of having my Sova's spam the embargo ability inside my own system...

I find it very odd that the pirate bases can be conquered by culture. They're operating as criminals/privateers, what is the rationale that they can suddenly be turned to productive, law-abiding citizens by handing out some flyers and pushing SpaceDonalds burgers at them? I'd prefer to actually have to make an effort to get rid of them.

Speaking of the pirate base, I would definitly add the same "Asteroid field" type of sector to theirs. They have a base built on an asteroid, with nothing else in their sector. Eye-candy for sure, but it makes sense, me thinks.

And, any chance to have a pirate base randomly placed?

EDIT: or an option to make the pirate base random? Just a thought

yes, no, maybe?

any thoughts on my proposition of having a Asteroid Field type of planet with the pirate base in the middle instead of just one rock?

I personally like the idea of asteroid field based pirates.

I would also like to see pirates patrolling the stars gravity well in search of merchants taking shortcuts.

did someone say patrolling? that's something I would like to tell my scouts to do for some areas i.e. like an explore order only that I get to define a few systems they are to check repeatedly for enemy contacts.

*sacrifices eet in a pagan ritual to the IC gods to see this feature in release*

I have a hunch it's in the works, though. A lot of people have mentioned patrol routes before..

When you have a culture that you cannot colonize due to enemy culture, the infoscreen thingy's red text at the bottom runs outside the box

also, rebels/insurgency of a TEC player will attack that player's structures if their planet is taken by culture but the structures left intact. Havent checked the targeting priority on this to see if they attack your stuff first and then his, but its a bug either way.

ships can have a movespeed that is 100% in the red, but they are still able to move...

the artifact data archive and a vasari tech say "____ cost decrease: -10%" thats a double negative, one or the other should be removed.

one possible bug, i though culture couldnt travel from star to star, but i was playing a singe player game and saw a yellow culture line even though he didnt own any planets in that SS, the line was originating from the star.

also, i dont know if this had been mentioned before, but bombers will focus their entire strength on one ship. Now normally this isnt bad, but when you have 30+ bombers all attacking ONE arcova out of a fleet of 20 of them, it gets to be a wee bit annoying <3

i belive this one has been said before, but im also having problems selecting ALL the ships on a planet when i have really large fleets, usually a few of them will be left out if i only use my cursor to make a box around them, ill have to click on the bar to select them all.

stars should also vary in size according to how many planets they have, a star with 100 planets shouldnt be the same size as a star with 5, i think it would increase tactical decisions about choosing your galaxies as well as increasing the use of having multiple stars in a game

also, the phase missiles for missile platforms either need to be quicker or more maneuverable, i have seen them waste three volleys on a ship that should have only taken one because the missiles circled around the ship multiple times before actually impacting

something about the AI that i have noticed is that they tend to get large fleets of level one capships and dont upgrade them to higher levels until after they get to the enemy star/planets, if they ever upgrade them

the ai also likes to send small contingents of ships to hostile stars and then gather their forces there before attacking. the problem with this is that they send small fleets to the stars even when i have a giant fleet at my star

the infocards refer to trade ships as 'task forces'

i believe this has been mentioned before too, but a word wrap on the text boxes would be nice, so we dont get ship on one line and 's on the next

psy's idea: be able to have training exercises or be able to build training ships in order to level your ships past four without fighting or something like fleet practive , which would mean your ships cant be used , but they are training up so you can get caught offguard and you cant stop training halfway

the ai also seems to have an aversion to building kodiaks, even when its a couple hours into the game, it seems (to me at least) rare to see a fleet with kodiaks in it)

the ai also seems to be able to colonize planets that i cant. i had a system that was pretty much devoted to culture stations and after one of the colonies died from an attack, the ai was able to come in and colonize it, even though the planet was pretty much instantly flipped.

also, i know this has been mentioned before, but it just happened to me and really bugged me, i just had a fleet go completely across a gravwell to try to attack a frig that was obviously turning around to jump away, instead of attacking the ships that were literally ship's lengths away from them ,just because the frig attacked first