itll be worth it

300 Megs?  7 Deadly Sins is over 500!  And that's in 7-zip format.  Did I mention it unpacks to about 1.5 Gigs?  And that's not even the final version of 2.0.  And when we add in the Halo and Star Trek mods in 2.5 (hopefully), then you will see the size go up.  And that's not even mentioning all the custom ships still in the works for 2.5 as well.

So 300 megaytes?  Bah.  7 Deadly Sins has long since surpassed that paltry number.

It's not the size that matters...

Currently the size estimate for Episode I actually is somewhere between 300 and 500 megabytes. Can't help it, its all the gorgeous textures and stuff.

Yeah.  And even after your mod and those nice beautiful volumetric effects are merged into 7DS after Episode 3 is released, chances are I will still be playing Last Stand for the epic Xin Domains and the nuke-whoring Clans Remnants.

And how the hell are you going to make the Hegemony comparable to the Clans Remnants and the Xin?  They can't beat the Xin for epic and they can't beat the Clans for spam.

Oh, but they can beat them for utility. Hegemony will have very structured fleets, tailored for a thinking admiral, requiring careful mixing and matching of units to achieve performance greater than both the Xin and Remnant. With Xin you can always go for either smash-through tactics or hunker down behind formidable defenses. With Remnant, you've got to be quick and can easily outmaneuver your enemy or overwhelm their weak points. With the Hegemony you will have to employ mixed unit tactics in order to prevail.

Also, the new gravity wells are so large that it actually can take several minutes for a ship to cross it, so you can have real flanking maneuvers, position your vital structures way back out of the way of phase lanes etc. - star gravity wells are huge now, you can trap entire fleets right there with some judicious use of tractor beams, phase disruption abilities and deployable starbases.

Nice.  Sins could use more tactics and less spam.

Is this mod out yet?

Wow Only 700 posts?

300 megs?!?!?! What about us dialup dudes?   Id have to wait 2 days!

oh, and by the way, the whole z axis. it was deactivated in the 0.5 patch, and it would add a huge amount of strategy if it were re-added

I don't care if it's 2GB....Ill leave my pc up and running for a whole week if I have to (which wouldn't change from the ordinary ..but I AM GETTING THIS! ...in decembre !

Awesome job ManShOOTER! Keep us posted!

I think Star/Clad remoed it because the AI sucks and rather than fix it they decided to screw over the human players.  I'm guessing that being able to do vertical attacks and let the player get free shots at the tops and bottoms of ships would add too many tactical elements to the game.

And since Star/Clad removed it, I think they are the only ones who can add it back in.

In that case, try 1.096, and remember to bind the z-axis controls, or the AI will outmaneuver you in 3-D.

Really?  Wow.  Just as soon as DANMAN finishes updating 7 DS for 1.096.

wait, it was put back in v. 1.096?

Well, I think 1.1 is going to be released sooner than Episode I, so 3D maneuvering is going to be in, of course. Nothing I can do about it with the AI unfortunately.

Speaking of maneuvering, a few words on the invisible part of mod making, the awesome art of stat juggling!  There have been a few major changes in how the game plays, for example you can lose your capital ships quite easily to static defenses now, if you're not careful, and maneuvering your fleet is going to be a must. For example, and this is especially useful for multiplayer, a valid tactic is now to hunker down inside the firing radii (which have been drastically increased) of your static turrets and thus maximize the firepower you can bear. Consequently, the build time of static defenses was increased, as well as their overall cost, to prevent unlimited spammage.

Oh, and you can forget about rushing in with LRF's... they have a lower range that static defenses, and those defenses can tear them to shreds. Strike craft now have a far bigger role in gameplay, as the static defenses are very vulnerable to them. Of course, no turret wall is complete without some anti-fighter frigs... that's where you use your assault frigates, which I find can generally swoop in and kill off enemy anti-fighter ships while the majority of your fleet positions itself outside of the kill zone... alternatively, each faction will have one capital ship capable of projecting fire at extreme ranges, sort of a space version of a trebuchet, so simply hunkering down inside your little fort is not going to do you any good if those come out to play... anyway, a little bit of stat rearranging can go a long way in making the game more tactical in nature.

The goal is to eliminate "planet-hopping" and actually require players to *think* when sieging a planet, not just to blow up colonies and rebuild them, again and again. Also a major goal is to design the mod in such a way that you have to use mixed unit tactics in order to perform well. Spamming a single unit type or having one "uber-strategy" is not fun. If at all possible this should be minimized.

Damn...so nice when you think about a flaw and you spot a few days later someone who agrees with the flaw and is actually finding a way to improve it to utter awesome-ness)

Never noticed the z-axis btw...Ill have to test it out!

Wait.  So the Clans Remnant can't spam fireships?

I think I want them even more than the Xin from what little you have said.  Spamming weak, easily destroyed ships with lots of powerful missiles.  Nukes and more.  Damn it ManSh00ter stop making me wait!

    ’

Fireships are still in as far as I am concerned, but they will have, like all other units, their place and purpose. Being essentially just a bunch of bombs and fuel tanks strapped together with scrap metal, they are going to be very cheap but also quite easy to destroy. One use for them would be to take out powerful, well armored targets (like starbases), sine their relative speed would allow for mass attacks and static defenses simply can't take them out fast enough. But, if the enemy has fast attack ships positioned properly, then you probably wouldn't make it.

Remember, it now takes a couple of minutes to cross a gravity well. Positioning *prior* to engagement is also important. If your attack frigs are on the wrong end of the gravity well, by the time you get them in range, those fireships could very well reach their target. One other possible use is to use your regular fleet to lure the enemy ships out to the edge of the gravwell and then surprise attack with a fireship group waiting on the edge of the adjacent gravwell, taking out, for example, their big capitals before the enemy has a chance to react. I'll *try* to put in a repulsion effect so that the explosion also scatters the ships about, both enemy and friendly, adding that much more havoc to the melee.

In any case, I'll strive to make each faction unique, with unique strengths and weaknesses, requiring different approaches but not boxing the player in with them. So you can still fortify your positions with the Remnant and attack agressively with the Xin, you just won't have as many tools for the job as the side which revolves around that theme.

Nice.  Please release soon.  Even an alpha version of the alpha. 

Hey since v r tlkin bout out manuvering... wudnt b great to hav a fast hit and run frigate in one of the factions?? light on armour but fast and has damgeing port weapons.. so it fly around the enemy firing at them.. they take on less damage coz of their speed.. best to use anti strike fighter weapons... bigger weapons hav a high rate of missing..

Wont game play slow down if the gravity wells increase??? iv got a fear of unprotected planets.....

i normally play by capturing as many planets as possible within a space and then work on them... but with this comes a huge problem to me when the gravity wells r increase.. if my fleet is in the next planet but on the othr side it wud b too late to even jump to the next planet... tht wud mean tht planets with out protection hav little hope... ull hav to massively build up defences b4 moving ur fleet... and ull hav to make multiple fleets... which wud b a big problem for Xin i suppose??

Another idea to use against AI wud b to hav colony ship or a planet bombardment ship jump in to atract the fire and then hav the fire ships to do their stuff [:D]

tht wud b the easiest way, sure u might loose a few important ships but it can break the back bone of a fleet in one move...

Hey i heard bout spamming alot.. but i dont know wat it is?? can someone explain it to me??

Makbar, the game play will slow down only in regard to certain resource acquisition mechanics (trade and refinery ships now travel longer). It will of course, take longer for fleets to travel to places, so smart use of forward bases and production facilities is also needed. This gives more significance to making raids on enemy territory, aiming not to take planets but to simply cripple their offensive capability. Imagine you take out someone's frigate factories at the battle line and the nearest they have is four jumps back. In that sense I am also thinking on increasing the build time for certain structures, which would in turn make their protection that much more important, since you couldn't have another one two minutes later, but that will have to wait for beta playtesting to see what people think. I don't want to slow down the game *too much*.

When it comes to planets, an early rush is still possible, but this time - more realistically I might add, the more you expand the more vulnerable you become. Keep in mind, you can make blockades in a system, using new interdictor abilities all factions will have, together with static phase inhibitors. So you can make a forward base which acts as a wall against enemy expansion, you just have to study the map, find a chokepoint and fight like hell to acquire it and keep it.

Fleet positioning, as I mentioned, will also be a must. Should you lose your fleet, or the enemy breaks through to your rear, you need to have means of getting your ships there - if all your ships are in enemy space, it may take too long for them to backpedal to wherever they are needed, costing you valuable colonies and structures. Keep in mind that the bombing damage has been tweaked, it does take slighly longer for colonies with fortifications upgrades to be blasted into dust.

The Xin will have a special mechanic in place to help them combat the fact that they will always be outnumbered - they move *very* quickly in phase space within friendly territory. The only problem they will have is with sublight speed, so a Xin commander will have to pay extra attention to where exactly are their ships.

Makbar, yeah, the AI being not so smart you can use lots of cheap tricks on it. For example, you can jump in with a small fleet and drag the huge enemy one away from the starbase, for example, then blow it up with a fireship group. The Xin will have a more straightforward approach - just go in with capitals and nasty drones and smash everything.

Spamming is a term referring to a tactic where a player repeatedly performs a same action in quick succession. As a game term, it originated with the old 2D fighting games like Mortal Kombat, where you could win a round by pressing  a single button many times. With strategy games like Sins, it means building the same unit over and over again and thus overwhelming your opponent because no other unit is that useful.

Thnks for explaining spaming.. i really think tht increaseing build time on structure may not b a good thing... coz the more u slow things down(huge gravity wells, build times, etc) will surely put value on their structures and make ppl fight harder but then a game can bcme one sided if someone makes a mistake.. there wont b tht amazing rebound tht makes a strategy game so awesome... If u make defence to hard then once a couple of forward bases r broken trough thenit will b almost impossible for a player too counter attack effectively, most of his time will b spent on sealing up his frountier planets... but lets see, how it plays out.. i cud b wrong..

i wud love to b a beta playtester im askin every1 actually...