Love and hate is a thin line.

Firstly, teching should not be the only strategy.

Secondly, planet defenses work for what they were designed to. A planet should never equal in firepower to a fleet. Offense beats defense because this isn't a turtling game. All techs impact defenses passively. For example, upgrading fighter/bomber damage will make your defense hangers better.

Large empires have a window of opportunity yes, but this is a multiplayer game at heart. There needs to be a way for people lagging behind to catch up. Otherwise people will quit fairly early in the game.

I agree teching shouldn't be the only way to win, but jokes on you, as it stands teching isn't even a way to win or get measurable advantage. You still have to kill everyone or make nice with them. No Tech victory at the moment.

Aswell that's not what I said at all, a tech level 7 fleet should have no problem with a tech level 7 planet. A tech level 1 fleet should have a problem with a tech level 7 planet. So if all things being about equal tech wise there is no turtling. Besides, two human players will have about the same tech level as it is. Don't forget I did mention the lack of tech also. More tech doesn't equal invincibility, but more opinion latter in the game can change the field in how you do something. Simply put there is no difference in taking a system in the beginning as in end game at the moment. As for quiting early. Someone will quit early because of immediate reasons, not a tech reason that's 40 minutes away in the game.

You expect too much 4X.
Sins is mostly a RTS game though.

WHOA WHOA WHOA!!!!

The tech tree is fine, it really is. If anything is wrong its the AI. I feel that you're playing alot against the Computer and that's understandable because the AI really doesn't exploit the mechanics of the tech tees which are very different for each race. However, if you play a multiplayer game the tech tree's uniqueness really stands out. Most of the times you won't get taht far into the tech tree's when playing against people because they can actually think. What needs to be dissed here isn't the Tech Tree, its the AI's ability to exploit it.

I agree that planetary defenses suck ass in big games in general.

I recommend you play a 4 player FFA online ASAP.

You hit the nail on the head, the devs tote it as an RT4X, which I've always said they shouldn't, because it's missing a majority of the features that make a great 4X game, and the features of a 4X that are in there are so poor most people ignore them. This game reminds me of Rise of Nations in space, only RoN was more a 4X than this is. When people read what is on the site, they get the wrong impression, I know I did. IC/SD is doing the same thing the big publishers do with advertising, overhyping. I've often thought that politics and advertising/marketing were only a hairline apart as far as integrity goes, and sins takes the cake. The only strong 4X element is eXterminate, all the others are weak and too streamlined.

This is not to say sins is not an enjoyable game, it just shouldn't be advertised as a RT4X when all it is is just a true RTS (as opposed to the often mistaken RTS which is really a RTT (tactical) or a RTC (clickfest)). Sins does have redeemable qualities, even if currently most of them are still getting the bugs and balance worked out.


Yilmael is correct to a degree, the only advanced techs that confer an advantage are ones that give a purely strategic edge, IE allow you to see things other can't, everything else is just minor bonuses. This I'm sure was done because the devs wanted to give the guy who doesn't know how to colonize planets the same chance to win as the one who can multitask 10 fleets at once and has a doctorate in economics. As most games that are released, they are designed in such a way that a total idiot can play them and still get somewhere. Which makes sense from the standpoint of selling games.

Once again, about it not really being a 4X. A wider path to choose from for techs can help narrow this. Take this as a scenario, one of you choke point worlds just had 4 capital ships drop in and with a few cruisers. You start focusing on the capitals because you figure they're most likely the biggest threat. But by the time it's to late to change targets you find out your opponent just spent a good deal of time researching his capital ships shields to make them tanks. But didn't research for their weapons. Instead he dumped that research into the cruisers. So you just spent to much time trying to take down the capitals when it was the cruisers that were loaded heavy with fire power.
Something where you can't always just know right away which ships to wipe out first in every encounter.

But the point is, since sins is a RTS for the most part, putting in technology quantum leaps would be a very bad thing.

If the abilities and combat strength of individual unit types could be changed in unforeseeable ways the game would become a pure gamble.

So basically more choices and options would ruin the game? Let's just leave it so everyone really has to do just the same thing to win for each race. Because trying to out think what your opponent will do, would just ruin it and not add real time "strategy" to the game.

I think beefier planet defenses will just slow the game down more, which is definitely not what this game needs.

I didn't just mention planet defense, there is also fleet combat. At every battle I shouldn't be able to just set my targets to what ships I want blown up first and walk away to get something to drink, knowing right away I'm not going to lose because my opponent can't pull something unexpected. But at the very lest I would LOVE to see a ship that is a mobile PJI or can do splash damage to ship to turn off their jump for 60 seconds. Techs like that can change how a battle turns out.

Just imagine a pitch battle, two fleets pounding on each other at a planet choke point. You're not sure if you want to take the loses or pull back. You've held your PJI cruiser in the back with some flak to protect it, because you don't want it destroyed early. Suddenly you notice every fighter he has targets your PJI and his capital ships are breaking off. You scramble to save it knowing he just lost his nerve and if he destroys it, his capital ships and what's left of his fleet will make it out.

You know, I fail to see how a scenario like that would just make the game suck more. That is what more tech brings to the game.

I definitely agree with the OP (brentrobison) on pretty much all of his points. I don't think Sins needs a drastic overhaul or anything from the devs or even modders, but I think some additions or tweaking could help make this game even better than it already is.

That scenario that brentrobison was describing, that WOULD make the game so much better, more DRAMATIC, thrilling, exciting, and unexpected. I don't know about anyone else, but surprises in games are SOMEtimes the best part, if not all the time, even if the surprise is a nasty one. Surprise creates tension, and also adds ANOTHER reason for someone to keep playing the game, just like cliffhangers or plot twists in movies, books, and the like.

Whatever, I'm rambling on about all that. I do agree though, more, bigger tech options and increased defense effectiveness would add a lot to this already amazing game. A greater number and bigger variety of tech would give the player a lot more decisions and make the decisions much more important, such as "Do I completely focus on making lots of units and worry about upgrading later" vs. "Should I get all my tech and units at their maximum levels so I won't need as many to do what I need to do?" or even a balance between the two. Right now, it seems like for the most part, if you have enough resources to buld a lot of ships, you have enough to do a lot of research. Maybe I'm imagining it, but I dunno, I think a greater divide between the two should be made to make players think more.

And yeah, planetary defense....I think the defenses are OK right now. I've seen my cannons and fighter bays do a pretty good job of fending off attackers, but I agree again with the OP, a fully tech'ed, *ultra* planet should be bristling with defenses and a real challenge to face. I don't know if anyone can relate, but in the Halo universe, there's Earth and Reach with their massive plantery defenses, which make it a bit of a challenge for attackers to win battles, even the Covenant. And thinking of how there are "SIEGE" frigates, thats what I think an attack on a planet should be, a siege. The defenders SHOULD have some big advantages with their developed planets!

--My point I guess is that defense is OK for now, but it should be changed a bit to improve the gameplay/atmosphere/strategy/variety of options for player.

I've talked long enough, been a bit of a nerd, whatever. I'm not expecting every little expectation of mine or of anyone's to be fully met by the devs, thats not their job at all, but I'm hoping a few improvements will be made. I kinda know there will be some actually, cause the devs have already been doing so.

You don't "get" Sins of a Solar Empire.

Don't know if that was directed at me, but if it was, then DAMN IT there goes $40 I could have given to some poor African boy. Maybe he would have understood Sins better than I could ever hope to....

All attempts at humor aside, please elaborate on why you believe we don't "get" the game.

Sins is not everything to everyone.

I happen to dislike ham.

hay guys u kno if u dont leik the game u shuld play barb or sumthin lol

I'll gladly make a PJI ship if someone wants it.

I'm hoping that an expansion will add more options to the Tech Tree. While i pursue certain techs over others, in a 2 or 3 hour game, i usually end up getting just about everything. I'd prefer to have my Tech choices have some consequence to them. So far, it just seems like a race up the Tech Tree to get everything. Even if there were simply more levels of refinement available in various techs, that would be something.

For me, the weakest spot in the game is Diplomacy. I just don't enjoy how Diplomacy seems to center around fulfilling irritating errands and i don't have the time to pursue. And the fact that there's no espionage of any kind is especially sad. Who knows, perhaps a later expansion will include these things.

As for planetary defenses, i bet that will be addressed somewhat in the next patch.

Ok... what game have you been playing?

Practically every race has technologies allowing support frigates and cruisers to:
1. Drain antimatter, crippling enemy capital ships
2. repair
3. do extra damge
4. Take less damge..

In addition a 10% boost to HP or armor or whatever is MASSIVE when you look at a fleet of 50+ ships.. your problem is that you are playing the AI, and at small scale, and I bet you have limited yourself to capital ships, who are much weaker then real fleets.
Capital ships should support... I made the same mistake when I was a noob...

Try unlocking all the achivements... You will learn A LOT about the game by doing so.

Tech in this game unlocks structures, ships, and abilities. You can not colonize ice and volcanic planets. Your economy will suck without tech. Tech gives you refineries, tradeports, and braodcast centers, the first two triple your economical might at the LEAST... and the latter add culture to the mix (increases money made AND increases fleet power, AND gives special abilities, AND later on destroys the enemy planets)

You are also mislead about the timescale.. Sure if you fight tanks with spears you will die... but this isn't the timescale involved in the reasearch with this game. Most 4X games are TBS where each turn is a year, and involve many star systems. here you are limited to planet within a star system... the whole campaign takes monthes to years... not enough to develop significant differences in technology.

There are even super weapons... if you research them your power difference is significant.. the biggest one is the TEC's, build several of those and watch all the enemy planets die.

The only complaint I have is that the game has the possibility of having a multi star system game but doesn't have the tools for it... some sort of super technologies that take forever to research, cost a ton, and are only gonna be feaseable in huge galaxies (dozens of stars, hundreds of planets)... the kind of game which can take weeks or monthes or whatever. Theoretically you could make a galaxy so big it took years to play. But you will max out the tech tree pretty quickly and then its gonna just get repetative... but still something interesting. I will consider doing it later.

The AI really does need improving.