Press ctrl+f6 twice fastest to win - fix please?

from Sins Forums
The perfect build order is something around infrastructure-crystalmine-cap factory-cap queued-scout-metalmine-colony ship-metalmine-scout, minus the colony ship if you use a colony cap.

This build order requires more crystal than you start with, so at the begining of the build order you get zOMG RACE TO BUY 200 CRYSTAL FIRST.
1st person says 650
2nd- 750
3rd- 850
4th- 950
5th- 1050
6th-1150

In a 6 player game the 6th person to buy is paying nearly double.  I'm not masochistic enough to list out how it is on a 10 player game, it hurts too much just thinking about it.  It becomes not worth buying the 200 crystal.
The 1st and 2nd people can pull off this "perfect build order" fine. The 3rd and higher have to wait for their credits to come back up.
With the low income you have in the begining, being towards the end in more than a 1vs1 game sets you back more and more, MINUTES behind the other players.

Some of you seem to think that being set back minutes might not matter, but look at replies of the better players.  The higher level play 3v3 games tend to last 45-90 minutes, 2 hours at most.
It's in the first 20 minutes that the game starts to lean towards one team, so being MINUTES behind in the begining hurts alot.

Crystal income in the begining is only thirty per minute, and credits i believe is 780?  Screwing up someones early game with this silly game mechanic is bad.


The solution is simple, lock the black market prices to 300buy/200sell for the first 15 seconds, OR raise crystal by 200 and reduce credits by 700, OR fix the price of players first 200 crystal.

With how it is now it gives an advantage to simple who loads the game fastest then button mashes fastest.  You might as well just put in a response time measuring minigame when you first install and have the game run 3dMark 08 to see how fast their comp is, and simply reward those players with more resources at the game start based on that.
Fair, huh?
98,060 views 74 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
3) The open market for buying and selling of resources has been altered so that there are random fluctuations in pricing and can crash or boom based on player behavior.

The patch stuff may help change that.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
can crash or boom based on player behavior.
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I see... so buying crystal early is not player behavior :O Anyway it's a good indicator if you are facing noobs or not. If you buy the crystal first no one else buys any, you will win.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
It's not necessary to queue that all up. By the time it gets 1/2 way through that build order u should have enough crystal to do something cool. It's really not a big deal.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
You could disable the black market for a random period in the first few minutes of the game. That way it would be unpredictable, and harder for people to be sitting there waiting for the crystal market to open up. While that wouldn't negate the effect of the initial crystal purchase, it may discourage people from trying early in the game because of the hassle.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Actually Astax, the boom/crash thing is coming in the new patch...looking back, I probably could've made that a little more clear.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
I've been doing

crystal mine
metal mine
metal mine
scout
scout
cap factory
cobaltx5
Cap ship
Colony Ship

I typically buy 100 crystal or so, but sometimes not, and not right away. If prices are high, I sell metal and buy crystal. (sometimes sell metal for money).

It's nice having a fleet that can handle locals around anything I might wanna colonize. Getting a second or third crystal mine very early makes a big difference, IMO.

I dunno tho, maybe I'm missing something key in your formula for awesomeness.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
I hope they do something to ease the ctrl-f6 start. It is pretty random... It effectively just makes each player start with a (significantly) different amount of credits. The changes they've described for 1.03 are pretty vague, but don't look to me to be addressing this, but rather to be addressing the exploits.

Changing the starting credit/mineral mix would probably be the most straightfoward solution. Better yet, put sliders for credits / metal / crystal in the game setup screen.

Personally I think the marketplace should only be for buying and selling minerals between players (i.e. minerals only available to buy if someone is selling. Perhaps with a trickle in based on the unowned extractors / moons in the universe.) The play balancing/easing aspect of having unlimited minerals (at a price) can then be delivered by a *fixed* but expensive credit cost for performing mineral alchemy (say 1000 credits per 100.) Just a thought. Might be better, might be worse.

Lore weaver: The things you are missing are that you aren't upgrading your infrastructure (doing that using cheap crystal is worthwhile, and ramps up your economy faster... doing it with expensive crystal is not cool.) Also your build order is 'slow' - you want that cap ship out *fast* so it can clear something for the first coloniser, that you also want out promptly. Your build order is an ok one for times where you notice the crystal price is already high when you make it into the game. But the guy that got the cheap crystal will have a small edge over you.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Maybe just start the price off really high as if they'd all been bought up already, and only make it go down slowly with time. Either that or the black market only comes up once you find the pirate base.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Changing fixed starting resources would be okay like i said.. 700 less credits, 200 more crystal.
But sliders to adjust? No please it should be standard amount. No "quick start" resources like some other crappy RTS' have. :/ Sins is supposed to be a real game
3) The open market for buying and selling of resources has been altered so that there are random fluctuations in pricing and can crash or boom based on player behavior.The patch stuff may help change that.
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Swing, Miss.

can crash or boom based on player behavior.I see... so buying crystal early is not player behavior :O Anyway it's a good indicator if you are facing noobs or not. If you buy the crystal first no one else buys any, you will win.
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Quoted for truth!

It's not necessary to queue that all up. By the time it gets 1/2 way through that build order u should have enough crystal to do something cool. It's really not a big deal.
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Good job ignoring the math I did. No, it puts you minutes behind.

You could disable the black market for a random period in the first few minutes of the game. That way it would be unpredictable, and harder for people to be sitting there waiting for the crystal market to open up. While that wouldn't negate the effect of the initial crystal purchase, it may discourage people from trying early in the game because of the hassle.
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Okay instead make it so people sit there looking at the game timer to reach a certain time and all rush to hit ctrl+f6 twice then?

These are bad ideas.. :| Just fix the PROBLEM please.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
You could disable the black market for a random period in the first few minutes of the game. That way it would be unpredictable, and harder for people to be sitting there waiting for the crystal market to open up. While that wouldn't negate the effect of the initial crystal purchase, it may discourage people from trying early in the game because of the hassle.
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Okay instead make it so people sit there looking at the game timer to reach a certain time and all rush to hit ctrl+f6 twice then?These are bad ideas.. Just fix the PROBLEM please.
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If you would take the time to actually read what he said instead of insulting everyone who thinks different then you, you would find he mentioned the word "random," meaning not a certain time limit.

I actually think that would be a good idea, however, having not played multiplayer, and not even knowing this is what goes on in multiplayer games, my word won't carry much weight in this argument.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
I'll admit I'm more on the not having a market, save PvP purchases at all. It just seems kinda silly and out of place, not to mention you get all the stuff instantanious.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
You could disable the black market for a random period in the first few minutes of the game. That way it would be unpredictable, and harder for people to be sitting there waiting for the crystal market to open up. While that wouldn't negate the effect of the initial crystal purchase, it may discourage people from trying early in the game because of the hassle.
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No, this just changes unfairly rewarding the player with the fastest computer, etc, to unfairly rewarding the lucky player who sees that the market is open first. Or it's reduced again to everyone waiting and button mashing.  :NOTSURE: 
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
Another solution would be to increase the starting price of crystal on the black market and have it slowly decay. It would screw this particular opening strategy, but would alleviate the problem it poses, and there are no doubt other opening build orders that don't give a huge disadvantage to the person who is unlucky enough to have a slow computer or hasn't set up a AutoHotkey script. I have, btw set up an autohotkey script for this, although I think it would be dishonorable to use it. You can actually buy more than 2 units of crystal and put the last few on the market for the poor shmuck that doesn't have a script, so when he buys it he puts you even further ahead.

In short, this needs to die, quickly.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
Another solution is to require some type of building before access to the black market is available. Say one trade center (or whatever it's called).

That way it balances out for all, and the race to access the market becomes another strategy.

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
If you would take the time to actually read what he said instead of insulting everyone who thinks different then you, you would find he mentioned the word "random," meaning not a certain time limit. I actually think that would be a good idea, however, having not played multiplayer, and not even knowing this is what goes on in multiplayer games, my word won't carry much weight in this argument.
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I read it, I didn't think he was silly enough to actually mean random, he said a few minutes
Never did he say random. He didn't have as horrible an idea as you, there.

See, random would be even worse, and even stupider. Then it'd be "who's lucky enough to catch it when it opens first?" instead of "who loads and presses ctrl+f6 twice first?"

Yeah, nice there.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
If you would take the time to actually read what he said instead of insulting everyone who thinks different then you, you would find he mentioned the word "random," meaning not a certain time limit. I actually think that would be a good idea, however, having not played multiplayer, and not even knowing this is what goes on in multiplayer games, my word won't carry much weight in this argument.
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I read it, I didn't think he was silly enough to actually mean random, he said a few minutes
Never did he say random. He didn't have as horrible an idea as you, there.

See, random would be even worse, and even stupider. Then it'd be "who's lucky enough to catch it when it opens first?" instead of "who loads and presses ctrl+f6 twice first?"

Yeah, nice there.

Another solution is to require some type of building before access to the black market is available. Say one trade center (or whatever it's called). That way it balances out for all, and the race to access the market becomes another strategy.
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um.. you know tec gets trade center super early, and vasari super late? :/ This would SEVERELY change the balance of the game more than you realize. If it wouldn't imbalance so bad, it'd be a decent idea, but the game isn't balanced for it. Too many other things would need changing to accommodate this change.
This might work in the newbies pacifist for 3 hours before attacking and running scared, then waiting another hour to finally really attack strategies, but not for the higher level play. :|

No.. the problem just needs fixed. I don't see what's wrong with the 3 solutions i gave, they all fix it without creating problems.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
Ok the specific building may not work because of balance.

How about a 1 Civic research everyone gets that gives you access?

Like the colonize Volc/Ice world upgrades.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
On behalf of all the posts asking for strategies to be *fixed* please stop it!

If I build more ships before my oppoenet I can beat him! OMG, that's not fair! If he buys more stuff before me, I lose, OMG, that's not fair! Did you ever play tic tac toe as a kid? Put an x in any corner and you win, OMG, it's not fair! I never once asked the devs to fix tic tac toe.

Don't fix stuff, beat your enemy down! If you do it on a steep playing field, the so much the better, more glory for you when you overcome!

>.<
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
Lol what, Maogan?

The reason that this is an issue because it's base don such silly things as how fast someone computers is an how fast they can mash two buttons. That's a silly thing to put in the hands of winning or losing.

No one is complaining about losing light frigs to lrms here.

Isn't requiring 1 civ just going to mean who can place down a civ building first gets it then? Which is the same as who loads and clicks a hotkey fastest. :/ Then you're sitting there waiting to mash ctrl+f6 when it's at 99% Same issue, but now every is required to make a civ instead of mil and make it before cap factory or crystal mine.

Just.. adjust starting resources would be fine, or lock markets prices for first 15 secs so people can buy/sell at 300/200 all they want in that period(would open up more build orders).

I don't see any need for anything elaborate.. just fix the issue. Fixing this would improve the game sooooo much.
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
Frankly, I'm just tired of posters like innociv and others being the braggarts they are, all the while insulting other players, and then asking them to jump on board with the idea that something is horribly broken and needs to be 'fixed'.

If you're such a marvelous champion of the game, why don't you just adapt to such idiosyncrasies, or barring that, submit a suggestion to Ironclad on how it could be made better instead of constantly whining that entire systems are busted?

I don't see how this forum needs more posts from you and others where you just browbeat other users as crappy players if they don't agree with your assessment of the game.
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
A possible solution could be to have market prices be frozen for the first 30 seconds of the game. This allows players to start with the ratio of credits / metal / crystal that they prefer with no one being "screwed". After 30 seconds market becomes reactive to buying and selling as normal.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
Cyker, yeah, what i said but 15 seconds would be long enough.
Frankly, I'm just tired of posters like innociv and others being the braggarts they are, all the while insulting other players, and then asking them to jump on board with the idea that something is horribly broken and needs to be 'fixed'.If you're such a marvelous champion of the game, why don't you just adapt to such idiosyncrasies, or barring that, submit a suggestion to Ironclad on how it could be made better instead of constantly whining that entire systems are busted?I don't see how this forum needs more posts from you and others where you just browbeat other users as crappy players if they don't agree with your assessment of the game.
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Lol I do adapt to it, by mashing ctrl+f6 and preloading the game.

Dur dur dur. Does that make it less any stupid though?

Eventually everyones going to learn you buy 200 crystal first and it'll become more of a problem. Right now it serves as a "oh lookie, new players here" if the price doesn't jump up at the start.

Since I usually host no-newbie games, it's always jumping up fast. I am generally teh first to buy, but it's silly that i and all the others have to do this.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
I agree with the OP, this needs a more elegant solution. It adds unnecessary randomness to the start. It's a valid complaint, affects everyone, and should be relatively easy to fix. A price lock for X seconds sounds good, but the starting price needs to be more than 300 for crystal - it's more valuable than metal. Maybe around 500. That would have the added benefit of breaking the "perfect" build order somewhat and forcing hard choices.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
A market lockout time sounds like an adequate solution if a bit inelegant. What would be the effect of randomized starting prices for both metal and crystal at the beginning of a game?
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
See, random would be even worse, and even stupider. Then it'd be "who's lucky enough to catch it when it opens first?" instead of "who loads and presses ctrl+f6 twice first?"Yeah, nice there.
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I disagree. The current system, at the moment, seems to reward whoever has the fastest machine / has pre-loaded the game. It also rewards blindly throwing yourself at the market without checking to see if the price for crystals is something you'd actually be willing to pay.

While locking the market for the first N seconds or the first N minutes would fix the first problem, it wouldn't fix the second; and I dislike the idea of having to set up a stopwatch on my desk or start whispering "one mississippi, two mississippi . . ." just so that I can be competitive and spam CTRL+F6 as soon as I know the black market is active.

By contrast, having the market randomly open (say, in the first 30-90 seconds) rewards players who are paying attention to the market screen on a regular basis. While you're right that the players will need to be "lucky" to tag the market as soon as it opens, observant players will be able to increase the chances that they'll be the "lucky" ones.

Personally, I think the best answers are to either disable the market for the first 30-90 seconds (random seed value), or to disable the market until you build your first Civil research station. I don't agree with the sentiment that the latter would turn into "who can spam a Civil Research Station and hit CTRL+F6 as soon as it finishes" . . . for one thing, players will probably have diverged enough by the point that their Civil labs have finished to not all be spamming CTRL+F6 at the same time, and they'll actually be able to watch the Black Market screen as their Civil lab is finishing, rather than just pounding a hotkey and hoping they win.

. . . besides, a lot of people ignore Civil stations entirely in small map play; tying Black Market to building a Civil Lab would shake up the established build orders and give the players some difficult early-game decisions.