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Sins 1.04 preview

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Sins 1.04 preview

from Sins Forums

As some of you know, 1.04 has been split into two updates in order to get an update out sooner that has taken recent feedback from players and evaluated what changes should be made.

Here is a preview of what we have:

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Sins of a Solar Empire v1.04 Changelist
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Gameplay / Balance:
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-Market value changes:
 -Ratio of buy/sell is now 2:1 instead of 3:1.
 -Min price now 200 instead of 80.
 -Boom/crashes now last ~twice as long.

-Multiple instances of the Embargo planet debuff from the same player no longer stack.

- Capital ships
 -All non-Colony capital ship top speeds increased from 500 to 525.
 -All Colony capital ship top speeds increased from 400 to 475.

- Siege Frigates:
 -Build costs decreased by ~15%.

- Javelis, Illuminator, Assailant:
 -Linear acceleration decreased from 200 to 150.
 -Top speed decreased from 800 to 500.
 -Range decreased from 130% to 115% of 1.02 ranges.

- Illuminator:
 -Hull points increased from 520 to 620.
 -Shield points increased from 450 to 550.
 -Attack type changed from CAPITALSHIP to ANTIMEDIUM.
 -Front bank damage increased from 33.8 to 65.
 -Side banks damage decreased from 33.8 to 26.

- Defense Vessel:
 -Reduced cooldown by 45%, damage reduced proportionally to maintain DPS.
 -Fleet supply increased from 3 to 4.
 -Now properly benefits from Advent laser research topics.

-Attack types
 -AntiVeryLight chance to hit bombers decreased from 85% to 75%.
 -AntiVeryLight damage vs Light armor decreased from 100% to 75%.

-Map Balance of Power fixed to have less Heavies and populated desert worlds.


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Graphics:
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Sound / Music:
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AI:
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-Fixed minor bug in Unfair AI not behaving quite correctly.
-Fix bug where AI would retreat from his homeworld or last planet.
-AI is likely to gang up on the leading player in Easy or Normal.
-Misc tweaks.


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Networking / Multiplayer:
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-Fixed minor bug in ico-join game screen where fleet size display was incorrect.
-Improved in-game chat text entry:
 -Escape no longer clears the chat buffer when closing the window.
 -Sending whispers is remembered (don't have to retype the whisper when sending again).
 -Sending to allies is remembered (don't have to retype /a when sending again).
-Chat string and colors changed.


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UserInterface / HUD:
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-Fix map names for Backstab and Balance of power.


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Modding:
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-Entity name lookup is now case insensitve.


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Misc:
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-Fix for saved games not respecting custom game options.


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End
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Now, bear in mind, this isn't the end-all be all update. The goal is to get something out, possibly this week and then do more later.

For single player games, the main change is in the computer AI not being quite so nasty at easy levels but being tougher at harder levels.

Most of the rest will affect multiplayer where unit balance between the 3 races is more sensitive.

199,970 views 222 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top
I'm not going to clutter up this thread with a bunch of mathematical analysis, which I already pointed out to innociv and he's conveniently ignoring.

This patch does a lot right.

The black market changes were necessary and warranted.

The LRM nerfs (across the board) help increase Capital Ship survivability, a big bonus.

The corresponding small nerf to Flak helps offset the now worsened LRMs, and the corresponding buff to fighters and bombers is an added bonus.

Furthermore, the defense vessel nerf is not as bad as people make it out to be. I think it was rational. The fact that it benefits from laser upgrades somewhat negates the increased supply.

The increased speed on colonizers helps increase viability of Akkan, Evacuator, and Mothership (especially the Mothership). This is a big buff to Advent, which heavily relies on Malice.

Finally, the illuminator buff (yes BUFF) is much needed and appreciated. Assuming 2 guns firing, you can calculate that the increase in dps is around 30%. This easily counteracts the penalty to Heavy cruisers, and even better, it now crushes light frigates as it was meant to. Even if all 3 beams are shooting at once (highly unlikely), your dps is still around 10% higher than before, somewhat offsetting the decreased dps against Heavy Cruisers. And why are you fighting heavy cruisers with illuminators anyway? :)

The biggest gameplay change will be that LRM type ships cannot "move attack" the capital ships in a manner guarenteeing their death. Now capital ships will play a more pivotal role in supporting their fleets. Great patch, ignore the overly vocal critics.
Reply #27 from Sins Forums Top
Interesting!

The speed and range changes on LRM looks good. I really don't mind long range frigs being as effective as they are (you have to use SOMETHING to kill people, right?), but at least you have a chance to run from them now.

I'm optimistic about the market changes. The ratio change is good, though I think the price "max" needs to go up a little too. I wasn't clear if this was part of the minimum going up.

While it is too bad the Illuminator lost its "unique" damage type, I think these changes will make small groups of Illuminators much more effective at countering basic assault frigs..(no more dying to cobalt spam). Huge clusters of Illuminators will still be pretty damn nasty, as always.

Flak may not be as much of a "hard counter" to LRM's as in the past, but the flip side of this is fighter strikecraft are now going to be more valuable to fill that role. Defense vessels were always a steal at 3 supply...I don't think putting them to 4 supply is going to hurt much...especially considering Advent will now be building more Drone Hosts instead. So while Flak got a nerf vs LRM type frigs, airpower gets a boost with bomber survivability and more value for fighters...which means Flak still has a place in the world.

I still think Siege ships aren't worth 15 supply each, not without a damage boost. A damage boost wouldn't be too unbalancing, as long as Siege was easy to kill and needed some kind of escort. As it stands, I too use anti planet cap ships instead of Siege frigs.

Looking forward to trying it out!
SoundPackager - Customize the Windows sound scheme
Reply #28 from Sins Forums Top
No the LRM speed change makes it so you can keep your cap out of the fight instead of being chased from one planet to the next.

It doesn't make it so you can use your cap as apart of your fleet. LRMS still drop caps within seconds if the cap shows up to do it's role as support.

And as I mentioend, a 30% increase in survivability still isn't enough for bombers to get a 2nd shot off.

I've already given the numbers and the game shows an example of how fast bomber squads vanish when they get near a much smaller number of flaks. It's the hardest counter in the game.
Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top
Without taking gameplay into account at all, I enjoyed having the Illuminator have a different damage type. Looking at a damage/armor type chart and seeing a row reserved for the Illuminator makes Advent people feel special.

The economy fix is nice though.
Reply #30 from Sins Forums Top
Nice advent buffs there. I was hoping for some advent skill tree changes or at least making culture have a more desirable effect.Buffs?I could be wrong but I don't see how illums will have any use compared to the others lrms now.Sure they have 18 dps instead of 15.6, 10 on the front beam (compared to 11 for javs, 13 for assailants, but assailants get awesome phase missiles.).But they are mil 3.But they cost a ton of crystal, and resources in general.But now they no longer do 100% to heavy cruisers(the damage increase somewhat offsets this, but 18 isn't 25% more than 15.6)The change to having the front beam do the majority of the damage is good but the rest is ugh.The capital damage made it unique, and better late game.It's STILL going to be the worst LRM early and mid game I'm quite sure.
End of quote


Beforehand when focus firing on a capital/heavy ship they did 5.2 dps to the target being focus fired from the front arcs, now they do 7.5 dps from the front arc to cap/heavies. The total damage decrease to heavies/capitals from all 3 arcs is 0.3 dps. Imho it's better to have 15.3 dps with half of it coming from the front arc, than 15.6 dps across 3 arcs when most of the time the 3 arcs might not be firing. It also makes them much better against other LRM's than they were before (10 dps from front arc instead of 3.9 dps) and at the same time better vs medium armour (15 dps from front arc instead of 5.2 dps).

Reply #31 from Sins Forums Top
I have to ask. Is the Multiplayer minidumps described in my issue reports "fixed" in 1.04?
Reply #32 from Sins Forums Top
hmm tried to add this to my previous reply, but was too late.

illuminators also received a ~20% buff to survivability.

basically against the target being focus fired (FF is extremely significant).
they do 256% more damage to the jav being focus fired and have 20% more survivability than they used to.
they do 44% more damage to the heavy/cap being focus fired and have 20% more survivability than they used to.
they do 288% more damage to the light frigs being focus fired and have 20% more survivability than they used to.
Reply #33 from Sins Forums Top
Not to make generalizations, but save for a few this is one of the most whiney, ungrateful, dissatisfied group of people it's been my misfortune to encounter. You realize that the game is roughly two months old and we will have had four updates. You realize that in about two weeks time Ironclad has given us two updates and a demo. A demo which could generate them revenue but was postponed to get out a patch that this group "demanded". You realize that these patches generate no additional income for them. They could have just as easily taken the cash from 200,000+ sales and said, "Screw you @$$holes".

Even if the game isn't perfect, I think they've shown their commitment to making it the best game they can. How about cutting them some slack instead of railing on them for a patch that isn't even released yet. Just remember how many release-it-now-patch-it-later games get totally abandoned.

Oh, and if you're going to go on a rant, do us all a favor and take an extra 30 seconds and proofread your post. Your claims lose their credibility when you sound like a hillbilly troglodyte. The only upside is that it does make one appreciate the well thought out criticisms when they appear.
Reply #34 from Sins Forums Top
You said it, D-man! I was excited to come to the forum a few minutes ago and see a post from Frogboy saying "Sins 1.04 preview".

Change isn't always bad, guys. Adapt to the changes and find new ways to play. Isn't that one of the fun parts of playing these kinds of games?

Then again I'm probably not as hardcore a player as a lot of you (haven't even played an mp game yet), so I guess I have a relaxed attitude to this type of thing.

Reply #35 from Sins Forums Top
One week hmmm not bad, not bad at all. Will there be graphical support cuz i didnt see any? Also does sin work with ATI 2660XT HD because some blinking in the engine seems to be happening but when i down grade to my old ATI 1600pro it works fine. Also didnt read any of the previous posts so not sure if it was asked, answered, or differed but will you guys be fixing the frame drop issue
Reply #36 from Sins Forums Top
Well 2:1 ration with minimum sale of 200 means minimum buy of 400!
Reply #37 from Sins Forums Top
looks good, seems like lrm's have a counter now, carriers. and carriers are countered by flak.. i mean rock paper scissors works... its just kinda simplistic.
Reply #38 from Sins Forums Top
eh i don't think carriers are going to counter lrms just from that.

And i wasn't saying the front beam doing more damage is bad. That's great that it does. I just liked the uniqueness of the illum in having cap damage.

And defense vessals are goign up to 4 supply now yet aren't getting a survivability increase. Another part of advents uniqueness getting stripped away.


But it's not like discussing any this stuff does any good.
Remember the huge uproar over siege frigs massive nerf?
Reply #39 from Sins Forums Top
Innociv, you always complain about Illuminators sucking.....they might have lost their special damage type, but they gained dps to compensate, and got a shield + structure boost, AND got better focused fire. They will do about the same against some things, but they are going to eat basic assault frigs alive now. How can you be unhappy, they got an overall boost?

Defense vessels are still going to be effective at 4 supply. For a guy who complains incessantly about how OP Subverters are, you HAVE to acknowledge that Defense vessels were OP at 3 supply. =)

I think the changes are good and we should see how it works out.
Reply #40 from Sins Forums Top
OK, the defense frigate nerfing was obviously done to make the anti-strikecraft frigates into anti-strike craft frigates, instead of anti-LRM+Anti-strikecraft frigates. When they decreased flak frigate effectiveness against LRMs, they conversely made it so that fighters were a better chose to counter them. This would lead to an increase in people using fighters. So, flak frigates both had to be amde less useful against LRMs, and more useful against strikecraft at the same time in order to maintain balance. And, by lowering their cool-down but maintaining DpS, the devs seem to have gone about doing this in the right way. (The apparent increase in strikecraft survivability was probably to help mitigate the ridiculous increase in effectiveness the reduced weapon cooldown is going to have)

The LRM speed nerf also makes it more difficult for them to hunt down and engage carriers, so I think this whole change in game dynamic was more or less done to promote the use of strikecraft as a LRM counter.

But... Strikecraft in general could really use a buff. They've got a mile long list of liabilities and relatively poor DpS for supply cost. Their vulnerability is not really an issue to me, but I'd -really- love to seem bombers and fighters get better at killing their appropriate targets, in addition to everything else getting worse at it.

To clarify, fighters are obviously intended to do four things: Counter LRMs, engage other strikecraft, destroy siege ships, and harass trade routes. Bombers are apparently intended to do three things: Counter heavy cruisers, engage medium frigates effectively, and destroy orbital structures without fear of retaliation.

Fighters are debateably effective against LRMs. They have proportionately equal DpS against their armor of choice wehn compared to LRMs, per supply cost. To clarify, fighter squadrons deal roughly 25dps per squadron to light armor, at a cost of 8 supply. Vasari LRMs deal about 20 DpS to medium armor, and cost 6 supply. (the other races are roughly equal, but different supply costs/number of targets engaged per volley). But, for roughly equal DpS, they are carried by a ridiculously vulnerable platform, and are countered with incredible ease by the cheap and easy to produce flak frigate.

Bombers, unlike fighters, are almost completely pointless. They deal aroud 17-18 DpS per squadron against very heavy armor, and about 12-13 DpS against capital ships. They are completely useless against every other armor type. So the counter for the most heavily armored, highest HP targets in the game deals 17.5 DpS for -8- supply? That is atrocious. It is the lowest DpS/supply ratio (against target armor type) for any combat unit in the game, and is carried about by a floating glass house. LRM units deal roughly the same DPS per supply against very-heavy, and considerably more against capital ships.

The only reason that strikecraft are worth building at all is that they have really high cooldown on their weapons, which means that when you amass them they can deal an enormous amount of damage in one strike. But, this is really not even close to enough to compensate for the fact that they are unwieldy as hell, incredibly fragile, easily countered, and -expensive-. If an opponent gives you enough time to mass enough carrier cruisers to give you a problem, he's probably asleep.

Fighters are 'ok.' They do more or less what they're designed to do, but flak frigates have a tendency to eat them alive at a rate that seems disproportionate to the effectiveness of other counters. Bombers are atrocious. Really, really atrocious. I understand that heavy cruisers are supposed to be really difficult to kill. But there has to be some unit with which to counter them. Bombers simply don't. They are not currently a counter to heavy cruisers.
Reply #41 from Sins Forums Top
Looks like a good set of changes, particularly with respect to the missile frigates and the economy boom/bust cycle.

Any chance you could address this display bug: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/305585
in this release too?

-- Retro
Reply #42 from Sins Forums Top
Having this many patches so soon is great. Like others have written, 1.4 in other games is usually 1.4 years in comming. But I'm confused about the black market changes:

I just played my first MP game since 1.3 tonight, and just like so many wrote, my opponent built like 3-4 trade posts per planet. I played TEC, but was determined to see what happend if I played my best, and only built 1 trade port max per planet. Well, of course, I was slaughtered, which was disheartening, since it seems that spamming trade ports is great (and cheesey) tactic.  :NOTSURE: 

So, can someone please explain to me what the changes in 1.4 will do to market prices, and if it will do anything to curb the trader-spam? 2-1 sounds cheaper to buy resourses to me than 3-1?

As for the rest of the patch, "I like to play before I say". . .



Reply #43 from Sins Forums Top
I don't like the Illum losing its special damage type but sadly I don't have any idea how to balance it without giving it medium damage.
With cap damage the Illum will be either too weak in the early game (to keep up with other LRM) or way too strong in the late game (when its cap damage just owns all other ships).
And since I don't really know how to better solve that problem I'm fine with anti-medium damage for Illums.

This patch will certainly restore the balance quite a bit. No, it will not be perfect. But it's a giant leap in the right direction.
It will be especially interesting how the slow LRM will be used. I think decreasing their speed even more (well, a little more) might be good.

It'll be fun watching carriers out-run LRM while the fighters get their shots in ;) Too bad flak counter this way too easy.

With flaks efficiency vs LRM reduced and the completely useless fighters vs LRM (since the fighters die within seconds from just a few flak) I still don't really see a good counter against the flak/LRM fleet that already dominated in the previous patches. Well, except for heavy cruisers of cause ... but they are tier5 and hard to get.
Reply #44 from Stardock Forums Top
That market changes are interesting, but I'm not sure they go far enough towards making the market sensible (as opposed to a bottomless pit of resources and making credits super important).
Reply #45 from Sins Forums Top
I personally like the Illuminator changes, they may make them more useful in the future. But changing to be more like the other two LRMs, which are probably the biggest balance issue with the game right now, probably isn't a step in the right direction.

LRM's speed being changed is nice, but LRMs aren't so powerful for their speed, but for the fact that they can slug it out with the best of the units. LRMs being dirt cheap, low in population cap, and only really don't beat for the cost three ships of all the ships are problems that look like they're going to remain.

Advent having their Defense Vessel flak being very low in population cap was nice, and against carriers was a bit off, but it's what could make it part of a decent, if not strategically viable, counter to LRMs of the other factions. Increasing their population seems like it will make it harder to counter them with defense vessels and you can afford less

I think the bottom line is that there is something wrong with LRMs. From their description and their apparent purpose, you would think they would be for sitting towards the back of the fleet unleashing pain but avoiding anything getting in close to play. But in the current state (and for this next patch, it seems) they simply are the brawlers, and often they are the fleet itself with a capital ship being eye candy. They can do almost anything you could want, throw in some flaks for insurance and until Heavy Cruisers show up you'll probably be fine.

I think some more significant changes for the LRMs should be considered in the near future, so they aren't the dominant force in the game.

The economy changes should take away some from TEC's significant current advantage, but I hope the booms are increased in their severity as well. Returning Armada I guess will remain the same, but hopefully something to make that ability reasonable is in the pipes, to put it somewhere between the absurdity of it's present state and making it useless.
Reply #46 from Sins Forums Top
I wonder if 1.04 will finally fix the instant wins on ICO?? instant wins as in getting a win without even making a ship due to a design error in the win conditions(I won't go into further detail).
Reply #47 from Sins Forums Top
Perhaps LRMS should have some sort of minimum range? It would certainly make them more vulnerable towards anything that can stop movement.
Reply #48 from Sins Forums Top
If LRFs had a minimum engagement range they wouldn't be so much of a problem as it wouldn't be such a viable tactic to spam them since the opposing player can simply close in and force the LRF to cease fire.

This seems like the best way to balance LRFs out so that they are used more like their description, heavy hitters sitting in the back row to provide support and not the front line.

Then again, this would mess with the Illums ability to fire in 3 separate directions at once in conjunction with malice, but I digress. That's just my 2 cents, but I haven't played online yet so don't mind me.
Reply #49 from Sins Forums Top
Btw I'd generally prefer if races were made more different and not more similar.

Example: Instead of giving Advent a "normal" LRM Advent could just not have any LRM but keep the Illuminator with cap damage in its weakened state. Therefor their Disciples could be made a little better against LRM so that they are not such a hard counter. Or maybe have their flak do some special damage that counters other LRM.
As I wrote above I don't really know how to properly balance that but StarCraft has proven, that balance with completely different units is possible.

With 1.04, all races will in the end have equal units with just some variation in damage / cost (except for the caster cruisers). While it is certainly the easiest way to ensure balance, it's also a little boring.

edit: Minimum range for LRM won't do any good. Solution: Make two blobs of LRM that are in each others range. No matter which blob you close in on, all LRMs can always fire.
Reply #50 from Sins Forums Top
That's true, I never really considered that the forces could be split. That does pretty much negate everything I had to say. That'd be a pretty neat idea though, the enemy splits his LRMs into two groups planning to attempt a pincer strike, but then an advent player brings in guardians and herds all the LRMs back into a giant blob.

Oh well, Anti-Medium is a crazy powerful damage type. Don't really know how to mitigate spamming LRMs since my idea pretty much gets thrown out the window.