I'd steer away from the rock-paper-scissors balance and go for more unique factions. A TEC player shouldn't be able to win the game with the Advent by using similar (or in cases, the exact same) strategies.

You know you get it right when players who do well with one race find the other races horribly confusing. Makes for much better balance arguments too

I agree. That is a great ideal. Unfortunately, balancing a game in that way requires a tremendous amount of time and effort. The team for Universe at War tried to pull it off, and I heard that game disappoints.

make it like beta 4

Had so many good times back then, and the final release is not really me. Not to say the game is bad, i just dont like the way the game have ended up being after gold.

Thats my opinion

Multianna :




Would you care to be more specific ?

What do you miss so much from the Beta 4 version that made it so much more fun, in your eyes, than the release edition ?

And since version 1.00 of that release edition has evolved in more than 2 months to a 1.04 version, how would you evaluate that "evolution" ?

(I was in the Beta since June, when it was Beta 2, but I know that you were a major participant in the Beta process : that's why I value your opinion.)

Allow different solar systems to be played out on different servers. When a fleet moves from one solar system to another, they seemlessly log onto that server. This would allow greater numbers of ships and larger solar systems, without any loss in framerate.

The best bit is that huge galaxies of stars could be created. Literally thousands of stars would be available for exploration.

Oh absolutely

I really miss the focus on the heroes units (cap ships). What ever happened after release im not 100% sure about, but they dont feel as important anymore.
In beta 4 the first cap ships was really important, really powerful and with a few frigats it was alot of fun. The gameplay video from beta 3 and 4 shows this.

The new Empire tree, i dont like it at all, i miss all the planets/asteroid that was on there. I found it was really useful to move fleets around to colonize, conquer and explore new areas, and micro your planets. It could have been improved to be better, but they choose to more or less remove it.
Also they removed the ctrl+1 like grouping icons and replaced them with fleets. I dont know about anyone else but i dont see the fleet useful at all. For the ships to be really effective in fleet battles you gotta handle them yourself anyways, so i dont see the use.

Gaming speed, i believe 1,04 slow speed was the beta 4 normal speed. In beta 4 people took there time for a great game that took its time. Most games today are played on fast which is like any other RTS games out there. So to me Sins have become a normal RTS game with a Z axis.
The speed was a really important factor of how the game felt epic, and meant alot to the strategic aspect as well.

---

Its not in my personality to complain in 100s of threads and posts, as i really like and respect the devs behind it. So i just keep my mouth shut. And most seem to like what the game have become anyways.

So just because im not too fond of the game anymore, doesnt mean i will leave the community

This is because the capitals started at level 3 back then, instead of level 1. A level 1 cap stands out much less early game than a level 3. Alas, most of us older beta testers fought to the brink of death to keep the starting game the way it is, but IC felt that "losing the cap early was too hard to recover from" in agreement with a fairly loud outcry from other testers.

On the other hand, though, they added more militia around planets, so now it's possible to get a level 3-4 capital after clearing just 3 or 4 planets, so it doesn't take too long to get that feel back.



Psst, you know you can autopin planets so that everything your scouts visit gets pinned? Or did they make it so that only the ones you own get auto-pinned? And besides, you can just pin the star and expand it. So there's several ways to get what you want on it. The new tree is more flexible than the old one, and allows players to customize it more to their tastes, instead of forcing either an "everything visible" or "only selection visible" tree as it was in beta 4.



You haven't played around with fleets enough Fleets are a very nice organizational structure, and not meant to be more than it is really. It's a means of keeping your ships together, so that you don't have to constantly watch them so they don't do anything stupid. Before, you had your control groups and your light frigates would always charge forward into enemy defenses and get shredded. Now with fleets you can keep them together with your other ships without the need for a constant eye. You can set them to "local area" attack, and they'll serve as a line of defense for your fleet (which can be set to "gravity well"), so they'll never wander off to attack random targets, but always hang around and attack whatever comes close to your fleet. So just like with the empire tree, the fleet system provides a lot of extra flexibility. And the best thing about it is, you can still make your control groups and give them whatever orders you want, and after they're done they'll just fall back into fleet formation rather than be spread out everywhere in the grav well. Fleets = organization, something that pure control groups don't have.



This is really one of the major reasons I don't play much MP. In beta we were quite content keeping it on the lower settings and having fun. But so many MP games are on everything fast now that it's just not as fun for people like us who enjoy slower paced games. Alas, the option is there still but most people prefer to play fast, so what can we do

Of course there are some directions the game went in that I don't agree with completely - like us arguing for keeping siege frigates the way they were, but IC has their own vision too, and I respect it.

By the time it reaches that level, you will have a large fleet with maybe another cap ship. So the uniqueness of it is lost.


it only auto pins whats in your control.

Only way to get planets/asteroids in the empire tree is to zoom out and loss the focus of battle and do the "pin" thing.


They could have made a option to choose between them. As they did in beta 4 with the selectable empire tree.


Maybe its the way i play, as what ever i do i dont seem to be able to use it as good as a normal control group. I never had the problem of ships targets randomly, maybe its the way of my micro :NOTSURE: the only time i use the fleet thing is when i do a fleet vs fleet.

One thing i forgot to say, whats up with the 3/4 of the fleet warps away before the rest of its get there and leaving the last 1/4 jumping in later...
I find it to be really important that every single ships i designate to that group/fleet to arrive at the same time.

It's 90%, leaving 10% behind Changed because it was discovered that the majority of the jumping delays were caused by a few ships still trying to get into position. So now when 90% of your selection is ready, they jump and the other 10% follow shortly.

But yeah, for a heavy micromanager, fleets don't offer very much that the player can't do. But for those who don't want to do that, fleets provide a pretty intelligent and flexible organization structure that lets them do other things without worrying about their ships running every which way.

Yep, the ship limit back then was really           

i would rather wait the extra time then to leave 10% behind.
To avoid this i have to do some really awkward and unwanted micro.


Yeah, the fleet supply system was great.

It was a neat idea, but I wouldn't call it great. It was fine playing with AI, but in MP your opponent has a happiness level. Starting a random map and being screwed from the start because you have 2 asteroids and your opponent has 2 volcanics wouldn't have been fun. If that system was kept for release, it would've gotten much more trashing than the current one has. A lot of people think it would be awesome, but trying a more competitive game and realizing you have no chance simply because the enemy's planet variety allows him to field more ships than you is just not fun.

So it was a cool system, but it didn't fit in as well as this one does. Some randomness is good, but that system had a great potential to decide the outcome of the game based on how the map RNG worked out

I agree it could use some changes but the idea that you got fleet points per planet was actually a good idea.

But the hole problematic with beta 4 to final is the "in touch" with things.
The cap ships as we talked about.
The planets are not as important anymore.
The super weapons makes in no degree the gaming experience better.
Gaming speed as well.

If i had the choice between:
$60 for beta 4
$40 for final

i would pay the $60, thats how good i see beta 4

But thats my opinion,
For those who dont know how the old empire tree looked like, heres an image.

Control groups with numbers on top
all planets explored within each star

all of it could be tabbed to see more if needed (final game have all things untabbed by default = clutter)

To be honest Multi, I don't think there's much in the betas that's better than release. The empire tree is debatable - I did like control groups there, but I've gotten used to fleets and how they work, so to me it doesn't matter now one way or the other.

I think most of it is that back then, we weren't playing to win. We had a pretty tightly knit group of friends and we just played for fun. Whoever won or lost, there were no hard feelings (well, save a few select individuals *coughs*) and everyone had fun. Back then we felt like we were helping shape the game, and now it's not really being shaped nearly as much as simply supported - that's just the nature of things

After launch, a large portion of MP population came from other MP RTS games and are mostly playing it differently than we were. Remember how all we played were FFAs, and we had fun backstabbing everyone, forming secret alliances? We were quite content leaving it on the slower speeds, and we liked it. Now I'd guess the majority of games are teams, and even the larger ones end quickly both because everything's on fast and it's teams, not FFA.

The game didn't get worse from beta to release, it's gotten better in almost every way - it's just that people now play it differently from how we used to. All of this was possible in Beta 4, with rushing, fast speeds, etc - we just didn't do it because it wasn't fun for us

Thats a matter of opinion
I had such a passion for this game since the very beginning and i enjoyed every single beta until we reached final.

I would called beta 4 the classic part of Sins, since it had me in touch with so much of everything, and would have made me play it for years to come.

Ive tried so many times playing both the single and multi player, and i just cant get into it anymore. When watching the gameplay videos i see the fun aspect right away.


LOL secret alliances? there were no real alliances i would backstab any of you in a sec if i knew i could win

But you might be right about the different kind of play (:( I see alot of competition and the need to win so bad. Its really a shame, games should be there to have a fun time with different people.

As it is said, all good things come to an end

I agree with Annatar11 and Multianna (what is it with that "anna" thing ?! does it mean something special ?) on one major point :


The fast and furious MP gang has been applying a lot of pressure, for the past 2½ months, to tear away Sins from its 4X/Space-empire-building roots.

It was designed to be a hybrid : half Space-empire "grand strategy", half RTS wargame.

If I understand those two Beta veterans correctly (also taking into account that I have played the Beta from June to December), very competitive Sins online MP is pulling the game towards the fast and furious RTS polar extreme.

Most of the RTS warriors will eventually migrate to Demigod, StarCraft 2, or some other RTS novelty.

When that happens, I hope that Ironclad will remember that the majority of Sins fans prefer to play the game as it was designed and advertised : as a hybrid.

(Thanks to Multianna for having taken the time and trouble to detail his comments.)

1.) I would completely disable micromanagement.
- Fleets can only be sent from planet to planet.
- Inside a gravity well ships and fleet move on their own.
- You get fleet commanders with different attributes (e.g. good at defense) and you can assign them to a fleet.
- Your fleet commanders (AI) mange the battle. They decide which ships to target first. Where to move which types of ships. When to retreat.
- Fleet commanders get experience and get better through battles. (But not to the extend that they get super powers. Just that they can win a battle through better tactics even if they have fewer ships than the enemy. If really outnumbered they should still loose.)

Basically you manage the empire and give general orders to your fleet commanders.

The AI has to be pretty good. But the battlefield would be pretty leveled, since no one can micromanage. And I would have fun watching the battles.

2.) More diplomatic options... and aggressors should be punished.
- If one computer controlled opponent or a player breaks treaties, attacks and eliminates one opponent after the other then the others should form am alliance against him.

What I really want is that there are also times of peace where you can build up after tough fights and prepare for your next actions.

3.) Other...
- Slow the game down some more...
- Maybe stronger defense structures, slower income.
- Fleet upkeep not % of income but determined on a per ship basis. (Lower income = less ships.)
- Make capitals really expensive. An empire should not have more than 2 or 3 at the same time.
- Orbital structures should be tougher, more expensive, in most cases limited to one per gravity well (e.g. tradeports).

...okay, maybe I should go back to GalCiv2

The true anna is the Multi anna


Yeah, its sad it have turned out to be more of a RTS then a RTS4X. The idea was really unique
I just hope for the expansion it will change, but i doubt it..


No problem, i love this community, so many nice people
Have had the Sins site as my first tab in firefox for the last 2 years. Its like a drug, i cant let it go

Please stick around.

I have been a fan of yours since June 2007. I have read 90% of your posts.

(But I have "lurked" in the shadows much more than I have posted during the Beta.)

a fan? YAY now i just need to convince the last 6 billion people as i shall lead you all to salvation. LET MY PEOPLE GO!!

hehe but yeah ill be around for ever and ever and ever and ever

I agree with you to a piont i hate rushing and love to tech all the way up but, hate 7 hour games.

I would leave most of it untouched, however:

-More beam weapons with the TEC, because those were awesome
-Let the Empire Tree on the left be completely collapsible, because it gets in my field of view too much
-Move-n'-fire option for fleets; watching two stationary forces obliterate eachother kind of gets old after awhile, and sometimes I need to be able to go off and do something else while they are attacking an enemy force.
-Physics; when I watch a single ship get hit with firepower from my entire fleet, I expect it be sent reeling
-Frigates are too small...I have a classic moode of thought; anything that is not a shuttle, fighter, boarding craft, etc. is a capital ship. Frigates, Cruisers, Destroyers, Carriers, etc. are all different types of capital vessels, with frigates being more for scouting and fire support with cruisers and destroyers acting as the backbone. Battleships would be at the very top, being the huge weapons platforms that they are.
-Missiles need Galactica-esque contrails and explosions, and capital vessels should have flak screens up (they would not be perfect, but even just a visual would be nice).

Back to the betas; I don't really know what happened, but I enjoyed the betas alot more. Most likely due to planets giving the logistical points rather than research.

I wouldn't be surprised if the code was removed, but any chance of a mod bringing back the planet logistical system?

I may be an idiot and not have noticed it, but I would love a system where you could right click, hold the button, and make a formation-type line.

Anyone who's played Mark of Chaos or any of the Total War games knows what I'm talking about.

After a few winning streaks, I have to say I would have re-made it exactly the same. The game's awesome, and it has everything I ever wanted already.

Anything else added in patches or in the expansion will be just more icing on the cake for me.

And regarding the cap ships being too wimpy, I disagree. Coupled with strong defenses and/or a few heavy cruisers to take the brunt of the enemy's assault, and the cap ships reign supreme. True, I rarely use the utility cap ships anymore and opt for battleships most of time, with the exception of the occasional colony cap, but I still belive my point is valid.