Single player assistance please

Are you upgrading the infrastructure ASAP on new planets you colonize? Freshly capped worlds are actually a drain on your resources until you upgrade them a level or two.

Try the tutorials.

Hi mate - have done the tutorials. Still, within the time it has taken me to get a few frigates and 1 capital ship, they have like 10/15 frigates and 2 capital ships.. It's unbalanced.

You just have to get used to the pace of the game. What difficulty level are you playing at? Maye tone it down a notch till you get more used to the mechanics of the game. the same thing happened to me when I first started playing. But once you get used to the principles of the gameplay, you may start thinking it's unbalanced in YOUR favor. Just keep at it and you'll see.

Just my opinion, by the way.

Cheers

I agree with FrostMage.

I've got to keep more enemies than allies in order to keep the game challenging.

Yeah, this sounds like a case of you're just not used to how this game plays. I've never played online and don't consider myself any kind of expert on this game, but I knock the crap out of the normal AI on a regular basis and am about to move up to hard. But I've played over a dozen games. The first time I played a normal AI (defensive too) I lost horribly. Just give it some time, play the tutorials like people say, and try and get a decent sized fleet before doing too much research or expanding.

Sins is easy to play, hard to master.

Use the replay feature. There's a record option in the menu after you started a game. Use it.

After the game is over you can then watch the replay. Click the player name in the upper right corner and select your enemy. Then watch what he's doing.

Observer what he does different from you, analyze the situation and adept your strategy.

wow lol I didn't even know about replays, thanks Raknor

lol - omg, this is the most frustrating game ever. Just spent the past 2.5 hours setting up my stuff, base defenses, platforms etc.. I had 4 plants, AI had 2. So then I get attacked by the AI - he brings along 5, count 5 capital ships and approx 80 cruisers??!!

lol - I mean, I have 4 planets and he brings a long all that with just 2?

I have 4 planets, yet my ore/crystal rates are like 2-5-8 etc.. wtf? How on earth, or rather how in space, am I suppose to beat that when I control 4/6th of the planets.. I have not got enough resources to build up research, or build up units.. Seriously.. Just spent 3 hours, and got pooned in like 10 mins.. Don't know how much longer I can survive in space!!

The thing is, there are sooo many different ways to go about things - so will adapt my strat..

What is the best race to start off with? I'm using the Advent..

the AI is a bit weird. Give them 4 planets, 8 civ/mil labs, tactical structures (with tac upg at planet maxed), and 2 million credits, 125k metal/crystal and they don't make the most of it. You'd expect zomfg fleet research to at least 4 cap, 6 fleet cap, mil tech spammed way up for hard as hell ships, and some civ tech done...

No... the idiot AI had 3 levels in fleet cap, 2 in capitals, only minor research in military/civ and a fleet that made me cry. I spent 30 minutes queueing research and building a fleet for it.

Honestly dude, base defense isn't that important, having lots of ships is. Again, what difficulty are you playing on?
And the side doesn't matter to much, they all play a little differently and I haven't found that any one side is "easier" than the other.
Also, I completely overlooked this the first few games, but your first cap ship is completely free (though it still takes supply) so it's not too hard to save up for a second one and as long as you don't build two primarily support ships right off, you can handle quite a bit with just 2 caps and a bunch of frigates.

Sounds like you are spending way too much money on defenses and tactical slot upgrades. You need to spend your resources on your fleet, almost none on defense except on strategic planets.

If you click the diplomacy tab and click on yourself you can check your game ranking in military, empire, and economic standings. This is a useful way to make sure you are matching the AI's fleet and cap ship levels etc.

Actually, can't you see it right on the main interface bar, bottom left?

Only if you have nothing selected, and it doesn't go into as much detail.

Hey, Evilbones I just want to say that I feel your pain and I've come to the forums to try to improve my game as well. I'm a very new Sins player (I've played through maybe 5-6 single player games in total) and I haven't played an RTS since-thinks-WarCraft 2. My general experience so far is that I *think* I am developing an effective empire and fleets, but as soon as I organize and try to take over my first real planet I get countered and absolutely overrun by cap ships and massive fleets.

It's frustrating, but I'm an experienced enough gamer to know that I'm definitely doing something wrong. My first problem was I was allocating all of my strength into one big fleet which ends up leaving me wide open once I move them away from my planet(s). The most frustrating part of the game is simply that it takes HOURS of gameplay before you fully realize that you haven't kept up with the computer at all and are completed defeated already. My "sure thing" massive fleet that I spend time upgrading and putting together travels to a planet to find an AI fleet about 3 times as big and I instantly know my game is finished.

I'm not complaining (although it may sound like it), I guess I'm asking any experienced Sins players to maybe offer up some step-by-step advice for us really new players who are getting destroyed. Here is a guideline of where I'm at:

1. I generally play TEC simply because I have learned all their ships names, upgrades, and what they do.

2. I struggle with efficiently organizing my fleets. I don't understand what the "pin" option does or how to use it. My fleets generally end up messy and jumbled and it really takes me a long time to organize them the way I feel they're most effective.

3. I understand that making a fleet of mixed ships that work well together with a cap ship at the front is essential to success, I'm just not very good at it.

4. I've considered that I'm trying to create a too well-rounded empire...is it necessary to focus on just one aspect of expansion?

5. What should my first effective fleet consist of, in general?

6. What upgrades are most essential and should be gotten right away?

7. I can never seem to keep up with the computer...at what rate, in general should I be producing ships?

8. Here's a major problem for me... How much time should I spend fortifying a planet before I move on to take over the next planet? I seem to either over-defend my planets, or I'm too aggressive in taking new planets and end up getting attacked at another planet while on the move and everything falls apart.


I would greatly appreciate an experienced player addressing a few of these n00b issues that I'm having with the game. I'd really like to get online and start playing against human opponents, but I'm afraid if I can't hold my own against the computer that a live game won't be much fun for either party.

Thanks for all the help.

Don't point fingers at the game just because you suck.
Try upgrading your civilian infrastructure, because until you do that, every planet you have except your home base will be losing money for you. That would easily explain why u can't get your fleet up, and btw, conquering and upgrading planets is what people in the intelligent world call an "opportunity cost." The money you spend on the planet will not be able to be used for fleets.

Here is a mistake that I made, that might contribute to your fleet sucking.

Don't biuld stuff too early in the game. For example, you need to know not to biuld trade ports in, say, the first 30 min. So don't biuld them, don't build the civic labs, don't research it. Use those precious early game materials for ships.

Same goes for upgrading your home planet too early, rushing heavy cruisers, etc.

Basically credits and resources become "cheaper" the later in the game you are. The 4000ish credits you might spend researching is way too much early game, but later it's worth it to invest.
The first 45 min. focus on biulding a fleet and expanding.

Don't forget the importance of good inteligence. Always have at least a couple of scout frigates going around and checking things out especially at the start of the game. If you have a layout of the map then you can plan your strategy better, figure out chokepoints for defending your empire, find out where your enemy(ies) are and get a general idea of what they have as far as resources and fleet. All this information is invaluable for figuring out the proper strategy to conquer your enemies.

That's all the advice I have for now.

Cheers.

@Adama
Do you know any constructive ways to talk to anyone?

@Evilbones
The best way to learn the things you are missing. Get online play some mp games. Watch the replays. See what real peeps are doing to combat each other. If your still having problems Pm me we'll see what we can do.

Not to sound condescending or mean spirited, but PLEASE New Players, go through the HUGE number of excellent posts in the strategy section. Just about every question you could think has already been answered.

Evilbones, and every other new player, I suggest doing this until you start winning.

1. Select "Medium Random" map

2. Go to game options and select "Locked Teams". This will disable Diplomacy. Also select "Pirates Inactive". No pirate attacks. Now you can concentrate.

3. Select what race you wish to play. You will have 3 AI opponents. Select each race as easy. Select what type of AI (eg. Aggressive, Researcher, etc.)

4. Play. Afterwards, play back the game to see what the AIs did.

5. If you still have problems, select one of the AIs to be on your team.

Please don't be discouraged, once you get the hang of it, you'll love it.

Have fun!!

You should play to build viable fleets not to expand your planets.

True enough your will expand your planets in time but it becomes a mindset.

This consists of plotting to get your favored warships to accomplish what you want. When first starting out, it doesn't take as much infrastructure to take that asteroid but the volcanic planets with 2-3 Kodiaks is a different matter.

The progression would be just enough civil labs to expand resource gathering, culture, intel that you need while having just enough military labs to get LRMS, repair bays, whatever. This all depends on your choices of strategy of ships you use to conquer with.

Build defenses were you need them and I don't even build frigate yards everywhere unleess as part of my defensive scheme.

There are a lots of good posts here how to win.   

Yeah but I usually don't waste my time on people who aren't willing to listen.

Most people don't listen to somebody insulting them.

And if you had read the whole thread before posting, you would see he is listening to those who post constructivly...

dancinphil-

One little thing that helped me tremendously in "pacing" my gameplay with the AI is playing against a hard opponent and regularly checking the diplomacy screen.

This allowed me to see how I compared to the AI in-game, and gave me a feel for about how fast i should build ships/research/colonize etc.