Endless games

P.F.E.T.O.M. agrees while annoying, it punishes those who dont scout properly now. You cant blame the mines for user error and proper placement by the minelayer.

slight problem:

Even if you know: what are you gonna do about it?

Scouts do not survie the fighters if you try to clear the mines and you cannont decide where the exit point of your fleet will be when you phase jump.

You can, up to a point. Just jump out from a different side.

Still, it is annoying to have mines right at jump-in.. not disputing that

surely jumping in with some scouts and a few flak frigs will solve the prob? mines after all take 30 secs to detonate and the fact (i think) that flaks can target multiple targets at once now thus making mine clearing faster...

will still get owned by fighters eventually (depending on number) but since the fighters prioritize the first ship in the well and the flak frigs so u should be able to clear a reasonable number of mines before all goes black...

Mines don't take 30 seconds to detonate Ships jumping into the middle of a minefield stand no chance, really.

I thought it was they take 30 seconds to activate (i.e. turn on) - they detonate as soon as something comes within proximity - am I wrong???

I flip flop on the short game long game thing, i played tonight, and was on for about 2 hours, had a small fleet, 5 caps, 5 diciples, 5 Siege and 2 scouts. I had 3 planets. Vasari had i think 5 or 6. I was playing as Advent. the credits came slow and slow.     But i just got some hostile factories and some non-hostile and built up slow. I went to the Pirate base and actually survived.      I was suprised!!  And then started toward the Vasari homeworld, but had to stop the game. It was very enjoyable. I know slow, but it was interesting taking the time, and each ship was like more important.

Sometimes with the mods i used to get a huge fleet fairly quickly, usually in an 45 minutes or an hour and then have these huge battles. They were fun too, but well... haha, i guess i just like the change. But it was very nice playing slow and building up slow. Endless games.

I was thinking that is not such a bad thing, i'm even thinking of turning down the weapon damage a notch or so on all the ships just to make the battles longer.     Silly maybe, but im enjoying it. 

If you want faster games or different stats, just mod it.    You can change any of the values you are asking about. Dont mean to sound you know, like you have to, but it might be more fun for you, if you tweak them a little and its not so frustrating.

Just a thought,

-Teal

I'm not sure I understand any of your points.

If you want a shorter game instead of a longer game, play a smaller map.  Try a dumber AI.  Etc.

If you don't want the enemy fleet to run when it is outnumbered, overpowered, countered by your fleet, etc. then what do you want it to do, fight anyway?  If so, you are arguing for a dumber AI.  Then the devs are "damned if they do, damned if they don't" because there are tons of other people who have argued for a smarter AI.

You don't like the ability to place mines at the edge of a grav well.  Well, I doubt any country in history has liked the ability of his opponent to place mines whereever.  So you want arbitrary rules on where people can place mines?  It is already difficult enough to use mines cost effectively and get anyone to hit anything, even when you mine the edge of a grav well (I know - I just finished a game where I did just that).  To get a reasonable chance of having the enemy lose a ship or two, I had to spend WAY more money in mines than my opponent spent in ships.  You want this nerfed down or restricted more?

If you don't want the computer to entrench itself, try making sure it isn't set to "defensive."  Perhaps even put it on "aggressive."  Lastly, the game is called ENTRENCHMENT.  If you don't like entrenching, perhaps the expansion might not be your flavor.  Go back to vanilla Sins?

As I said in my own feedback...

I love Entrenchment...

It plays really well even in beta stage...

It doesn't crash, at least on my system...

etc...

All positive and great

HOWEVER!

Be prepared to book week off work if you fancy to play bigger SP map while MP, in my humble opinion, received final blow since already way too long games will become so much longer and therefor impossible to complete within reasonable time frame...  

But MP finishes way quicker then SP!!! I don't get what you are saying....

the expansion can make the longer for both sp and mp. what he meant was that in mp it is a bigger problem, because while you technically can save and continue some other time, that just never happens with random people. in sp you play for as long as you want, pause, continue another day. in mp, you basically have to finish it in one sitting and since most people get tired after 2 - 3 hours give or take, that's just the maximum length the game can be. and so with the expansion he worries that more games will cross the maximum acceptable length for most people.

and to be honest, I can understand. I love sins for its pace and its not being rushed. but if you played a game for 2 hours + and there is still no end in sight ... sometimes it's cool, but sometimes that can get strenuous.

exactly...

in regards to MP, of course it is possible to finish a round in reasonable time - but in that case you are experiencing so called "noob bash"... In balanced game, however, MP can stretch to oblivion and back and I don't know many people who have have enough time for that...

MP was passing away pretty much since original release 1 year ago (mainly due to this reason alone) while Entrenchment will be final nail in its coffin since it is NOT addressing this issue at all - quite the opposite in fact - it is making it even worse... 

nothing further to add

Personally, I like an epic strategy game that isn't decided in 30 minutes.  Even for multiplayer.

Okay, so you send a scout, notice you can't jump in without getting ripped up by mines. Your scout then gets destroyed by the system defenses (fighters/starbase).

How do you get past this? Jumping in ships with scout support to clear the minefield won't work. They'll get blown up by the mines, or flattened by the system defenses unless you send a fleet. If you do send a fleet, it gets crushed by the mines.

Starbases at least have counters. Mines at the jump in point are counterable only by creating a second fleet for the purpose of suiciding and thus clearing a space. It's silly.

Well, in most cases you can jump in from another side. With the 150 mines limit it will be difficult to heavily mine the entire possible jump-in arc.. you'd just have to pay attention to how the mines are placed and be good at estimating where you need to jump from to land in the sweet spot.

But.... that's way more work than you should have to do. I've said it in many places and I'll say it again - Scouts' mine detection should disable abilities on the mines it detects so that they don't detonate when your fleet jumps on top of them. Send in a few scouts and follow up with your fleet a few seconds later. The mines will all be disabled and you can blow them up before moving in.

You could still mine jump-in points to catch unprepared jumpers off-guard and that's ok. But it also wouldn't take an extraordinary amount of effort for a prepared player to counter the strategy.

As with everthing - add the options to shorten games, so then those of us that like long epic games can play as well as those who don't.

Has anybody tried the game options to speed up reasearch - money, e.c.t in the game menu?  Does this not work correctly in MP as I never tried it?

You know, im just a SP player, so my MP suggestions may suck, but couldnt the rules for MP be different? I mean, what if there were map setups, where everyone "starts" with a small fleet already built.  Or maybe every player could start with a larger cash roll than an ordinary SP game, say 5 times as much?  Or there could be lower costs in MP.

I'm not trying to ruin your guys games, you know better than i what it is you think will make it better, but im just trying to think of some things that could make games less frustrating, and less long, without losing the fun. Anyway, just a few thoughts, maybe we could start a MP Suggestions thread, where we are less critical, and try to think of some ways to make something that will work. If we did the devs can certainly see it, and maybe take some of those things and give them a try?

Hope i dont sound like an idiot, but just wanted to try to say something that might help.

-Teal

Well, there's no way really to give MP different rules, short of re-doing the maps for different starts and label them as MP-friendly. Which would be doable, but still remains to be seen how effective it'll be (meaning, is the issue the total length of an MP game, or just how much time mine clearing adds to it?)

I didn't check, can you place mines all the way in the grav well or are they restricted to the same smaller radius as normal buildings? if the later, you could try jumping at the very outer edge of the well as opposed to the inner edge that is used most of the time. if not ... well, it could be changed to the smaller radius, could it not?

The TEC ones are sort of restricted since they're a "building", though the way it works is the radius of the deployment circle can still stick out past the border limit.

The Vasari and Advent mines can literally be put anywhere, so it's very possible to make sure an incoming fleet lands right on top of them.

U have to spam TONS of mines to make it likely enemy ships will hit a few.  You'll spend more on the mines than the enemy will spend on lost ships.  Mines aren't broken, they should be allowed to be placed at the edge of the grav well.

I was just asking for tec, didn't figure the others would have limitations.

If you go in with a decent-sized carrier fleet (with caps/crusers to protect them) of 20 to 40 bombers, you can sit at the far edge of the grav well and send you squadrons to take the starbase apart.  Unless your opponent has a moble force close, you can destroy the starbase with little/no loss to your fleet.  Make sure you set your attack to local only, so your escort ships don't try to take the starbase on directly.

pek

Annatar11, I have to say I enjoy reading your posts because they are always well thought out and reasonable.  And you are usually right about things and have good ideas.  But for this suggestion, I must disagree.  The whole point of mines, both real world and in Sins, is to delay the enemy.  Sure, if you kill some ships that's good.  But the true benefit comes in when an enemy has to stop, think about his attack, and restructure it accordingly to deal with the threat, therefore buying you time to complete other defenses, move your fleet, etc.  Your suggestion would allow a handful of ships to completely negate any usefulness of having mines.  It is beyond a hard counter. 

The current system works because it ensures that the enemy must keep a few scouts with his fleet(s) to protect them.  And that fleet must still spend time clearing those mines.  Don't want to clear them?  Find another way into the planet.  I don't think I've ever had a case where I couldn't jump in from another phase lane.  With the 150 mine limit, its very difficult to cover more than one jump point with a sufficient density of mines necessary to cause large casualties.

That said, I wouldn't mind seeing scouts get more range with the detect mines ability(through research*) and would even like to see some faction differences in the ability.  For example, the Advent scout could get a "repulsion" type effect that pushes mines out of position.

*The ability itself should have to be researched.  Make it low tier, 2-3 in the defensive tree, or perhaps as a branch of the "detection" tech.  Range upgrade(s) should be higher, maybe tier 5.

I get that a lot, but I don't think you understood that disabling the mine would go hand in hand with detection. If it's detected, it's disabled. If the scout leaves the range, it's enabled.

Essentially, you still have to spend time clearing the minefield (as I agree is the intention), because you probably won't be allowed to micromanage your scouts to create a "disabled mines" zone where your fleet can sit comfortably, and a few scouts in the fleet do not have sufficient detection range to cover passage of a moderate/large fleet, especially with combat movement.

I'm basically trying to tailor my suggestion to address 2 specific issues while not breaking the intended design of the mines:

1) Jumping in on top of mines. To be honest, only 3-4 mines need to explode to take out a bulk of the fleet if they land right on top of them. The remaining ships would be severely injured and pose little challenge. Especially, all LRF and anti-structure ships would go poof. With that, it is a lot easier to drop mines along the jump-in arc than it is to predict where to jump to avoid them.

2) Maneuvering. A lot of ships generally have fairly wide turning arcs, and ranges short enough that they can't safely turn in time to avoid them. It is possible to micromanage your fleet to be safe, but if you're jumping into a hostile well with an enemy fleet, hangars, and starbase, you can't really allow your scouts to bravely go forth because they'd get ripped to shreds before they get anything done. So what do you do when you need to make that starbase shoot something other than your scouts trying to keep mines detected?

That's why I think disabling mines that are currently detected by a scout would be a bit more forgiving in these situations. It by no means renders minefields useless, just helps cut down on the pain of clearing them.