entrenchment beta 2.5, some feedback.

from Sins Forums

1: Tec seem to be decent. The starbase animation seems to loop after combat or trade ships dock. Nothing critical if you play this side. However those long range cruisers seem to be very overpowered. while the range is great for taking out starbases and turrets your opponents do not seem to have such a cruiser. 

2: Vasari. After several hours of building forces attacking and such i ran into tec. Um...is there a version of the long range tec cruiser planned for vasari? If not you NEED to consider adding one..something. I couldnt get past a choke point against an easy AI due to my fleet being wiped out from the tec cruiser spam. I hit it with 10 cap ships and ..what i thought was a balanced fleet yet..they were wiped off the map even with me trying to out flank forces and attack his long range weapons. By the time i had them destroyed i lost most of my capships. Unless something is done TEC will more than likely win every game just due to the range advantage. Of course i dont have a good strategy planed out yet. Even with all the vasari shields, armor and HP research i still could not get past that point. I shut the game off after 7 hours(game time overall)  due to frustration.

5..no sorry 3. Mines are a good idea. Tec ones are straightforeward and make sense. the vasari mines, are just confusing. You have a ship to lay them instead of them being on the tatical menu of planets/asteroids. Then you have explosives, and gravity. Again working on the strategy but so far i have little use for the gravity ones, esp when its farily difficult to get to the research unless you have 5 or so planets under your control.

4. Starbases. Love these units. While the AI makes good use of them (trust me i avoid them as much as i can with my fleets and try to bombard them) They dont seem to be ballanced. The tec one can quickly turn a non useable planetary area into a usefull asset for fleet creation. Vasari lack this feature, and I didnt use the temp phase lane very often. If i had the firepower running around everywhere and not doing everything they could to secure my areas i could see the advantage of the temp phase lane. The AI did not seem to take advantage of the Special space planet/asteroid/nebulas though. I parked a starbase at the sun and it literally changed the war on one game, several usually unused areas became great chokepoints with a starbase sitting there.

Overall im impressed with the micro expansion. Im trying the Advent next.

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Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

2: Vasari. After several hours of building forces attacking and such i ran into tec. Um...is there a version of the long range tec cruiser planned for vasari? If not you NEED to consider adding one..something. I couldnt get past a choke point against an easy AI due to my fleet being wiped out from the tec cruiser spam. I hit it with 10 cap ships and ..what i thought was a balanced fleet yet..they were wiped off the map even with me trying to out flank forces and attack his long range weapons. By the time i had them destroyed i lost most of my capships. Unless something is done TEC will more than likely win every game just due to the range advantage. Of course i dont have a good strategy planed out yet. Even with all the vasari shields, armor and HP research i still could not get past that point. I shut the game off after 7 hours(game time overall) due to frustration.
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Stuff doesn't add up with this one.. the new TEC Ogrov cruisers are anti-structure only. They can attack ships, but they do essentially no noticeable damage to them.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

are you 100% about that dude? ill get my save game uploaded here somehwere and show ya, its a slaughter. o_O

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Yep, I'm pretty sure. I don't have the Entrenchment's gameplay.constants at work here, but someone looked it up and I believe they do something like 1% damage to everything that's not a building :P

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Could someone please point me in the direction of the Entrencement 2.5 Beta download.  I've gone to Impluse and can't find it.  I can't find on this site.  My copy of Sins is registered.  I'm also sure that I am the problem and I'm just not clicking on the correct button.

Thanks.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Have you Pre-order Entrenchment?

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Buckwheat2, reply 4
Could someone please point me in the direction of the Entrencement 2.5 Beta download.  I've gone to Impluse and can't find it.  I can't find on this site.  My copy of Sins is registered.  I'm also sure that I am the problem and I'm just not clicking on the correct button.

Thanks.
End of Buckwheat2's quote

Buckwheat2: When you're in Impulse, click the blue orb. I believe there's a preferences option. Under that, you want to Show Pre-release versions. Go to your Games tab and you should see Entrenchment's beta available.

Sorry if the menu text isn't exact; I'm at work and don't have access to Impulse.

 

 

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

lol ok Annatar, maybe its something else then. My lack of a good strategy could be the source. Ill keep trying. *shakes fist at the TEC* They still need to add in the long range cruiser option to be avaiable for all three sides though its just not right. OH well.

After i pre orderd entrenchment it appeared right on my games list. To show pre release ya right click the blue stardock icon up at the top left and click Show pre release versions. If your order went through it should show up on your games tab/list. I had a minor install glitch with mine, looked like it was stuck on installing. I waited about 5 minutes then shut down impulse. Everything seemed ok though.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Well the Advent get one that's weaker on single target, but it attacks up to 5 targets. The Vasari starbase deals extra damage to buildings, though right now the amount of time it takes to deploy in a hostile grav well is rather.. prohibitive :P

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Not sure if I should make a seperate thread for this, but I can't stand the Starbase autopinning, and have no idea why they are even autopinned in the first place.  I like a very clean empire tree, I only pin fleets and the one or two planets I have my main fleet factories on.  With SB autopinning, I end up with a mess in my empire tree, I"m constantly trying to scroll up to my fleets, and getting rescrolled down while I do.  They really need to make it a toggle like all the other pinning in the options menu.

In a recent 2.5 game, there were virtually no choke points, so I ended up putting starbases on about 40% of my planets, making my empire tree grow into a long lanky mess.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

but I can't stand the Starbase autopinning, and have no idea why they are even autopinned in the first place.
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Because people requested it after beta 1 :( Personally, I liked them better not auto-pinned myself. You should still be able to hit the ~ key to unpin a starbase, though.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

I still prefer the auto-pinned way. helps me keep an eye on a choke even if I'm not zoomed out atm.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

The AI did not seem to take advantage of the Special space planet/asteroid/nebulas though. I parked a starbase at the sun and it literally changed the war on one game, several usually unused areas became great chokepoints with a starbase sitting there.
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I have noticed this also, and agree SB's being able to do this is good thing. They can increase your income from trade to if you add the upgrade that is.

Does the AI use these special space's to build SB's in when playing higher difficulty? I have only tried easy and medium so far. Also the AI does'nt seem to take advantage of the resuorces in these systems either, yet they had maintained control of the system with thier fleets for some time.

One thing I'm looking forward to is haveing a SB next to a star and duking it out with an opponant who has one there also. hopefully soon the right circumstance comes along :P

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

I haven't seen Unfairs build starbases in neutral grav wells.

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

I haven't seen unfairs build SB's in neutral wells either.

 

I have an icon problem - the SB's and new specials such as Ogrovs and Mines don't show up. The build panels are blank - there is no outer zoom image only the close up zoom one.

Anyone else having this problem?

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

A few others posted about it, but the icons are there.. it sounds like a weird install.

Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

Also never seen an unfair build a starbase in neutral gravity wells. They also seem inadequately intelligent to know the strategic benefit of destroying enemy ones.. regardless of how poorly defended they have never went out of their way to destroy a s/b I put in a star or other neutral gravity well; only when they are doing their silly 'sitting in a neutral well' glitch do they see to notice their presence.

Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top

In a game last night, I noticed the AI (it was on Hard) does not seem to use the presence of a starbase in it's calculations to retreat or fight.  I jumped into an enemy well, and the AI just started to retreat it's fleet (the fleet was about 10% less than mine).  It had already gave up a great desert planet fully upgraded by just retreating, but this time was even more insane, because it had a starbase at the planet too (an upgraded starbase).

I was going to jump back and retreat, but since the AI fleet just ran, I stayed and destroyed the Starbase, and took yet another AI planet with narry a fight.  If the AI fleet had stayed, I would have retreated for sure.

Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top

ya, I have noticed that as well -- too many times to tell. The AI's cost/benefit analysis seems absurdly skewed in a few situations. When invading their planets, they never force a pyrhic victory on you in order to make you pay in blood for that planet, which simply by the act of delaying my advance, they would suerly benefit from staying to defend.

Another key instance of AI feebleness comes over on their attacks, when they get to a point in a battle where they think they are bound to lose, they are almost 50% wrong in their decision to phaze-jump away -- particularly in the case when a SB is present (and therefore they lose all antimatter and 30% remaining hull points).. Even if I have a phaze jump inhibitor and can effectively DESTROY nearly every one of their ships if they choose to flee, they will never stick around to AT LEAST knock out the inhibitor, and certainly never focus on a few key structures/cap ships before annihilation -- they invariably just flee with abandon.

Finally, it would be nice to see a differentiation between cap-ships and frigs/cruisers -- if I am about to lose a battle but still have a significant fleet remaining to possibly evacuate, I am likely to leave behind the frigs/cruisers (excepting maybe strikecraft hosts) in order to ( a ) knock out remaining weak enemy structures/ships and ( b ) provide cover/distraction to ENSURE the caps get out and I don't lose their valuable levels worth of EXP. Their code presently does not appear to make the strategic distinction of ship-importance, and so effectively undervalues the Capital ships to the AI's long-term detriment (and so, by mid-late in the game, I am typically the only one with a capital ship above level 5, and I have NEVER seen an AI that confronted me late-game with more than 1-2 above level 8.

Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top

Well, it's still Beta, so lots of this could be tweeked, , , , I hope, but right now, MP is where it's at for me.  I've never had so much fun with Sins till I started MP Entrenchemth :D