I'm a New Player Scared to Play

Yeah I'm new as well, played a few games so far online, and I can tell you I agree the ranking system is kind of annoying.

I've played quite a few games offline, vs. the hard and unfair CPU but it seems when you go online, if you have no rank, they reject you and kick you from the game channel, too bad more folks don't just want a friendly game of Sins!

First thing I did learn is that everyone seems to carrier spam..  not complaining, it's just general fact, but I enjoy trying to find ways around it!  PM me if you want to play a game or two, 1v1, or whatever, even a game vs the CPU just for fun. 

There is a friends list you can add players who just want to relax and leave the online drama to the forums, add me on the ironclad in game channel "quad damage" is what I use on there.

I did the same thing you did, when I came onto the forums, I was offput by what I saw.  Just don't forget there are a bunch of nice folks on here, most of them have a large amount of karma and offer good advice, the only problem with forums is they accept everyone, no matter the atittude or how mature they are, you just have to weed some people out and ignore!

I prefer to play with close friends rather than facing random people online. I often play against the AI in a 4v4 game, mostly medium to large scale. We have a game thats been running for about 2 months now and its no where near finished. Eitherway, my group is always looking to add to its numbers for some casual late night games.

You should try a noob game - though everyone will be smurfs silently grinning at fresh meat.  

Just expect a lot of carrier spam, as in a lot. And oh yeah they are un-counterable, so expect to lose if you don't build (a lot) of carrier's yourself. This game in multiplayer is all about who can spam the most carriers anytime anywhere the fastest, 

welcome to the club  

Hmm...spam battles eh? Certainly sounds like a whole level of fun lol.

Its not about fun, its about winning. And that means spamming Light Carriers/SC...   

I prefer methodical destruction of my opponents, that is almost hard to accomplish it would seem with spam. Winning is ofcourse a great thing, its just as enjoyable to go 4v4 against really hard AI's, your allies fleet pinned down, your fleet struggling to get their in time to save them and hold off the enemy so your friends can regroup. Ah nothing better than teamwork and teamplay.

purchased this 2 days ago...still losing to the game AI

lol if i figure out why i cant see anyone online im perfect for you to practice on

beautiful game, i love it so far but it'll be a long time before im competitive and i feel your pain

when it comes to strats and info, there is little to be found, i wouldnt last 10 mins online

anyway ill keep playing and hopefully get the hang of this

Okay,

Point one: If your kicked from a game that says skilled in the name or is filled with skilled players you can expect too be kicked. Because at that moment they want too have a game amongst equals in wich both teams are ballanced. If you let one noob in one team will get him, you can guess the outcome of that. Playing against stronger players will get you better but in these games you would get defeated first second and there would be no fun in it.
Try too find games with other new players or join some skilled vs more less skilled.

Point two: The game is not all about spamming carriers. That it is all about spamming carriers is often the noob opinion (sorry for my choice of words). Yes carriers are important. No pure carriers won't win you a game.(in most cases)

About the free cap. Get it from start of. Make a Jarasul evacuator for vasari for the other races it can depend on the situation. Although most often it will be a Marza dreadnaught for TEC and a mothership for advent.

Don't go economic if your not in the pocket (between allies). Build militairy labs going eco doesn't work verry well in online games if your not in the pocket.

Grtz,
[_]-Flipkik

Welcome to multiplayer sins.  I will answer a few of your questions about strategy.  The first free cap should be the first thing you build.  I generally build a cap factory, crystal then metal extractors.  I queue up about 3 scouts and maybe 4 light frigates and my first cap.  The cap choice is critical.  For advent most times you should get the progenitor because you get discounted planet upgrades and shield regen.  For tec, the first choice is usually a marza or a kol.  Vasari almost always pick the evacuator(aka space egg).  If there are no enemies within 2 jumps of your homeworld, you should buy 100 crystal and upgrade planet population as this will be a major source of income.  You should not go for civic research quickly unless you believe that you wont be attacked soon or unless you have no choice considering your options nearby(no asteroids or easy desert/terran). 

The major thing in combat is to know what counters what and know what your enemy is trying to field against you.  People here have griped about carriers and while carriers are a necessity if you spam them to the exclusion of everything else you will die easily to an experienced player that knows what they are doing(yes I am calling you noobs that bitch about carrier spam).  A mixed fleet catered to what your enemy uses against you is the best way to go.  If someone carriers spams, you will need to build at least a few carriers with fighters but you need lots of light frigates like disciples and cobalts.  Dont build much if any flak though as it is generally fairly useless unless you got a pure buttload of it.  Some caps have anti-strikecraft abilities that are very good such as the halcyon for advent and kol for TEC.  The light frigates tear through carriers and can easily keep up with them if someone runs the carriers around the well also some have anti-antimatter abilities that can drain their ability to make new strikecraft.  The few carriers will give the opposing air something to attack if they dont micro it by attacking your fleet.  You should have your fighters kill any long range frigate that might be in the well or kill off enemy fighters depending on how much of each(long range frigates should generally have priority to kill though).  The long range frigates are deadly against light frigates though so you should prevent them from doing so with fighters or lrf of your own.  Dont build many bombers unless you have air superiority or are facing lots of heavy cruisers.  I always build 1 or 2 bombers though so enemy fighters will waste dps killing them because fighters prioritize bombers if left to themselves.  What you build should always be based against what you are having or gonna have coming against you.  Repair bays are great too and can mean the difference between winning a battle and losing.  Just learn what is good against what and you will be ahead of a lot out there. 

That should help with the early game at least.  My post got long pretty quickly so I will end it here.  Hope it was helpful.

[_]-Greyfox

Hosts need to be nicer and more polite when they kick new players, IMHO.  I normally send a /w that says something like, "Nothing personal, but this game is best for skilled players and you probably wouldn't enjoy it" or "Nothing personal, but we want to play with our friends."

I do, however, think it's very rude to let someone wait in the game setup screen for a long time and to then kick them.  Either kick someone you don't want within a minute or two of their joining or don't kick them.  I'm also not a big fan of kicking people so that your friend can join, especially if that person has been in the game setup screen for a while.

Scour the strategies forum...there are some good threads in there to help with some strats.

I say dive right in a play as many games as you can. Don't go into games that say No Noobs

but I find even the best people will play large team games with noobs  specially if they spread them out evenly

You learn lots by playing with good people, and most of them are polite. Only once did someone I was playing with be rude. Most of the best players don't need to be a**holes so they aren't

There are exceptions howerver thinks about a name that start's with an S and ends on a Y. no offence as far as I know he takes pride in it.

Grtz,
[_]-Flipkik

Are you sure that the name ends with a Y ?

Well GreyFox said it best. Also the list of good players is not justa  show off thing witch is what I get the sense you think it is. It's a reasorce for people like you who would like to learn mroe and get better at the game. I know most of the people ont hat lista nd most if not all of them are nice people and that is you ask them nicelya nd they have time they can take the time to give you some pointers and give you a game with information on what you did right, what you did wrong on how to improve your weaknesses. Aslo we regulerly have skilled game but also open games were everyone is allowed. When in a game watch what the people on that list is doign and try to copy it. By copying you'll start to pick up on alot of new strategies.

But the frist step to making good strategie is first o know what counters what and their are alot of trreads on counters in this section of the forums. It may sound very technical but that is exactly what it is technical how to use it dpends on the user and the strategy you employ.

I haven't really bothered much with online, though I may give it a chance since I found a group, but I'm curious if there's sort of a set standard for the options in most games such as pirates, game speed, etc?

This is so untrue.Dont listen to this. I have countered and beat a 30+ carrier spam with less than 10 carriers of my own and 0 flak.You do need some carriers tho. Key to winning is scouting then building counters.If you scout well you know exactly what to do.

You are not alone at all, I am a new player and get abuse all the time (mainly from prepubescent teens that like to use the word 'noob' alot). What I will say is stick in there - this is a great game and not all the vets are complete gits, some have even gone out their way to help my game improve. My stats are about 4wins 11 loses but I couldn't care less I play this game to relax and have fun, which is what it should be all about.

It would be nice if all players left their ego's at the door while playing, but to some of these sad little individials this is all they have in their lives. I am going to keep on playing and hopefully build up a mature friends list that consisist of relaxed casual gamers like myself. So just stick in there man, hope to see you on ICO  

to me, I think the team concept should really stand out.  I usually play with a couple of friends in a comp stomp.  It works out really nice because we're just trying to formulate the best route as a team.  I don't know, just my thoughts.

People have there own particular views on how the game should be played. Just play your own game and don't worry about it. Best advice is learn how to scout effectively, watch your opponents and teammats and know what there fleet composition and location is as best as you can at all times the rest will come pretty easy.