I played SOASE a few years ago and always found it compulsive gaming. I came back to it recently and still found it addictive, but there were traits that left me disappointed. Those traits were AI cheats. These are used to defeat the player and prolong the game. No matter what level of difficulty is played, the AI always has the upper hand and tricks on hand that are not available to the player.
Wrong. Only Hard and above cheat. Easy actually is gimped compared to the player. If you lose to an easy AI, you're losing to a computer with half the resources you do that can't cheat. That's inability. That's your fault, not the game.
Take that pesky little AI scout, which pops up everywhere like a flea just to irritate the player with no warning at all (no red line), and which can determine the victor of a battle or even game. When the humble AI scout pops up from nowhere it is generally to delay a jump at the enemy and it can take a massive fleet already present on the planet sometime to eliminate it, while the program is deciding how to answer the player's threat.
What on earth are you talking about? Scouts have almost no military presence unless you're talking about them en mass, but you're talking about solitary scouts. Just ignore scouts or let your strike craft handle them. If your enemy has a fleet large enough to wipe out your scouts, you ought to have an equal sized fleet at minimum.
This ruse is not available to the player, as the scout is eliminated in the middle and late game within seconds, even with the jump drive upgrade, so there is little current intel available on the AI's forces. The player can use, say, a Cobalt for same reason, but this usually has the same fate and can be an expensive option when the action has to be repeated many times to know what the current state of play might be with the enemy.
See above. You can do it, and if you fail at it, that's your fault.
The delaying tactic used by the scout is compounded by a faulty team jump. On one game I team jumped to the enemy and, instead of sending the team, the program first sent one Robotic, which was eliminated within seconds and then sent my Dunov (which was supposed to jump with the Kol) and was annihilated with seconds before the rest of the team jumped. I lost the battle though I had calculated a slim victory.
If this is a concern, simply set your ships to jump simultaneously. Once again, your fault, not the computer.
I suspect that the program had also calculated a victory for the player, so it sent in forces with no support first in order the player would lose.
Entirely possible.
Timing also seems arbitrary in favor of the AI in production, research and jumps. The AI can jump without a problem when the player has, say, sent a Cobalt to the planet to delay the jump. When the player wants to jump and is delayed by a scout, the player cannot choose one unit to deal with the scout and jump with the rest of his team, but the whole fleet has to be occupied to crack a walnut with a sledgehammer.
If you're talking about the desire of fleets to auto-target anything that jumps into a gravity well, just re-order them to jump.
The AI can produce a cap ship in battle within 5 seconds if necessary, but the player takes 35 seconds to produce the equivalent. The balance in this game, as in many other good computer games, can be tedious. The equations are so exact that you can guarantee your capital ship ( or the equivalent in support) will be taken down, if the player has defeated the enemy's cap ship, even though the forces opposing it are weak.
Harder AI's do actually cheat in income, build times, and capital training, but not that much. Even Vicious difficulty AI's can't put out a capital in five seconds. Also, you're severely overestimating the power of capitals. Capitals are never as efficient per cost at putting out damage as frigates are. Capitals are only useful ultimately because of abilities. Killing a capital in no way guarantees victory.
A strong ship (in hulls, armor, ballistics, antimatter etc) is just eliminated within seconds. In some cases the enemy is just not affected at all by the opposing forces. The question arises, how do you determine a winner, when two equal forces are opposing each other and doing the right thing?
If no one is winning, no one is doing the right thing. As mentioned above, use scouts.
It is a difficult question to answer and I know nothing about programming. You might try to exploit a weakness, but the intel is not available to the player to do this.
Programming isn't relevant here. That said, you should exploit weaknesses. Check the stickied things in the strategy section of the forums to learn what counters what. Once again, the intel is available if you actually bother to get it.
I played two games with no outcome, no winner. These were 1v2 factions. I ignored the diplomatic missions and defeated the two enemies, but the pirates would not go down despite superior forces.
Don't try to go against pirates and their defenses at the same time. Draw their fleet out first and defeat it before going after the turrets.
I built three Novaliths which had no affect. I had to give up the games. I suspect that, because I ignored the diplomatic missions ( though some were achieved by default), no victory was offered.
You can win by wiping out the enemy. Apparently you missed something.
I hope this thread is not too long-winded. I may buy the beta of Rebellion from Steam, but I wonder if the scenario above has been improved?
