Hi all,

I know there is a thread or 2 about game balance but there were a bit narrowed down and different from the perspective I would like to add here, so I make this seperate thread to say my opinion about the balance issues introduced with Rebellion regarding the single player aspect of the game.

First of all, let me state the simple fact. Sins of Solar Empire is an RTS. That means, a strategy game (and a 4X at that). In a strategy game, the player takes proud of his "base construction" (build a base in general, which in our case is multiple bases in multiple planets, but anyway..), build a variaty of units to make a "balanced army" (and enjoy building all those units the developers put in the game) and attack the enemy.  This is how a strategy player is having fun spending his afternoon etc...

So, lets see:

- Based construction? -- check -- All those buildings you can construct, in multiple planets, desicions about which planets to reinforce and which not, where to build your trade routes, your economy, your defense, your fleet production, etc, it's all there and then some. With all races having different flavors and different strategies and buildings to chose from. It's all there, strategy player is happy.

- Building a balanced army? -- First of all, why do I say balanced? Is it prerequisite? No, it's not prerequisite, you can have your hearts desire and build 100 heavy cruisers and rush the enemy, no problem, but in general, I mean that a strategy player wants to have the option/choise to take advantage of -every- -single- -unit- the developers put in the game and be able to have a viable strategy with them, with all of them being viable. So while you can rush the oponent with one type of unit here and there or everywhere (lol), in the end, you do enjoy building a somehow balanced army (fleet in our case) when you want to attack or defend a front, cuz you need as I said all the units the devs put in the game. You need your frontline heavy cruisers, you need your support, your carriers, your anti-strikecraft etc. Nobody is happy being forced to play with only one type of unit. Game becomes boring and goes down to "why bother playing?". Imagine a chess game with just queens... It all goes down to who has the most queens, so why bother playing? Count the queens each one has, say your gg and move on to another game.

So how does SoSE fair in this aspect? - I would say, from the SP point of view this was achieved up to a decent/good point.......up until diplomacy. With rebelion and the incredible aoe power of some titans all sub-capital units (frigates) became obsolete, but the carriers.  There are about 4 titans that run around with 2x lvl 6 Marza incorporated, with a short of missile barrage that is not even channeled and can not be interrupted, with a few seconds cooldown...lol - There goes the fun of the strategy player. - Don't build LF or LRM or Anti-SC or anything with low hp, they will go down fast, your HC will be demolished from scattered shot, any part of your fleet can be vaporized by the Maw, or slowly demolish by chastic burst or nanoleech and dissever etc. - There is no point in building anything but carriers that try to run around, kite and just have their bombers try to take down those megaliths. - Where is the fun in that? Where?

Anyway, let me tone down the emphasis of the previous paragraph and state that in my opinion, the aoe dmg power of the titans must be toned down a little because they can not be interrupted or disabled (apart from one subfaction's cap (which you can focus fire or disable anyway)), because it makes obsolete the majority of all the other units in the entire game. Especially the insta-gibbing ones. And a special mention to the drain anti-matter ability of the VRT (I expect his life draining making it unkillable will be fixed but how about his anti-matter drain?). Your whole fleet goes out of antimatter very fast and you end up having all those support ships that can't repair anything, all those offenssive utility ships that can't do anything, all those caps abilities that can't be triggered and basically you have a blob of ... nothing, that slowly dies in a fleet Vs fleet encounter. This is the most game breaking issue for me. Because this is the whole point. Eventually it all goes down to your fleet and titan has to defend or attack the oponent who of course has his own fleet and titan waiting. So it's all about fleet Vs fleet combat (which is the most interesting and excitting part of the game). A combat that you will lose no matter what if your entire fleet has no antimatter. No point of building support ships etc, you might as well just build HCs and Carriers and hope for the best. Where is the fun in that? - There is no fun even when you are the VR player cuz after a couple of wins, you get bored. Drain antimatter, and aoe them to death and/or kill them them with your fleet, rinse repeat - yawn - play something else more interesting.

And maybe Adv's with their repulse can have some chance of avoiding this, but all other factions have this titan up in their faces draining them out while the enemy fleet, with full antimatter, stays alive and kicking. Even the explosive shot of TRT doesn't knockback the titan, so it can't be used defenssively. It's only used offenssively to KB the rest of the forces surrounding the target you want to focus, anyways...

Bottom line, all titans need some tweaking, some buffing here and there or toning down here and there, but the VRT's anti-matter drain (and ofc the life drain) is absolutely game breaking. Furthermore, the instagibbing aoe abilities of some titans have to be toned down too. No point of having a "support" titan, buffing your defense or reducing their offense if you now have... half the fleet and ofc you are forced to retreat anyways...

And a special mention to ALT ulti ability which is the most useless ability in the game. Fleet Vs fleet combat you invade an enemy planet. What's the point of insta conquering it? You can't build anything anyways (because your constructor will die in seconds) and so what? Your gimped ulti may cause you to lose the fleet fight anyway and then you retreat and then he re-colonizes it and he just lost some credits to re-upgrade the planet, who cares? You lost the fleet fight cuz your titan is gimped and that's all that matters and you may even get streamrolled even further. On the defense, it's even worse.

One other special mention to VR starbases. In my opinion, having starbases jumping around with no cap fleet requirements is also game breaking or at least huge advantage (it's advantage in defense that they roam around the well and you have to face them when you invade an enemy planet no matter what, but having them jump on the offense too is even more so). So imo  as others said  you must have a limited amount of SBs that can do that (maybe 1 or 2) and ofc costing fleet supply, maybe 1 cap and 100 or so fleet supply points. Their counter (structure killer units) cost fleet supply, they don't fair well in a fleet Vs fleet fight and thus gimp your fleet Vs fleet fighting potential (due to less fleet supply for actual combat units).

In conclussion, I would say that titans should be tweaked so that they don't break the game balance. They should not force players to not build the majority of units of this game because they will easilly die in a fleet Vs fleet encounter. It's very boring to have fleets with only one or two types of units. It's boring and game breaking.