Zeta Gundam

If the fleet limit is raised, as some people have been requesting, this will become an even bigger problem. IMHO, LRFs need to do less damage to capital ships (as I have stated), and damage mitigation will probably need to go up to prevent absurd micro-ing.

Habadacus, by "cat and mouse," I mean a longer attack than "hit and run," which implies leaving immediately. Different style of attack, but in terms of sheer damage, yeah, frigates are hard to beat. Which makes sense, otherwise caps would be overpowering. But I think this is really an issue only with LRF vs. caps. Any other ships vs. caps shouldn't be quite as lopsided.

Caps are better for cat and mouse because they can bomb planets, steal resources, affect culture, etc. It creates more of an impact than just destroying defenses. Perhaps the problem is that LRFs do too much damage to caps, which isn't their designed purpose. But I posted another thread for that. ;)

I was looking at the damage charts, and LRFs do 75% damage (and 100% for Illuminator) vs. capital ships. Heavy assault and bombers, I can understand, but LRFs seem to a bit too good vs. caps. Their focus is long-range, not anti-cap, so shouldn't they do less percentage damage than ships that specialize in it? If it was lowered to 50% (75% for Illum) vs. caps, would it not be a slightly better balance?

Hmmm... I think caps would have to hold back and let the frigates jump first. Let the fleets thin out a bit before engaging. The other tactic I'm thinking is to use caps to sneak attack and go after different planets if the opponent has massed his/her ships. Force his/her forces to split up, or play cat and mouse.

[quote]And sometimes you suffer crushing blows trying to defend a strategic and *important* location.Then the rest of the army goes "REMEMBER THE (insert place of crushing defeat) to rally and inspire the rest of the army that wasn't at that place.The simple fact is, your empire should not be crushed because your army got hit in the arm with a sledgehammer. There should be viable methods of recovering from a crushing defeat, since not all defeats come at the hands of idiots wantonly throwing sh

LOL... a review based on expectations and aesthetics. "Chess is a poor game with slightly different pieces on a checker board. Pieces move in flat, restrictive ways. Pawns don't do anything, and I don't feel anything for them. Why couldn't they make checkers 2.0? Even Connect Four did a better job!" Come on, really play the game, and try to keep an open mind. :HOT:

Ah, 15 LRMs would certainly cost more than a cap ship. I'm not so eager about fiddling with cap ship numbers, as they have so many other abilities besides raw firepower already. IMHO, cap ships are worth the cost if they are micro-ed and survive battles. Also, in defensive positions with repair bays, they are pretty tough to knock out. If you think naval tactics, cap ships are like battleships and aircraft carriers. They should have escorts and rarely charge into battle.

LOL... CoH needs micro-ing because units will sit there and get shot in the back. Sins micro-ing isn't necessary to fight, but necessary to win. CoH is a great game, but Sins is much deeper.

I agree with Warnstaff... fortify that one planet vs. pirate raids, and leave capital ships there to level up. Once you're ready, take your fleet and uber caps to go smash the opponent. :LOL:

LOL... yes, the player should be punished for sacrificing his/her fleet. The point is that if you *know* you're going to lose your fleet, you have to retreat BEFORE that happens. In war, unlike most RTS games, knowing when to retreat is as important as knowing how to win. "Live to fight another day," as the old saying goes! The fleet upkeep is a bit annoying, but I tend not to max it out until I am know it's the big, final push. Keep it a couple notches less, so even if the

Unfortunately, Sins is during war time and there is no peace time, so trying to scale back war resources would be really hard. In fact, during war time, supplies that sit idle sometimes can cost more than being deployed, as the supply chain can't be halted at a moment's notice. Many supplies are ordered months in advance. So if upkeep was to be "fixed", allowing a player to scale back should incur a significant penalty. Which probably makes it not too worthwhile.

I dunno if I totally agree with the way the upkeep cost is done, but it does make sure that a player should *never ever* sacrifice his/her fleet. In most RTSes, units are essentially disposable. In Sins, you better retreat (to a well defended planet) because to rebuild a fleet from scratch late game will be really hard. If anyone has played Total War series, where you effectively have no reinforcements, then Sins upkeep is actually not too hard to manage. :p

I was just thinking about using hangar defense to deter an early rush. Obviously, once an opponent has massed 100 LRMs, it's well beyond what any planet defenses can handle. But at that point, the player should be well established, have a better economy, and have enough of a fleet to defend from such an attack, sneak attack or whatever. I just haven't analyzed the game to the point where I know dollar-for-dollar hangar defenses are a good buy.

Malekish, yes, I know *fighters* are effective. I've read umpteen posts. What I'm saying is - is *hangar defense* effective - cost-wise, armor-wise, etc.? How many would need to be built? I'm hoping for comments, not a "yes" or "no".

Hi, I was wondering if anyone has tested to see if hangar defenses are an effective counter to LRM spamming. Comments appreciated. :HOT:

Well, spamming is one I would consider "cheap" because it requires little experience or knowledge to do. It's like random button-mashing in Street Fighter. But it's a valid strategy, and even experienced players might use it to do the old "reverse psychology" thing. There's no such thing as the "ultimate strategy". But there are well analyzed opening moves/builds. It's just like in chess or any other game.

Sorry, but you're thinking at least two different camps. I've played most RTSes since Dune II, so I really enjoy Sins' non-clickfest mindset. However, what strategy one uses is fine with me. Good, experienced players can deal with the cheapy strategies. Sins just has more possible strategies than most other RTSes.

Well, the SDF might be one ship, but the Zentraedi had thousands of MASSIVE battleships. All with enormous beam weapons, missiles and turrets. Plus smaller ships, fighters and robot vehicles. The good guys, well, they had protoculture. :D

Smidlee, let me clarify. I was thinking along the lines of a resource rate boost. Basically "extreme" would be 150% resource collection rate increase, while "insane" would be 200% (or more). I believe that is how most RTS games do it. In any case, if Ironclad wanted to do something like that, they would be well aware of how to do it. It's just whether they *want* to do it.

Ironclad, could you guys add a couple of extra hard difficulty levels, where the AI cheats (a lot), so the guys who find the game "boring" and "too easy" can get the snot beaten out of them. Thanks!

Now I've had some time to play and think about it, I agree with miato. Once you've played the game every which way against the AI, it's time to play against a *blatantly* cheating AI. Forget fairness. This is about long, long term game value. Make it clear to the player that the AI WILL cheat, and it's fair enough. If you are a glutton for punishment, that is the player's choice. Heck, add maybe two or three extra hard AI difficulty levels. Why not? It's not hard to give

sajberTim, the AI opponents tend to "gang-up" on the player ATM. So locked teams, or playing against fewer AI opponents for the time being. The next patch should fix it hopefully. The complaint from the traditional 4X players is that it isn't deep enough, and that is true in 4X terms, but personally, I think Ironclad has struck the right balance for the most part. Too much 4X features, and it becomes tedious for RTS players. The other complaint raised here is basically that

I like using 20 (?) capital ships to soften them up. Go back and repair, then send in the entire fleet. ;)

I dunno if this has been suggested. But anyway, I was thinking maybe for a "quicker" game, make an option that if a player has no planets left, he/she loses the game. Or perhaps if a player has no planets AND no unoccupied planets that can be immediately colonized, then he/she loses. The idea is that if you can't pay for fleet upkeep (because you have no planets and no income), well, you get no fleet. ;)