[quote]I can probly agree with Culture, but I haven't played enough to notice the changes. Is it still max allegance change rate of 0.5?[/quote] Allegiance gains and losses (per second) from culture can go up to .7 now.
[quote]Boxes. Everything must fit! Sad.[/quote] This thread wasn't started by anyone who's questioning the RT4X label. Frogboy said he wanted a discussion about why this game fits in its own box so we're discussing. Had he not made the thread, I wouldn't have had word one to say about it. For my part, I'm not being negative. I'm just being bored at work, and I've said at least twice now that whatever the hell anyone wants to call it, I enjoy the game. Again, he wanted to d
[quote]Exploring. In Warcraft, this amounts to lifting the fog of war, seconds of the game.[/quote] Exploring in Sins consists of making two/three scouts and clicking auto-explore. That also takes less than a minute of hands-on effort. Oh yes, if there are multiple stars, you'll have to do a little research before you can cover the whole map but once that research is complete, it's still only a few more seconds of hands-on effort. [quote]The definition of a 4X game has nothin
Each faction has a research option in the civilian line (something to the tune of 'Long Range Jumps') that will allow you to jump between stars.
Bless you for spelling 'turret' properly in every instance. I was starting to believe that the merciless 'turrents' had subverted every last person willing to communicate with real words. To the topic, I suppose my views are a little simplistic compared to everything you took the time to write here but honestly, I don't feel that the game needs a major single vs. multi overhaul until the AI is at least 'trying' to use the resources it already has. If it can't make effective use of the
[quote]and they can be purchased relatively cheaply, if the market hasn't boomed.[/quote] Even if the market has boomed, the price is rarely beyond what someone would willingly pay if they really needed crystal or metal. I've never seen it go above the 550 range and at any given point in the game, credit income is likely to be at 'least' 5-10x the rate of metal or crystal. Honestly, I think the way the system works is fine. I just think that the prices need to be tweaked so
[quote]Why do we have post after post after post 'suggesting' ways to balance this, that, and the other thing? Why do we not instead have mod, after mod, after mod balancing this game precisely as suggested?[/quote] This is all well and good for single-player but it would be practically impossible to get everyone in a multiplayer setting to use the same mod (unless the developers have officially abandoned the game and community support is more or less all that remains). If la
I'm sure it would also help if people were able to more easily quantify the value of a planet's surface. In many cases, the cost of a siege fleet far outweighs the cost of losing a planet (and nobody should be losing more than one at a time to a relatively defenseless siege fleet), especially a lightly developed non-terran planet.
I prefer that people just learned the appropriate counters (this could be better documented in the game somehow) but yeah. My vote would go to the antimatter idea as well, assuming we can't just have the old ones back (with less health, if need be).
I wouldn't be here if I didn't like the game or appreciate the vision. It could stand a few tweaks but overall, it's a fresh new product that's given me plenty of game-time for the money spent.
[quote]I'm just throwing this out there...what if Capital Ships were the only unit that could not be focus fired on, other than by other Capital Ships.[/quote] It'd be a little difficult to justify that. The biggest, most threatening ship in a fleet should be the easiest thing to focus fire on. Plus, what happens if you wipe out their fleet and only the cap ship remains. Everything beyond 1 frigate and your own cap ship will just sit around watching the show?
[quote]Wouldn't it be nice after building a Sova that you had 7 heavy fighter squadrons ready for battle as opposed to 2 ordinary ones?[/quote] Late-game? Sure and to a point (with upgrades and paid levels), you 'can' get a very strong ship right out of the gates. How would this effect the early-game, though? A level 10 Kol has roughly the same damage output, including fighter squadrons, as 4 heavy cruisers (maybe even more with everything combined) and that's not even counti
I'll leave the unit-specific number crunching to more interested parties but I do want to throw my support behind the proposed market and Siege Frigate changes. I like quite a few of the changes made by this patch but the problems with these two categories look to be blatantly obvious right now.
The issue has been noted quite a few times around here that I've seen and yes, I get it too (especially when playing as the Vasari). With any luck, it'll get a fix in the next patch.
[quote]They are meant to be cheap, effective, utilitarian bombardment vessels that can be used in swarms if necessary[/quote] I don't think anyone's arguing about the lowered armor as I think it's generally agreed that these things aren't meant to solo-stomp empires in a large swarm (frankly, I wouldn't care if they had one bloody hit point. I'd probably get the same amount of use out of them). It's the 'cheap' part that's becoming a concern as they're neither cheap in resources or fle
Won't be necessary, though I'd be interested in seeing some replays related to the subject. This... [quote]With decent scouting and probing and preparedness (EMF and DEF) it should be fairly easily countered and then you know he's way behind because he wasted so many resources on a dead product and you can nail him.[/quote] ... is the only part of the above that I've actually seen in practice to any worthwhile effect. But that'll be a subject for another thread which,
[quote]culture increase antimatter regeneration rate, as well as having the able to steal antimatter thougth the disciple[/quote] Antimatter regeneration is the TEC's culture bonus. The Advent get a bonus to shield mitigation.
[quote]Funny, but that group of people complaining included the developers.[/quote] I'm not here 24/7 so feel free to point it out if I missed anything but the only comment I saw on the subject from anyone in-the-know was that their gameplay data suggested that siege frigates were getting a lot of use. There wasn't much elaboration on that point so I'm still wondering 'when' these things were getting heavy use as a main offense. And I have no doubt that newer players are trash
[quote]In my opinion though I think you hear about it more from more experienced players because "noobs" may feel they don't know enough to make any real arguments.[/quote] Oh, the new players air plenty of their own grievances too. Look at the gripes about siege frigates before this patch. Most experienced players have no trouble fending them off and hardly ever build them beyond late game mop-up but there were still plenty of people willing to contend that they were nigh invincible
[quote]...but you can still set bounties! They don't do anything, but you can throw your money away...[/quote] I have no problem with adding the random no-pirate maps back in but on this... pirate manipulation is the most obvious reason for the bounty system but bounties can be collected by other players as well. It wouldn't be 'as' much of an incentive to use it but there's still a reason for the bounty to be there, especially in free-for-all games.
In the case of siege frigates, spamming them is just a huge waste of time and resources against anyone who's played more than a couple of games and it just makes the AI that much easier to beat (at least, it did before the patch). After the patch, with the myriad nerfs to the ship, it's an even bigger waste. As for spamming in general, players abusing spam is never the core issue. If a strategy like that is the most effective use of time and resources, it's what people are going to do
[quote]Can I make veiled uninformed attacks of the game on the forums...[/quote] I don't know about 'veiled'. They seemed pretty obvious to me. Anyway, it's a shame you don't enjoy the game and naturally, it's not going to be for everyone but as has been said, the things that you've been griping about aren't exactly hidden features. All of the reviews that I read were rather specific on those points.
People are complaining because there's no effective hardcounter to LRM's (specifically, in a rush situation) that shows up as early on the tech tree as they do. I agree that flaks would be an odd choice for this job but the underlying concern is that they're the only thing available that early (short of your own LRM spam) capable of 'kinda' doing the job.
I'll leave the details of actually spending that crystal to someone who's spent more time crunching the numbers than I have. To highlight an answer to the original question, the value of crystal at the beginning of the game should be pretty easy to see. With the resources available to you right out of the gates, it would take ~8-9 minutes to accumulate 200 crystal (not to mention the fact that you have to actually build the extractor first) and crystal is most likely to be the limiting
Until you get a hold of carriers (which are significantly more expensive than LRM's and will be rendered useless if the LRM-owner brings Flaks of his own), Flak frigates deal more damage than standard light frigates to LRM's and take a 'lot' less damage in the process. Flaks aren't a terribly effective counter but for the cost and early game availability, they're pretty much all you've got short of spamming your own LRM's and going for attrition.
