JMiddleton

[quote]Railguns are relatively primitive in comparison[/quote] Perhaps, but Railgun development is receiving military funding while coilguns remain Science Fiction. What I find fascinating is the fact that a Terran type planet can be assumed to have a diameter of approximately 13,000Km (8000Mi) yet strike craft can launch from their hangars and make it to the other side of the planet in a few seconds. Once there, they can maneuver freely and turn quickly to engage an enemy fleet. C

I like to split my strike force into 2 fleets. One will contain my stand-off weapons - LRM frigates, carriers, etc... The other will contain my close-in sluggers battleships, heavy cruisers, etc... Both fleets will be led by a command cruiser with designate target ability and both will contain a balanced mix of support ships. I adopted this tactic when I started playing 2 on 1 matches where the AI usually outnumbered me by a considerable margin and now find it a lot easier to manage the batt

This kind of information is useful and should be posted on the wiki now that it is up and running http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire It's a lot easier than searching the forums. Newer players need to realize: 1. the numbers improve as you research the military technology tree. 2. Capital ships get stronger as they gain levels and add abilities. 3. There is a synergistic relationship between ships - they cover each others weak spots - in a way that i

Digital download will be the least expensive way to buy it because you pay no shipping or tax. The standard retail box version is $39.95 compared to $44.95 for the download collectors edition.

If he is attacking you and the fleets are that evenly matched, you should win every time. A couple of things to try: 1. Position your fleet where planetary defense structures - especially repair structures can support it. He's attacking. Make him come to you. 2. Fleet your ships and focus fire on his capital ship. 3. Consider starting with the colonizer cap ship and maybe purchase a couple of upgrades. You can buy your way to level 4 and it's cheaper than purchasing a replacemen

Next question is "does it matter?". Does the fleet receive any kind of bonus from having a command cruiser or capital ship as the flagship? Or does it simply offend our human sense of propriety to have a light frigate carrying the flag!

Reply #14 suggests that the Cable Modem is connected to the computer using USB. The Surfboard has both Ethernet and USB ports so I recommend connecting it via Ethernet. There may be contention issues with other devices using USB. If I have misinterpreted the post and you are using Ethernet, it can't hurt to try USB to help isolate the problem.

There are already fleet caps built into the game and you need a fairly healthy economy to advance to the next level. I agree with most participants in this thread that how you use your available fleet capacity - balanced or all one class - should be entirely up to you. Putting all your eggs in one basket is a high risk strategy. Unless your initial rush overwhelms your opponent and clinches victory you are wide open to counter attack and essentially defenseless because you put everything into th

Developers: Please set your screens for large (120dpi) fonts at some point during your testing. Combine high resolution (1920x1200) displays - that have interpolation problems if you run them at anything but native resolution - with an aging population and you end up with a lot of people who are using large fonts - and a lot more who would be if they knew how! Large fonts break a lot of web sites and text is running past the right margin on this forum making it difficu

TEC have the LRM frigate and a group of these can inflict a lot of pain on capital ships but they have to be protected by other units because they are virtually defenseless.

You have to build a Capital Ship factory in your logistic structures. Once built the first Capital ship is free.

Pirates are an important strategic component of the game. Exploit them using the bounty to make an opponents life miserable; or exploit them by ignoring the bounty to build experience for your capital ships. Moons would add nothing to the game except, perhaps, some additional resources or logistic slots. Now you need to expand your empire to acquire those resources and slots which, in my opinion, makes for a much more challenging and interesting game. In a 4x game the time you

The new element Sins brings to the table, and the one that will help keep it fresh and exciting, is the ability to play against a human opponent. The AI can overwhelm you with it's economic advantage but it is never going to outwit you. Hopefully Sins will evolve, much the same way GalCiv2 evolved over the past 2 years, and many of the ideas presented on this board will find their way into the expansion packs.

I've been playing strategy games since discovering the Avalon Hill board games at university in the early 1970's. The games have always required a lot of micromanagement - that's part of the fun for those of us who enjoy them - and it wasn't unusual for games to last several days. Most of the time would be spent jockeying for position - trying to achieve a decisive advantage before committing forces to battle. With a human opponent, this was challenging and a lot of fun because humans are very g

If this game follows the same pattern as GalCiv II there will be updates and, eventually, expansion packs that adjust the balance and incorporate features based on the feedback from this forum. Pacing a real time, multi player, 4X game must be challenging - you need time to plan your strategy and manage your civilization but no longer have control over the turn button. I'm sure a lot of time and effort was invested trying to get this right and more will be now that the game is out in the wild an

While the developer (Ironclad) is Canadian and the distributor (Stardock) is US, it's a pretty safe bet that the actual manufacturing and packaging is taking place somewhere in Asia. When a Microsoft product is released to manufacturing it takes at least a month for packaged versions to show up on store shelves. It's only been a week since Sins went Gold - it simply isn't possible to manufacture, package and distribute the product to retailers in that amount of time. I personally think

I have the same problem. My Stardock account - setup when I purchased GalCiv II uses a different email address than my PayPal account. I was logged in to my Stardock account when I placed the order (TGN Subscription) but it still associated my tokens with my PayPal email address. I have a support incident open and expect it will be resolved shortly but there should be a warning on the purchase page about this problem. I probably would have used Visa if I had known in advance.

I notice the $29.00 shipping also applies to Canada today. Which makes the boxed version $9.00 more than a TotalGaming.net membership. With products like Twilight of the Arnor and DreamScapes 2 in the pipeline, it should be easy to find a home for the leftover tokens!