Raymundus

Schod, how big are your fleets late game? I have been playing some random 3 player maps lately (~25 planets), me vs 2 AI normal. Games have been taking a few hours and yet I only have to upgrade fleet size twice, rather than units I just expand over most of the map, a strong financial/cultural empire with a few teched out ships seems a very viable strategy vs opponents. But the pirates will still wipe out an entire defended planet from me every time they attack, as they usually show up with 30+

TEC are pretty good. I like how the wimpy colony ships actually sound wimpy. Vasari are awesome. I think the guys piloting the support cruisers take their jobs too seriously though. Advent... yuck. When I heard they were female voices I was really hoping for something cool and calculating like the Homeworld voice. Especially since they are crazy fanatics with cyber impalnts etc etc.

Hmm, maybe I will just stick all my Cap ships in a control group since their numbers don't change so much. Then anytime I move them the everchanging fleet will follow, provided one of the caps is the fleet leader right? Seems an awkward workaround though, would still prefer to be able to bind keys for selecting first fleet, second fleet, third fleet, etc.

I wonder if some sort of mitigation could be implemented, perhaps just for planets with the planetary shield researched (similar to how ship shields work). Something to drastically reduce the effectiveness of 10+ siege ships at once. Perhaps this already is in the game, but if so it isn't very noticeable.

8600gt Everything on highest. No AA (cause of white pixel problem). But I can run it at such a high resolution the AA is irrelevant anyway.

Yeah, I seem to have a handle on fleets a little more now, and I can eventually see them replacing ctrl group altogether for most purposes in Sins. But the way they pin up at the top of the Empire Tree still makes me think they are ctrl group at times (which don't seem to be displayed anywhere), and really makes wish there was a way to bind some keys to select fleet 1, fleet 2, etc. I am still hitting "1" constantly because it seems like it should grab the fleet off the top of the tree.

It's in the folder the game is installed in. Try looking for: Stardock/Total Gaming/Sins of a Solar Empire/manual.pdf It's pretty cool. Lots of pages, descriptions of the ships, good stuff.

OK, after playing for a few more hours I think I understand more of the game, and I can see what was confusing me. Perhaps this will help others: I have discovered the reason Fleet grouping was confusing for someone like myself (who has had more RTS exposure) is becasue there does not seem to be any way to see Ctrl groups. No little numbers, no pinning of groups, just a bunch of random little ship boxes that get highlighted when the group is selected. The Fleet system uses what would -s

Yeah, I think it's a structure not a unit (despite the unit-looking icon). At least the Vasari superweapon is a structure. Hard to tell how powerful it is since all it requires is that the nearby target planet was scouted sometime in the past, and it fires off into the dark. There was a weird swirl in the fog, but couldn't really tell how efective it was. I wish the bullet it fired had vision, so we could see the impact.

My first impressions are quite good. The game is fun, graphics and sound are good (except the 12 year old girl voice of the Advent) but the Empire tree isn't quite as intuitive as you guys made it sound. Figuring out what should/shouldn't be pinned is quite a pain, all the various unit options don't seemt to do anything (I wish there were more auto expanding options instead, like "only expand the grav well you are in"). Also Fleet tactics seem more trouble than they are worth if you hav

Here are my noob impressions (albeit those of a slightly informed noob since I've been following close for the past few weeks). - I see what you beta people meant about the fastest speed settings still not being all that fast. - I love the Empire tree thing, but the Fleet system is not very intuitive. I try sending half my ships to one planet and half to another and somehow they all keep ending up at the same place due to the Fleet mechanics. - It seems a real pain to redesigna

Should be soon. I saw others start getting theirs 30-45 mins ago. I just got mine 10 mins ago, and have already finished the DL and am just waiting as it unpacks itself now.

Cool beans guys, just got my preorder processed (12:30PM EST). And in case anyone is wondering how far they are through processing the preoders I placed mine about 2 weeks ago (CD+DL). And nice work on that DL speed Stardock guys, im at 25% in just the time it took me to type this. 1800KB/sec FTW.

Dang that's depressing. Hope they get around to sending out the preorder emails soon :(

BSG is pretty good. I am still reserving final judgement and haven't started picking up box sets yet becasue I am constantly afraid they will take the show in some terrible direction. They never quite do, but the fear is still there. No space TV show beats Farscape though. A little emo at times, but so cool. So very cool.

Yeah, I've been spamming email refresh a lot this morning too. Only having placed my order 2 weeks ago I am also waiting for the post-beta purchase processing for my key.

I think the idea that flanking will require a lot of micro in Sins is becasue the battlefields (grav wells) are relatively small, and it would probably be a lot of work to try and keep your units from engaging while scooting around the edge to get into position (and even then, with no fog of war the enemy will see you the whole time). As I understand it flanking in Sins is better done via jumping in from multiple directions at once, which wouldn't really require any micro at all. But wh

"- You rushed out the game and didn't think about releasing a demo when you should've. - You're afraid the game is buggy or boring and don't want customers to find out before you received the money. - You willingly omitted a copy-protection, so you propably just want people to pirate the game to get a quick look. - You really cocked that one up." That's a pretty bleak outlook Vain. Do you always assume the worst? I know I like games to have demos shortly after being released

But even then we are talking about a 1 second delay until fighting starts when ships move into range, and an additinal 1 sec delay for any ships needing to acquiring a new target after an old one is destroyed. It might look nice and seem simple but suddenly long range attack craft have their balance screwed up since other ships can get ino range quicker. And there will be no stopping fighters/bombers if this goes into effect. I don't really mind the nonrotating turrets becasue

I know very little about modeling, my 3DSmax classes don't start for another few months, but I have been goofing off with Blender a little. Anyone know if Blender-made models will be useable?

Actually the countdown is just java running on your own cpu time. It is not when they will enable downloads unfortunately :( I seem to recall the devs saying downloading wouldn't be up until they got into the office on Monday, and they are somewhere in Canada I think.

1. Resources are technically infinite. But as you increase fleet size there is an upkeep cost, so you still must plan puirchases carefully or the enemy could out-econ you. You can trade between any of the three resources (metal/crystal/cash) with the black market feature if you find yourself with way too much of one over another. 2. 1-2 hours for the smallest maps, days and days of playtime for the largest. 3. I highly doubt you would max all your tech on a small map.

"Annatar said (the way I interpreted it) that the appearance of firing is completely independent to the firing itself. But Ron says the delay in the appearance of firing affects the calculation of firing, and the time before damage kicks in etc." Technically the graphic bullets/rockets/whatever we see fired off are just that, a graphic. We could disable the graphic entirely and the game would still calculate that there was a shot fired, that the enemy took X damage, etc. So Annatar

I think Ron and Sibil are right, you cannot make properly rotating properly firing turrets "optional" as things stand right now. For those still confused, there are only 2 real scenarios: If properly timed spinning turrets are added, whereby it takes time for the turret to spin and lock on, then even the players who choose not to use them (for performance options) would still need that delay calculated and applied to their weapons. So new firing code would need to be given to everyone r

""Whoops, you can't send reinforcements to intercept that invading fleet cause you don't have enough resources!!" Am I running an empire, or the local starport?" Have you ever seen Blazing Saddles? Where the town keeps the bandits out by erecting a toll booth outside (and none of the baddies have change). It's funny in the movie, but doesn't sound like fun to play. And hey, cut us people who haven't played but love to theorize some slack :)