Raymundus

The fact that the AI takes over for a human player who gets dropped in a multiplayer game is a very cool feature, but what level of AI is it? Easy/Medium/Hard? It might be interesting for the game to pick an intelligence level to help autobalance the teams. For example, if team A is beating the heck out of team B, and a team A player drops, then stick them with an idiot AI to help even things out :) Or likewise, if the losing team drops a player then give them a genius AI repla

DL w/ CD CE FTW, heh. That's what I did too. I was itching to get into the beta, but only finding out about the game 2 weeks ago I figured I could tough it out. I know I could have done the weird token, cancel, then order over thing, but that just feels like cheating to me (and there isn't anything else I would spend the tokens on right now anyway). But it has been tough trying to get up to speed to have coherent conversations with the folks actually in beta, I always feel like I may sa

P5y, I have been watching and rewatching the Xplay video a lot lately, and there does seem to be some drift in the Gamma version. Ships slightly jostling for position and whatnot. I agree wth you a little, at least in regards to cap ships, I wouldn't mind seeing their side guns given a smaller firing arc to encourage the AI to use more "broadsiding" sorts of movement, but not if it means fleet formations go to hell.

Just a few hours ago. https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?forumid=402&aid=173821 According to Blair: "The trade/refinery ships autospawn though the number depends on the race, research, and Advent don't get refinery ships (they have a different mechanic). W/r to tradeports, the distance and connectivity matters. You can hover over the credits tab at the top to see a white line showing your longest direct path (which is different than "longest path ala Settlers of Catan")

Um, I am not quite sure when you went into hiding, but there has been lots of cool tidbits seem in screenshots and interviews lately (some regarding the Advent). Lets see, some of the highlights: - There are wormholes in the game. - Fleet size is determined via logistics now (and increasing fleet size cap adds upkeep costs). - In skirmish maps you can set AI difficulty and personality. - It looks like the Advent carrier cap is called the "Halcyon" and hold 6 squads (102 stri

Was there ever any resolution on the idea of large scale "random" events? I have tried searching the forums, and there seemed to be some interest but never anything definite mentioned. I saw several people complaining about how it favors lucky players, or increases micro, but I still think that there could be room for solar system wide events from time to time. Take a passing comet. It could have the effect of dusting the system with crystal fragments, increasing crystal mining

We don't really know any facts about how logistics upgrades fleet points yet (aside from knowing that's how it is done). But we saw in a number of recent screenshots a fleet point cap at 2000. Whether or not this is fully researched is anyone's guess, but the evenness of the number makes it seem like some kind of milestone. I am sure someone in the beta can give you more accurate info, but (I think) ships take between 2 and 40 fleet points each (from scout up to capital ship).

I haven't really had a lot of fun with a RTS since the last Homeworld, and it has taken me a while to figure out why. I think it is the lack of a sense of scale. I love having control of massive fleets, engaging in giant battles. WC3 was a huge letdown for me with it's focus on so few units. And as nice as it is that SC2 seems to be based around higher unit numbers like the old one, I just can't see regular sized maps feeling "epic" anymore. The Sins gravity well concept for di

Kanzig, when I first arrived here I too spent ages looking for some kind of unit list. Here are the best two sources I have found if you are looking for unit info: First a thread from back in September by Ron Lugge. One of the better sources for actual info about lots of units/features and their ingame uses (even if it only covers 2 of the races and may be slightly out of date by now). https://forums.stardock.com/?forumid=402&aid=163513&p=1#1382435 Also there is a German wi

Looks like Kol had the right of way. PS - Anyone know what that ship left of the Sova and below the Akkan in the beginning zoom is? It looks like it is shooting missiles, and by it's color it looks like it belongs to the TEC player, but it sure isn't the Javelis. Seems to have nacelles on the sides and some kind of vertical panels on it's pointy nose. The Kol passes a few more of them around the 20 sec mark.

"Just keep in mind the Advent apparently have no ship cap. Food for thought..." Are you saying that because the article talked about them believing in no limits? I think the writers were just playing with words, tying in the segment about fleet limits with the segment about Advent lore and how they experiment with forbidden technology (they don't limit themselves to what's legal like the TEC does).

Provided the forge tools allow us some robust triggers I could see a real cool campaign being made with just 3 maps. One for each species, all based on the lore. 1st - Vasari First Contact Scenario - Giant map full of TEC that you, the single Vasari player, must defeat. Just needs a few talking heads explaining how it was the first time the vasari met the humans on some outer systems, how underprepared the humans were, how they will have an easy time subjugating these people before the

I realize that only devs with gamma know the answers, but these are only half questions/half musings over potential secondary effects of upkeep. We can safely assume that upkeep will be deducted from incoming planetary income. But how about other sources of income? What about credits made on the Black Market? If we control a sufficiently huge number of worlds and asteroids the amount of money made buying/selling on the Black Market could be notable, if it is unaffected by upkee

Heh, I caught the jab at MMORPGs too. Not that there is anything wrong with them, but it will be nice to play a compelling game without a monthly fee for a while. I'm looking to get away from WOW for the indefinite future, but I always have to have some game to obsess over, so hopefully Sins will fill the void. Totally different genres I know, but my tastes are diverse. And the no-rush, save/resumeable, multisolar maps should satisfy my cravings for some nice prolonged gaming sessions.

I guess I can see why fleet cap was changed to work with upkeep, but rather than force me to make choices I think it will make my decisions easier. Traditionally in RTS games I am torn between three things: spending my money on increasing my unit cap, making more units, and researching better abilities for my units, all three being equally valuable and worthy of attention. But now with irrevocable penalties for increasing unit cap size I will be less likely to choose cap increases often, which a

For some reason the idea of civilian ground based planetary defenses keeps making me think of Futurama when Zapp Brannigan broadcasts that "Anyone without a ship should secure a weapon and fire wildly into the air."

Ewwwww upkeep :( Hate to be a naysayer but I am unsure on this one. I think I would have preferred prohibitively large but flat monetary research costs to keep people from maxing fleet supply every game to upkeep. At least in prior RTS games featuring upkeep it was more of a maintenance cost, and dropped back down when the army size diminished. I dunno, maybe it makes sense to you more 4x familiar players, but the RTS in me tells me permanent levels of upkeep will mak

Hmm, something else I just noticed in the banners is that the giant rudder shaped Advent cap ship seems to be their colonizing cap (it has the flag-on-planet ability). So now we know which is their carrier and which is their colonizer.

On a BFG related note, every time I see the hand drawn stills used as the avatars in the bottom window of Sins I keep hoping they have a few frames of animation and glance sideways from time to time.

When I went down to EB last week to preorder neither guy in the store had heard of Sins. They sure got excited fast when I mentioned the pedigree of the devs working on it though. Regardless I have since cancelled my preorder there and ordered online instead after learning about the collector's edition :)

Dutch I believe what you are asking about is a ship subsystem sort of feature, right? If so the answer is no the ships in sins do not have them, just sheilds, hull(hp), and antimatter(mp). But there look to be many abilities focused on disabling the enemies in ways similar to certain systems getting hit (slowing them down, stopping them from warping, stopping their attacks, weakening their shields, etc).

Unfortunately I am a big fan of campaigns. Not so much for the replay value, but more for the depth they add to the lore. So often nowadays games start out with a single page of "threatening armies/aliens/gods/whatever are approaching", and then the campaign plays you through the event. So provided the manual has a hefty lore section I will be happy I guess. If having a skirmish map that lasts longer than most other entire games doesn't make me empathize with my faction I guess nothing will.<br/

You know if you really want to make the forums explode... you could play as the Advent while on G4 :)

In the most recent batch of screenshots on the front page we see the TEC military tree. And at the faaar right tier 8 of experimental design is something which appears to be a unit. And if you look at the prereqs you can see it requires all kinds of missile upgrades before it can be built. Could this be the Novalith Cannon? Is the Novalith Cannon perhaps more of a Novalith Rocket Launcher in reality? We know it hits planets and hurts their populations from several jumps away, maybe the

"That is not correct. Objects are not placed on a 2D plane like in Beta 4, they are placed in 3D. It's just that this is automated; the player is not given control of it." Is that good news? It's hard to tell. I guess it could mean that defenses and things are built closer on the z-axis to nearby points of interest that may be slightly above or below the plane (asteroids, planets, etc). I guess it's good for some visual variance, a little up/down randomization between structure