Dieinafire

Vasari don't NEED to turtle vs. the AI. Rock your Kanraks early and make yourself the landlord of the galaxy.

Am I the only person who thinks the current 'longest line' trade route mechanic is highly illogical? If you were running your own trade network, would you find it profitable to force trade goods to travel a huge distance out of their way, or would it be better to encourage the free flow of goods from their source to their market in the most efficient manner? It seems to me like the linear trade route value calculation is itching for re-work. It would not be hard to come up wit

Buy the first two Civilian Infrastructure upgrades, that will negate the upkeep costs for the planet immediately, as well as raise the population cap to a comfortable 70-100 (except asteroids, which are capped at one). Between removing the upkeep and taxes from a growing population, you'll recoup the investment fairly quickly (about 5-8 minutes of game time, depending on loyalty). Trade is important later in the game when your empire becomes more far-flung. Advent, who get culture techs e

IMO, HCs are wasted vs. LRF, they're far better suited to abuse flak and support cruisers, which will free up your fighter cover to demolish LRFs. The fighter is the lynchpin of my fleet, and the basic frigates the workhorse. The fighters kill the threats to the HC/LFs, and the HC/LFs will clean everything else up, starting with flak and support cruisers.

Territory is more important than economy, ultimately. The length of the trade route is what determines it's effectiveness, and that's governed by the systems you control.

[quote]My point is, their niche does not exist against a primarily LRF-based fleet.[/quote] Sure. Going against a fleet primarily composed of your fleet's direct counter is a crazed flavor of suicide, assuming you don't have absurd numerical advantages. [quote]Advent is really the only faction which can even consider lingering at the 0-tech level, and even then hitting the defense vessel early is a high priority to give them something else to fall ba

[quote]Your fighters are going to be busy with the enemy strike craft coming off of their carrier cap.[/quote] I'd much rather order my fighters to take out LRFs than any other targets, especially at lower tech levels. My other ships just don't take enough damage from strikecraft to warrant making their destruction a priority. [quote]you opponent can mix in a few flaks for a fraction of this cost and have a very balanced fleet that will roll anything LF-based.[/quote]<

Of the games I have played, I have NEVER had problems keeping my metal income up, especially early on. I often have used my metal surplus to get more credits, I can count the number of times I've sold crystal on my fingers, on the other hand, and I've lost count of the times I've had to buy crystal to keep buying research, ships, structures, etc. Yes, there's lots of structures and techs that cost more metal than crystal, but I've found crystal to be much more precious.</p

I'm a big fan of light frigates, for a number of reasons: #1) They're cheap! Costing only metal and credits, you can field a great deal of them, saving crystal for research and structures. You're going to be losing ships to focus fire, you can't really avoid it. What would you rather have your enemy tunneling through? Your cheap as dirt Disciples or your kinda pricey Illuminators? #2) While they don't compare favorably to Heavy Frigates and LRFs, they tear

The primary benefit of Culture is economic, not military. Since the economic output of your worlds are limited by their loyalty, boosting that loyalty boosts their economic output accordingly. A few well-placed culture generators can give a 10% boost to your non-trade income in this manner for a relatively large empire, with the added benefit of preventing an enemy from colonizing unoccupied (or recently devastated) planets within your cultural influence. Disciples should form the bac

Diplomacy Pirates are retarded. The game stops being a game about building a fleet, and starts being a game about building an economy so you can afford to keep bribing pirates.

Fighters are a hard counter to both bombers and LRF. In another thread, someone suggested toughening up fighters, and I basically agree. Make them not quite so soft vs. flak, so they can do some harm to LRF spam, and suddenly your light frigates are back in the game. Tweaking Cap ship speed isn't a good fix, imo, because a single Antorak Marauder is going to still let a Vasari fleet kite just like before.

Are illuminators really that inferior when compared to the other long ranged frigates? They should still be able to crush enemy light frigates handily, and that's got to be good for keeping your Guardians and Carriers (the backbone of your fleet, imo) alive.

The only part that's out of date is that there's nothing touching on expansion technologies, units and structures. Still it's fundamentally sound, however.

As I play Vasari and Advent exclusively, I've never really found heavy use of refineries to be very helpful. As Vasari, having neutral asteroids from my scouts tend to put me in a position where I'm credit-bound, rather than crystal/metal bound. Sure, if I have a really well-positioned system with lots of good asteroids available, I'm not above using a refinery, but as often as not I wind up selling the excess resources on the black market. Advent's alternative to refineries are simply terrib

Not just RTS games, every strategy game that has a resource system rewards turn advantage. Explain it to your friend this way: The extra income you get from expanding more quickly can be reinvested into more ships, more technology and more structures which increase your aggregate advantage over your opponent. The sooner you obtain and use these advantages, the sooner you'll be able to obtain yet more turn advantage. Expansion is doubly important in Sins, because there's a finite numbe

Per usual in the RTS format, the decision to use early pressure versus booming is entirely dependent on how far you are from your opponent, and how many other players are in the game. I don't find the SMAC comparison apropos, for a number of reasons. First of all, there's no way to 'Population Boom' in Sins. Second, expansion even to neutral planets requires military force. Third, there's not really much in the way of 'lynchpin' technologies that really revolutionize your economy. The only re

My point is not that Caps' other (very useful) abilities should be disregarded, merely that if you take into account the Caps' bombardment ability, they're actually a very good deal. YES, if your only aim is control of the gravity well, (non-siege) frigates will serve you better, but given that once a planet is taken by a rival, the only way to colonize it is to first bombard the existing population into extinction, the bombardment capability of the cap ships definitely offer strategic power

Caps really only shine in comparison to siege frigates. While siege frigates deliver more pure, unalloyed bombardment strength compared to caps, caps are much, much tougher, more flexible, and hard-hitting to enemy ships and structures. Here's a per-population comparison of a Krosov Siege Frigate to the Kol Battleship: Korsov Siege Frigate 30 hull 15 shield 0.43 DPS 1.33 Bombard Kol Battleship 60 hull 25 shield 1.03 DPS 0.86 Bomb

Considering it was still on the main page of the strategy forum, I'm completely unrepentant. :P

The answer to your question is a concept called 'turn-advantage'. The simple premise is that early economic advantages have the effect of compounding themselves if reinvested intelligently. The extra speed of colonization with your colony cap may only save you a handful of credits early on, but the total advantage reaped from those early credits is compounded many, many times over through the course of the game.

I actually wouldn't object to some point defense armament on the Light Carrier hull, but such an armament would necessarily add to the support requirements of the vessel, which effectively reduces the total number of strike craft you can launch, and effectively combine the role of the flak ship and the carrier into one hull. Ultimately, you wind up with less flexibility for no real game balance reason.

Banned for replying to this thread. ... wait.

Carriers are unarmed for the same reasons that carriers in real life are (mostly) unarmed. The engineering requirements for carrying, deploying, launching and landing strike-craft are completely at odds with those of supporting weapon hardpoints. The modern aircraft carrier has elevators, parts, and fuel reserves where a traditional battleship or cruiser will carry munitions, powder and the weapon systems themselves. The carrier is designed to project its power via its strike force, and relie

Aggression. You need to spread swiftly as Advent, and your cap ships' higher ratio of shields to hull means you can and should do just that. Your early access to culture techs mean you can spread out further than your rivals and get better income, thanks to loyalty boosts. A far-flung empire also means that while you get later access to trade, it's better when you get your long route going. Preservation. As Siddy points out, your fleet mechanics are built around preserving your ships.