Frostflare

@N3rull: About Assault Swarms... Well, let me put it to you this way. I was once teaching a friend of mine how to play Sins. He had a Radiance and a half-dozen Disciples. I had a Kortul, a Marauder, and a pair of Rankulas Battleships. To teach him about micro and planetary defenses (and, let's be honest, to troll him a tiny bit), I sent a few waves of two Combat Swarms at him, just to see what he'd do. Eventually, he built a few defense platforms. By th

I'm inclined to agree with N3rull's assessment that the current Rankulas is somewhat... underwhelming. The situation is further exasperated by the fact that it is fairly easy to exhaust a Rankulas' antimatter reserves by a combination of phase jumping and casting all three abilities on full tilt (the trick is to use them sparingly). That said, I have a few nitpicks: On the subject of the Marauder, this thing is actually pretty useful to me -- Phase Out Hull

This sounds like a question for either the modding community or the devs. To wit: how the heck DO phase missiles work? I was under the impression that it was sorta binary -- either they bypass shields and do [damage * armor] to hulls, untouched by shield mitigation... or they are treated as any normal weapon.

@Seleucia, In my experience, phase missile ownage against Advent is attributed to two factors: Advent ships tend to have overall fewer health points than other factions and less armor (therefore less damage mitigation -- if I recall correctly, every armor point reduces damage to the hull by 5%, yes?) Phase missiles ignore shield mitigation, meaning that in addition to bypassing hulls, they're ALSO doing full damage -- meaning that when they bypass shields,

[quote who="Ohoh2" reply="2" id="3411102"] They can't weaken vasari bombers because tec and advent have an anti-structure cruiser while they do not. [/quote] Either disabling phase missile penetration in Advent culture or swapping Vasari bomber phase missiles for plasma wave cannons would not seriously impair the Vasari except against Advent (owing to shielded structures) -- which, by the way, is how it's supposed to work in the

UnleashedElf: I like your analysis and solution -- the Advent are, indeed, shafted by phase missiles, and the TEC-Advent matchup is pretty well balanced (from what I've seen), indicating the phase missiles (plus the Advent reliance on shields) are the culprit when it comes to the imbalance in the Advent-Vasari matchup. I have a question, though: is it phase missiles or Vasar i bombers that are the source of the trouble? Advent Loyalists ar

Jdr: You'll need to specify a damage rate. Flak Burst currently does 30 - 43 - 56- 69 damage to strike craft, but it does so on a 12 - 10 - 8- 7-second cooldown. This makes its damage per second (to strike craft) 2.5 - 4.3 - 7 - 9.8. Are you suggesting that the Flak Burst ability should passively do the amount of damage-per-second I stated above to all strike craft in a given radius? If so, then I'm afraid that would hardly act as a deterrent to

Thanks, Goa; you read my mind. To add to your comments, though: if the suggestion I made for Flak Burst goes through ( ), Flak Burst will not only damage strike craft but actively reduced the damage taken by anything they hit, including the Kol itself. In this way, it would function in much the same way that you described Adaptive Forcefield -- as a strategic button to prevent damage. In this case, the "strategy" would mainly involve timing -- how soon do

Agricus: No need to apologize; this is a thread that invites discussion with regard to fixing underused capital ships and abilities, and I feel you bring up some very good points. Point 1: Vengeance There are three ways I see the ability working: All damage reflected by Vengeance is mitigated by shields, so if I take 100 damage and reflect 30% of it, the enemy takes 30 damage, which is then further reduced by shield mitigation (this is the current model)

To everybody: thanks for the contributions. To address specific comments... Goa: I'm aware that the Halcyon already passively buffs weapons. I added weapon cooldowns to Guidance, in addition to bombardment cooldowns, for several reasons: A bonus to bombardment cooldowns simply didn't feel like enough -- you'd have to have a large fleet to truly see any benefit The Halcyon's aura only effects energy weapons; this one effects ALL

Given that we're currently in beta for a new patch, I felt it would be a good time to propose some changes for a few underused capital ships and capital ship abilities. To the developers: I disclaim all ownership of the following suggestions; if you take them, or some variation on them, I will demonstrate nothing but gratitude that they are present and usable in the finished game. The Kol Battleship : Adaptive F

[quote who="Sinkillr" reply="3" id="3389039"] All your suggestions have been discussed extensively in at least two threads... the devs have not even commented once. I like #2 btw.[/quote] At least three, by my count; but there's no harm in creating a thread requesting feedback on these specific issues, which seem to me to be the most profound and least controversial changes that could be made.

Sinkillr, I lack sufficient data to determine the likelihood of the developers reading this thread, responding to this thread, implementing the changes I suggested, or implementing more general changes. The release of a balance patch not two months ago indicates that they still intend to support Rebellion, regardless of whether or not a sequel is in development; if the DLC was sufficiently profitable, we actually might see an increased incidence of new content.

Greetings, all. I'm writing this thread to gain community feedback on three ideas for the next patch: Vasari Bombers now fire plasma wave cannons (a-la Skarovas Enforcers) instead of phase missiles Vasari Disruptor Nanites duration reduced to 30 seconds (at the longest) Acceleration-deceleration and turn rates for all fighters significantly improved; maximum speed slightly improved Of these suggestions, only #3 is mine; I feel it

GeoManNL: I prefer the idea of a cooldown on phase nodes. Two minutes, three minutes, whatever.

@Skrimyt: I agree with every word; I'll mention your comments in the OP.

GeomanNL, From the examples you just posted, I'm inclined to think that you are a player who likes to be able to turtle. That's perfectly fine, but it tends to yield very passive games: players establish choke points, build up defenses, and then mass units for overwhelming force. Such games are effectively decided at the very beginning, but take hours and hours to resolve. Sins, in its current incarnation, works. Nor perfectly, but it works. All it needs are a few twea

@SinKillr: Thanks for the feedback; I'll add your suggestions to the OP. On the subject of fighters: I'm of the opinion that units that need to be micro'd in order to do the job they are explicitly meant to do is a problem and deserves a fix. If bombers are the primary problem with phase missiles, then shouldn't changing the bomber's weapon from phase missiles to plasma wave cannons neatly solve the problem with phase missiles, with no nerfs to phas

Greetings, all. With the Forbidden Worlds DLC, I've gotten back into Sins, and I'm loving it (as always). In particular, I found the jumping starbase nerf elegant. I can't help but notice that some of the old balance issues are still there. To that end, I'd like to compile a list of problems and proposed solutions. Fellow Sinners, feel free to contribute, criticize, and discuss. Prior to the roundup, I would like to state my agreement with everything in

I'm pretty sure Hard AIs do not gain any income advantage -- they just seem to spend it more effectively than we do because they have no sense of foresight or self-preservation. Human player: "I'm gonna need X soon, so I won't get Y right now," when nine times out of ten you could afford X anyway. AI player: "I don't even care, I'm just gonna research all the things, spam all the ships, and get all the planets." But what makes an AI player ultimatel

They made changes to the way the AI spends money, so now it can save money for big projects. Consequently, you can have an AI with the same general strategy as before, but now it will actually do high-level research instead of just spamming ships. =)

@Seleucia: Your point is valid and your reasoning is solid I respect you a lot and you're smarter than I am I gave you karma But I disagree . =) Advent have been kinda the butt-monkey in Sins for a while. They get shafted in economy, their LRFs can't focus fire or bypass phase missiles; all they get are good strike craft and good culture. My stance? Let them be good at this one thing. =)

@Volt: For once, I've suggested something you already implemented. I feel smarter! [e digicons]:grin:[/e] Edit: That said, I believe UM deals LESS damage than Snipe. Sins of a Solar Empire Wiki says Snipe does 1200 ----> 2600 damage, doubled by Overcharge, every 11 ----> 8 seconds. By comparison, UM does 1000 ----> 2500 damage, buffed by a maximum of 1000 ----> 3250, every 25 seconds. Even under favorable circumstances (max numb

Advent Loyalists in general, I think, need a buff; I recall seeing several posts on that subject which summed it up better than I can. If Advent Loyalists were given a more general buff, you'd have to consider a buff to Unity Mass within that context. Personally, though, I agree that Unity Mass, as an ability that is comparable to Snipe, ought to be doing comparable damage or have a secondary effect. When considering secondary effects, let's look at ab

This is an easy one, from a lore perspective. Vasari and TEC armor use a completely different tech base. TEC armor is basically a highly advanced form of the composite armor used on main battle tanks today: a macro-composite containing a mixture of ceramics, plastics, and shock dispersal media, with some exotic components thrown in to deal with all kinds of nasty weapons systems. On any given T