Not at this moment. I sometimes play on weekends with friends, but between my job and my other hobbies and games I just haven't had the time to get back into Sins multiplayer. I intend to return for Rebellion, though :-)
Hoshikos and Overseers are [i]great[/i] picks since you can use them to heal up your capital ships. An enemy Advent's guardians are also great targets; nothing like using repulse right in the middle of the enemy's fleet.
LRF will only beat heavy cruisers if you have support cruisers to disable the heavies, which is really more a matter of the support cruisers countering the heavy cruisers and the LRF are just bringing the firepower to the party. In a straight shootout with relatively similar fleet size, heavies will win rather handily against LRF.
Not pathing through the pirate base is the big one, and to be honest the only one I think will get changed. The other problem is that two scouts will not auto-explore to the same planet, so if you have only three unexplored planets visible and four scouts on auto-explore, one will backtrack to the planet that was explored longest ago... which is likely to be a dead end behind the homeworld.
[quote]Also, if I got the first two points of the TEC laser upgrade, would that increase the efficiency of Cobalts to Arcovas[/quote] The ratio of their performance remains the same. Damage(Cobalt)/Damage(Arcova) == Damage(Cobalt)*1.1/Damage(Arcova)*1.1 Either way a single Cobalt deals 40% more damage than an Arcova. However, a single cobalt costs 2.5 times more than an Arcova (give or take depending on your metal:credit conversion rate) so the Arcova ends up dea
[quote]I tried scouts. I have to build like 8 of them to get anywhere. ... Building a turret is somewhat wasteful, IMO. Everyone's strategy should be different. This is a difference between our strategies.[/quote] The key difference between these strategies is speed. Using scouts, you can clear the relevant militia units - namely Krosovs and Javelis - very quickly and set up your turret. Once the Javelis/Krosovs are dead and the turret is down, you can leave
Okay, first things first: if you're playing below faster or without quick-start, then fast trade is seldom worth your time. Unless the map gimps you and leaves you with few initial expansion targets, you'll almost always get more value of rapid expansion and spending your limited gold on trade just isn't a good choice. On faster game speed, it's entirely possible to have your cake and eat it, too. It's possible to colonize in two directions simult
[quote]You could try focusing more on Crusaders mid-late game ... but if the enemy counters with bombers...[/quote] This is still much better than the problems that LRF pose to early Advent. Use TK push to cover your approach to the enemy fleet, use the destras to clean up LRF, and swamp the carriers with disciples. Throw in guardians with repulsion to cut off retreats and some other capital ship abilities tailored to the enemy fleet composition and you're in a good po
[quote]Even u have to admit darvin once u survive and mature an advent fleet it becomes really fun to play. [/quote] No doubt, but in a competitive match the "once you survive" part is the tricky bit. [quote]I'm with you in that the optimal TEC strategy is basically to get trade ports and then to spam as many (proper countering) units as possible... which doesn't "feel" as nice as gaining the advantage through using the special abilities of Advent and Vasari.[/qu
[quote]What u gonna do, send your 100 javelis against is 240 units or so with malice?[/quote] If the TEC player has only 100 Javelis to your 240 seeker/disciples, then he's not very good. Javelis are very cost-effective units, and a good TEC player will have no difficulty keeping up with your fleet size. If this is a close-range battle, he'll have the Sova which will add considerable combat value, and if it's a long-range scenario he should be able to capitaliz
[quote]The advise about vassari colonizing quickly seems at odds with the rule of thumb that you shouldn't expand too quickly. Sounds like I am doing something wrong.[/quote] If we're talking about pure economics, then yes you want to expand as fast as you can. If you're in a position where you'll have to fight early, then you'll have to temper yourself. If you're trying to compete with an opponent who is spamming early trade ports and you can
[QUOTE]Personally there's 2 best races in-game: Vasari and Advent. They can both fight the tec and win.[/QUOTE] In the hands of an expert on a reasonably balanced map, TEC is definitely the strongest faction in the current version. The reason is their [i]wicked[/i] rush-game that builds into a solid economic mid-game. Most TEC players will never allow you to reach your late-game, and if you do make it to the mid-game you're probably at a significant economic
[quote]All you need (as far as I've found out ... correct me I'm wrong) is to build the appropriate number of research facilities and satisfy the prerequisites to what you want. I was wasting a lot of money on research I did not even need.[/quote] You got it. Sounds like you're on the path to success.
[quote]bombers are just small fast ships but if you get a swarm of them, they can be trouble.[/quote] Small, fast, and high damage. They're either the highest or second-highest overall damage dealer on a per-command basis, depending on which faction we're talking about.
The always-online thing is a deal-breaker for me. I won't be playing Diablo 3. The auction-house system comes as no surprise; I've been anticipating them to announce such a system. Blizzard always had a love/hate relationship with cheaters in Diablo 2; on the one hand they gave the game a shady and unscrupulous dark side, but on the other hand these were some of their best customers, loyally repurchasing the game after every "mass ban" (which were always infrequent
[quote]You should be able to get some of the bombers to hit at the same tick, but not all will...[/quote] Considering you're looking at an effective quadruple damage from the ones that do hit on the same tick, you don't need too many to have a significant impact.
[quote]I guess titans will probably have enormous ranges, so LRF will probably be in range[/quote] I'm not too worried on this one. LRF cannot attack while kiting, so even if they do outrange the titan significantly it should still be able to close the distance pretty quickly. [quote]Capitals and starbases just pop in that first pass.[/quote] The problem is that if multiple strike craft hit simultaneously, their damage is applied and then mitigation is adj
Sins of a Solar Empire combines a slowed down version of typical RTS combat (most similar in principle to Warcraft III) with a more streamlined empire building economy similar to a typical TBS game. It comes across as a fine hybrid, adopting many of the strengths of both RTS and TBS styled games. Depending on where you stand on those issues this could be a good or a bad thing. The reflex aspect of micromanagement typified by games like Starcraft isn't present, but the mu
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I've heard of this one before, but have never experienced it personally. I suspect it's a bug.
I'm always a sucker for the underdogs. In the current version, that's Advent.
[quote]I'd personally like to see everything (well maybe not fighters, but almost everything) deal base damage to a titan.[/quote] This is pretty much what capital-type armor already is: Anti-very-light (flak) : 25% Anti-light (fighter) : 50% Anti-medium (LRF): 75% Anti-heavy (LF): 50% Anti-very-heavy (bomber): 60% Composite (HC): 75% Capital Ship: 100% The only ones that stick out are the light frigate (which is too fast a unit to buf
Early-game is going to be your biggest problem as Advent, and there's no easy way around it. Always remember the age-old fallback: hit them with the biggest stone you can find. Sometimes sheer brute force in the right time and place can overcome your faction's disadvantages and give you the position you need to pull off a win. The key to that is going to be good intel, good prep-work, and keeping your options open.
Gameplay-wise, anything more than 20 planets per player (that's 200 planets total for a 10 player scenario) doesn't play very well. The vast majority of your time will be spent covering ground, either before you meet the enemy or after they're defeated with no hope of recovery. You can always create such maps using GalaxyForge, but I've always found that the ideal map size is in the range of 5-15 planets per player.
To be fair, if the AI builds that many adjudicators it's crippled its fleet to do so. If you're playing against cruel or vicious, the this is the challenge you're asking for. If you're playing against unfair or below, you should be able to smack them down easily at this point because they've completely sacrificed their frigate-based fleet.
[QUOTE]My first impression after seeing impact load: I have to install a piece of spy ware to get updates?[/QUOTE] Impulse is significantly better than most of the digital distribution platforms out there right now. You don't need to have it running to play the game, so you only need to run it when you need to update and can keep it off the rest of the time. I agree it's annoying when an application decides that it should run at start-up, but Impulse at least has
