Refineries are incredibly profitable when built in the right spot, they shouldn't be buffed. If you are constantly having to buy resources, they are a good investment if the game isn't going to be over in the next half-hour. I think a tiny nerf to trade is a good idea. Every trade port after the first in a gravwell should have some diminishing returns so by the time you have built the 8th tradeport at that desert, it is only half as profitable as the first one you
I don't mind digital distribution, I just don't like being required to authenticate to Steam to launch my games. I liked the Impulse model of doing things where I could launch Impulse to download, patch, and shop. I realize at some point we'll all be gaming from programs residing in "the cloud", but I choose to spend my dollars on the options that give me the most control.
Netflix is still a pretty good deal, assuming you watch several movies a month. When they started, they got very favorable licensing deals that allowed them to grow and be profitable, but now that streaming content is getting more popular, the movie studios want MUCH more money to renew contracts for content licensing. Netflix needs to make more money to compete with companies that have huge cash reserves like Google who could usurp them overnight if they outbid them for licensing
Ogrovs are very powerful, yes....but they require you to dedicate a lot of fleet supply to a unit that is useless for anything but killing structures. If Ogrovs ever got nerfed, players would not find enough justification to make them instead of some multipurpose frigate that can contribute to fleet fights. You have to have a healthy economy to field a sizable force of Ogrovs. They are great for cracking heavily defended worlds, but they tend to die pretty fast as w
A lot of great games have been mentioned, but there are two I didn't see yet that were incredible groundbreaking games for their time: Starflight Pirates Pirates was a completely open world for you to explore while Starflight had an underlying quest to be solved, but you had to fly around the galaxy to find clues as to where to go. Other games that were really groundbreaking for me were: Ultima IV Civilization (I currently still love Civ IV
I tried the game out for a week. It has a lot of potential, but the balance doesn't seem right. I noticed a lot of the matches were determined by one side having more heavies, or having a really skilled artillery. The game also gets very grindy after you have unlocked the first few tanks. While the medium tanks are more maneuverable than the heavies, their maneuverability isn't so great that they can avoid being hit. I once shot a heavy tank 9 times
[quote]Those refinery threads are very interesting. I have rarely used them due to the community's consensus that they arn't worth it... however those figures showed something else (in certain circumstances). Cykur, you seem to have looked at this in depth, how many mines does it take for you to consider a refinery? (Assuming mid-sized game, longer than 2 hours, where refinery tech is already researched, i.e. no tech amortization).[/quote] Yeah, I've been def
[quote]... Cykur could you pm me how to effectively use Refineries? I have a feeling that I have been doing it all wrong. [/quote] Here are some old threads discussing refinery cost effectiveness. https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/361782 https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/306945
[quote]A simple cost reduction would put refineries in line I'd say...[/quote] They cost more because of how much more profitable they can be when well placed around 10+ extractors. A tradeport can only compete with them when the trade chain is very long ... like a 20+ chain.
Refineries can be tremendously profitable if you build them in the right spot. They are meant to complement trade ports, not replace them as a choice. You are correct about Resource Focus not usually being worth it.
[quote]I agree but if perfect balance was unattainable then I would rather have fighters be more dominant then bombers and lrf. [/quote] This was the state of things when Entrenchment launched (I think it was 1.10 for Vanilla, but I don't remember exactly). I actually liked this balance version a lot because strikecraft kept LRM in check and then LF became viable against carrier cruisers (because there wasn't as much LRM to destroy them), and bom
[quote]I can't play during the week due to work, but I do show up on the weekends. What time do you usually play? Maybe we can have a game tomorrow.[/quote] I don't usually play, I haven't played since the fall when I was testing out a map -- I don't really have a set time when I'll be on. I thought people had migrated to the beta server, so I updated my install to the beta vers. Didn't realize they were still playing regular 1.19. Oh well....
Just as a sidenote, is anyone actually playing this version online? I have logged in a couple times this last week -- the version shows as Diplomacy v1.19a -- and there are usually 0-2 other people on besides myself. Is everyone still playing regular 1.19?
[quote]TECs late game ability is easily replaceable fleet. Unlimited cash and fast building ships means no amount of special abilities can stop you. Trust me, it works. I tend to think that such overwhelming numbers indicate you've already got the game locked down on economic grounds. If Advent or Vasari are keeping step, your numerical advantage will not be so great. Ultimately this is subjective, but we're in agreement that TEC need to maintain an economic and numer
[quote]I've been thinking on this for the past few days, and I think the final shield upgrade for Advent (the one that offers +2/+2 mitigation) should also offer phase missile block chance. At this point in the game, PM's are hitting Advent easily for twice as much damage as they are TEC, if not far more. We'll never get late-game Advent in-line against both factions under these circumstances, so making this upgrade effective in all matchups by making it reduce PM effectiveness would be a g
[quote]PS: If you need 8-9 kosturas to accomplish something then you cannot even include it on a list of awesomeness. The only true strength of a Kostura is the opening of a temporary phase lane to the target - and even then - you need a level 6+ Marauder to really make the best use of it, or your fleet just gets stranded and forced to fight it's way through everything or take a nasty hit phasing away from a star base (or three). Or you can have fun abandoning a baby Orkulus on your enemy's d
I made a map of our own solar system one time using colonizable asteroids for the mid sized moons and ice planets for some of the bigger moons orbiting the gas giants. Guess what, our own solar system has a ton of gravwells when made into a Sins map. Some solar systems may have almost no planets, some probably have hundreds, counting large moons. You can also make maps with many star systems if you choose, the custom map generator lets you do that.
[quote]True you can disable but that effect wears down very quick and if you have proper defenses it doesn't really make a difference.[/quote] It wears off very quickly on ships and starbases, but it disables structures for a while, something like 3 minutes I think. I will take 1 Kostura any day. When you coincide a Kostura strike with a fleet attack, you disable all of the enemy turrets, repair bays, and hangars, not to mention local factories. Havin
[quote]1 kosutra per planet warhead other than opening phase line has no real effect and it's useless. [/quote] Not true, using a Kostura before you attack a gravwell is huge since it shuts down all the orbital structures. (excluding starbases) You can also use it to disable factories & cannons in other gravwells. Very useful.
Not to interject myself too much in the rampant flaming, but I just want to clarify on the Kostura "scuttling" defense: the situation where this is useful is when the Vasari player is running you ragged with 5-6 Kosturas trying to whack-a-mole your fleet to death so you can't mass it to fight. The Vasari goal is to kill, split up, or seriously damage your fleet at which point the Vasari fleet will sally forth from a fortified world to finish the job. In this situation, you c
And a comment on the world scuttling. You don't really want to scuttle one of your core worlds, but your fleet should be on the periphery anyhow. The economic value of a periphery world is negligible compared to the value of your fleet.
[quote]As long as that trade disrupt duration isnt too long, I believe the Novalith is pretty in line with the Kostura now (which can still freeze star bases and allow for travel to any planet in a star system). [/quote] The Kostura can't freeze starbases.
Just to reiterate, I think the Kostura nerf is good. I am a bit concerned about the Novalith buff...how long does the trade disruption last? I think the Advent Supercannon needs a bit of love too. I think trade disruption or maybe even stealing a % of trade income would be more appropriate for the Advent cannon and give TEC something else. Just my thoughts.
It is true most people defer first pick because they don't want the worst player on their team. The other reason people defer is because when you are doing organized smurfing where all the smurfs are on vent, it allows a pretty good chance for the smurfing team to grab the players they want because the guy with first pick will go for known players. The guy with 2nd pick can grab known smurfs in his first round and then grab the unknown smurfs in the last round leaving the known wo
