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Sins of a Solar Empire + Entrenchment
Lucascraft
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I will build a real OP if this thread sees any interest at all. For now I will start this thread with a few points of discussion.
*Discussion Point 1:
Is Entrenchment worth it? I realize that its only 10 dollars and isn't a huge investment. But I'll be honest. I don't play Sins a whole lot. I play it every now and again, mostly in between gaming sessions of other games that own my soul. Like WoW.
I'm curious to hear about the expansion from people who have gotten it. Some of the features sound interesting, but they also sound like they could be incredibly broken.
*Discussion Point 2:
Managing resources - As stated above, I am very casual at this game. I play it on occasion, but I certainly haven't put in the degree of time to say that I've mastered it. In fact, I would say I suck. I can take the computer quite handily on easy. But on normal I tend to get crushed by the superior number of ships of the enemy. I think my biggest problem is resource management. Balancing tech with planetary growth and ship building is my biggest area that needs improvement.
Are there online guides or resources somewhere that explain good build orders or resource management tips? This game has a lot of depth and for someone who plays it as infrequently as I do, it can be frustrating to hold 70% of the planets on a map and then get crushed by the sheer numbers of an AI fleet.
*Discussion Point 3:
Space Pirates - Do most people play with them turned on or off? I'm personally on the fence about it. On the one hand, they are a good source of EXP for my ships and can act as a wild card to make games more interesting or challenging. On the other hand, they can be incredibly irritating, especially as they gain power. Maybe my problem with them goes back to number 2 and my resource management problems. Typically I can fend off the lower tier pirate attacks no problem. But once they start ramping up their fleets, often times I end up getting molested by pirates before my true enemy even has a chance to come fight me.
Just wondering what the common consensus on pirates is, or how other people who are better at this game handle them.
*Discussion Point 1:
Is Entrenchment worth it? I realize that its only 10 dollars and isn't a huge investment. But I'll be honest. I don't play Sins a whole lot. I play it every now and again, mostly in between gaming sessions of other games that own my soul. Like WoW.
I'm curious to hear about the expansion from people who have gotten it. Some of the features sound interesting, but they also sound like they could be incredibly broken.
*Discussion Point 2:
Managing resources - As stated above, I am very casual at this game. I play it on occasion, but I certainly haven't put in the degree of time to say that I've mastered it. In fact, I would say I suck. I can take the computer quite handily on easy. But on normal I tend to get crushed by the superior number of ships of the enemy. I think my biggest problem is resource management. Balancing tech with planetary growth and ship building is my biggest area that needs improvement.
Are there online guides or resources somewhere that explain good build orders or resource management tips? This game has a lot of depth and for someone who plays it as infrequently as I do, it can be frustrating to hold 70% of the planets on a map and then get crushed by the sheer numbers of an AI fleet.
*Discussion Point 3:
Space Pirates - Do most people play with them turned on or off? I'm personally on the fence about it. On the one hand, they are a good source of EXP for my ships and can act as a wild card to make games more interesting or challenging. On the other hand, they can be incredibly irritating, especially as they gain power. Maybe my problem with them goes back to number 2 and my resource management problems. Typically I can fend off the lower tier pirate attacks no problem. But once they start ramping up their fleets, often times I end up getting molested by pirates before my true enemy even has a chance to come fight me.
Just wondering what the common consensus on pirates is, or how other people who are better at this game handle them.
Lucascraft on
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One piece of advice regarding resources is to play the black market. You'll end up with metals coming out of all your orifices if you do it right, which can then be sold, used as currency for crystal, and so on. I'm usually able to max out my fleet size by doing that- but I can tell you, just your asteroid resources are not enough. Once you get the orbital trade centers, that becomes less of an issue, but you can only build so many of those.
Thankfully, these markets don't crash (although an occasional market crash followed by a recession/depression could be a fun feature for this game).
It had a lot of really interesting and fun ideas, and I played a few fun games with my friends, but it never really meshed together for me.
Actually, I get the same feeling from the 3 race choices. None of them are particularly interesting.
TEC is just your basic human space organization with no defining traits.
Vasari seems like a Klingon ripoff race with a tad bit of reptilian thrown in.
Advent are just mildly-psychotic space bitches without any interesting features.
I completely agree...the ships look like ass and just about anyone I know could have designed entire fleets of better looking ships in a day. Why they didn't drop the money on a decent artist is beyond me.
I have sort of a spaceship obsession and the terrible looking spaceships in that game prevent me from playing.
No, it won't change the way you feel about the game, it is an evolution of the base game. Nothing dramatic changed, just some nice stuff was added.
There is no "set" build order. This isn't Starcraft or other RTS's. In fact it's not really an RTS anyway. Different avenues of research are viable; the goal isn't to get every single thing researched as soon as possible. You need to be choosy; even with resources set to "fast" it's still a slow process.
Sure, some things are more useful early on; increased resource gathering; cheaper build researches, etc. But you kind of have to upgrade as you go, choosing what you need for a given situation and not some grand "build order". It's just not how it goes.
Space pirates are sometimes fun sometimes not. I leave em on sometime turn them off others. Just depends on my mood.
For sure, in multiplayer off.
Anyway, there's already a Sins thread here:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=76500
That's fairly recent.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Basically, I'd love a sort of real-time Star Chamber. A focus on strategic thinking and careful movement would really fit the existing slow RTS gameplay. I'd love for them to move the focus towards commanding your fleet with broad but noticeably useful instruction ("Survive a long as possible", "Deal as much damage as possible", "Hurt their support ships", etc.) and a stronger focus on the strategic and 4X aspects. Really, the game should have at least single-player Dawn of War 2 level of strategy and oddly-addicting-levelling-of-random-things.
Also, though it's not an indicator of success the game won numerous GotY awards for both strategy and overall GotY. I don't know that many would agree with your assessment that it's a "really excellent idea bogged down by several regrettable parts". Sure, the game isn't perfect and there's definitely room for expansion (hence the boosters that are intended to address those aspects: defense, diplomacy, and "stealth"), but it's a solid and complete game as is and isn't lacking for fun and depth.
Comparing it to DoW(2, particularly) isn't really valid as they're not even the same type of game at all. While it's not the most in-depth 4X game, it's above and beyond your average RTS. And definitely far more in-depth than a squad-focused RTS.
I dunno, honestly it seems like what you're looking for is a game that isn't at all Sins. Changing it to meet that would create a completely different game altogether.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
People who thought it was a 4x.
People who thought it was an RTS.
only the Vasari can move their starbases
Don't forget those that don't like either sort of game.
What's that, I'm about to attack? Well look at that the bounty on the people I'm about to attack just went up. Oh and I'll fire the culture cannon at them. And then attack. Now they're demoralized, attacked from two sides, and all in all the attack added maybe another 500 credits to the cost.
Well because it's an open bounty and the pirates are just follow it. Like, if someone puts a bounty on their teammate so they have less heat, and I attack the teammate, I'll get the bounty. Or at least that's how I've always assumed the system works, I've never watched the credit totals specifically for payment on destroying an opposing ship. Either way, it's sort of like "Hey, someone's offering a bounty on x race" and pirates are just all "MONEY LET'S GET IT"
While I can't speak for TEC since I rarely play them; both Vasari and Advent starbases can move within a well.
I would assume this also means TEC can move theirs.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
You'll probably end up spending a little extra money if you get them all individually. Then again, if you really like the game, I guess it is worth it.
All Entrenchment really does is make defensive gameplay viable without a large number of highly mobile fleets, a flaw that was present in the original game, since the defensive structures were shit-all useless. It's a bit like paying for a crucial patch, really.
Maybe I'm just a fucking retard but I never could figure out how to move the Advent starbase around. Instructions please?
http://warlords.swrebellion.com/wp/
This dude did the Homeworld 2 Star Wars mod. I'm doing some icon work for him. The mod doesn't support 1.15 of Sins yet but that should be out very soon. I hope to have some icons for him by 1.16.
(and don't go "oooo your a modder?! Sonar did the Warlords mod!" The shit I'm doing is minor to the extreme, basic grunt work - Eviljedi is the man.)
caffron said: "and cat pee is not a laughing matter"
That said is there really a SW mod that works now? Last time I saw it the thing wasn't quite finished yet, need to take a further look at that. The before mentioned BSG mod is an awesome idea, I tend to name both first capital ships Galactica and Pegasus with the others being Enterprise etc.
Yeah I'm a geek.
http://www.moddb.com/mods?filter=t&kw=&released=def&style=def&theme=def&game=288&type=def
The star wars mod is Sins of a Galactic Empire
The mod to watch however is Dawn of Victory
I think there is a Battlestar mod in the works but I haven't heard from it in awhile.
If you really want the skinny you can always hit up the official Sins site forums which are very active with mod news.
Or I start saying mean things.
caffron said: "and cat pee is not a laughing matter"
Holyyyyy sheeet. I don't own Sins yet, but how polished is that mod? I may well need to buy it just to play with star destroyers...
edit - ok I jumped the gun a bit, I thought that was a Sins mod
Look again.
It IS a mod for Sins. He also does the mod for Homeworld 2. Both. Look at the screen shot link!
I've played it! I work on it! It exists! *foams at mouth*
caffron said: "and cat pee is not a laughing matter"
Seems that happens with certain mods while others have no issues.
I had a look on Google and found no mention of a Mac version.
Nintendo Switch friend code: SW-4012-4821-3053
Oh, too bad. It must have just been a rumor somewhere.
Other than that, the game is fucking glorious.
Nintendo Switch friend code: SW-4012-4821-3053
They can. Have you zoomed in during a battle? You can also command them to move out of the plane, but I forget what that's bound to.
Point 2: My biggest suggestion is to become familiar with how "upkeep" and "taxes" work. Since each of them work as percentage drain on what you gain, be it creds/cyrstal/metal, you lose some each second. The trick is to balance your needs.
I'll go into more indepth if what I'm saying isn't too clear. A quick summary is that I upgrade my planets to lose the penalty as fast as possible, only up my pop cap when needed (this is where the greatest drain will come from as it is constant and only gets higher as your pop cap goes up), and research the techs that upgrade my collection as I can. Also, refineries, refineries, refineries.
Point 3: I will generally leave them on. I haven't played online lately, but for a single player game, I'll leave them on. I like them. Neat idea and an additional tool.