wow
no kol???
and what are the akkans for if you have phase inhibitors?
and what are the dunnovs for if you have lots of repair platforms?
also marzas couldnt chase jabba the hutt, and their weapons are ALL forward firing. making them near useless in a coordinated defense against a moderatly smart human player (jus go around them) who has good reason to just run through your defenses to your core worlds (for the noviliths of course)

...

how many times have you done this in mp and been victoriuos?
jus curious...

Send me a pm so you can organize a time when i will pwn you with tec.

Dunovs can heal 1k shield at a time at maxed shield heal I also agree with the Akkans cause of that 22% or so Range on weapons it gives you can sit them with LRM fleets and long range fleets and sit behind planet defensese and just beat the crap outta anything that comes in and have Marzas in the front to nuke the massess

@ adama
I'd love to play you. I'll pm you later today as I am working now. You still seem to miss the point. The TEC factions way of over coming the more advanced factions is suppose to be super strong eco and a higher achievable military output. The Vasari can actually have a stronger eco. and a higher achievable military output. The Advent have so many off the scale abilities it doesn't matter if they shot bb's. They would be tough to beat.
After playing all three factions extensively. I believe the Tec needs something. I do not believe the other races should be nerfed. I have no idea what it needs though.

I haven't played much vasari at all, but you're going to have to explain to me how they have a higher eco...

I guess the way the upgrades work it comes out better I only noticed this in 1.05. Test it yourself dont take my word.

But the game is so much more interesting and challenging playing with and against real human opponents online and you can chat with other people and enjoy using teamwork. Once you start playing it online you probably won't want to play it offline again.

All of the races have their advantages and disadvantages, strengths and weaknesses. The TEC get the Novalith cannon (by far the most powerful and most useful of the three super cannons) and they can rush the enemy better than any of the other races in the game.

In an online game I choose my race based on my expectation of what the game will be like and I will choose from all three races depending on the situation.

Will there be early, close combat or will I be safely tucked away so that I can play Sim City in Space for a while or will it be somewhere in between? How big is the map and how many other people are playing and what races are they picking?

Those are some of the factors that I take into consideration.

I think TEC could use some help. Repulsion is a bit over powered. CB/Malice is like OMG ! WTF ! the first time you see it used on your fleet. But they're not totally helpless.

TEC may not have some of the ultra killer direct weapons, but they have two very nice INDIRECT weapons. Mercenaries. Hire the pirates, you have tons of cash, use it. And get Insurgency. Neither the pirates or insurgency is able to knock an opponent out by itself. But with pirate attacks, max'd insurgency, AND your fleet, it's a long slow grind. The attrition of three factions kills when you have it all working. Toss in a Novalith or two and it's a major headache for any opponent. Usually, I never get to Novaliths.

TECs economy IS the weapon of choice. Loose a fleet ? BUY a new one. Build it with your 7 frigate factories. Do it while you enemies are fighting off the annoying pirate raids and insurgents. At the very least, it's enemy ships that won't be on the front lines when you roll in. Loose a cap ship ? BUY some levels for the new one.

Everyone talks about RA. RA is nice, but so is Insurgency. Both get you free ships. TEC just can't control the insurgents ( or scuttle them for credits which should be stopped, IMO ).

One thing I'd like to see, especially as TEC, is a mod to the black market. How about limited amounts of metal/crystal on the market, with a slow build back up ? TEC could buy it all ( corner the market ), and keep others from gaining access.

I'd just wait for the Marza's lvl6 missile ability to be fixed, which does 3000 damage to every target in range (spread over 25 seconds). Sure, the enemy fleet just can move out of the range - but if they don't, small things tend to die around the Marza

@Dread44
The Marza's ability has never worked as of yet

That will make a big difference in SP vs. comps, yeah.

It's not nearly as significant in multiplayer though. Unlike Malice/CB or Nanites that only require an small time frame for instant application, the barrage is a channel over time and susceptible to cap ship disables.

Actually, it's more of a time issue. It takes a while to play even a "short" game of Sins, and with my work schedule I just can't get the time. I've only played a handful of games mp (acquitted myself quite well. IIRC, my ICO record is three wins one loss) because of this.

I half agree. TEC does need something, but a few nerfs here and there might not be a bad idea. I think the Subverter's area effect stun should have a cap on how many ships it can effect. Given that it only takes 5 supply and doesn't cost a whole lot more than a Hoshiko, it's capability in terms of cost is sky high. If it was capped at 6 or 8 ships I think that would still make it one of the Vasari's more powerful weapons without it being OP.

I've actually been working on a mod for about a month that tries to re balance the factions. One of the solutions I'm coming up with is a buff of light frigates. LRFs still smoke them pretty bad in a straight up fight, but I'm increasing their lifespan in a fight. Long enough that they can do some damage to hostile support cruisers before they are destroyed. I also made the Dunovs EMP charge more useful by removing the restriction that the Dunov had to be facing its target.

The problem, of course, is that I don't have the time to playtest it MP, so I'm not sure I've got the balance right.

TEC is fine what they need is nerfs in 1.1 they are overpowered in the beginning. Vasari need buffs in the beginning before they nerf RA because without RA Vasari sucks really badly. Vasari can't hold its own most of the time vs TEC early game till Vasari gets RA to stand a chance. Now I do think TEC do need slight buffs late game but early game they are very cheap. I do quite a few MP games but I am still new only had the game for now 2 weeks. I know that most players that play this game are TEC so thats why you guys think they need buffs all YOU have to do is kill Vasari early game don't let them tech to RA and you will see that you will beat vasari most of the time. Plus TEC is the fastest at colonizing that I have ever seen.

Now advent on the other hand the only thing that should be nerf on their side is replusion it needs a cooldown of some sort. Now I know I am going to get flame for saying that TEC NEEDS nerfs EARLY GAME/BUFFS LATE GAME.

Vas can't hold it's own vs TEC early on without RA? Sounds like someone's a little lost in the SP world.

Go ahead and PM me on MP for a nice 1v1 you TEC and me Vas. We'll see who is worthless early on.

What I'd love to have for the TEC are a bit of "non-conservative" units and abilities.

For example the support units. They do their job well, but you've seen their abilities in about every strategy game. Not as creative as the Vasari/Advent units which can slow down enemy phase jumps, take over frigates or stun ships.

I know what needs to be done. The Hoshiko needs its repair ability to be AOE.

This game just doesn't scream 'online MP'. I can see playing with a friend or two against a bunch of AI's, but the crashing issues and time commitment makes playing with strangers unappealing for me. From what I've heard, small map 1v1 just ends up as one unit spam 9 times out of 10, which doesn't appeal to me at all. I do play RTS's competitively online, but Sins just seems better suited for SP or LAN sessions.

Maybe if 1.1 fixes up the balance, and opens up some real tactics and strategy beyond spam, I will consider trying some competitive play online.

There are eight million reasons I don't play MP. This has been one of them. (Apologies to The Naked City, for most of those here who are not, ahen, of a certain age.)

Why would that be a reason not to play online multiplayer? You really have no idea what you're missing. The difference in the amount of challenge that you face playing against a human intelligence as opposed to dumb, unimaginative AI is huge.

This is exactly the attitude that pisses me off--and its displayed by almost every MP supporter here. People who are only, or primarily, interested in SP are either lying or too stupid to know what we lke. (And speaking of which, since subtlty seems to elude you, the reference in my previous ost was to the taunting "come play me online and we'll see who's worhtless." Just the type of crap I wish to avoid. I always play PVE in MMOs for the same reasons.) Ok, here's the short version of why I don't play online, which is largely twofold.

First, online play would largely negate what I find enjoyable about Sins. While I have tried many RTS games (including Starcraft, Warcraft, RoN, RoL, Dawn of War, all the AoE games), it is not a genre that I particularly enjoy. I neither like nor, frankly, am particularly good at the frantic clickfests that make up most RTS games. My favorite genres are traditional RPGs (Wizardry, M&M, BG, Morrowind--but not Oblivion) and TBS (Civ, GalCiv, HoMM, Disciples, AoW, Paradox games--which are much more akin to TBS though billed as real time). I enjoy building and micromanaging my empire and take considerable time considering my next moves. I invariabley play a turtle/development game and combat is my least favorite aspect of these games. Sins is billed as a 4X/RTS hybrid and I enjoy the 4X aspects more than the RTS aspects (though as a SF fan for more than 40 years, I do get a kick watching the battles). I always play the game at the slowest possible speed and probably spend as much, or more, time paused as otherwise while I contemplate my actions. Online play would emphasize the very aspects of Sins that I least enjoy--fast and frantic play emphasizing combat and rushes far more than development.

Second, I do find the game enjoyable against the AI and I have no desire to put up with the macho BS inherent in MP, nor do I wish to min/max every little aspect of the game in order to be competitive. I remember one particulary obnoxious MPer, arguing for more action/RTS oriented play in an MMO forum, proudly recounting how many hundreds (or was it thousands?) clicks per second he could maintain in competitive online RTS play. I am quite willing to understand that this may be fun for you, why can't you understand that it is not fun for me?

clicks per second means jack and shit, and jack left town. It's all about your overall strategy and your ability to manage a fledgling empire successfully from many different aspects. You have to manage a starting economy in order to fund your wave of impending doom, you have to manage early conquest to help with the economy, you have to successfully manage the comissioning of many ships to help destroy your opponents... etc.

This isn't Tekken. You don't win by clicking super fast and hitting the right combo. If you scouted your opponent and built your fleet according to his fleet structure, then you have the clear upper hand. If you don't push your advantage though, and instead choose to sit idle, your opponent may take more planets and expand his empire in such a way to surpass your superior forces through sheer numbers.


I can understand the time constraints issues, but half of your stated reasons for not liking MP play are as useful as a gas planet with no roids. If you don't want to play online, no one is forcing you to do so, but you really can't enjoy a game in all it's wonderfully detailed complexity without subjecting yourself to an arena where a ship or two may be the difference between a lost and a won match.


and for heaven's sake, keep those sweeping comments to yourself. Macho online BS? Half the people I've even been in the same lobby with have made comments to the effect of how surprisingly nice people are online. Sure, like everywhere in the world there are assholes, but a majority of online players are very respectful and happy to help with any game related question you may have. I, myself, will spend 20-30 min. after a match talking with the player our team crushed, explaining little game subtleties to him so that he may compete better the next time around.

I'm an online savvy player, and have played my fair share of online games (of every genre) as well as single-player games. There are particular reasons as to why I really stopped playing online (which are completely reversible by some patch changes).

First and foremost, in order to win an online game of Sins you have to employ a monotonous strategy in order to win. This means rushing to tech to certain units and technologies because they are superior choices to anything else in the game. There are way too many ways in this game to fail online such as simply choosing to build a balanced force containing a supposed balanced selection of units that fails against spammed LRM frigates. It really limits the playability of the game online because you will always see the same thing, and then have to do the same thing every time in order to counter it. Because of this, I'd rather play against the AI because I can build a balanced, self-supporting force and go up against the AI's equally balanced and self-supporting force. Not face incredibly mind-numbing "insert ship class here" spam. I mean come on, its not even really considered competitively valid to build light frigates anymore, just goes to show how stuffed up some of the game's balance is.

The second reason is due to time constraints. Online games just take too long to finish and its too much of a commitment to see one to the end.

@Phazon88
Sounds like you have given up. The game is amazingly balanced. If you can't counter any spam with a balance fleet your pretty re re if your the savvy player you claim to be. Now I think your problem maybe the idea of balanced. Balance flt is the flt that wins.That involves countering what the enemy is building. Not just building what you want too. Thats just as true vs ai. Some spams are tough to beat but their all beatable given good scouting and proper map strategy. If you want to lose build xx cobalts,xx lrms, xx blah blah blah, you get the point.