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Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment v1.03 Change Log

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Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment v1.03 Change Log

from Sins Forums

Next week we're planning to release the v1.03 update for Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment.  In keeping with all the Entrenchment goodness, v1.03 will only be available via Impulse (http://www.impulsedriven.com) to registered customers.

WARNING:  THIS UPDATE MAY INVALIDATE EXISTING SAVE GAMES.

  • Gameplay / Balance -
    • All race's carrier cruiser's max speed reduced from 500 to 450.
    • Carrier's squadron buildrate penalty with enemy units in the gravity well reduced from 25% to 15%.
    • Fixed a bug in the pathfinder that caused it to favor sub-optimal paths for between system travel.
    • Fixed incorrect start conditions on Double Cross map.
    • Tweaked the equation for damage reduction so that it is more stable for large negative armor values.
    • Magnetic Cloud orbit bodies now disable all abilities, not just those requiring antimatter.
    • Marza Dreadnought:
      • Missile Barrage number of waves increased from 20 to 25.
      • Missile Barrage damage per wave reduced from 150 to 120.
      • Missile Barrage missile travel effect made unique from its normal missile weapon's effect.
    • Transcencia Starbase:
      • Final Judgement rebalanced so that it applies its damage more evenly between activations so that planets have less opportunity to rebuild infrastructure while this ability is cooling down.
      • Final Judgement antimatter cost reduced from 200 to 150
      • Final Judgement cooldown reduced from 120 to 60
      • Final Judgement meteor strikes increased from 3/6 to 4/8
      • Final Judgement meteor strikes frequency reduced from every 3 secs to every 5 secs
      • Final Judgement bombing damage reduced from 300 to 120
      • Final Judgement population killed reduced from 40 to 15
      • Fixed incorrect range values for Final Judgement level 2.
      • Meteor Storm target area of effect reduced from 4000/6000 to 4000/5000
    • Fixed a bug in the AI that caused too few anti-structure ships to be built when preparing to attack enemy starbases.
  • Graphics and Effects -
    • Marza Missile Barrage missile travel effect made unique from its normal missile weapon's effect.
  • Networking / Multiplayer -
    • Fixed a bug where extra gaps could be added between lines of text in multiplayer chat.
    • Fixed missing multiplayer chat characters with some non-English languages.
    • Fixed not being able to create ICO account and player names with certain non-English characters.
    • Fixed a bug that could cause the ICO lobby to disappear.
  • User Interface / HUD -
    • Income summaries no longer overflow in such a way that per planet elements are mis-rendered.
    • Fixed some bad zooming behavior when you try and get too close (especially on small entities like fighters).
    • Fixed a bug where you couldn't zoom in past a certain distance despite changes to the zoom scalar for the given entity. The minimum distance is still restricted to the entity's radius or 20m for objects will spatial extents (e.g. debris).
    • Starbase upgrades can now be queued from starbases that are under construction.
  • Modding -
    • Fixed zoom scaling bug (see above).
    • Option to disable shield rendering per entity.
  • Misc. -
    • Fixed a rare crash bug caused by Jump Degradation ability of Overseer cruisers.
    • Fixed a rare sync error caused by loading differences between FAT32 and NTFS file systems.
394,849 views 128 replies
Reply #51 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 12
They are plenty balanced. The difference is how people play. Fleets don't get maxed out in typical MP games. But try to deal with 100+ bombers/fighters without a few Flak Bursts from Kols, and try keeping your level 10 capitals alive in the end-game without Dunov's shield restore.

The vast majority of the existing capital abilities have a good use, just that some don't come into play because people play short games.

But what of Vasari?  I play big single player games like you and there is only 3 caps I would say are deffinates.  The Egg, you can never have too many.  The Seige cap because of how it is the ultimate vs a Star Base and for clearing up planets and the Carrier cap for obvious healing + strike craft boost.

But why bother with the Marauder?  If I have about 5 caps already sometime I might get a Marauder to get a speed boost for my fleet, but if I use the level 6 ability of it once in a game that's more than I expect to.  I often don't bother with the fleet speed boost, I'd rather just have another Desolator or Evacuator.

And what of the Battleship?  If you are going to say the strike craft silence is so amazing then you just wasted most of the caps dps and tanking ability aswell because you don't have enough anti matter for Power Surge and the Silence ability.  And the level 6 ability?  Well I'd rather have Nano Disassembler, you get tons more damage out of it considering how cheap it is and it's short cool down.  I do get one more than I do a Marauder but I just wish it was better at it's job, I wish there might be a reason that more than 1 of them would be useful.

Currently a Vasari cap combination (for 1 fleet*) consists of

(unlimited) Space Eggs

below is optional, more necessary on big games

(unlimited) Desolators but no need to get more than you have Space Eggs

(1) Carrier

below even in a big game it barely matters to get them

(optional 1) Battleship

(I'm mopping up so who cares now, I'll take one just for fun) Marauder

*With Vasari I tend to have 1 offencive fleet and 1 or more non cap defencive fleets that supports my Star Bases.

Reply #52 from Sins Forums Top

But why bother with the Marauder?

Well, if you don't bother with the speed boost then it's more about your playing style than the usefulness of the ability, isn't it? I always have a Marauder for the speed boost, because it easily lets you catch up to a fleet that's trying to jump out so you can nuke it with a Grav Warhead from your egg and rip it to shreds. Not to mention it makes your fleet PJI-immune in case you got in a bit over your head and need to get out quickly. And its ultimate is very useful for getting reinforcements, since ships built out of a factory will fly to it directly.

And what of the Battleship?  If you are going to say the strike craft silence is so amazing then you just wasted most of the caps dps and tanking ability aswell because you don't have enough anti matter for Power Surge and the Silence ability.  And the level 6 ability?  Well I'd rather have Nano Disassembler, you get tons more damage out of it considering how cheap it is and it's short cool down.  I do get one more than I do a Marauder but I just wish it was better at it's job, I wish there might be a reason that more than 1 of them would be useful.

Disruptive Strikes is passive, and Volatile Nanites is extremely amazing. It lasts for a minute, makes ships take more damage, and every time an affected ship is destroyed it does 150 damage to every enemy ship within a range of 1000. It only takes a few light frigates or LRFs blowing up to start a chain reaction that's pretty hard to stop. Nano Disassembler is a single target shield bypasser, not an AOE ability.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #53 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 2
Well, if you don't bother with the speed boost then it's more about your playing style than the usefulness of the ability, isn't it? I always have a Marauder for the speed boost, because it easily lets you catch up to a fleet that's trying to jump out so you can nuke it with a Grav Warhead from your egg and rip it to shreds.

Perhaps, if I'm outvoted on this I'm willing to concede I must just not 'get' the ship or something, but I don't see how it's more useful than any other cap.

If you have Gravity Warhead when do you ever get a situation where you need a speed boost to catch them though?


Quoting Annatar11, reply 2
Disruptive Strikes is passive, and Volatile Nanites is extremely amazing. It lasts for a minute, makes ships take more damage, and every time an affected ship is destroyed it does 150 damage to every enemy ship within a range of 1000. It only takes a few light frigates or LRFs blowing up to start a chain reaction that's pretty hard to stop. Nano Disassembler is a single target shield bypasser, not an AOE ability.

Disruptive Strikes is close to worthless, it doesn't do enough to make any real effect.

Volatile Nanites amazing?  I've used that ability tons of times, used it in combination with the Egg's nom nom, used it on a Gravity Warhead stuck fleeing group and all times I've never thought it was amazing, it was kind...OK at best.  You need to save AM for it too, it's pretty expensive.  The reason Nano is so much better is the Egg can do Nano nom nom all day long it's so cheap on AM and the CD is so short you can be targeting ship after ship after ship for destruction while you are fighting.  Nanites has a massive CD, it just wont have anywhere near as good an effect in the length of a battle.

Reply #54 from Sins Forums Top

The reason Nano is so much better is the Egg can do Nano nom nom all day long it's so cheap on AM and the CD is so short you can be targeting ship after ship after ship for destruction while you are fighting.

If you have Gravity Warhead when do you ever get a situation where you need a speed boost to catch them though?

You can't really continuously use Grav Warhead and Nano in battle, and sometimes they start running when you enter the grav well without engaging.

Disruptive Strikes is close to worthless, it doesn't do enough to make any real effect.

Antimatter drain? Sure it does. 35% per weapon shot to drain 16 AM, add that on to Power Surge for the great increase on ROF. It may not be as extreme as Missile Barrage, but when you sic it on a cap ship, it feels it.

Volatile Nanites amazing? I've used that ability tons of times, used it in combination with the Egg's nom nom, used it on a Gravity Warhead stuck fleeing group and all times I've never thought it was amazing, it was kind...OK at best. You need to save AM for it too, it's pretty expensive. The reason Nano is so much better is the Egg can do Nano nom nom all day long it's so cheap on AM and the CD is so short you can be targeting ship after ship after ship for destruction while you are fighting. Nanites has a massive CD, it just wont have anywhere near as good an effect in the length of a battle.

We must be playing a different game. You cast it on a clump of brittle ships that go pop quickly. There's no way Nano is as effective at destroying 30+ LRFs/LFs/support cruisers as Nanites. After a few ships go boom, the rest get so low on health that they start exploding from the nanite explosions themselves, you don't even need to shoot them.

Reply #55 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 4
You can't really continuously use Grav Warhead and Nano in battle, and sometimes they start running when you enter the grav well without engaging.

You can use Nano continuously in battle and as soon as they start to flee you will easily have enough AM for several GWs.


Quoting Annatar11, reply 4
We must be playing a different game. You cast it on a clump of brittle ships that go pop quickly. There's no way Nano is as effective at destroying 30+ LRFs/LFs/support cruisers as Nanites. After a few ships go boom, the rest get so low on health that they start exploding from the nanite explosions themselves, you don't even need to shoot them.

I've never had VN pop that many ships, no way, love to know under what conditions you managed that.  My experience is ships take too long to kill to start chaining together the AOE effect.  I'm going to have to retry to achieve what you are claiming here but I've never had that success with it and I've shot a hell of a lot of VN.

Reply #56 from Sins Forums Top

Subs could sue a bit mroe HP and that's it.

Yes. Subs die way to easily. Your talk about force multipliers and critical mass forgets to take into account cost effectiveness. To reach the critical mass of subs you need to spend more resources then they vare worth.

Then comes the dominas witch are extremly similer to hoshikos but their abilatie are chaneling instead of instant cast

Yes, yes I know what they do. Thats why they suck, both of their abilites are channelled so you need to baby sit them just so you can take 1 Kodiak out of the fight for a few seconds. Wow, that was worth microing wasn't it? NOT! Perseverance is never ever adequate for healing. The targeting AI for the Domina is terrible.

To get a chain reaction of VN you need a large fleet. Thats when you see the effect.

Reply #57 from Sins Forums Top

To get a chain reaction of VN you need a large fleet. Thats when you see the effect.

Well thats were their should be. In large fleet battle their worth mroe then combat ships. And yliek I said you need to build more then just 2. Me as TEC in mid to alte game my support cruiser ratio to comabt ships is about 1/3rd.

Reply #58 from Sins Forums Top
Sub will also completly shut down the enemy ship by locking it in phase space thus you cant fire at them either their just taken out of the fight.
Trust me, you can fire at ships locked down by Subverters. If you couldn't, they would be worthless! The problem is you need so many Subverters now that you are pretty much winning anyhow. I find them more useful to catch runners than I do for changing the course of a battle, like you used to be able to do in 1.05.
Reply #59 from Sins Forums Top

Well you suposed to need at leat 20 to lock up 40 ships. Goign base on hoshikos were 20 will demo bot 40. Removing 40 ships form combat of your enemy is extremly usefull. The effect compiounds over time. If you had 10 ships locking up 40 ship then they woudl be oped.

Reply #60 from Sins Forums Top
Well you suposed to need at leat 20 to lock up 40 ships. Goign base on hoshikos were 20 will demo bot 40. Removing 40 ships form combat of your enemy is extremly usefull. The effect compiounds over time. If you had 10 ships locking up 40 ship then they woudl be oped.
I don't know about the 1:2 ratio...it all depends if the enemy fleet is clustered or spread out. The main differences are Hoshikos cost 1/2 the resources, and a bit less credits too...they are tougher, they are repairing each other, they contribute to damage with demo bots, they cost much less to research, and you don't have to fly them into the middle of the enemy fleet. That is why I said, I am already winning when I get around to Subverters, and if I am not winning, I can't afford to throw away resources by sending the Subverters to their death, because they die REALLY FAST if you can't maintain lockdown -- and in 1.1+ you can't really maintain lockdown unless you have serious fleet superiority...in which case you didn't need Subverters anyhow. This is why I find them more useful to catch raiders than I do to suicide them into a fleet.
Reply #61 from Sins Forums Top

Then yeah Isee the problem and I do agree with a boost to their HP. How ever I will say the main cause is lums side banks. Allows them to defend them selve from your sub without having to change targets. Combien that with gardians that make it hard to get your subs intot he enemy fleet and it's impossible to lock them down.

IMO those side beams is the biggest reason of the imbalance in the LRFs. Assailants and Javelis can prety much matchy up evenly cost wise. But with lums they always come on top.

Reply #62 from Sins Forums Top

That is why I said, I am already winning when I get around to Subverters, and if I am not winning, I can't afford to throw away resources by sending the Subverters to their death, because they die REALLY FAST if you can't maintain lockdown --

Exactly my point. Subs should get boosted. I would like to see a range AM cost and duration buff to Distortion Field. The boost does not need to be big though imo.

Dominas on the other hand have decent abilities, but the fact that they are chanelled AND directed abilites make them a pain to micro. Perseverance shouldn't  need to be aimed. Also, Dominas like perservering each other even if damaged friendly capos are nearby. Like I said before, targeting AI for the Domina needs to be improved.

Reply #63 from Sins Forums Top

Thent hat means some of the problems are AI related one like LFs chassing units.

Reply #64 from Sins Forums Top

I formally protest this next patch. There needs to be more of a fix for the lf/lrm/carrier issue.

Reply #65 from Sins Forums Top

well i formally protest along with you DarkCloud. carriers need to be fixed!

Reply #66 from Sins Forums Top

Protest supported.

Reply #67 from Sins Forums Top

Well I intended to safely tuck away my 1.16 and 1.02 backups as a benchmark. I want to see what the new missile barrage graphic will look like but that's about it. Then I'm rolling back to the 1.16 and 1.02 version I think. I won't be buying any more micro expansions until balance is addressed. The speed reduction of carriers seems to be more of a personal choice of the devs rather than a response to the customers.

Reply #68 from Sins Forums Top

The Carrier CA speed reduction I can support.  The speed reduction with the build penalty I can't.

Reply #69 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting mbaron888, reply 17
Well I intended to safely tuck away my 1.16 and 1.02 backups as a benchmark. I want to see what the new missile barrage graphic will look like but that's about it. Then I'm rolling back to the 1.16 and 1.02 version I think. I won't be buying any more micro expansions until balance is addressed. The speed reduction of carriers seems to be more of a personal choice of the devs rather than a response to the customers.

I think the missle upgrade will probably be a particle upgrade so don't update instead down load the forge tools and then upgrade the particles only :-)

Reply #70 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks for all the fixes, your continued support of your product post sale is deserved given how outstanding this game is.  I look forward to the next modules.

Like most palyers I play SP only so most of these issues regarding carriers etc do not seem to apply to me, but some of those who play MP seem very concerned.  It is those who play MP that produce most of the good strategy on the forum.

The only thing I would like to see fixed is Homing mines.  I may be missing something obvious, would not be the first time, but homing mine sweeping is just driving your ships into these mine fields as the scout on auto mine detection appears to almost always comes within the homing mines detonation radius, unless for some reason the entire mine field goes inactive and then any ship can move over them.  I can not tell if there is a reason for this or if it is a bug.  I would think extending the range of the scout's mine sweeping ability or causing it to stop when it detects the homming mine and not treat it as a TEC or Vasari mine where it is very effective in staying outside the blast radius.

This is all I am looking for in this upgrade and after several threads on this the bug does not seem to be going away.

Thank you for the consideration.

 

 

Reply #71 from Sins Forums Top

thanks for the zoom issue and shield rendering fixes it will help a lot

Reply #72 from Sins Forums Top

Ebitad I can't tell you for sure all fo the reasons why the mines stop. But I belive one of them is if the advent player has mines in the gravwell of a planet he owns and he loses control of that planet the mines shut down. How ever I can not comfirm it to be 100% accurate since I still ahve to run proper test on the issue as ofve yet.

Trying combining flak and scouts.

Build 10 scouts and 10 flaks. Place them in their own fleet alone. And make 1 of the scouts fleet leader. Let scout auto clear fine feilds the flak should help out alot. How ever sometimes the flak don't fire at the incoming mines.

Reply #73 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting mbaron888, reply 3
As TEC in Entrenchment I can build 20 LRF and 6 flak frigates and take on 7 carriers with 14 squads of fighters and I will only lose 2 LRF. I can't do the same in regular Sins. If I try that in 1.16 the LRF will all die. Please give it a try and see for yourself. It might be okay in Vanilla Sins but it nerfs carriers to kingdom come in Entrenchment.

Addendum: Formed 19 LRF and 6 flak into a fleet (100 fleet supply) in Entrenchment v1.02, set the fleet formation to tight this time. Lost only 1 LRF against 7 carriers with 14 fighter squads (96 fleet supply).
OK, now try setting up a fight that isn't rigged to make your point.

Take the same 19 LRF and 6 flak up against 7 carriers with 14 squads of bombers - let's see how that turns out eh?

Reply #74 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Cephelo, reply 23
Take the same 19 LRF and 6 flak up against 7 carriers with 14 squads of bombers - let's see how that turns out eh?
Silly argument. Fighters are supposed to be the hard counter to LRMs. If you build 7 slow and very expensive units to counter their LRMS and the enemy can swiftly counter that with 6 pretty cheap and easily accessible flaks and that still works wonders = conclusion is CARRIERS SUCK right nao.

If you're saying that building bombers is a better idea even if the enemy is LRM spamming (which FIGHTERS are made for along with hitting bombers and which bombers are NOT made for) then the conclusion is similiar - fighters are useless.

Reply #75 from Sins Forums Top

I want to be clear. IC I'm not a pusher. After reading up on some of the current forum treads. It seems to me peeps just want to remove every part of non ai tactical movement. To make things basicly like, build it, send it in, and watch it happen. Thats cool like ten times but wheres the replayability. It just isn't there. Imo you almost had the lrm/flak/carrier thing then.(1.01) Don't get me wrong their are still some issues with repulse and maybe a few other small issues, but on the whole it was alot closer than today.

KITING

Me and EadTaes set up a game one nite and did kited vs non kited on all types of vessels. Our conclusion was that if you countered any kited unit with the proper counter. The kiteing had little to no effect. In our senerios we used 10 lf vs 5 carriers. Kited carriers were ether forced from the battle or destroyed within 10 to 20 seconds of when they would have been destroyed just sitting there. So kiting fix is an imaginary fix.  These test were preformed back in 1.0 and 1.01 ent.

So the main problem with kiting was/is peeps arn't making the counters to carriers. Countering em with lrm and Hc's. Did i mention the same 5 carriers killed out way larger porportions of lrm/hc before being nuetralized or forced from battle. Is this game headed in a direction of non thinking bs. Well imo the tactical battle is the funnest part of game. Slowly but o so slowly you guys are dismantling and removing tactal thought from it.

The only carrier nerf needed in the game is drone host needs to drop back to 2 SC squads. They already carry more per squad and generate AM faster than any other carrier crusier. It's OP.......Get off the Advent chic and grab some cohonnies and fix this s*** Craig.

 

 

Again just to be clear....I not a pusher. This is not about me continueing to buy your produces cause its not. I'll buy your products cause their fun and my family loves sins. My eight year old just picked it up a couple months ago. Thanks for the hard work and for the willingness to particpate in the community.

 

                      DC <_<