A Couple of Quick Questions

1. yep, all passive effects, and some ablities are around even if the labs are gone, but ships, superweapons, deploy starbases, and a few others go away without the labs.

2. yep, just a cute graphical representation of the levels of the capital ships... first you get bars, then stars, then a crown, and then a crown with a star for lv 10.

Is it true? As I know all researched advances will be lost if you don't have enough research stations.

There are researches that do not stop working if you get rid of the necessary labs, in fact, there is a value that can be changed when modding that says whether or not the research still works after the labs are gone.

Sorry, I do not have a list of the ones that still work after you get rid of the labs.

Here is an explanation of when research is lost or not...

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/383016

A couple more questions:

1) What is the highest level that AI doesn't cheat (not in terms of fog of war but in terms of resources etc.)? I've been playing on normal. Thinking of upping the level a bit.

2) In my last two games, the TEC and Vasari AIs always seem to be defeated in the middle of the game without any apparent reason. I am assuming the Advent AIs are pushing their culture and it's a cultural defeat. Is that the case and why don't the TEC and Vasari AIs do anything about it? Also what's weird is the defeated AIs planets and ships are around and they are shown as owned by the defeated faction. What exactly happens when an AI is defeated?

1. Normal

2. not sure if its the cultural battle the AI has lost (its very difficult to win a culture war) but I do know that when an AI is defeated his ships and planets just sit there until you or another AI comes in and cleans up

Sadly, the AI can't do much more other than "cheat" with extra resources and income above the Normal level.  The only way to get opponents capable of strategy is to play it in online multiplayer against human opponents.  (It's the "Ironclad Online" button.)  However, I do have some good news.  Now is a great time to start playing against other people with regular vanilla Sins.  Because of the $4 sale, there are a whole bunch of brand new people on vanilla Sins, including people who probably haven't played the game against the AI as much as you have.  It's lots of fun once you get the hang of it and learn how to play against real opponents.  After you've played it against other people for a while, you'll probably lose all desire to ever play it against the AI again.

What is the definition of defeat? The defeated AIs in my game still had their home planet and some ships and they were collecting resources. Do the AIs resign?

Yeah I figured I would have to "upgrade" to multiplayer soon. In fact I did play my first online game with some newbies like me last night. I'll probably hit the Ironclad online a lot more from now on.

I don't know what they do.  I think it's the equivalent of someone's "surrendering" in a game.  The ships and the planets remain and you have to bomb the planets and perhaps the AI collects income, but it doesn't do anything with it--it won't build any more new ships or structures or do research.  Remaining ships will still fight.

w00t! 

More questions:

1) I tried a couple of games with diplomatic victory enabled (3v3 - I and 2 Normal AIs vs 3 Hard AIs) but teams not locked. I played TEC in both games. It seems to me that I acquire diplomatic points much faster (2x) than the AIs. Why? Is it because I was TEC (there were other TECs too but they were acquiring points much slower than me) or is it because I am human?

2) I still don't get the pirates. In my last game, even though there was a higher bid for some other player, the pirates are attacking me instead of them. Is there something related to the difficult setting where the game is "cheating" by sending me pirates even though they should normally attack someone else? Could it be that some other player gave pirates a mission to attack me? But that should be different than the regular timed pirates, right? They should still attack the most wanted player in addition to me (which wasn't the case).

1. I do know the AI got a bit nerfed in regards the diplomatic victory so wouldn't surprise me

2. most likely a pirate mission, the timed is set for 15 minutes, but every 5 minutes someone can send pirates out on missions, often with bigger fleets

Hmm I see. Yeah I checked the patch log and see the nerf. I can tell you that they nerfed it too much. I was collecting more diplomacy points than the AIs most of the game and once I researched the three relationship bonus techs it was no contest. I won the game (even my team was losing militarily) with almost 100 points difference with the next highest points. Maybe the AIs need to be taught they need to research relationship bonus techs as soon as they can when diplomatic victory is enabled.

Too bad I didn't discover this game a lot earlier. It feels like I found a great game too late. I guess I missed the new expansion excitement since there have been two expansions already but I hope we will see a couple of more patches to keep things fresh.

I would also like to say that the $3.99 Sins sale was what drove me to try this game (which led me to buy the two expansions afterwards for $9.99 each) so Stardock should consider making more of these sales.

true they should

maybe give this mod a try

Distant Stars

many have said that it help them enjoy Sins more