Set me on the path to multiplayer

In the mean time watch replys of games ruby is posting in one of his threads.

Also watch replys of games ruby and dvdsa(something like that :P) aka player slayer on ICO are reviewing and try to understand why they would done things differently. 

True each game is unique (one of best sins attributes) and strategy needs to be adapted to map and player set-up in start of the game but there are some "truths" about sins that apply to all games no matter who you are fighting and what kind of map set-up you are getting.

And as I said multiple times. In multi player matches time is 4th resource sometimes most important one as you can decide a game with just bad path of your ships. Either revisiting already colonized planets while expanding with your colonizing fleet or by be slow on building counters or by being slow to bring counters to the actual battle.

With AI well if you are slow you can always hole up and attack when you are ready.  

if you're serious about improving i'll watch your replays, you don't want to be learning from ruby if you want to be good.

send me a pm on the forums and i'll tell you how you can get in contact with me.

Rubby needs to fix his OP since he copy and pasted from my own thread and i was archiving files to make them smaller.

if u have .record at the end of the file you can skip extract step and go just to step copy file u dl to mentioned folder. 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Vasari Rebels are probably still banned. Who knows when it will be okay to play them in a competitive maps.

Level 3 trade, no trade upgrades, and resource focus is absolutely pathetic. Quick culture can be nice to put pressure on a close enemy, but it doesn't compensate economically for the trade disadvantage.

Phase missiles have been that way since I've played in 2008. I think they're here to stay.

Well both the AR and VR are very gimmick heavy. Wail and the Eradica are about the only reasons to play AR, and no one will let you play VR while jumping starbases is a gimmick.

If your serious about playing MP I'll play some private games with you. We can do it over direct IP if you want. I'll PM my steam tag to friend up with.

Welcome!

Given your attitude, you are well on the path already.  You are much more inclined to get help if your seen as someone that can appreciate it. Looks like that's the case, since several top notch players are already willing to coach. 

Of late (post Diplo), there has been a more coherent community-wide effort to retain and develop a stronger player base. At least by in large so as not alienate, or ostracize newcomers.  Ruby and others have taken up the cause, and everyone that participates regularly in MP for the most part, is much more accepting of the need to improve.

One thing I will mention is that if Nightraid3r is serious, don't discount it because even though he has an extremely low threshold of intolerance or social graces, especially for anyone that doesn't take his input for more than face value, he is one of the top 5 players ever in this game.  There aren't many beyond his level from which you might learn.

Also, I'm sure you are familiar with much of the routine, but here is a sticky on MP "accepted standards" you can review:

MP Societal Standards

Good Luck, and Welcome!

So does that make them the worst eco race, or is that still vasari because of trade at level 4?  Also, with Advent, would you normally skip culture and go right to trade?  Does either have a fundamental flaw that makes them hard to play.... like Illums needing to be micro'd to the middle for side beam damage thus getting thrashed by titan AOE (completely made up hypothetical scenario)?  I'm trying to feel out the overall "philosophies" of advent or vasari and then I'll pick a faction from there.

Ruby, I'll definitely PM you, and I'm sure you'll see me posting some replays in your thread for analysis.  I've already downloaded a bunch of high level replays from your other thread, so thanks for those resources.

Protoplazm, I'm really impressed with the Sins community so far and I'll be sure to contribute as much as I can to pay that forward.  Thanks for the welcome and the link.

In my opinion yes. While the Advent do have an advantage in getting trade and culture up, the advantage isn't that big. If you're in a position where its a good idea to spend a lot of money getting trade up, you ought to be in a position where you think you're militarily secure enough to protect it, and that probably means you have a sufficient number of planets to afford an extra lab.

Another way of looking at it is that the Vasari have many more reasons to invest in civic labs than the Advent does. Before Rebellion, the only good Advent civic techs that didn't unlock anything was the tactical slots bonus at tier 4 and allure of the unity at tier 8 (though even this is probably not worth the effort). The Vasari get phase stabalizers and the ability to see all ships jumping in the entire system. Now global unity, Wail of the Sacraficed and Return of the Fallen/Reserection have kind of change this. But at the same time Vasari players have their key subfaction techs in tier 8 civics with Striped to the Core and Starbase Mobilization.

In short, for the labs the Vasari get many more useful toys out of the civic tree than the Advent do, so if I'm not in an Eco slot and I don't think I need to rush wail as AR, I'd be really tempted to just get the three civic labs for trade and then focus on military, since here the Advent techs are much better.

Advent fleets definitely require more micro to get the most out of their synergies (or to maximize Illum output). However, the major titans with AoEs (Ragnarov, Eradica, Vasari after they level up) will make any frigates except Corvettes and Carriers obsolete, so its not a huge deal in that regard. However in my opinion it's worth it. Sins is regarded as much less micro intensive than SCII, so if you're used to that I doubt the timing and upkeep of using Guardians with repulse and keeping your caps close enough to buff each other will be too hard for you.

Vasari abilities tend to be powerful but can be more complicated than the TEC, but they aren't as dependent on synergies. If you want to get deep with the tactics the overseers capacity to fully heal a target near instantly in sufficient numbers or the subverters AoE frigate disable ability offer a lot of potential, but I personally have not seen them used in Rebellion MP games very much. Unlike the Advent, Vasari capitalships work pretty well independently and don't synergize (Skinatra's repair cloud being the main exception, but even this cap can hold its own 1v1 with scramble bombers), so you don't have the incentive to diversify your fleet as you do with Advent (though they have 3 top notch capitalships and only one totally bad one, so you can if you want to).

In a nutshell

Advent - Synergies, Synergies, Synergies. Good military techs as well and offensively very cost efficient.

Vasari - Mediocre stats, but very awesome unique "toys" (phase stabalizers, phase missiles, jumping starbases etc) and abilities.

Ok so I've landed on Advent and have made a lot of progress conceptually from replays, and great instruction from the forum member.  Now I guess it's time to start playing and get some real experience.

My steam profile name is OckhamzRazor if anyone else would like to help forge me into a lethal multiplayer weapon of mass destruction... or something like that...

I live on the east coast of US so EST.  Usually play at nights.

BTW I wouldn't focus just on one race. Reason being each race has its own strengths and weaknesses and by playing them all you will find out what those are much faster.

For instance  Advent has massive early start advantage against vasari and vasari has to play defensively if he does not control neutrals. They have to rely on SB and if you spam right ships fast enough you can simply rool over them. Advent also has ships with weapon banks on all sides ilums and flak who complement each other very well and if you have fleet of those you have to fight differently than any other race meaning you have to micro your fleet in between enemies.... 

There is more but .....

... oh do go on Greg! (although that's not really your name right

Actually I was just thinking recently that i'd like to be good enough to go random eventually... maybe by the time factions are more balanced.  However I'm probably putting the cart before the horse a little, as I should focus on getting at least pretty good at one faction at a time.  That way each time I switch I'll learn the next one even more quickly and efficiently.

Also if you'd like to give me your opinions on midgame transitions, that's what I'm trying to wrap my head around right now.  I know spam corvettes, then discs (if they have LF) and flak (if they have LRF), but then I'm not too sure.  Seems Illums are very crystal heavy and you can't tech to them too early without being succeptible to timings.  Also, I can't decide how much I should embrace flak...

Do you get like 30 illums and a handful of guardians before teching to titan?  Then drone hosts right?

I have a lot of questions about opening cap and follow up caps as well.... the more I learn the more questions I have...

BTW, thanks for the replay reviews!  They continue to be very helpful.

Most of games I play recently are over before ilums come into the game but one game when I played against auqia in one of previous versions I lost 60 disciples to fleet of 50 advent flak which was accompanied by lvl 5 progen in under a minute.

After watching reply and to see what happened.... Well he had lvl 3 malice on that progen and fully teched weapons for flak. At that time i realized that advent flak deals 23 DPS each. Which is massive amount ... Multiply this by 50 and add malice .....

So what I am trying to say is that when ship count reach certain threshold they are very hard to deal with. So if you are against 100 disciples 20 ilums mixed with disc of your own wont make massive difference.