Vitamin J

Reply to Quick questions on trade routes in Strategy Sins Forums

You got it. Break is the wrong word, but it does shorten your longest route. Let's say you're on a 6-planet ring. You control all of them, and have trade ports on all of them. What is your longest route? It's 3! Pick any two planets, and you have a distance between them, at a max, of 3. Now, take away a trade port and look at the planets on either side of the break. While the distance between them used to be 2, trade ships can no longer take that route, and must go the other way around the ci

Reply to TEC starts for multiplayer in Strategy Sins Forums

One problem with LRMs currently, is that their counter (carriers) are the main componenet of most fleets. This is not to say that you should avoid LRMs, it's just a factor you need to consider. TEC, contrary to most people's instincts, don't have many good "eco starts" in a multiplayer situation (unless you're in the pocket, but then everyone's strat is the same - don't build a real fleet, just keep capturing planets and feeding the front players). If you're on a front, you need to be

Reply to Bomber spam in Strategy Sins Forums

Out of curiosity, what makes you think he would have lost with a conventional fleet? It sounds to me like his fleet was larger. But, to more specifically adress your question of a counter, the only real hard counter to bombers are fighters - lots of them. Flak is NOT a counter to bombers (at least not a good one). If you had had all carriers instead of flak and set all your carriers to fighters, you probably could have avoided losing any cap ships (assuming you have shield restore), t

Reply to Unit Guide: FAQ [complete] in Strategy Sins Forums

Vasari ships generally have lower dps than tec or advent ships, and phase missiles is a balancer. As How said, this is much more effective against Advent, since TEC are all hull and repair.

Reply to Suggestion for the Kol battleship in Strategy Sins Forums

At least TEC have some choice (early eco vs. attack power). The other factions really don't have one.

Reply to Suggestion for the Kol battleship in Strategy Sins Forums

The scaling comes from having more antimatter, and the introduction of flux field since the cooldown is about .0003 secs. If you increase the damage output, and leave AM consumption the same, you will quickly get an extremely overpowered ability.

Reply to AI Allies in Strategy Sins Forums

Try giving him some money. The algorithm may be telling him he doesn't have a big enough bankroll to expand.

Reply to The Novalith-Akkan-Pirate Strategy (NAP) in Strategy Sins Forums

As was said earlier, this whole strategy no longer applies because of recent patches. The original post is almost 6 months old.

Reply to Which is The Best race? in Strategy Sins Forums

This seems like the right thread to bring up my suspicion that Vasari > Advent > TEC > Vasari. The game might be too young to come up with this definitive circle (seeing as how it's still being balanced, and more expansions are on the way), but I was curious as to whether or not people found this same circle. I brought it up on another thread and only received a couple of responses.

Reply to YAMT (Yet another marza thread) in Strategy Sins Forums

Pretty much all damage abilities stack (Flak Burst, Rail Gun, Radiation Bomb, PMS, etc.) It's only abilities that give stat benefits that don't stack.

Reply to All the start tips when a game begins in Strategy Sins Forums

I think you misunderstood the OP. He's asking if anyone has compiled a list of the in-game "tips" that appear during the loading screen. I'm guessing they are all in the user files somewhere, since people have figured out how to make their own messages appear on mods, but I'm not sure where it would be located.

Reply to Best Capital Ship Mix in Strategy Sins Forums

TEC: 1 Dunov for Flux field surrounded by 3 Kols. 1 Akkan to boost range, and call an armistice if necessary (while MB is charging back up). That leaves 11 spots for Marzas. Mmmm that's a lot of missiles...

Reply to Newb Trade Route Query in Strategy Sins Forums

Yes RM. The trade ports in system 2 will benefit from the bonus that was created in system 1. However, the chain will not travel between systems. All trade ports receive the same income* regardless of their position on or off the route. The length of the longest route only determines what that income is. * Culture and planet bonuses can modify income. Also Starbase trade ports are different from regular trade ports.

Reply to Newb Trade Route Query in Strategy Sins Forums

The distance from the capital doesn't matter for trade port income. However, I'm pretty sure that trade ports outside of your culture make less (though I'm not 100% sure about that).

Reply to Starting tips for each race? in Strategy Sins Forums

First, I would spend some time in single player learning the basics of the game: The tech tree, counters, etc. Second, some general tips. Sorry if you're already doing these things: Grab neutral extractors ASAP. Colonize asteroids first. They pay for themselves much more quickly. Don't colonize unless you can afford to immediately buy 2 levels of civilian infrastructure (or 1 for asteroids). This should always be your first upgrade (even before you s

Reply to Newb Trade Route Query in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote who="transitive" reply="15" id="2140947"]for that to work you'd have to a specific point of origin. Trade Port Zero, so to speak. there's no real way to do this with existing game mechanics. you could borrow the Planet Alliegance mechanic (which is based on number of phase jumps away from the Home World) if you had a way of creating a Trade Port Zero, but other than that its a no go. also, i kinda like the fact that the current system requires a slightly deeper level of unde

Reply to What gives Cap ship experience? in Strategy Sins Forums

Does anyone know if having a level 10 capship in a battle (along with a non-level 10 cap) causes experience to split? I would assume that it would be ignored (since experience no longer applies to it) but am not entirely sure.

Reply to Tactical Builds in Strategy Sins Forums

The real benefit of static defense is that they don't take up fleet supply, which is, in my opinion, your most valuable resource.

Reply to Beat approach dealing with Pirates in Strategy Sins Forums

AI will not go through the pirate base, even if they are inactive. If they did, they would suffer quite a bit of damage before reaching your planets. If you're playing AI, I would just put tons of turrets/hangars in the world bordering the pirate base in the direction of your homeworld. It won't cost that much and you will still have the pirates for your own use. Most real pros probably won't respond to this because pirates are essentially useless against a human opponent. I actually

Reply to Tactical Builds in Strategy Sins Forums

Definitely never use autoplace for defensive structures. To me, it looks like they are just placed randomly (which is obviously a bad sign). Against the AI, I usually just build a repair and 3 turrets near the jump point into my well. There should only be 2 situations where an AI is attacking you, depending on where your fleet is. 1) Your fleet is in their territory (meaning their main fleet will be as well) so the attack is a pitiful bunch of seige frigs, with maybe some minor suppor

Reply to Tactical Builds in Strategy Sins Forums

It depends on what you're playing. If it's against the AI, a repair bay/turret cluster should hold back any attack. In multiplayer, it really depends on the situation. Usually repair bays are all I will build (maybe some hangars too, but not many), since if my fleet is not at a frontline planet, you can bet there's a starbase there. Turrets are rarely effective in multiplayer unless they are guarding a specific cluster of logistical structures. Even then, Hangars are usually better since you

Reply to Killing Heavily Upgraded Stations as Vasari in Strategy Sins Forums

Lots and lots of bombers. I'm not a particular expert on the vasari, but they probably have some ability that mollifies armor or increases damage output to a target as well (the Egg's nano-disassembler comes to mind, but I'm sure there are others). You want to avoid allowing small ships into the SBs range, since debris vortex will suck those ships into its own hull points. If their main fleet is elsewhere, and there are two jump points into the grav well, an effective tactic is to have a carr

Reply to New take on early bomber use in Strategy Sins Forums

[quote who="koda0" reply="4" id="2137767"]Bombers weren't put into the game to sit in their carriers and wait. They were put in for a purpose, and its up to the player to put them to use. The bombers I use generally target enemy carriers first, to eliminate the threat of long-term fighter exposure. My fighters take out enemy fighters, and my Garda's and Hoshikos deal with bombers. This works VERY well for me, I can generally have 1/3 of an enemy fleet gone by the time

Reply to Best race to learn the game? in Strategy Sins Forums

I would say that vasari are disadvantaged against the TEC. Since TEC has such a heavy focus on hull and repair, the phase missiles don't have as large of a bonus against the TEC ships compared to, say, the advent. I also think that Advent is particularly good against TEC. Since they are so focused on defense, they can take the basically infinite supply of ships that the TEC will throw at them without losing any ships with a good battleball. Maybe I'm missing something, but I've always

Reply to Turning Point in a Game. in Strategy Sins Forums

So try 9v1 unfair :-p I don't think the problem is the tech cost. Even if this were the case, the problem would really be in the AI programming that doesn't allow it to account for the upkeep cost. The real problem is that the AI doesn't know what to do with its fleet once it has one. I once watched a vasari AI fleet (which was much bigger than my own) travel from the sun to another planet (mine, and thoroughly undefended) over and over and over again without attacking anything except