Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion

Complex wrote:

There still isnt visari in beta right? To be honest, last i played the beta was after they put the advent back in. I need to practice before saturday T_T.

Last I checked, it's only TEC and Advent.

Yeah, it's only those two at the moment.

BTW Kloreep, you were not bugged, the 3 achievements you got were from me and you being aligned (peace treaty, trade treaty and cease fire).

Beta 3 is out, and the Vasari are in now. I'm really curious to try out the Loyalists, who I've read are theoretically able to pull up roots and become entirely spacefaring again.

Complex wrote:

BTW Kloreep, you were not bugged, the 3 achievements you got were from me and you being aligned (peace treaty, trade treaty and cease fire).

Ah, okay. Yeah, now that I've looked at them, they're all for forming the treaties that are locked in by playing on the same team.

Next maybe they'll remember to turn Allied Victory on by default when putting players on the same team.

Also, an interesting tidbit from the patch - no wonder those mines were chewing our fleets up:

All races Scout frigates should now be able to properly detect mines again. This ability has been made passive.

Here's the trailer for the Vasari - beta 3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdgP-...

Saturday game?

A saturday game sounds good.

Played some Vasari Loyalist. It is definitely a "shark" strategy: once you've poured in the resources you need to make it work, you have to keep moving (and "planet-top removal" mining) to make the investment worth it. It certainly has its upside, though: while metal/crystal asteroids remain intact, planets become worthless asteroids, and asteroids become uncolonizable belts.

Did a multi-stars map to give me time to turtle while I put together a new Dark Fleet. Had some fun running nomadically roughshod over a few planets, but it ended poorly for me when my already-damaged fleet got caught by a big group of TEC carriers. I should have waited to bulid some actual support ships instead of just heading off with a full complement of cap ships alone.

Which brings me to the disappointing part of the nomad game: having never played Vasari before, I didn't realize you have so little control over ship summoning. You can summon a "combat" or "support" group (or both) and that's it, you don't get to pick the balance of ship types. Worse, I don't think there's any way to summon Migrators from the Dark Fleet - so no actual frigate factories, no Orkuli. (BTW, it's a bit strange thematically that it's the rebels and not the loyalists that get to jump starbases between systems, though I can understand how it would be a bit unbalanced to give that to Loyalists on top of everything else.)

just gave the visari loyalist a try (or rebel, the one that scuttles planets). That was interesting, I kept 3 or 4 planets and started scuttling every planet i took, i wouldn't bother destroying structures, I would just fly around to an exposed side, destroy, take, scuttle. The scuttle will destroy all structures in the well (i dont know about starbases) (and for some reason visari's shield that makes stuff invulnerable is able to get by it, but the structure dies without a planet eventually, its a good way to save a research platform for at least a few more minutes). And the resources from it is ridiculous, like 140000 credits and a bunch of minerals and crystal. Also research makes it that each capital counts as 2 of each type of research, making 4 capital ships able to give all my research, so i immediately scuttled my research platforms and built pure economy. I didnt even bother making other ships, I make a fleet of 5-7 capital ships and a titan that just roamed around, used the migration capital to take over planets, scuttle them, and keep moving. Only my home planets i left with starbases and some defenses. I can see how you might get caught if an enemy prepares for you with alot of culture to stop planets being taken, but with the culture suppression you can research, you just become an unstoppable destroyer of worlds!

Safe to say, their might be balance issues.

OK, Visari Rebels are .. interesting. It has the ability to share your jump nodes with allies, which strategically is really nice. Add that to starbases now being titans in a way, its pretty interesting. From what I gather you can have star bases jump endlessly from node to node, but you are still limited to X starbases in a node (1 planet 4 star). I didnt play too much with what happens when you jump into a node already fully occupied. Instead I would make my starting point star bases Attack and Defense heavy and then use it as a battle starter. Once it softens the enemy I jump my full force in and clean up. The rebel titan is kind of like visari's new capital, all nanite base. 1 ability does life steal from enemy to you, another from you to friendly, and final one just does tons of damage and can coincide with the lifesteal ability. Played a game with Kloreep and one of the random AIs was a Loyalist Visari. Game went long enough for him to have 3-5 fully upgraded visari star bases (like 21K or so health). Safe to say the titan struggled with it, and first time I tried to take one on with my own fully upgraded star base, I was winning the fight but still lost 2 capitals from the sheer amount of damage the fully upgraded starbase can give and take. After that I sent the starbase first to remove enemy starbase shields and a few K of health before the capitals. Still lost most if not all capital shields, but I didn't loose any capitals. The other abilities of Rebel include ridiculously large armor and shield increases and then an increase to damage by 10% for every ally in the star well. So I think in big games that would be great. Also there was one that did damage to ships going and leaving your wells via the phase distabilizer, but i never use those things as often as I do phase stabilizers and vulcan guns.

BTW, the visari's new capital is semi bugged I think. It creates temporary ships that are nanite clusters, but the fleet mechanics do NOT add these ships to your fleets. So if you make a long chain of jumps, or sit in one place and then move, you could leave nanite clusters stranded all over the place. The can jump, but are by default not added to the fleet so you have to actively go out, find them, and collect them back with the rest of your ships.

In the latest podcast they mentioned that sins rebellion doesn't have a tutorial. Last time I launched it I could of sworn I saw a tutorial option listed under single player. Can someone who currently has access to the game or also remembers seeing that confirm this for me? Or correct my delusions if that is the case.

Thanks!

Last I looked they still have the same tutiorials they had before, plus one or two more I think besides. So I'm not sure what that's about.

It isn't shoved in your face or anything though, you do have to click on the Tutorials tab.

I don't know which Sins thread I should post this:

I need a good beginner's guide cause the tutorials suck. Can anyone point out one to me? Youtube or text I don't care. Agh. Lost five games to the AI already.

I'm no expert, but maybe I can type some stuff up. One of the big things is knowing the critical things to go for. And, as a mainly TBS player in the strategy genre, another thing I personally needed to learn was to save up for the expensive stuff rather than just going for the best currently-affordable thing.

You want to do a comp stomp with one or two of us sometime? That's all I've played in MP so far, and being able to observe other humans in that relaxed setting while chatting over Ventrillo has helped me a fair amount.

I would be down for a comp stomp sometime...I like to beat the crap of out a CPU

Rebellion 1.0 is out in a couple days. Grand old comp stomp next weekend?

Friend request sent to Strangeblades. Zellbrige, I tried friending you up as well but the name listed in your profile doesn't turn up anything on Steam's search.

Is the way to play against other players? Cause the comp is kicking my capital ship up and down the block.

What I've learned so far:

1 - Build capital ship yard and get free capital ship - the one that colonizes
2 - After cap ship built sell cap ship yard for extra metal/crystal
3 - Buy crystal from black market right away for cheap (cheap for black market anyway)
4 - Build 3 frigates to support cap ship
5 - Harvest nearest asteroid and not a planet - planets are harder to attack and you will incur too many losses.
6 - Up asteroid's population so the colony costs less to run.
7 - Lose game

I need help with replacing 7 - Lose game with a more, um, you know, a more winning step. Say like 7 - Defeat AI. Yeah. That'd be good ya know?

Kloreep wrote:

Rebellion 1.0 is out in a couple days. Grand old comp stomp next weekend?

Friend request sent to Strangeblades. Zellbrige, I tried friending you up as well but the name listed in your profile doesn't turn up anything on Steam's search.

I friended you up but my Sins copy is tied to Stardock/Gamestop only. Does that matter? Anyhoo, I'd be up for a non-Rebellion game this weekend.

Strangeblades wrote:

Is the way to play against other players? Cause the comp is kicking my capital ship up and down the block.

What I've learned so far:

1 - Build capital ship yard and get free capital ship - the one that colonizes
2 - After cap ship built sell cap ship yard for extra metal/crystal
3 - Buy crystal from black market right away for cheap (cheap for black market anyway)
4 - Build 3 frigates to support cap ship
5 - Harvest nearest asteroid and not a planet - planets are harder to attack and you will incur too many losses.
6 - Up asteroid's population so the colony costs less to run.
7 - Lose game

I need help with replacing 7 - Lose game with a more, um, you know, a more winning step. Say like 7 - Defeat AI. Yeah. That'd be good ya know?

Ok, here is an easy fix for that. Quick start.

Seriously that would help you out a lot. I play with that most times because without it you are stuck waiting 5 to 10 minutes for your economy to build up. Have you ever played supreme commander? The resource management in that game is a good lesson on building an economy to support you. The black market should really only be used when you are producing a tin of one resource and not enough of another. For instance I end up with to much metal and not enough crystal most time because I focus research more than ship building. So I will sell my metal to the black market Nd buy a little crystal with it when needed. My first guess of your problem is lack of planetary upgrades. Without quick start your home planet probably has a crap tax income. You will want to upgrade that asap. Money makes the world go round they say and it funds hostile take overs. Whenever you take a planet you will want to spend money on 2 things: asteroids for resources and planet tax upgrade. A newly conquered planet is draining money from you rather than giving it. If you try to expand to quickly without letting population increase you will bankrupt your empire.

Add me as a friend on steam. I might be able to play a game tonight of your on and walk you through the first part of the game of setting up an empire and its economy. There are better players than me who are pros ay economy but I can show you the ropes. A good example of an economy pro is jam3. That guy makes my economy look like a lemonade stand.

Is playing Entrenchment easier for single player games? With big burly defence stuff shielding you?

Maybe? The AI in diplomacy and entrenchment can get predictable after a while, unless you go up to the cheating difficulty.
If this is a question of buying it, why not just buy trinity? Diplomacy allowed you to give AI missions, still a pain to ally with them though.

Complex wrote:

Maybe? The AI in diplomacy and entrenchment can get predictable after a while, unless you go up to the cheating difficulty.
If this is a question of buying it, why not just buy trinity? Diplomacy allowed you to give AI missions, still a pain to ally with them though.

I have Trinity - all the fixins!

If you mean Entrenchment as opposed to vanilla without any of the expansions, I would say definitely. The AI doesn't seem to deal with your defenses that well, so a good chokepoint can really take the pressure off you. That said, why not step up to Diplomacy indeed?

If you mean as opposed to Diplomacy, no, I don't know of any real reason to go back to Entrenchment.

Kloreep wrote:

If you mean as opposed to Diplomacy, no, I don't know of any real reason to go back to Entrenchment.

Did they fix Diplomacy at some point? Because even a year ago, most people were still recommending playing Entrenchment over Diplomacy. It didn't add enough, and it broke several things like pirates. And some of the things it did add were messed up, like the diplomatic victories.

So does Diplomacy have the tech and tactics of Entrenchment? I'm confused.

Stele wrote:
Kloreep wrote:

If you mean as opposed to Diplomacy, no, I don't know of any real reason to go back to Entrenchment.

Did they fix Diplomacy at some point? Because even a year ago, most people were still recommending playing Entrenchment over Diplomacy. It didn't add enough, and it broke several things like pirates. And some of the things it did add were messed up, like the diplomatic victories.

:?

The last update for Diplomacy I see is from August, which is v1.32.

http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com...

I think that's the last one, and if I remember correctly it fixed several of those issues.

On another note, PC Gamer has the first Rebellion review - http://www.pcgamer.com/review/sins-o...

Diplomacy is entrenchment with stuff added. The major issues of diplomacy can be "fixed". 1. Turn off diplomatic victory, it will end the game in 5 minutes. 2. Don't use the pirates missions, or don't abuse them at least. To my knowledge the AI never abuses them, just humans. Btw, the pirate missions still exist tm rebellion so get use to it. They might be less devastating though, but still an option to the heavy economist.

Personally I like and have played a ton of diplomacy and I find it works fine, it only becomes a problem when you let a heavy economic empire build unchecked. But really that should be expected. My only annoyance is that tech pacts screw over people playing the same race, but that can be expected since you can ally with the same race really easy.

Complex wrote:

Diplomacy is entrenchment with stuff added. The major issues of diplomacy can be "fixed". 1. Turn off diplomatic victory, it will end the game in 5 minutes. 2. Don't use the pirates missions, or don't abuse them at least. To my knowledge the AI never abuses them, just humans. Btw, the pirate missions still exist tm rebellion so get use to it. They might be less devastating though, but still an option to the heavy economist.

Personally I like and have played a ton of diplomacy and I find it works fine, it only becomes a problem when you let a heavy economic empire build unchecked. But really that should be expected. My only annoyance is that tech pacts screw over people playing the same race, but that can be expected since you can ally with the same race really easy.

So, I should be playing Diplomacy instead of vanilla Sins then?

ALSO: I play only on small maps to avoid micro-managing learning curve. I figure when I win just one small map random game I can move up to medium sized maps. Thoughts?

I would recommend medium or even large maps, it will take you a few games to beat it, or one really long game, but it gives you more time to build. The really small maps are more for expedited play and to do well with it you will need to have your economy and moves decently planned out and not waste any time. in larger maps you can take your time building up and fortifying. sure the ai will always be super human fast and might conquer half the galaxy without you noticing, but you can build up and defend yourself against him and start destroying him. In sins, it is almost always easier to defend than it is to attack. You get alot of defensive structures that can hold a large force at bay or even decimate a large force with little to no loss. This makes the game take longer but you can see the results of research and ship levels pretty clearly and begin to make mental notes to yourself about what structures are really needed in the beginning compared to what is needed at the end. What ships are great and when are the best deployed. For instance I rarely use the mothership capital in most games, instead I do the battleship and build a colony ship to go in afterwards. I buy a mothership towards late game sometimes when i (as visari) start using all of my colony ships for starbase creators. A lvl 1 battleship capital can take asteroids and such by itself with few problems, a lvl 3 (or 2 depending on race) might be able to take on a full planet neutral force by itself even. building attacker ships to go with it reduces its damage and time so you dont have to wait for it to heal itself between taking systems.

Vanilla Sins is ... ok. But if you plan on playing rebellion, I would highly recommend switching over to diplomacy because rebellion is diplomacy with more stuff added on. The jump from vanilla to rebellion might be like the jump for civ 3 to civ 5 (maybe not so dramatic, but you get my drift).

BTW:

Strangeblades wrote:
Kloreep wrote:

Rebellion 1.0 is out in a couple days. Grand old comp stomp next weekend?

Friend request sent to Strangeblades. Zellbrige, I tried friending you up as well but the name listed in your profile doesn't turn up anything on Steam's search.

I friended you up but my Sins copy is tied to Stardock/Gamestop only. Does that matter? Anyhoo, I'd be up for a non-Rebellion game this weekend.

Not really, sins uses ironclad for matchmaking I think, though I think the steam versions communicate with each other a bit.

Rebellion was announced to be Steamworks back in... Feb maybe? Several months ago. Even mentioned in the OP of this thread.

What's the point of Steamworks if you need another login to matchup in multi?

Did they say when they were sending out the Steam codes for those who preordered?