In Solo Games the AI seems mostly to work, within their built in limitations. But when playing MP, some AIs seem to utterly stop working, sometimes from the start of the game. I'm not a modder, obviously, but judging from the statistics in the endgame screen 2 out of 3 AIs in our last session (3 AIs, CIS and a Team of New Republic and Rebel Alliance) never even started to build up. CIS did some minor research and a tiny bit of fighting, New Republic didnt even built it's free capital. The third AI worked like a normal AI should, counquering a few planets and even building a Super-Capital.

The question is: Do you have any Tips for AIs in MP Games? Are there some Factions that work "better" or maybe some Maps which are less likely to "crash" a AI from the start of the match? Any presets for the AI that work well or bad? Is the "hard" AI less likely to crash?

In case any of the modders reads this: Thank you very much for the mod, really enjoying it!

I like to play where each ship counts, and this is not really possible even with the current small fleet size, especially when dealing with the massive AI spammage. I know that the AI currently spams a lot of smaller ships and not many capital ships, and I am pretty sure I read somewhere that it is being worked on.

I would even be happy learning where/how to adjust this for just my use if no one else agrees.

Ive never ever seen anything close to this culture rampage. And its not like its late game even, autosave 9 or so. I would like to shout out "this is broken! please fix it" and maybe it is or maybe its not. anyone got any pointers to me for how to deal with it? I would rather not be forced into taking half the map and spamming holonets every single time i play, it essentially means forcing me into the same playstyle every single game.

EDIT: i upped my cap ship number to 7 and they are now lvl 10 all, and lowered the number of holonets to 5 and i am keeping a neutral culture. The bar is a little higher than in normal sins or other mods but atleast its doable. I still think it could do to be nerfed a little bit though. I think part of the problem is the AI spamming the damm holonets, ive seen 5-6 on a single planet. And everywhere i go there are atleast 2-3.

So things to note: I've only played 4 games. One trial run with a friend to make sure it ran and to "learn how to play." An unremarkable comp stop. Then a comp stomp where me and my friend lost horribly. Finally, a fourth one where we tried again with same settings but different strategies that we managed to win. I've only played the Alliance, my buddy has only played the Empire. We're not terribly interested in the Clone Wars civs (or even the Vong and whatever else is cooking) except to blow up their stuff.

My biggest complaint is the redundancy. This mod what I consider a similar problem to the HW2 mod (which I also enjoyed to death). There are too many ships and they are either redundant, or it is not clear enough how they are different. For example the Corellian Gunship and the Nebulon B Frigate are both anti-fighter platforms. They have minor stat differences. As far as I can tell the Neb is a slightly superior ship. It is also cheaper than the Corellian Gunship. I can't figure out why I'd ever want to build Corellian Gunships, aside from the fact that they are cool. Likewise with the Assault Frigate Mk2. I have no idea what role its supposed to fill. I know when I build them they tend to die a lot. They seem to serve no purpose. They are also (IMO) not that cool a hull, so I don't build them. The Assault Frigate cruiser seems pointless too. I build maybe 2 or 3 in the early game and then never again. The MC30 seems to be a more effective ship, and only a little more expensive. The Assault Frigate's speed boost is cool in the early game but in large fleet engagements its a liability, because it closes with enemy ships and then gets killed.

Aside from the stat blocs, the tool tips are virtually useless. They give me an in-universe description of the ship. This is cool from a fanboy's point of view. But this is bad game design. As a player I need to know why I should build this ship. "A tough ship with hanger bays" or something similar is used in the description of like every Mon Cal class ship I can build. This is not helpful information when EVERY mon cal ship in the game is "a tough ship with hanger bays."

I have no idea what specials ships get from the tool tips, or how many squadrons they get. For example, I had to build one of every Imperial ship to discover which one had the colonize ability. I discovered on accident that one of the Mon Cals gets it. This is bad game design. The tech tree has a similar problem. Ships with locked specials do not tell me how to unlock them. In the tech tree, the "unlock ability" techs do not tell me which ships or abilities they unlock. This is also a problem. The in-universe information is COOL but it is not HELPFUL. This was also a problem in the HW mod. The tool tips were cool (I frequently asked wtf is this ship??!? and the tool tip told me) but they did nothing to help me make informed decisions about my units.

I don't know if this is just my poor play style or if its a function of the game. Maybe the Requiem mod has tainted me? By the time I get to high level play I can craft fleets that are virtually indestructible. I either lose very few ships or all of them. But in this game ships seem softer. I have to replace them more often. Thats fine for frigates, they are all very cheap and build very quickly. Which I like - it allows for large space battles and just straight up more ships to patrol my worlds. Cruisers though, suffer a similar problem but they are all somewhat expensive and time consuming to build. This is not a problem exactly, it's just something I've noticed.

I can't speak for the other Civs, but the Alliance needs a healer type unit. Ships I think do way more damage than they did in unmodded Sins or in Requiem, and while they also have more shields they have paper thin hulls. So my ships die a lot. In one match, my level 7 MC80 battleship capital ship caught with its shield restore ability down and it went from full health to dead in less than a minute and there wasn't a darn thing I could do to save it. The enemy fleet was of equivalent size (if not smaller actually) and it was focusing on my capital ship. I didn't expect it to survive, to be honest. But it would have made me feel better as a player to know there was a unit somewhere I could have used to restore some shields or hull or something. Even if it only bought me a few more seconds to try and maneuver away.

A dedicated bomber unit would be very helpful too. I know it's not really cannon for the Alliance to have one. But there are a select few Rebel ships that can bomb planets and they all suck at it. Sometimes cannon has to make exceptions for playability. Taking a world, especially late game with all the planet strengthening techs and upgrades etc, grinds gameplay to a halt. My friend who plays Empire has had a similar experience, although more of his cruisers can bombard a planet.

I DO like that Starbases are gone, but fixed emplacements are stronger, and hanger bays cost like 3x as much. A Starbase in a system essentially ment you couldn't take it without serious losses. It slowed gameplay in an already slow game. I also can't spam hangers anymore because they are so expensive. but I don't feel bad building a bunch of turrets. But they could do with having a few more HPs. Just my own opinion there. I LIKE that they get more special abilities (even if they are broken ATM. At least the broken button is there telling me it might have it.. or it might get it in a patch later). They FEEL more useful. I also really like the Golan as an intermediary. More HP, more damage output, more expensive. But not the giant road block that a star base represented. Also not the giant money sink.

I do miss the ability to expand my trade lanes or put a token defense in a nebula or something to guard against random colony ships jacking my collectors, or act as forward recon. I hope a more durable version of the Golan appears that allows me to do that in uncolonizable systems. But it doesn't need to be an unstoppable battle station. Just an outpost.

I like the super capitals. The executer is really cool. Its a win button, essentially. If you build one, you're probably going to win. It breaks fleets and lines by itself. Supported, it is ungodly. But if you managed to build one, you probably were going to win without it. So its not that big a deal. I like that with two ion cannon emplacements you can lock it down almost completely. That at least gives you a prayer of escaping or destroying it. Building a capital ship now feels like a big deal. My fleets feel better for having one or two in them. I just wished they had more hull points. If the shields drop, its essentially dead. Which is kinda lame. I guess it makes sense for the smaller ships, given the SW flavor and all. Shields down = dead. But I feel like large capital ships should be more durable. They're still ballin' though. I love the "Its a Trap!" ability of the Independence.

Which reminds me. Dead levels. The way capital ships level up means there are some dead levels. The two early game capitals have like 2, and 4 dead levels each. They keep getting stronger but they have nothing to put points in. I feel like this needs to be dealt with some how. In the late game it makes it hard to tell which ships have leveled and which ones just have floating random ability points.

Some of Requiem's mod enhancements might be good here too. Colonizeable gas giants, more world types, and more random planet traits would be really neat and help the Star Wars atmosphere. But I can live without them.

The midi Star Wars music is terrible and has to go. I don't know who likes it or who thought it was a good idea...

Most of these comments are negative. So I'm sorry. But I really do enjoy the mod and it will probably replace Requiem as my mod of choice. I know it's still a WIP. But I wanted to share my thoughts and experiences. I know a lot of times people will just polish your knob because they don't want to be offensive. But that doesn't help an artist improve and thats all I want to do.

Edit: In response to this quote

Compared to the existing in-game races, no

When the Rebels ships come in, they will be loosely balanced then. That is, you should be able to play a game as a Rebel or Imperial.

 

My guess is that ships will, stat-wise, match up to what is known about them. Eville Jedi really hates paper-scissors-rock games so ships won't be balanced just to support a "unit - counterunit" gameplay. The Empire will have its advantages, the Rebels their advantages.

My comments on tool tips and such, I agree that rock paper scissors gameplay is lame and I'm glad its not there. I like it when the "anti fighter" ships can engage frigates and not horribly fail. Or when capital ships can actually damage fighters. But it would be helpful if the game explained to me, even if its only just a line, why I would build a corellian gunship over a Neb B. Or why I want assault frigates at all? "This is an anti fighter frigate" and "this is an anti fighter frigate that sacrifices some anti fighter weaponry for more robust ship-to-ship weapons." Tells me that if there are lots of fighters, X is better. But if the enemy has a mixed fleet with some fighters, Y is better. Right now I don't have a clue.

Edit: After reading through the rest of the forum I sound like an ass. So I'm sorry.

Specifically it comes up with a box that it called Minidump, it says:

Saved Minidump:

C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Local\Sins Dump\Sins-Entrenchment

v1.051-2011-08-01-13-24-48-5144-4424.dmp

In the military tree it says it frees up numerous techs, can someone tell me what I'm spending my money on?

known bugs are

=============================================

some fighter meshes are still not implemented

some effects are too large or too small

there are some issues with the research tree, it was a last minute add, the important things work

some descriptions for ships or research may be wrong or non-sensical

some vessels such as the subjugator heavy cruiser and the geonosian dreadnaught may not have textures

some textures are unfinished

some ships may have abilities that don't work very well, please report issues with these

balance may be off, it hasn't been tested extensively yet, if something is very over/under powered please report it.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or if it's just something that I'm missing on how to address this issue.

Regardless, Love the mod and all the other you've done. Keep up the great work!

if you don't have sins 1.1 or later you MUST update, sorry.

I know one of the little things you haven't gotten to yet is doing custom names for race capital ships and if you're interested, I'm offering my help. Below is a compiled list of historical ship names from the SW universe along with their ship classes and where necessary, some fantasy name additions to flush out the list where cannon is weak - noted by the "~".

It looks like Sins doesn't allow individual capital ship classes to have independent name lists -I may be wrong- but instead each race just has a capital ship name databank in the strings file. So at the least historical ship names from the SW universe could be added, they just might not be attached to the correct ship class...

Again I've never modded these exact settings but it appears that if in the Player .entity files, the CapitalShipNameType is edited from say "CapitalShipTech" to "CapitalShipImperial" then in the strings file the game it looks like it would pull ship names from a new set of strings as shown in the example below:

ID "IDS_CAPITALSHIPNAME_IMPERIALXX" (where XX = numbers)

as opposed to

ID "IDS_CAPITALSHIPNAME_TECHXX" (where XX = numbers)

If new "CapitalShipNameType"s have to be defined anywhere else that you know of then that of course would have to be done too, but I can't find it anywhere else.

Anyway what I'm offering, if it would be helpful, is to do this for the current races, using what I've pasted below as a basis. Again I'd start with historical names and only if needed, follow up with some of the "fantasy" additions.

Total modified files - probably only 5 currently; The player files for Imperials, Alliance, Old Republic, and CIS, and the string file.

Please let me know if this would be of assistance,

GDFKingTigerTank

---MC80 Class--- (names based on luxury passenger liner names)

Nebula Gazer ~

Radiant Flare ~

Crown Jewel ~

Paradise III ~

Turn of Fortune ~

Solar Wind ~

Galacticus ~

Regal ~

---MC80 Maria Class---

Maria

Freedom ~

Objector ~

Pontificator ~

Resistant ~

Mon Segula ~

Mon Garitus ~

---MC80 Liberty Class---

Alliance

Ardent

Autonomy

Endeavor

Liberty

Mantan Wanderer

Mon Delindo

Mon Karren

Orthavan

Reef Home

---MC80A Class---

Odesseus

Hope

Naritus

Starview

Cathleen

Excelsior

Stimsenj'kat

Defiance

---Mon Remonda (MC80B) Class---

Allegiant

Mon Adapyne

Mon Remonda

Startide

---Independence Class---

Independence

Home One

---Venerator---

Courageous

Champion ~

Deterrent ~

Formidable ~

Fortitude ~

Guarlara

Intervention

Intrepid

Justice ~

Lawbringer ~

Redoubt

Ro-Ti-Mundi

Venator ~

Vigilance

White Knight ~

---Victory I---

Bombard

Crusader

Coursca Fire

Evicerator

Emperor's Wisdom

Iniquity

Malignant

Protector

Renegate

Stalwart

Sceltor

Subjugator

Iron Fist

Victory

Vindictive

---Victory II---

Arrogance ~

Challenger ~

Eradicator ~

Mortician ~

Nemesis

Unbearable ~

Wyvern ~

---Procurator Destroyer---

Attentive ~

Defender ~

Protector ~

Procurator

Responder ~

Overseer ~

---Praetor Star Battlecruiser---

Aquilifer ~

Caesar ~

Centurion ~

Cohort ~

Legionnaire ~

Praetor

Pontificus ~

Quaestor ~

Testudo ~

---Mandator Star Dreadnaught---

Ordinator ~

Mandator

Dictator ~

Enforcer ~

---Imperator I Class---

Admonitor

Assassin

Basilisk

Conqueror

Conquest

Courageous

Devestator

Emperor's Will

Emperor's Revenge

Glory

Gnisnal

Gorgon

Hammer

Hydra

Intrepid

Immortal

Imperator

Inexorable

Majestic

Malice

Manticore

Nihil

Punisher

Redoubtable

Resolution

Thunderflare

Tyrant

Ultima

Vanguard

Warrior

---Imperator II Class---

Accuser

Adamant

Avarice

Avenger

Bellicose

Chimaera

Death's Head

Direption

Evicerator

Firestorm

Interrigator

Judicator

Kreiger

Monarch

Moonshadow

Nemesis

Preemptory

Pulsar

Relentless

Reliance

Retribution

Stalker

Steadfast

Stormhawk

Virulence

Wolfs Claw

---Torpedo Sphere Class---

Doomsphere ~

Besieger ~

Catapult ~

Trebuchet ~

Nutcracker ~

---Executor Class---

Executor

Lusankya

Terror

Vengeance

Guardian

Annhilator

Reaper

Brawler

Intimidator

---Lucrehulk DCS---

Ambition ~

Extortionist ~

Gambit ~

Hoard ~

Motherlode ~

Tariff ~

Venture ~

---Trade Fed Adv. Destroyer---

Elusive ~

Shadow Walker ~

Colicoid Swarm

Nightmare ~

Invisible Hand

Lucid Voice

Dream Crusher ~

---Lucrehulk Class Battleship---

Accountor ~

Acquisitor

Bounty ~

Darkvenge

G’hiika ~

Keeper

Moua’dib

Procurer

Profit

Saak’ak

Stockade

Taxation ~

---Malevolence Star Cruiser---

Constrictor ~

Malevolence

Devastation

Spinecrusher ~

Destruction ~

---Geonosian Dreadnaught Class---

Behemoth ~

Flying Death ~

Pride of Geonosia ~

Gargantua ~

Mammoth ~

- Start the ship selection along the lines of A New Hope, and allow later ships to be built through research.

- Adjust the build speed so that the expensive Caps take Alot longer to build then the cheaper ones (Also having to research for the large Caps would make it balanced)

- If you can adjust it so the expensive Caps take more Cap Supply that would be a bonus.

- Add more selection to the Starfighter choices. Interceptors, Defenders etc, From extensive Research.

- Allow all Caps to colonise planets, this allows the start game to progress faster

- Have a bunch of starting buildings: Frigate Ship Yards, Cap Ship Yards, 2 Constructors Spawned. ?Defenses? (At the moment the constructors slowly spawn from the first building you build)

- Adjust the Asteroid collection and Taxation to compensate for the expensive ships.

- Emphasise the difference between the Industrial Empire, and the Inspirational Rebels. e.g. Empire gaining Refineries earlier and Rebels having Cheaper, Faster Culture. Empire allowing cheaper buildings when colonized, Rebels colonising with a bonus population.

- Visually it would be better if the range of the starships was reduced so if you zoomed onto 1 ship you can see the other firing onto it.

- Allow all ships with Turbolasers to be able to bombard planets.

- Create a cheap unit like Sigma Transports to capture extractors OR allow other large frigates to capture extractors.

- Also at the moment the jump time is only a few seconds, this reveals that the interdictor's 700% markup on a few seconds, is nearly worthless. It should disable warping completely.

- What's with the Acclamator II's Shield Recharge rate?

Once you start out the map, and go into sensor manager, the edges of the map that are farthest away from you are cut out with because of some engine/distance problems, and the boundary that the sensor manager draws looks like a line that cuts out the map X/Y axis.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix this, or if it cant be fixed, please let me know.