Lavo

Nope, and no eta, I'm a coder, not a model maker. That's one of eville's jobs.

Update: March 15th, 2011 I realized that with the shielding tech tree I made an unintentional boost, that shield regen was higher than normal. This has been fixed, the fourth shielding tech in the line now no longer has a shield regen boost (this is makes this tree have a total equal shield regen as the regular/average tech tree).

Yeah, hitting alt lags the game to hell. It's useful for doing mass selections and seeing fire arcs however.

For times, this week I can do pretty much any time, as I'm on spring break. I wouldn't play as the Vong as they're really cheap. As an AI they are the toughest AI on average. Thanks! This is the best way to learn tbh, it's how I've learned everything I know personally.

Update: March 15th, 2011 Ion Volley abilities have been modified and are now useful.

The NR cruisers have overpowering shielding and shield restore rates. That's their main strength. The ISDs have underpowered shielding, even if they have good firepower. I wasn't disagreeing that the ISDs make lame cruisers, honestly I prefer any of the other faction's top tier cruisers to them pre-patch, I was saying that they do not lack firepower. Edit: When I talk about stats, I talk about the stats in the entity files. The ingame weapon ratings are misleading as the weapon damage they give is an average of sorts of the four weapon banks (front, left, back, and right), even though most of the time ships fire from their most powerful banks (left and right, at times front as well) as seen by when they face the left or right or in some cases front.

Update: March 14th, 2011 Well... Where do I begin... For starters, the Intercept ability actually works now, rather than sending a ship half-way away from where it's trying to go towards, or hopelessly making a massive u-turn, though it seems that with certain small distances, a ship can overshoot it's target and infinitely keep trying to speed to the target. Requesting feedback on this attempted fix. The Viscount has had it's Defensive Tactics ability removed, Backup Shields slightly boosted (it peaks at 300 shield/second, which is what it formally started at, rather than the pitiful 150), and also costs a bit more Crystal. The SSD now has the Oppression ability, because well, it's pretty appropriate. Most capital ships have had a slight re-haul, the ISD Command and Tector in particular, which in addition to the re-haul, have had their Oppression ability replaced with Fleet Coordination and Alpha Strike, respectfully. The Lucrehulk now sport 12 squadrons, up from 8. The Victory capital has been removed... I'm sorry about this, it was a creation of mine, but it just didn't fit in with the balancing at all, plus the Reps already have 3 capitals. The Providence, ISDI, ISDII, MC60, and Nebula SD cruisers have all been slightly adjusted.

This is how I've played my MP matches in the past. The NR supercap should be better than the SSD one on one is what I'm saying, not that the SSD should be instantly killed. The capitals are better than the Empire's indeed, but that is how they were designed, though in their current form it is a bit much at times, particularly the MC90's backup shields, which I'm fixing. As for the cruisers, the Nebula needs some fixing I will agree, and I've fixed up the MC60 a bit recently. The Empire does have more firepower, this is why they have the firepower-oriented tech tree. From tier 4 onwards (aka. when you need 5 research labs), the Empire has more firepower upgrades, yet less shielding upgrades, than other factions. The AI doesn't build supercaps often, even on Unfair mode. I have seen an Empire AI build an SSD once before, I believe I still have a saved game from then, if you want me to check and show you pics. Like I said, this boils down to personal preference. I've had games before where I have built multiple SSDs in one fleet, it was simply game over after then. Have you tried a Vong AI? Now that's where you see something that's very obscene. Mind you, I've refrained from touching those guys with a 5 foot pole as they're unique from all the other factions, as they should be, but I don't know how exactly they damned work. Anyways, I've done some tweaking to the Empire... Tell me how it works out. um, what. Why should the ISD-II be superior to the Nebula SD, which was a more efficient and superior vessel, not to mention one designed specifically to take on cruisers like those of the ISD line? The reason the Tector is a capital is for variety. It's a different capital from the ISD Command, even more so after the ability changes I've done, which will notice. A reworked SSD would be a damned ton of work, and it would be far better and simpler to fix the SSD. Edit: Also, forgot to mention, the ISD I and II, in terms of sheer firepower, already have more than all the other faction's top tier cruisers, even the Vong.

k, done. I'll upload it to the SVN, along with a bunch of changes namely capital ship ones, once it's back up. Also, some of the map descs are cut off, for one reason or another.

Well now that it's known what it does, let's see if Nova wants it changed, it is his map after all.

Yeah, Nova made that map, likely left the first capital free. *Checks* Yup he did. This is a standard feature in vanilla Sins, in SoGE it's been turned off (for the most part that is) as in SoGE capital ships are extremely powerful, all the supercaps fall under this catagory, and having the first one free guarantees that entire fleets of cruisers and frigates would be wiped out by capital ship spam.

Also Planetkillerzz, if you and your friends happen to have an open slot for your MP rounds, I'd love to join in, haven't had an MP match in awhile.

There will be no middle ground capital ship. The lower tier supercaps already serve as a bridge between the larger supercaps and capitals. Besides this, this would mean adding in mid-tier capitals to every faction, when balancing current ships is still an issue, and there isn't any models for these, while some current ships lack skins and models, never mind star bases. I'm not sure how you were getting free capitals... Were you playing one of the custom maps, perhaps?

The weeby link Evaders posted is pretty good. I might post something up later if I'm up to it, which details stuff. MP+AI is the best gauge for balancing imho, much of my changes draws upon such experience. Believe it or not, but before the tech tree overhaul, the Republic was, by far, the worst AI faction in the game. For players they flat out sucked. This is true, there is more firepower and shielding combined. However, the Praetor's downside is that it lacks the massive amount of starfighters that the SSD brings, and it's impressive fleet-wide ability boost. In addition to this, this also costs more capital ship slots, which means you can have less capital ships overall, and this costs you more in research, both in cost and time. And while each individual Praetor has more combined health, they are individually more vulnerable than the SSD, which is neigh impossible to take down without a massive fleet. The choice of the SSD vs. Praetor is a matter of personal play style and tactics. I've also noted that I made the SSD a little overpriced, in comparison to the Viscount, and will rectify this sometime soon. Actually, the ISDs have more firepower than the Venators overall, the ISD Command barely, and the Tector a bit more. Though yeah, I'm working on improving the ISDs, as they are the worst of the stock capitals (barring the Lucrehulk DCS and MC80 Diplo, though these are support rather than combat capitals). Abilities are where the ISDs really fall short of the other capitals, more so than any other area. The Oppression ability is honestly an utterly pathetic use of an ability slot, and is really better off being used by the SSD (which has an open slot) than the ISD. In fact, I'm going to change the ISD's Oppression slot to something useful. Putting something in between the two classes would be inappropriate and unbalanced. I attempted that with the Victory capital originally, in the end I realized that it wasn't a good idea, to say the least. Besides that, the ISD is the middle ground between the SSD and anything lower, they just need some beefing up. The NR caps are supposed to be better than the Empire caps. The NR is supposed to be somewhat of a blend between the Empire and Alliance, loads of firepower, but at the same time, having great durability and shielding. Like I said in my first post, yup I know that, and I really like posts like this and want more of them.

Noticed this just now, sent Evaders a PM.

He's been considering those, has been working with the textures to try and ensure maximum compression. As he's said before, the next release will be via the Sins forums.

Update: March 13th, 2011 Backup Shields for the MC60, MC90, and Viscount have been nerfed. They're still quite useful, just not overpowering as previously. Also minor tweaks, etc.

In my last game, I had the opposite. Depends on the map tbh. That's a lot of resources. o_o I've found it's hard to upgrade the lower tech planets (like the Volcanics) than the higher pop planets. The high pop upgrades are expensive yes, but they are very worth the investment, as you can literally play a whole game based off of one or two of those planets. Might work, though, I find the 'roids are fine in terms of cost. The main thing is that it pwns the AI, rather than a human player. I love 'roids and Crystal planets, the resources are def. worth the hit in income.

I wouldn't mod the crystal/metal accounts too high, as they actually work well, at least with SoGE. :v

Update: March 12th, 2011 Carrack tractor beams no longer affect a ship once it has hyperspaced out of a system, as it should. Vong Hangar Defense and Golan III now spawn Vong fighters and bombers. The lack of any starting stuff for the Asteroid in all the Extra Planets Random maps has been fixed. ISD (capital) and Tectors have been slightly improved. Victory (capital) has been modified. Ship Graveyards have been added. Please note, these are not in any of the Random planetTypes. They have only been added to be used as a possible tool or addition in custom maps. Colonizer frigates (except: Gladiator for Imps, Ship Shr'a for Vong) can capture these ships. Edit (4:20 am EST): MC60's Torpedo Volley ability has been removed. BAC's Backup Shields have been removed, replaced with Torpedo Volley.

Interesting, very interesting. Looking forward to seeing these! However, I'd be careful with messing with stars, seeing as how they are the main "building block" in systems, so to speak. Also, I'm sure you could find some meshers on the Sins forums.

That's no battle station! It's a moon!

Before I go into replying, I have to say I love you so much for posting constructive criticism. This is really what's needed in order for us to spot bugs and balance things properly. Part of the reason why NR ships have so much health is due to their tech tree, which puts an emphasis on shielding, rather than firepower. Though, I do entirely see and agree with what you say. For example, I've had an MC90 take on an MC80 Liberty (capital). Due to shield regen, neither of them ever died. However, the NR's super capital is supposed to be able to beat the SSD on head on combat, that is (in SW) what it was designed to do. However it's shield regen is rather... Massive. Outdated? While I will agree that I don't like the ISD capitals very much, they are by no means underpowered. Oh wow, no wonder I didn't like them, their capitals suck. I'm going to get down to this soon. Their key is numbers. They actually tend to be one of the worst AIs, before the tech changes, were the worst AI by far. They're very fun to play as. I've noticed this, it happens with all of the shield regen ships, it's an engine thing to my knowledge, that they don't fire them off until they take a certain amount of damage (when autocast is enabled). This is why, a few hours into the game, they tend to fire it off while they have more overall health, due to tech research. Noticed this earlier this week, a very embarrassing error on my part. This, on my end, has since been fixed. It will be uploaded along with a handful of other small updates later tonight. I was the one who pointed this out, before I was staff, and it has indeed been fixed. The limited slots is a planet issue (see Nova, he did comment on your planets! ), and the main reason defenses are inadequate is the lack of star bases. When stations are added in, the limited slots will make a lot more sense, as they will add variety among planets. The lack of star bases is mainly due to having no models for them yet, and when I've attempt to put in stations (like the Tech's, or one based off of the Golan III model), there is some weird error popping up. The ion cannons... Well yeah they're kinda OP. Not really sure how to address them or deal with 'em however, as with the exception of human players, they are not spammed and thus are not unbalanced. If you hold the "alt" key, you can see the range of the maximum weapon of any ship and defense structure. For the Golan III, it's main guns have a range of 20000 and 15000, respectfully, pre-research and pre-ability changes. Unless you mean the hyperspace/jump blocker, which case I believe it is the whole system, however I'm not entirely sure as I don't know abilities well. I'm assuming you mean the Venator cruiser, in which case, this is due to it's "Intercept" ability. The ship acts very strangely in order to stay in what it thinks is a linear path, nothing that can truly be done about this. However, reducing the ship's rate of turn increase (due to Intercept) might help, though once again this is not my area of expertise. Also, editing Sins only requires Notepad! At least, this is the case for SoGE, as all the coding files have already been converted from bin to txt. As for an overall balancing, I agree that a proper one is necessary. Though, as Evaders has said, nobody truly has the time for this. Balancing is further complicated since, soon after I joined the staff, I figured out how to code in real Ion Cannons, aka. ship weapons that only do shield damage.

I see what you did there.

SoGE doesn't have Sins Plus, your maps don't work well at all with SoGE. =/