theRetroboy

Reply to Conquering Planet:why only bombardment in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Oh, golly, no. Distant newly conquered planets already start out with allegiance less than that until you can get a media building spreading culture in the area. -- Retro

Reply to What we want in patch 1.05 ;) in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]...and effects[/quote]Thanks, Ron. Other references to 1.1 had cited higher-poly models, but not more graphically intense effects to go with them. That was on my wish list. I'd like a graphical switch option for more types and models for and more persistent debris. What got me jumping on board Sins was a wonderful screenshot that a friend on a different forum posted during beta, showing a post-capship+frigateswarm battle pile of space junk. -- Retro

Reply to Sins of a Solar Empire v1.04 released! in Sins News Sins Forums

GO TO BED, you west coast nuts!! :) -- Retro, snagging

You know, I find I *really* like the races in this game. in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Industrial trade coalition who rock at making money and don't pay much attention to the damage of heavy industry and nuclear weaponry vs. Psi-using matriarchal cult that was kicked out of their original society and know how to dominate and influence vs. Aliens on the run who specialize in multispecies enslavery, miniaturization, and mobility, and can exploit resources better than anything. I'm quite pleased with the intellectual balance these three formative gr

Reply to Sins of a Solar Empire v1.04 Final Change Log in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Vinz, the problem with that is it's a simple groupkey assignment and command on gravwell arrival for skilled players to completely override that default behaviour f their attacking fleet and immediately send the siege frigates in to bomb the planet. If the siege frigs are buffed, it's just that much more killing that they get to do before they can be countered. You'd also have to reprioritize defense targeting too, or your sieges won't last a minute once they get in range of the defendi

Reply to "Vocal minority" and noise on the forums in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Not wanting to listen to the entire podcast (sorry, rushed!), is it: "the vocal minority IN the forums" or "the vocal minority THAT IS the forums"? There's a huge difference. The former may be referring to the people that post their complaints or suggestions over and over, every chance they get and in every thread they contribute to. Some of them likely will never be satisfied as they pursue their own interpretation of perfection. The latter group would represent all

Reply to Conquering Planet:why only bombardment in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Agreed for TEC's nuke-em approach, but that doesn't apply to Vasari. Their entire conquering process is to subjugate the local population as rapidly as possible and turn them into slave labourers. Their orbital beam weapons strike me as surgical tools to cut out the leadership without a lot of collateral damage, not kill-everything planetglassing nature of TEC-bombs, so there would be lots of things like food production, water treatment, power generation, etc. left to kick off a quick start with

Reply to Ironclad should make an FP4XS :) in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

To be perfectly honest, I'd rather to be able to play as a fighter or bomber squadron commander in the middle of a Sins war, dodging flak, bombing structures and assaulting tradeships. Heck, if the higher-resolution models are coming soon with 1.1, a lot of the formative work might already be done! :) -- Retro

Reply to Conquering Planet:why only bombardment in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Uranium, pretending it's a real military/economy simulation and not just a game for a minute, even if the local population's leadership practiced a scorched earth policy as they went down to defeat, at minimum the invading force gets a huge boost in the net amount of recyclable stuff that's sitting around waiting for the first available forge. Even a razed city, unless it's been completely nuked and is radioactive for centuries, is going to be full of metal girders that are much easier and faste

Reply to AI retreating in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Does "hard" difficulty influence this? IIRC, I had a similar case a week or so ago to sirphoenix's, but at hard difficulty, and after losing their capship they stuck around with a fleet of frigates and reamed me badly. Can't remember if it was one of their planets or mine, but I think it was the former. I agree that the enemy AI doesn't take phase jump inhibition into effect enough in its decisions. Their bombers should be attacking [I]that [/I]building, not the hangar, if the fight is

Reply to Ship Designs needing most improvement......vote. in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Anyone dissing the current ship designs should time-travel back to the very first Sins released screenshots. :) The graphical improvments that have been applied to this evolving game have been astounding. I can't wait until 1.1. -- Retro

Reply to Annoying Dead Asteroids... in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

badken, you might not say that when your starting random-map position dumps your home planet behind a single phase-lane exit that leads to a dead asteroid, especially if you're playing TEC and get the earlier trade research. :) Yeah, I know it's "luck of the draw" and to be fair the maps would have to be perfectly symmetric and stuff, but it's a fairly big influence on how well you'll be able to kickstart your own economy. -- Retro

Reply to AI Treachery in Single Player Sins Forums

Also, if your friendly AI pal is the only one left after you take out all the other AI enemies, they will instantly go hostile on you. You should fortify any planets that are on their borders when you start running out of foes. -- Retro

Reply to How do you use the phase gates as the vasari? in Single Player Sins Forums

It's worth noting that the "new" phase lanes do not appear on the map. Your vasari vessels will just jump through space without using a visible phase lane at all, much like all the races do when they jump from star to star. -- Retro

Reply to Annoying Dead Asteroids... in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Besiege, you're missing some details. Your trade route income is directly proportional to its [B]longest uninterrupted length[/B] from one edge to the other. If you have a dead asteroid in the middle of what would otherwise be a chain of seven joined tradeports, you only get the money multiplier that stems from having an uninterrupted chain of four, and that's a huge income hit. It's often a restriction that the map places on you (for example, if a random map creates a dead asteroid as a natural

Reply to Annoying Dead Asteroids... in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Not that I like them interrupting my trade lanes either, but colonizing them also reveals any enemy traffic passing through them, as well after upgrading detection, any enemies flying at or near them. That's one other benefit they have over just a resource asteroid in an otherwise empty gravwell. -- Retro

Reply to Overpriced much? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

P.S. Under PhailQuail's profile [quote]Access Class:Exiled (-1)[/quote] MADE MY DAY! -- Retro

Reply to Overpriced much? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Durikkan, it's not worth the cost it would take to chase down a single pirate that steals a copy for their own use. Stardock and IronClad are being quite successful by treating their *true* customers the right way, and if they lose a few purchases to pirates, well, those kind of people would have just stolen a cracked copy anyway. -- Retro

Reply to Overpriced much? in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Yeah, that's unrealistic. The most *you* might expect to pay is $20, but I'm extremely pleased at the $40Cdn I paid for the game and thought it was enormously worth the price. Very few games sell for less than $30 unless they're crap budget titles or are no longer new and shiny and are relegated to the bargain bin. [size=3][B]Not too pleased that you're stealing the game, too.[/B][/size] Especially when you come and complain on the website of the people that worked hard to bu

Reply to What we want in the Expansion Pack in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

I'd love the ability to offer or collect crystal or metal bounty, not just cash. Might help with the high reliance on the black market. Pirates could simply equate all resources to their present black market value when determining who they want to attack. [quote]A single Supership would be easily taken out by any Immobilizer buff powers[/quote]Yes, if you're a bad enough player to send one in alone. But pair it with a couple capships and damage-distributing or shield-restoring covering

Reply to Newbie Whacked by Economics in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]I did notice that my allegiance was 25%. I thought that was a dumb way to start a scenario - what nascent starfaring race WON'T regard its home planet as its capital???[/quote]I've always visualized the game as if the solar system (or local star cluster) isn't in fact the "home world" of the race, so they started off at some point in the past with someone dropping off a few colonists that reverted pretty much to primitive manufacturing capability as they conquered the planet, and all of t

Reply to Conquering Planet:why only bombardment in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Playing as Advent, I've also taken over the planets of other Advent factions and still had to bring them to 0 "health" and 0 upgrades present. Kinda blows the "incompatible infrastructure" argument out of the water. :) -- Retro

Reply to Why Demigod matters to Sinnners in Sins News Sins Forums

Updated 1up interview with Chris Taylor now mentions Stardock at the very end. http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3167280&p=1 From the original interview's February content: [quote]Taylor compares the gameplay to Battlefield 2 -- minus the firearms and first-person view. Everyone goes online to play other people, but the single-player game is more or less a training ground with bots. "We still have this fantastic world with stories we could tell," Taylor says, "[B]we just don't t

Reply to Why Demigod matters to Sinnners in Sins News Sins Forums

...and Sins is just a game where a bunch of starships blast each other to smithereens, right? It's [B]way [/B]too early to be that judgemental about a game in which the only information that's been given is a small amount of detail and a couple screenshots. I agree that achievements and in particular unlockable content won't appeal to every gamer, but it's unfair to infer that Demigod will be "shallow" based on what little we know at this point. -- Retro

Reply to Sins of a Solar Empire v1.04 planned for this week in Sins News Sins Forums

[quote]Moreover, a player's skill level along with strategy can completely alter one's perspective on balancing which has been both a challenge and quite enjoyable to observe.[/quote]It is AMAZING how much difficulty this adds to balancing. Glad that IronClad recognizes this so clearly. -- Retro