Hello there again Mr. Connor.

Corvettes made a truly interesting LRF counter and discourage blind capitalship rushes since they are fast enough to case down damaged caps from a battle. They also made expansion a bit faster since they are both fast and good against Siege frigates. 

Most people agree Sins early game balance is a good as it has even been, with a nice little early combat square. Corvettes beat LRF, Flak beats Corvettes, Light Frigates beat Flak, and LRF beats light frigates. LF + Corvettes are the slightly preferred combo but I think it may come down to your race really.

Titans will be either a hit or miss thing for you. In multiplayer they've definitely changed things. Most titans have good damaging AoE attacks, and as titans are rebuilt at the level they're destroyed at you want to do everything possible to avoid unnecessary losses when fighting them. That means using ships that are either immune to their abilities or are durable enough to tank it, mainly your own titan, capitalships, strikecraft and corvettes. At low levels titans can be overwhelmed by numbers but once they get stronger they're quite formidable. Any other advice is really dependent on each individual titan, they are really do have some very different move sets and abilities.

No worse than it was before Rebellion. Both Vasari subfactions have some really powerful unique reseach (Vasari Loyalists can eat planets to get a ton of resources, allowing them to zerg rush everyone with unbeatable fleets in under an hour, and Vasari Rebels can phase jump their starbases into other gravity wells), but both have been nerfed to be much harder to deploy in a multiplayer context. TEC and Advent Loyalists were considered the weakest two subfactions but a series of small strategically placed buffs give them their own niche. At this point I'd say if the Vasari didn't have phase missiles the TEC and Advent Rebels would be just as good as the Vasari.

Still 3v3s to 5v5s depending on players in the lobby. I've found if I host 1v1s they'll fill quickly, but you usually have to make them yourself. Weekend player counts seem to have stabilized between 150-300 players, right after a sale or patch we'll see it rise to as high as 500, and I think ICO had a record of 1000 people online at one point.

Yes they will, but Harpo might have a tool to help with that as always.

One thing you'll like is the new "Competitive Maps" they added a few months after Rebellion released. These force each planet type to have the same amount of militia and resource asteroids, and planet bonuses and artifacts have been removed. Basically it takes some of the random luck aspects out of the game. They also added some new premade maps that support teams spawning next to each other (I know Triple Entente at least was one of them).

Maybe some small bugfixes. A major patch, 1.5, and the first ever Sins DLC Forbidden Worlds was just released. Fortunately this DLC doesn't split the community, whoever hosts the game determines if the DLC will be used, even if not everyone in the game has the DLC.

Pretty much. They're still good capitalships, all of them, but Corvettes have made relying on say a double carrier rush way more risky since you probably won't be able to retreat them if you commit to an all out attack. Most people seem to have gone back to the old fashioned colony capitalship starts, though plenty of TEC commanders still go with the Marza just to get missile barrage ASAP. 

Wait, did I miss something?

Edit:

I preferred Advent Rebels to Advent Loyalists even when not using Wail of the Sacrificed. The main difference may indeed be whether you want the Eradica titan's fleet killing power or the Coronata's single super damaging attack. I'd pick the Eradica most of the time but they're both pretty good titans now.

yes this is a huge problem, but enemy AI will surely build one and it is funny when TEC or Advent tries to put a starbase under the nose of my main fleet, so they do use them offensively, but not Vasari i have failed every game so far where my ally was Vasari, the other 2 races are ok, they build starbases, but it's sad to see your ally to have 2 starbase builder colony ships, and no starbases there...

there are some new maps and there are balanced maps giving equal resources to everyone, so no unfair start. The concept of competitive maps is not to give anyone an unfair advantage, and not really meant to be played against AI. Now artifacts are game changing, so finding the one that gives 25% extra population and 25% extra tax will win you the game and poor opponent will never know why, so you may understand now why

I would be happy to see some new maps, I hate most of them. All focuses on small territory and immediate conflict, and there aren't ones that are medium sized and gives you more than 3-5 planets (except random, but would be nice to see more).. And lack of well-defensible chokepoints is irritating too. playing on bigger maps with fewer AI's is unbalanced, because who gets the free homeworlds, will be strongest.

Well the vast majority of people turn them off, so most of the feedback doesn't concern them.

Were you not a multiplayer Connor? I don't remember, but the competitive maps were made for them. And virtually all of them will agree anything random, including artifacts, should be removed. You don't want to say you only lost a game because your opponent found data archive in the first 5 minutes...

But regardless, virtually all the artifacts were buffed in 1.5 (seriously, you should at least check all the change logs if not posts while you've been gone if you want to talk about this stuff  ) and map makers have always been allowed to spawn artifacts at specific planets.

The new maps were added before the DLC. They are two independent features that were made in isolation from each other and with two different target players in mind.

It is if they either get in the way of the core game, I.e. pirates in competitive games where you just want to focus on beating other humans, or if it would unbalance the game and thus reduce the validity of bragging rights, I.e. planet bonuses. If you don't like that they're totally optional, but plenty of players do not like them in certain circumstances. And heck, despite the superweapon limit plenty of people here want an option to take them out of the game as well...

It's apparently a lot harder than you think, they've only added a toggle button once outside of an expansion release. And you just have to download someone else's minimod. 

It's not as if Vicious and Cruel AI would be a huge loss from the game, as they took almost no developer effort to create.  I'm not sure why they don't alter the resource cheat pattern anyway, there's room to shuffle hard to 'normal plus' and make unfair the old hard and cruel the old unfair, it would seem to make much more sense.

But the basic aim should be to make AIs that can play the strongest possible game on normal level anyway?  If you just super cheat the resources, it isn't satisfying and you obscure the difference between factions with poor economies and those with good ones.  The Vasari normal AI can build titans why cant it build starbases?  Why can't the Vasari AI deploy starbases in hostile gravwells?  Its not rocket science, okay perhaps it is.

That's the wrong attack priority for AI, you profit if it attacks your starbases and titans.. the proper primary attack priority is inhibitors, constructors, repair and specialised support ships, after that maybe LRF.  I've known the AI attack extractors while a turret was built right next to them.

I played another game, an FFA against 3 hard AIs on 'Gemini.'  Gemini is a fairly good small multistar, again it has the 'combat space' between the starting positions which I recommend for a map.  I like it.  I was TEC, the AIs randomed to 2 Advent one in the same system as me and a Vasari.  I didn't put any effort into diplomacy but the Vasari had envoys, and we got a trade agreement then eventually peace as we dealt with our respective Advent opponents.

One aspect that has been toned down is the missions you used to get from the factions, which seemed entirely missing.  Perhaps I just didn't have enough of a relationship with the Vasari, and getting missions from diehard enemies was always a bad thing which I complained about.  The missions feature is still there though?  Ironclad should do something about that pacts page, it has almost no information for something which blocks the entire screen.  If it can't be as award-winningly minimal as the rest of the Sins UI, why not allow it a quarter of the screen instead?

However what I wanted to understand was the influence of the titans on the AI FFA game, and there seems to be a massive failure.  While I had a fairly good fight against the Advent AI and even struggled against its titan, the end game against the Vasari was a depressing walkover.  The reason was that the Advent AIs had resigned before their titans had been destroyed, and had left their titans in gravwells the Vasari AI wanted to conquer...  One solution would seem to be to not have AIs resign while they have titans up, its not a total solution but a good quick fix?

Sins players have always been fairly poor in terms of after-action reports, the developers get far more complaints than information, and that may have stunted the growth of the game as much as anything.  Apart from the problem with the endgame, the game I played was more entertaining than those I have had in previous versions, the map was good and the AI had a sense of what space they wanted and didn't instantly team up on me.  Perhaps we should have an AAR thread, though I'm not sure how many forum posters play the standard game, the forum always seemed split between multiplayers and modders?

My next game was a hard FFA on Kabel.  The map seems quite good, it is a little cramped but then that's hardly a disadvantage with ten starting spots.  Is it used at all for 5s in multiplayer?  If not, why not?

Anyway I randomed Advent and I got lucky, with four other Advents in the game, which also meant that the missions started appearing, maybe not thick and fast, but there all the same.  This seems fairly reasonable, I hadn't developed my relations with the Vasari in the previous game at all and there was no reason for extended diplomatic contact.  

I have finished the game yet, even with the fast action a ten player FFA is still a long game.  However the Advent have wiped everyone else out, which is much as it should be I suppose! Now the infighting begins!  I am pleased with how the diplomacy element seems to have worked out, from when I left off it is very much improved, the empires seem to expand in sensible directions and their relations attitudes are fairly reasonable.

The one aspect that I am dubious about is the same as the previous game, factions seem to tend to resign too quickly.  I haven't come across any abandoned titans in this game, but there are earth-type planets with starbases and fleets with several capital ships and tens of cruisers and the AI has resigned?  Resignation seems to happen far too early.  Unless a faction has no planets only asteroids, and no titan, I'd want them to fight to the end.  The only exception might be the last rival faction in the game.

My Advent Titan gains power by eating my own ships... is serious?  Why not eat the enemy ships then?  If you apply the sacrifice ability to all Advent ships, and ships are sacrificed or even just the scouts which have the ability at present, then I can see than being helpful- but why have your titan destroy your own ships when there are enemy nearby?  Bizarre.        

Pretty much this, but don't forget economics. If you're beating an AI in all aspects a little bit but with a huge economic lead, I've noticed the AI tends to give up often, while its rarer if I say ignore trade the entire game. 

And pretty much the only way to get multiplayer to change is to host a 5v5 game yourself with the settings you want. If it fills up maybe somebody else will like the map and start using it.

As i dont play vs AI or have any experience in single player i ll comment on the multiplayer aspect of rebellion.

Now is the easist time to join and get into Sins MP as there are so many new players playing and joining 5s, chances are you wont get kick or abused for being new etc.. You can always the ask the host anyways if you are concerned. Im seeing a lot of "unknown" players in my games recently and some of them have picked up the game pretty quicky.

Multiplayer balance is very decent after recent patch, although im a hater of a double factory start but what are you going to do?

In my opinion TEC Loyalists are competing with Vasari Loyalists for "best" faction at the moment closely followed by AR. But there isnt much in it and often comes to personal preference etc.. AL is very fun to play in ECO spot as well.

I would just like to say that 50%+ of the 5v5 maps hosted are NOT competetive and artifacts can be found and used. When i host my games they are normally ALL RANDOM which makes games a bit more unpredictable. Last nights 5s had 8 Vasari players in it and 5 of them on the same team! That was such a sick game i should really upload the replay lol

Anyways if you need any help with MP ping me on steam on in-game.

Well, bear in mind that i speak from purely multiplayer aspect of the game and games vs AI might be different but:

-Awesome early game potential ( best corvettes in the game etc).

-Strongest ECO that can translate into strong Lategame potential( TAR isnt very good in my opinion and DLC devaules it even more as expanding at fast rate is no longer required). Think Industry upgrades over additional planets.

-Awesome titan, matrix shield is great and that self-defence thing makes it indestructible. Group shield can also be effective but a bit more circumstantial. Also positioning and range of his guns make him do more damage than sometime it might appear. Doesnt have movement/targetting flaws of Ragnarov.

-Very easy to get Novalith Cannons + Upgrade and if you time it right they can be devastating. Just like guardians with repulsion sometimes its just not possible/very hard to counter it.

-Good titan upgrade bonuses (see VR for bad ones).

-Impossible to kill at choke planets if the game goes on for longer than 1h30-2 hours due to damage and armor bonuses.

There might be more but those are the ones i can think of the top off my head and i dont have access to the game from the office.

If there are only two players left in the game then a huge disadvantage would indeed be a good basis for early AI resignation.  However with several factions left in an FFA the AI should hang on if they have a titan, or a decent fleet, or at least one decent world.  There are many maps where the AI's 'share' of the map before conflict begins is not much more than that.

I have played mostly MP in the past, but I made both MP and SP maps and also I wanted to help out with some of the SP issues that had been brought up.  The normal Sins AI should be much better than it is, it underperforms.  The objective should be to reduce the level of cheating needed for the higher level AIs.  If their was more possibility for the players to have input into AI strategies it would improve tremendously.  The implementation of the pirates is a related problem.

I started MP before the 5v5 disease caught on, it was when there were the first appeals for PUG 5s, rather than 5s being the dominant form of MP.  My favourite type of MP is still 3 or 4 player teams on the premade maps, where you play whoever turns up.  Supposedly random 5s are all about 'know the smurf' and I could never stand that aspect of it.  So many of the best Sins players were devoted to having several smurfs, it was ridiculous.  Is it any better now?

Steam has only had a minor impact on smurfing....

People can still change their lobby name as much as they want to...they can also still change their steam name anytime...sure, their game record can't change but when dozens of people you probably don't know have similar records that isn't a very identifying characteristic...it is true that you can view all prior names of a steam account, but that is very inconvenient and tiresome, not to mention people will sometimes use the same name as a well known player (since multiple people can have the same steam name)...

Players do all sorts of things to mess with their record...when losing or just plain bored they plug pull so the game isn't registered to keep a high win/loss ratio...not that game records mean much of anything, the best players do not necessarily have good records (for a variety of reasons) while mediocre players can have seemingly amazing records...

If you want to know who's who, you simply have to play a lot and depend on other's intel for smurfs and unknown names...

Lol I didn't know How smurfed...who does he play as now?