Somewhat of an older issue, the Akkan doesn't benefit from a higher rank Ion Cannon ability, or the colonize ability.

Are they going to change? Either shorter Recast Timers or Reduced Antimatter costs, or entirely different effects?

Ive noticed that if you upgrade the colonization ability the recast does go down, i think a level 3 is only 60 seconds. AM cost doesnt change thou, as to the ionbolt from what i can tell its effects last longer, cost/recast stays the same. only annoyance ive found, is when your upgrading a Caps abilities, when you mouse over the button for say colonization 2, it shows the effects of col 1, instead of what col 2 gives you. Same pattern for all the other ones. Along the same lines, research shows you what the next level would be, when it shouldnt. For example, if you have no points in the gauss cannon RoF research, and queue all 3 at once, if you mouse over it, it shows a 15>20% as if there is a 4th upgrade to that tech. Should either show 15>15 or max. IMO both are bugs, not balance issues. And both are carried over from B2.

On the topic of colonization, the only time colony ships are useful is as stated, before you can use an akkan. My first Cap is usually a Kol, to clear systems out. Maybe if the colony ship had a drastic reduction in its AM cost(from 100 to say 20) it would help. It takes way to long for them to be able to colonize a system after jumping in.

Off to play another couple of games, Also what happened to the ability to pick other settings like pirates on/off, flag ship death loss, etc...?

they did say we would temporarily lose these for B3 in the FAQ

I usually go with an Akkan first... it clears the militia just fine by itself.

They're disabled temporarily only.

Ok, havent read the FaQ really, since i started playing. looks like it was a reply... maybe someone should update the main post with any other semi-important questions that were answered so you dont have to scroll through the whole topic   

While using an Akkan may work, i prefer the XP to go towards a Kol. Those suckers are great at level 10, fully teched out.

One other thing id like to point out, incurrsion(tech 15 military tech) is either way to powerful, or the AI has no idea what todo. Ive seen it take a strong AI(esy) and turn them into nothing, ive even been there while they appear to attack an AI planet, the ai seems to handle them very poorly. The pirate fleets appearing arent very strong, but it seems the AI prioritizes the wrong ships.

Which makes the list very useful to me now, before I've never used it because of the jumping. Now I use it quite often.



Easy. The Akkam sucks in battles. It's a waste of a lot of resources and fleet points which could have been used for a Kol Battleship or a Sova Carrier. Besides that, colony ships are very cheap, so there is nothing stopping you from using 2-3 colony ships at the same time for faster colonizing.

Akkans suck in combat when alone, and fresh from the shipyards. Get a few levels on them, max out their range/tohit ability and they help alot. Not to mention their ion bolt makes the enemy Caps alot weaker, combine with a couple Kols and you can slaughter the enemy. As to Sovas, they are the only Cap i avoid, they are only good if you have several of them in a single group. Their main power(fighters/bombers) can be elminated with a good combination of Kol/flack frigates.

Game speed needs to be addressed. I have other issues, but if this was fixed, the game would be 10x better than it is now. Else take out the RTS part and call it a 4x, and make it turn based. The fun factor is slipping away...

Happiness -1

I guess I find the cap on space structures to be getting in the way of having a fun, fluid, gaming experience.

You gotta build a crap load of research stations (both kinds) just to research the things you need, but if you have limited planets (ie- you only have 2-3 planets and asteroids), even if you max out the building slots on research stations, you STILL cant research some of the top level stuff. And if you max out on, say, civilian research structures and decide to pursue the military research later, well your screwed.

Maybe I'm missing something here...

Also , as I've seen in my few multiplayer games, people aren't building fleets, they are building 1 MASSIVE fleet all the time, and just steamrolling with it... The AI never did this and its not fun to be on the other end of the steamroller...

Fleet size needs to be addressed in a different way from what the empire can support...

Maybe make a fleet limited to 1 capital ship and X number of support ships... ?

I dont think limiting the fleet to that size would be a good thing, unless you meant "fleet in gravity well of area X" limit, even then it could get anoying. However i do agree something needs to be done to protect against the steamrolling, but decreasing the caps on Cap ships or other ships isnt the way to go. Maybe make frigates alot cheaper, compared to the other ships. The Cost:power ratio for frigates Vs a capital ship is very unbalanced IMO, a single capital ship if used properly can easily stand against 10 light frigates and not to mention if that Cap ship is max level, then its just a slaughter. Maybe decreasing the Cost/build time of the light frigate to be more in line with the cannon fodder role it has would be better, might need a minor decrease in strength as well just to remain balanced.

After finishing a 1 Vs 1 map a little while ago(the one with 2 asteroid belts seperating the players, and 2 ice worlds), i noticed something very wrong. IMO the goal for that map is to be combat oriented and fast, in reality the amount of resources available is fairly unbalanced on the map. Even with the 2 ice worlds, and 1 of the dead asteroids only time i was above 500 metal was when i wasnt paying attention. Even then i would have several thousand $ and crystals, that was even with every planet having a trade post and one having 2 posts. This meant it took forever to get a fleet, and even longer to get any research done. Whole game was way to long and to much time was spent watching my metal counter go up hoping to build a light frigate.

Also, at the end game screen, it reported the Ai had 30k+ $, neve spent any $ on training capital ships, and spent basically nothing on research. I have never noticed any AI train their ships using $, on any difficulty level... i think this might be a bug?

How about allowing some minimal orbital construction around gas giants ?
ie say a ship building facility or research facility or the like.

In the new beta the hotkey for setting a rally point changed from G to F. But the command for unsetting it is still ctrl + G.

Just got into beta 3 yesterday and have been playing some single player to get up to speed for multiplayer (can't wait).

Two things...

First, just a comment, I read some posts a while back during beta 2 about pirates being a huge pain to deal with. I would have to say that of the 2.5 games I have played so far they are hardly an issue. matter of fact I think they could be harder (and maybe they do get harder) the first 2 games were on easy then medium respectively. the other half of a game that I just started tonight before I came to work here is with 5 comps on FFA all on hard... the comps nor have the pirates caused any really big problems for me (I make it a habit to make sure my bounty is always lower then someone else not sure if thats whats helping). Anyways just a comment on that.

The second thing is a issue I ran into that is a bit more technical. I invaded an enemy homeworld and crushed it, but they managed to queue up a metal extractor. they never got a chance to start building it, it was just see thru by the time I cleared out the planet. Unfortunetly as the planet died the extractor that was queued up didn't expire. So I had to wait till I defeated that whole comp before the extractor was canceled and I could build on that rock.

I guess it could be possible that it was canceling and would have gone after a while (the last enemy colony was only one jump away and had no defences) but I was shocked to find it didn't expire right when the world fell.

As I only read a few posts into this threat I apologize if this is a repeat.

P.s. I feel I should add one last thing, every thing is pretty damn cool in this game, my only large complaint is with the rally system, I feel like I need more control I.e. a way to send a ship it a fleet as i queue it up, not just have all the ships from one yard go to one fleet or rally point at a time. I think Earth 214..something or other (came out a year or 2 ago) had a system like that. Anyways I might make a post later if I can articulate what I am thinking about a little better.

Wow, this is an impressive game!

Sorry if this has been posted... not enough time to read and play...

Quick input: In the planet/ship window on the left side - need to be able to select multiple units at one time using the shift-click convention. (ex. 5 ships of different types... I select the first one and shift-click the last one and all the ones in between get selected.) Right now I have to select each one individually and it's a pain.

If there is a way to do that which I missed... then I blew it, but it should still follow the common windows convention.

Off to more playing and figuring this thing out.

Make it adjustable... some of us enjoy a calmer pace. If it slips too close to the RTS click-fest, then you do a diservice to your goal of crossing Strategy with RTS action.

I don't know how that would work and be effective. You would just have people put multiple fleets in one system and the steamroller is back. If you mean limiting the number of ships in a system, that's a pretty big gameplay change. Personally I think the best bet is just to make sure your steamroller is bigger than the other guys . The nature of sins almost guarentees this type of strategy. If you have key choke points, as you usually do, of course people are going to want to concentrate their fleets. Splitting your forces is a really bad tactical idea unless theres some good reason to do so, and sins doesn't provide any good reasons, except maybe pirates, and the risk of losing half your forces to an assault from your enemies full force isn't a good trade off, I just let the pirates play a bit, then squish them with my steamroller.

Their embargo ability is powerful, and don't forget that while they aren't as powerful as the other capships in close combat, they are far from being "pure" carriers. They have a nasty broadside to swat any frigates that get too close, and their little missile pods can be... quite fun. On top of that, the ability to instantly manufacture replacement fighters (and accelerate all other construction in system) is useful for both defensive and offensive purposes. (Rebuild defenses quick in the middle of combat, or get your carriers to replace lost fighters now instead of after the fight).

Well, I've only had one game so far but that isn't (quite) what I saw. My ally did that, sure, but Blair pretty much kicked his behind, and held me off by using three fleets (one for each "front" plus another one that would jump into the star now and again... fun for everyone!)



Well, in my multiplayer games they've shown up as a massive problem, if only because I was too busy to stomp them -- I trying to keep Blair too busy to stomp me!

They pretty much flattened my homeworlds defenses, then sat there and killed trade for a while (thankfully, the repair centers kept my economic buildings alive so I just lost trade ships, and lots of 'em). And when my ally forgot to mention to me that his planet had gotten killed, and his defenses were gone, they got into some of my "rear" systems and I lost those...

That sucked.

You could have just sent a frigate along and blown it up, ya know.

Traditionally in lists like that shift selects everything between the two click points -- see if "ctrl" click does what you want.

I tried cntl and it does not work either...

More input: It would be helpful if those areas that can be researched more than once showed 1:2 or 1:3 all the time so I don't have to hover over the tech to see if there is more research in that area to be done.

If you highlight a fleet icon it should show you where that subselected ship is on the map when zoomed out.

Having a lot of fun learning about the game. Just saw my first pirate base... aaarrrrr!

Yea, this bugged me at first too. Then I realized that they color-coded it! Green number means there is more to be researched.

Glad you are having fun learning the game! Alt selects all units of the same type. Shift adds units to your selection. But to be honest I usually just click 'stacking' for the empire tree and grab them as batches, so much easier.

As Ron Lugge pointed out above regarding the 2v1 game against me, one massive fleet is probably not the best way to go. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, more often it's not. We expect as people get more experienced and as strategies and tactics evolve, the one mega fleet will become obsolete. It may work fine against the AI, but not against an experienced human player. If you try that with anyone here at Ironclad they will likely turn you inside out.

Quoted for truth.

If nothing else, splitting your forces can really pay off when that steamroller fleet has to be in three places at once, dealing with serious threats to planetary security, and can't. Or, ya'know, just raid Blair's homeworld with a Sova to force his fleet to leave another front...

Edit:

I'm in the middle of a game (shoulda been mopped up, but he recovered, darn it...) and noticed two major issues.

One, trade ships are routing not only through nuetral systems (annoying, but reasonable...) but a heavily fortified enemy system when there are "clear" connections (a nuetral system I keep a fleet presence in) around it.

Second, my opponent keeps putting his ships above the plain of the grav well, and my ships follow -- and I can't seem to reset them back to the plain! Annoying as heck when i want the cap ships tucked in close to repair centers!

Edit edit:

"Fun" end to the game: I took his asteroid planet (close encounters) via culture, and had to rush to the rescue of "my" citizens. Unable to build anything there, because he'd fortified it to the max, I had to wait for the ships to cut their way in. And, just as I'm getting ready to blow up his besieging units... I capture his capitol with culture.

My reaction: WTF?! Aren't capitols immune to culture?

Why would/should they be?

It's akin to having the sufficient % of culture in the galaxy in Galactic Civilization 2, where the rest of the alien races adopts your culture because it's the most dominant one, and thus viewed as the "best".

It's a strategy just as conquest is. And serves as another factor to defend against.

I mentioned this in Beta 2. Hopefully it will get fixed in Beta 4.

Also, I was thinking that the remote sensor ability should be augmented to also identify planets that contain anomalies (something that once explored would yield an artifact or planetary improvement). This servers two purposes: 1) It makes a mostly useless technology somewhat more important. 2) It provides some method of identification of which planets should be further explored and which ones should not. It does not provide a means of identifying what's there so there would still be reason to colonize and explore.