Anyone playing Sins of a Solar Empire yet?

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Mosier

I played a long campaign as the Vaseri, and I have to say they’re my new vote for “most powerful”.

One of their end techs is called “returning Armada” which gives you free units periodically at every planet where you build a phase stabilizer.

Money is absolutely worthless after you develop this tech. You can pour 100% of your funds into fleet upkeep and pirate bounty, lose your ships entire fleets at a time, and still never spend 3 minutes without a fully maxed out fleet.

They are powerful at the end game but the game is well balanced. Rather than reinvent the wheel I will just post a good analysis from another forum for a different game I play where they were talking about this.

TEC is the only one with a “proper” capital shield repairer (Dunov, instant/targeted), which combined with the relatively high damage output of the main battleship (the gauss gun) can be a pretty intimidating thing to encounter, and just add a few robotics cruisers into the mix (hull repair) to make it all nigh-invulnerable as long as they still have antimatter reserves.
Quite powerful in the opening to mid stages of the game, and again pretty balanced in the end-game if resources are not an issue, but has a bit of a problem in the mid-late stages when it’s quite vulnerable to an economically crippling attack.

Advent, while only having an “area/overtime effect” capital shield repair, and relying more heavily on shields, they do have the iconus guardian (absorbs 1/3 of damage on shield), which combined in larger numbers with a fleet that has some repair-able capitals, alongside a few hull repair cruisers too, again, are pretty hard to bring down ; also, they have loads of special abilities that amplify or “reflect” damage. So, for instance, if you DO spot some unlucky sod focusing fire on one of your ships, hit it with the L3/120% damage reflected thingy and watch them go “ouch”, add some 16%-damage-spread-to-enemies and the damage-over-time of the Destra, and you have a pretty scary combination. Oh, and did I mention, they are the only ones that CAN train cap ships (with the proper research) for free up to the L3/L4 cap ? Not only that, but they can also “transfer” the experience levels of a “dead” ship to a freshly produced ally. Oh, and the cheap frigate steals antimatter and transfers it to allied ships. Damn.
They’re not so hot right when you start, but they can handle themselves. They’re pretty powerful however in the late-mid and especially very late stages of the game, when most research is done already.

Vasaari, well, they have pretty expensive ships compared to the rest, but they make up in it by having a small chance to bypass enemy shields altogether. They also have “merged” metal/crystal research, the ability to research “see all phase travel in the galaxy”, and especially the ability to CREATE temporary in-solar-system phase lanes.
Yup, that’s right, once you build the proper building, you can jump directly to any other world of yours that has such a building, and there’s also a capital ship that at a higher level acts as if it’s one of those buildings.
And to make matters WORSE for your enemies… the same structure lets you later on get “free ships” (not capitals, but plenty of frigates and cruisers), after you research “Dark Armada”, and there’s a capital ship with a similar ability (of “cloning” your frigate/cruiser forces.
In other words, they’re insanely versatile in when and where they strike, and very resource independent in the later stages of the game (your fleet is almost guaranteed to be at the max levels constantly due to dark armada reinforcements).
So, really, I couldn’t say any of them is my favourite… it would very much depend on the map and the game settings, and the difference in who’s favored are small enough to make it tough to pick.
I’d say they managed to get just the right amount of balance, while still keeping them very distinctive.

SOURCE:
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[XT]

@Whack-a-Mole

If you do the wall of turrets they still get spread out and it can be hard to get all of them on one target at the same time. If you could pile them atop one another then you have a more effective wall that can all target one ship simultaneously.

Dunno if this will really work but when I get home I will have to give it a try.

Definitely let us know. It never occured to me to stack my turrets in the Z-axis! :smack: Like Khan I guess I think in 2 dimensions…

@Mosier

I played a long campaign as the Vaseri, and I have to say they’re my new vote for “most powerful”.

They are my current favorite race to play. In the long drawn out game I described earlier in the thread (which is STILL going on btw since I restarted from a saved game…this is the definition of an epic game for me when it has taken me over a week and I’m STILL not into the mopping up phase!) I was playing the TEC…and in the end game they are harder to play than the Vaseri.

-XT

[XT]

Just thought I’d toss in a link to the official mods section. Haven’t tried any of them yet…if anyone does post your thoughts here.

-XT

[XT]

Think I’m going to give this mod a shot this weekend…I like some of the things he is talking about doing with it.

This mod is meant for players like me who enjoy getting immersed in the game world. Additionally, it
is meant for players who enjoy using the longest game settings on the original. IF YOU LIKE SHORTER GAMES, YOU WILL PROBABLY NOT LIKE THIS MOD.

Almost all GameInfo files and aspects of the game have been changed/modified, either slightly or heavily. There is a readme included which details most of these, though not specifically.

---

Since .4, there have been a number of balances, mostly focused on technologies and abilities that were overpowered. Certain aspects of the game should fit together better. Ranges on almost all ships has increased, so battles should be more realistic and interesting. The AI should work moderately better than it previously did, but I suggest using Hard AIs in any case, at least to try it out.

---

This mod strives to make the game a bit more realistic (hopefully), and also more interesting to watch.
No longer do you have to be annoyed that you finish 100% of the possible research in the first 5% of the game time. No longer can you lose an army and completely rebuild it before the enemy reaches your next world or two. No longer do you end up with endless hundreds of thousands of credits you can’t do anything with. No longer are capital ships merely glorified cruisers. No longer are squadrons given the back seat in battles.
No longer do enemies give you impossible missions and weigh them so heavily. No longer can you have
a single strategy that works all the time. Planning your attacks and what to build is far more important
than it was. No longer is building a huge fleet a ‘ho hum’ ordeal.

There is SIGNIFICANT differences in the game play between this and the original game. Expect to
relearn many things and figure out balancing all over again. Expect to choose your research and ship construction carefully, as high resources and time are at stake. Expect much more specialization in specific research areas, even in the long run. Weapons upgrades are much more costly, and have many more levels each, so build your fleets carefully for the best effect.

I enjoy in the original game settings of ‘lowest resources, slowest game speed, and slowest research speeds, biggest map size possible’
Taking that as a reference, I built this mod around
‘low resources, normal game speed, fast research’ settings. Changing these can significantly slow down or speed up aspects of the game.

Most battles will be no more straining on your computer than in the original game. Even though ships
have more firepower and shot graphics (and should be much more impressive to watch), the game runs at a slower pace and you will be less likely to have huge
fleets. HOWEVER, the max fleet size has increased, so it is possible to have quite taxing
battles, if you hoard up your fleet for a long time.

Steal or change this mod as you see fit - for your own ends. Do not feel obligated to ask me for permission, nor to give me any credit whatsoever in any form. I would like to see what you do if you do change or incorporate this mod though - just for my own enjoyment - so an email with a link to your mod would be appreciated.

There are a few mods that make fighters/bombers more important by allowing you to put more of them per hanger/cruiser/capital ship, and also some that make them have longer ranges or more powerful weapons. Might give a few of those a shot this weekend as well, depending on time.

-XT

[XT]

Check out the trailer for this Mod …VERY well done. Fans of Harry Turtledove’s In the Balance series will know the general theme the modder was obviously going for.

ETA: Wrong link

-XT

[XT]

Not sure if anyone is still following this thread or not but thought I’d give my impressions on the Immersion mod I mentioned I’d be downloading this weekend. Got it down and in today and have been playing for a couple of hours. It’s VERY slow. Everything takes orders of magnitude longer and costs more and takes more research stations to do. Losing even a single cruiser would be a huge blow…I can’t imagine what it would be like to risk a capital ship (it took me literally an hour to save up enough to build the capital ship plant and make the single free ship you get).

This one won’t be for anyone who likes quick games.

-XT

[carnivorousplant]

@xtisme

Not sure if anyone is still following this thread

-XT

Yep.
Getting more practice. Anacreon on steroids.

[XT]

Well, if you want to have a LLLLOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGGG time to play and try stuff out, give that mod a try. I’ve now played literally 3 hours and still haven’t even seen another race (and there are 5 in the game I’m playing atm, not including the pirates). I have only just managed to research the wormhole tech that allows me to actually go to another star system…

-XT

[Atrael]

That’s why I’ve held off on that Mod. I don’t get to play very often or for very long, so one game right now will take me three or four days. So I don’t need anything slower.

Ummm…you do know that you can jump from star to star with the “long range jumping” research, right? You don’t have to go all the way to the wormhole research level.

Did anyone try out stacking the defense platforms on the Z access? I meant to play with that, but don’t remember when I’m playing.

[XT]

@Atrael

Ummm…you do know that you can jump from star to star with the “long range jumping” research, right? You don’t have to go all the way to the wormhole research level.

Yup…except it doesn’t work with the map I’m playing (or I guess it could be the Mod). You have to use the wormholes and then it’s this long ass convoluted pathing to get anywhere. Makes the game even slower. I imagine I’ll win this thing (eventually) without researching much of anything.

@Atrael

Did anyone try out stacking the defense platforms on the Z access? I meant to play with that, but don’t remember when I’m playing.

I tried it but I must have been doing something wrong. It wouldn’t let me stack them on top of each other for some reason…kept saying there was already a structure there.

-XT

[Least_Original_User_Name_Ever]

You guys aren’t making it any easier for me to not go off and get this game, you know.

[XT]

wiggles fingers Come over to the dark side…

-XT

[Atrael]

I’d really like to try a multi player game…once you get the hang of it, the AI isn’t really all that smart. I’m playing against 2 “hard” players right now and not having really that much trouble. I do play with locked teams though. So the AI can’t ally against me and gang up on me. I do wish that the AI had the option of throwing in the towel. At a certain point there’s just no way it’s going to recover.

[XT]

I’ve been doing 4-5 player games either FFA or unlocked teams with the AI on hard. It’s a bit more of a challenge, especially if the Pirates are in the game…but I’ve still only lost the one game and I went back and replayed it and won (though it was nip and tuck for a while there).

I’m currently in a mammoth game with the Mod I described earlier. It’s SOO SLLLOOOW. I basically left the game on last night while I ate dinner, studied, surfed for a while and took a bath and things were pretty much where I left them. I still haven’t even managed to build up enough money to research a second capital ship…let alone the massive cost to buy another one. Of course, having a second one should ensure the game is over as they now have like 30k hull points and 20k shield (and weapons research is so costly that I barely have the first level weapons researched…so damage is pretty low atm).

I was thinking of bringing down the mod tools they have for the game. Has anyone tried to use them? If you can change things like hull hit points/shield points or research tiers/cost etc then it may be worth it for me to do my own mod. This one I’m playing could really make the game better if it wasn’t set so slow.

-XT

[Atrael]

I’m playing the Mars Effect mod now. I like it. It addes some capabilities mostly for planetary defense. I hated the fact that really no matter what you put down in order to defend a planet from a concerted attack, you had to park your fleet there. It also adds some tweaks to the Capital ships…which is good in my opinion. I will say that I think the AI is a tad harder. I have it set on “normal”, and it’s being a lot more aggressive than I recall. I’m having a harder time than when I played on “hard”.

[XT]

I’ll check it out this weekend, work and time permitting. I’ve been playing this mod this week (I gave up on the other one…it was cool but VERY slow). Basically it just increases the number of fighters per capital ship and the number available per hanger but doesn’t seem to have any other effect I can see.

-XT

[Atrael]

Yeah, I have that one downloaded, but I haven’t installed it yet. Mostly I went with the Mars Effect first because the Silver-whatever mod used one of the items from Mars Effect. I’ve found that there are a lot more mods being worked on if you take a look in the forums of the SOaSE official site. Some great stuff being worked on. I can’t wait until someone gets the mines worked out. Also the next official update from Stardock is coming out in the next week or two. They’ve done some AI improvements I can’t wait to try out.

[XT]

I tried out Mars Effect mod but it keeps blowing my game out to the desk top.

-XT

[Atrael]

Huh, that’s strange. Mine plays fine. What’s your resolution set at? I tend to keep mine about halfway up the scale.

One thing I do notice about these mods, is that I don’t think they’re going to play as well together as in some other games. The Mars Effect one had me change out some standard game mesh’s and textures. So if you had another Mod that had changed something in those folders already, it could cause problems.

[XT]

I’m playing at the highest resolution settings for everything.

This was the first mod I’ve played where they had me copy files into the texture and mesh subdirectories for the game. All the other one’s just had me put the mod subdirectory into the mod area and they seemed to work fine.

I finally managed to get the game working though there are still some weird things going on (the Forrest and Ocean planet icons aren’t globes for instance but some kind of tile on the main map…they are fine when you zoom in though). It still blows up occasionally when I exit but other than that seems to work ok.

-XT