Its been over 1.5 years since Sins was first released and this is Ironclad's 22nd update to Sins/Entrenchment (ignoring all the beta updates).
It really hit us how the gameplay and strategies have evolved since then when we started tracking the source control changes for the siege frigate data which, as many of you may remember, went through a drastic nerfing early in 2008.
Well, now the situation is quite different due to a number of factors, not the least of which is player capability and the defensive measures added in Entrenchment. It was therefore neccessary to bring them back into the roster.
But we didn't stop at siege frigates. One of our primary objectives in this update is to make sure every unit is brought back into the pool of viable tools. In some cases this was as simple as modifying some data but in some cases we completely redesigned elements of them.
Naturally, trying to figure exactly what those changes needed to be was not an easy problem but one of the best ways was to play the game against as many players as possible so we once again took to playing regularly on Ironclad Online.
Unfortunately, we couldn't use our real names because when we did in the past we were the targets of unreasonable unholy alliances. Such circumstances aren't great for collecting data and analyzing strategies. Sorry for the smurfing but it was for a good cause
In addition to playing online we've spent a lot of time analyzing feedback on the forums, in particular the great thread by Deceiver_0.
In this thread he collected votes from everyone on a wide variety of issues and presented a consolidated place for ideas and potential fixes.
While we didn't agree with all the suggestions, we did attempt to address what we determined to be the underlying problems but in some cases we implemented the suggestions nearly verbatim.
Special thanks to everyone who contributed to that thread! Also, special thanks to everyone who wrote constructive posts or emails, we couldn't do this without you!
Enjoy!
-Ironclad
WARNING: This update will invalidate existing save games.
Gameplay / Balance:
Graphics and Effects:
You can collapse the individual (non-capital) ships into groups of up to 10 on the empire tree by click on the buttom to the right of the search button. You will still get empire tree jumping, but the amount of jumping is drastically reduced compared to a fully expanded fleet list.
I see in the change log that ships under Reverie can be attacked now, but I recall that this is already the case.
go into options and then user interface (its the first on the list so it is usually already there for you) then just unselect the autopin features. Afterwords you just have to select what you want pinned and you get a lot more control over the empire tree.
of note though is the lack of the abilty to turn off the autopin for Starbases, now that would be a nice thing to add
Before, your ships would change targets if you cast Reverie on an enemy ship. With this fix, Im guessing they wont do that any more.
Its supposed to make them switch targets. The problem before was you couldn't attack it again until the effect wore off.
you can disable starbase autopinning-you just have to manually edit the settings text file.
I did not think of that thx
The Revelation was an underused capital ship. I suspect it will still remain the little sister to the other four Advent capital ships, though.
The revelation was almost always my second cap as Advent (barring situational circumstances), but I do agree that I dont see it as much as the Halo, Progen and Radiance. But who knows, it seems theyve made some drastic improvements in the guidance ability, and surely Reverie will be more dangerous now, so maybe we'll start seeing it more.
Personally I love that ship, its one of my favorite Caps. It can interrupt, planet bomb and has an incredibly useful scouting ability. And now that guidance will be fixed, it will certainly synergize much better with the other caps (as before it was a bit of an outcast when it came to the synergies)
As always zombie fox, I thank you for your humor and guidence! LOL
Looking back at TEC, I just noticed that the Marza will probably not be used nearly as much as it does now. Especially since now every faction can cancel Missile Barrage (Even Vasari- now that the Antorak will become a very viable capital ship), and otherwise is used for its Raze Planet. It's looking more like the Dunov and Akkan will become the ideal starter TEC captials, and of course Kol+Dunov pairs could become devastating. And when Marzas are built, I'm feeling that the main reason will be for just Raze Planet- not Missile Barrage.
nay I doubt that the missile barrage will fall out of use. Just having it going for a few seconds can shift the balance of a fleet by causing damage to the fleet. And it is still hard to notice so if you miss it, BOOM bye bye fleet
Not sure If this has been addressed, but last I checked, it's still in the game, and I haven't seen it talked of much here...
For the advent transcencia starbase, the two abilities, meteor control and mass disorientation, both grant upgraded antimatter pool and regen. However, they both also have their own seperate effects, meteor bombardment of ships and planets, and disabling of ships in the radius of effect respectively.
The problem is, the upgrade panel for the starbase doesn't list these, it only tells how the starbase's antimatter will be effected. Not sure about anyone else, but I would find it quite useful if it listed damage and rance for meteor control, and range and duration for mass disorientation, possibly also with range circles in space.
Just a thought.
I don't mean that Missile Barrage will fall out of use, but I'm thinking that less TEC players will be using Marza as much, because of more reliable counters now and other viable strategies are available. Like having a level 6 Dunov and a level 5 Kol will be a lot tougher to beat while still being devastating. Nearly 1000 damage every 6 seconds will certainly be pretty good.
And also, Missile Barrage is pretty easy to detect. Not the actual ability, but just seeing a level 6+ Marza will cause most players to "Stop everything, focus fire!!!".
As a general rule of thumb: if you didn't pick it as your first capital ship, don't expect to unlock its level 6 ability. If you pick Akkan (or Kol or Dunov or Sova) first, don't expect your Marza to unlock missile barrage.
I strongly suspect that Akkan has become the standard pick for TEC now, joining the other colony caps as a simply mandatory unless you're in a very specific situation. Marza remains a very viable rushing tool, but if you don't start in a rushing position the economic edge of Akkan seems too much to pass up on. Fortunately, Akkan lacks a strong level 6 ability and this should hopefully result in some second pick caps rather than people sticking it out with one big bad and quitting when it dies. I suspect Marza and Kol will be at the top of the list for second picks.
I despise vaporware. I know kids these days are brainwashed/raised used to this kind of BS though so you'll think I'm over-reacting... [Skiping over another debate by deleting detail about SecuRom, Steam & GfWL] Don't get me wrong, I understand paranoia and anxiety all too well.
IC/Stardock is great in not having 90% the hassle those do or I wouldn't even consider buying the expansions. If they sold actuall DVD's in stores they'd make more money, everyone wins. And have manual patches in consideration of the consumers too.
Which brings up questions:
If I save all my patched SoaSE files to a DVD(s) then uninstalled/ re-installed and dropped the patched files over them would that work?
If so, would it work with the micro-expansions installed as well?
^This would be a good compromise, to me. I supply the cost of the DVD instead of IC/Stardock and have a hard copy completely up to date to re-install at whim if I need to reformat my computer. (Though I hope to never have to do that again.) It would even convince me to actually buy the expansions instead of sticking with the original one... that I bought from seeing it in a store.
An official answer would be nice. Even though one or two people seem to sound like they are official they don't have an icon on them that says so... It would be good if you said you worked for IC/Stardock or not if replying to this.
If doing this wouldn't work now it would be great if it did in a future patch.
I'm very pleased to see you guys keeping up with support of the already-released game through major patches like this, rather than just dumping it all into the new expansion pack and leaving the community that doesn't wish to follow along with more investment to their own devices.
GG.
-- Retro
You missed or chose to ignore where I said before: The retail version would be $15 not $10. The $5 difference seems to be "the norm" for retail vs online prices. It's perfectly reasonable for the cost of the packaging/disk/manual.
Even if they didn't raise the price there would still be profit in it over purely online only sales like now...
There are many more purchases are from people picking stuff up because they are browsing a retail store than going online to specifically buy a certain game. I often go to just look around a store not knowing what I'm going to get but knowing it's going to be less than $30. I just bought 2 DVD's I never intended while looking for another one.
I know I've spent only $20 total for online purchases but thousands from picking up a box in a store. It's how I heard of and chose SoaSE in the first place. People who never buy online stuff due to whatever individual reason would now be giving some profit that would have been totally missed before. Hence... win/win.
I know for a fact that Retail stores will not carry the game if it is not at a lesser price than can be aquired online. This is why Stardock priced their direct sales for release of Galactic Civilization 2 higher than can be found in retail stores at the same time. To compensate for the price difference they gave few additional goodies by makign the game purchased from them a special edition.
HOW DO YOU KNWO THIS? You don't! Stardock is not a stupid company, they make money, they havemarket research no doubt. They done it this way because they wanted to try something new, and the standard format was not worth the hassel or the money.
If this is true then provide a credible source for this information.
Is this your source for the previous statement? Your own perception of a single individual experience? Give me a break dude.
I know these people. Those are the people who asked me why I need a cell phone 10 years ago. Same people that asked me why I have no land line. Same people that ask me why I never carry money now. Get with the times man.
Win/win would be if you stopped arguing an off-topic, totally irrelevant position.
Wait... a buff for Cap. Carriers... then that means...
YAY! My forum post about Cap. Carriers being outshined by Cruiser Carriers had an impact!
Koda0 (^)
Any such "Work-Around" to permenantly make the panel stationary unless you manually scroll it?. If so, would someone mind posting an example/walk-through? This one "Work-Around" would single handedly change the face of Sins for me an countless others IMOO.
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