Happy 2011 to all the Sins players out there! It's been quiet on the Sins' front for a while now due to other business, but as I promised late last year, we're working on a new Diplomacy update for everyone. The update will be released in beta first due to a number of changes we're making in the game, probably in the next two weeks. Once we're happy that everything is working as expected, we'll release a final version for everyone.
So what's going to be in the update?
Currently the Pirates can either be non-factors or incredibly nasty early on given how their upgrade system works and how their fleets are composed. If you get a streak of bad luck, you end up with Pirates that have an insane power curve that makes the game very unfun, very quickly. To fix this, we're switching the Pirates to a series of fixed fleet compositions and upgrade paths. What this means is that early on, if you get tagged with a Pirate raid from bounty, you'll find them annoying but easy to deal with. As the game progresses, the Pirates abilities and toughness will scale over time based on the amount of credits they collect from missions, bounty, their planet, etc. The Pirates will no longer simply scale in power, either! We're giving them unlockable special abilities that will give them an edge in late game situations. On the flip side, we don't want situations where in the late game, a player can send a massive Pirate fleet at another player by simply dropping 100 total credits on bounty. So we're adding in a new system that will scale back Pirate raids levels if the bounty isn't high enough to warrant a big deployment.
Basically, the Pirate bounty system will be a bludgeon, whereas giving the Pirates missions via Diplomacy will be a scalpel.
[quote=Yarlen]This is a Diplomacy only-update. The code base as moved on so far from the original Sins and Entrenchment that it's not really practical to try and back-port updates, especially with the underlying engine changes.[/quote]
There's your answer.
That's the way things work. To be honest, I'm getting a little excited about this update.
I have a huge map project that is on hold until this patch comes out. I'm so stoked!!!
Well since your making improvement there's one that I was aways wondering and suggest during the Diplomacy Beta but will suggest again can you make it so you can give planets to your allies if you want.
Sorry, but that's something waay outside the scope of a patch.
A BALANCE PATCH...I am excited I may be returning to ICO after all!
Thanks Yarlen for informing us. I think I can say we all appreciate you keeping us up to date. As for the ability to trade ships/planets/... I'm willing to pay for such an "addon". Make it something like a DLC costing 2 bucks and I'm all for it!
I thought i would mention the trade port upgrade on starbases in orbit around stars not giving income bug.
Also Vasari Missle turret's nanites get debuffed when the turret fires a second time. I think this also plauges the marza.
I have a feeling that the vulk's missle swarm maaaaay potentially possibly cause desyncs.
I know there are more bugs... but its been a while... i am sure there are multiple lists hidden around these forums.
What makes you think that?
Great News. Cant wait to see how new pirate system pans out.
As said before pirates should attack all players that have bounty on at the time of raid launch. And they should always attack economically strongest empire.
Another thing that was mentioned before is that after successfully completed raids you can get 1000+ ships stationed at pirate base. Perhaps some of those could be de-spawned after raid completes or used for "surprise" attacks up to 1-2 phase jumps away from pirate base even when there is no bounty and no pirate raid launch. Sort of like pre-emptive strikes to maintain their zone of control and prevent build up of forces that would destroy them. Or just harassment if you wish.
Second that!
I have had at least one experiance where a vulk rusher desynced (and the guy was an asshat and refused to send in his crash log)...
and there is a particular mod where quite a few ships use an ability based off of the vulk's missle swarm... and while I have not had it desync on me during multiplayer (VERY hard to play mods online)... it has apperantly happened, and is thought to be linked to the use of the vulk based ability.
No solid proof whatsoever... which is why I have so many modiferiers in that sentence.
I third that!!!
Another thing that should be solved is Yes you guessed it smurfing. I know a lot of ink was spilled regarding this problem but is there any chance something will be done to solve or at least reduce this plague....
Ima go ahead and mention these 2 monster posts that go rather deep into phase missles and capital ships. It was intresting to reread these 9 months after i wrote them, and I am not sure I still totally agree with myself. (close, though) That said, I think they are important topics for the subject of balance with a good amount of input from others.
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/383363
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/383347
That said... in general... and in relative terms... (aka, if you dont want to nerf vas, just slightly buff tec, and buff advent)
Vasari need to be slightly nerfed.
Tec is relativly fine.
Advent need a little help.
Also, in relative terms, capital ships seem a liiitle weak.
carrier caps are a little strong... skirantra is OP.
(for more cap ships, see those above links)
Also, in relative terms...
TEC pacts seem a little strong. (missle pact to a vasari ally is rediculous... change to a damage buff and not a phase missle buff?) May I suggust that supply pacts be a % of current supply, instead of a +800 (so, +40%)
Advent diplo curises and pacts seem a little weak. (have beam pacts affect vas wave weapons?) (culture pacts give... small increase in culture bonus? (antimatter regen, shield mitigation, damage) (or, VERY small +cultue creation on planets (elimating need for broadcast centers if not unde cultural attack... a single enemy broadcast center would EASILLY overpower such an effect.) The curisers are really kinda need some sort of help.
Vas diplo cruisers seem a little strong. (The cruiser gets its most powerfull ability as its first ability... others are kind meh, often not worth reserching.) The pacts are all rather nice. Switching the second an first ability on the research tree seems appropriate.
Most likely far from last thought:
Vas have historicly had a very very stong end game balanced by a weak early game and non-synergizing capital ships.... currently they have both a strong early and end game.. hopefully mostly due to skirantras.
sweeeeeettt
Great news on the patch! Thanks for not forgetting about this game.
I am mostly a single-player player so I was wondering if there would be any AI improvements in the patch. I am not talking about a complete AI overhaul but maybe just fixing / improving on some of the known issues. For example: AIs handling of starbases... Instead of blindly attacking, AI could maybe skip starbases and go to the next planet if it thinks / finds out that starbase is something it can't kill. I'm sure there are a few other obvious AI improvements that can be made which can make the game a lot more enjoyable and challenging.
Thanks again.
I totally agree with the AI. Seems like the AI is hardcoded, so AI can't be modified at all for Mods. This means that some new ship types (in mods) cant be built because the AI won't research it, or build it!
A note to the memory management patch. At the moment the game on my machine reaches the 2GB limit and crashes more often (or I may say never but) when bloom effect is turned on.
Actually they can they just don't do a very good job of it.
Also, why is it that when I'm playing diplomacy (or entrechment), if I switch players mid-game for single player (i.e. save my game, then load up again playing as a different player), the AI seems to shut off for my old player - it doesn't build anymore, move, attack etc - it completely stops in its tracks?! Does this happen for everyone?
Will the patch fix this at all?
I could be wrong, but I believe that is because your former player has technically surrendered (since you are no longer playing them)...
Then why allow mid-game player changes in the first place? We should be able to change players throughout the game without causing this problem....
Stardock guys... can you comment?
Wonderful news. I can't wait to see this patch in action.
Oh good
No, this isn't something that will likely be addressed.
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