I have noticed, and it so annoying that once the computer or any other player creates a fleet with about 200 frigates then nothing will stop them. The problem is that with say, 200 illuminators or any other small vessel is that the starbase or anything else can only attack a certain number of targets, no where near close to 200. Which means that a maxed out starbase can be gutted in less time than it takes to lose a single frigate.
There should be some sort of cap per type. I would say 50 at most. Otherwise it makes the end game a fleet chasing exercise.
Thanks again and I am sorry if this has already been addressed.
-Jason
Actually large groups of smaller ships are very realistic. They are harder to hit and distribute the firepower more equally. If you lose some of them the impact is less noticable than losing one out of two capships. Large groups of just one shiptype on the other hand tend to have many openings, like being glass cannons (LRMs) or losing their only weapons easily to flak fire (support carriers). Learning how to counter them and how to set up fleets effective in taking out various different treats is something the player should learn, not something a hardcoded limit should tell him to do.
As for the AI, that's pretty much broken in rebellion, if you judge the game by beta AI behaviour you'll end up making a mistake.
The ship supply limit is more of a performance issue than an attempt to limit our choices in producing ships. Sins is a few years old already, back then computers had issues taking so many entities moving around at once (probably more of an GPU and ram issue than a CPU one, though).
No not really. Build the max number (or more than 100+) of illuminators and there is no stand off in the world that can prevent them from overrunning your fleet. They will close and destroy everything before you can craft a survivable defense. I know this because the AI did it to me. Lost every capital ship, both starbases a titan and the planet. Absolutely absurd. Crafting a fleet requires foresight that your opponent will do this. While one may, the others wont.
Secondly, about starbases and their usefulness. The military strategy they are used for in late game is 'stiff arming' your enemy. They hold them off long enough for you to complete the iteration you are currently involved in or allow you to shift your defense. Its taken from football but is something we teach scouts during planning. You don't have to win, just delay and keep them at arms reach until the cavalry arrives... per se.
Lastly, and hinted at earlier, you may be able, given enough time, create a defense that may stop a single attack like this. One, if you know its coming and where its going to happen and two, if you don't have to scuttle half of your fleet and re create it to do so. Neither is cost or resource effective and will assuredly not arrive in time. Then you will have a fleet that is sole purposed (and effective at anything) and the rest of the game will be downhill. Why bother finishing at that point.
The only counter to that by vasari would be Orky + Subverters, or Subverters + Mines... or 10 Kostura Canons... which counters pretty much everything lol. Volatile Nanites could use a buff thou. In which case it would be a viable solution.
... just change the fleet size setting before the game starts to stop huge fleets?
No, the fleet limit isnt based on performance. Otherwise it would vary with the map size. You can, as it stands, over task your machine just by building a custom galaxy and going wild. If you have a machine that can do that then why not allow you to crank up the fleet cap? More than likely it was a gaming decision to force players to choose where to apply force in the game. Otherwise each planet would be defended by hundreds of ships.
Realistically, each planet would have a defense force of hundreds if not thousands of ships but again, based on a game that was decision was made. David Weber/John Ringo et all if you want the realistic side of solar defense. Pod layers anyone?
No, this is something the AI did to me also in Rebellion but has been annoying me really since entrenchment. Before entrenchment the static defenses were truly a joke and basically the only winning strategy was rushing.
The real loser here is capital ships when you have a high number of frigates in a single battle. Why waste 50 capacity on a Kol that has at most 50/30/15 attack (or something) when you can have 10 cobalts with 11 each (110 per second). Add the defenses in the mix, the Kol can only engage at most 3 ships and will definitely be rubble by the time it gets past the first target grouping. Now upscale that to say 400 capacity and it is even more disparaging for cap ships. Like the dinosaurs at some point.
And dont even get me started on a siege with only strike craft...
They limited the number of ships instead of the number of planets cause it's easier to apply. Give the players a galaxyforge to create their own planets then tell them "only 30 planets per map"? Yeah right.
How did that enemy manage to get the 100 illums in the first place? Did you leave it there to build up for half an hour and never bothered to take a look at what it was doing? You have a research that enables you to watch enemy phasejump activity. Even if you cannot see the planet itself you can estimate what kind of fleet is being collected where right next to your own planet and prepare.
Capitalships are not firepower, they are ability. Dunovs heal and disable, Kols hinder fighters/bombers and soak up damage, Marzas deal shitstorms of firepower. Progenitors are prime units to buff whole gravitywells with their shield healing, Discordias weaken enemy ships till they die by looking at them. You use them incombination with fleets, not on their own.
If your defenses are on the verge of being overrun try stalling the enemy by setting up at another location within the well, get carriers out and have them run around the well while their bombers take out the offending frigates. Use support frigates like the Hoshiko to extend the lifespan of your units or the Domina to suppress the enemy. Simple corvettes can break through LRM spam and can be produced faster than the enemy can take them out (given you don't trickle them in one by one). Heck, I managed to keep my planet from a 100 ship light frigate/LRM fleet just by placing a few repair bays and protecting my support carriers with armistice when things got ugly. Force the AI to swap targets a lot and waste time driving around a lot by placing structures far apart and jumping out of the well with ships that are currently under attack only to jump them back in moments later.
I regularly battle with unfair and cruel AIs and find lots of that stuff working (some of it works on humans, too).
tl;dr show some creativity and initiative when defending, dammit.
This is an awful idea lolIn an RTS you should be able to build your fleet however you want to build it.
You just need to learn how to counter 1 ship fleet attacks. It's not that hard once you learn how.
Again, no. I play huge maps, 7+ stars and hundreds of planets and up to 15 vicious AIs. And no, dont get the time to monitor each individual phase lane mid game. Maybe we are talking a different scale. If you played small maps then no kidding. My games take tens of hours to finish. Look at my join date, I have been paying this for almost 6 years. Albeit not as long as some but quite a while. I dont play small maps unless I just dont have time or dont care to take time. Or if I am just trying to get an achievement.
As far as stalling, exactly what starbases are intended to do. Read my earlier reply. Before entrenchment the only real defense was turrets and stationed ships in gravity well. But a starbase can, at max, engage 4 targets withe each volley. 4..... Each turrent in a gravity well, if its in range can engage 1 and maybe two later with the rocket upgrade for tec.
Capital ships are an investment, a capital investment if you pardon the pun. They are the mainstay of the game. Look at the wallpaper on this website. Many frigates? Matter of fact, if I could have a captial ship only fight that would be awesome. How about that as an option?
And again, if its an option then why argue against it? Just dont use it. Matter of fact there should be many many more options pregame than you get now. I mean, options only prolong the replay value of a game.
I have been playing for six years, trust me, I know... The point is that we need more pregame options. Setting a small fleet size does nothing except make defense more sustainable against mixed fleets.
Sins, btw, is not RTS. Read the manual, or even the website: "Sins of a Solar Empire is a “RT4X” game, blending the epic strategy and empire management of the 4X genre with the fast-paced and tactical elements of real-time strategy."
If I wanted RTS I would play on my Xbox. This game is much more than just an RTS shooter.
I play on maps with multiple stars, too. And I'm used to the way the Ai cheats its way through the game. If you are playing against multiple AIs at once you are seriously outnumbered, not to mention they gang up on you even if they are not allied with each other. Each of them has 6 times the income you have per planet, they produce ships faster and their caps gain more XP/they can buy higher levels for them.
If you end up with multiple fronts in multiple stars your best bet is having small fleets with one high level cap in each system and heavily fortified worlds everywhere while your one main fleet mops up elsehwere. Even in that situation you need to prepared to lose planets and stall the other enemies on the worlds you are defending while fighting the war in another universe. That is exactly what makes the thrill for me in Sins, the challenge of knowing that I'm seriously outnumbered in most part of the galaxy and need to somehow make what little fleet I have there work as a help.
You don't have to monitor the other systems all day, the AI is dumb. It moves it's fleets back and forth for about five minutes before actually attacking. Just checking there every once and then can already safe your life.
Btw, lovely how people try to justify their point using their join date. I play for more than two years, too. I only joined the forums a lot later.
Edit: If you want an RTS you play on your XBox? Who the fuck plays real time strategy games on a console? And what does Sins have to do with shooter games, other than weapons being shot?
Why would anyone said ship need limited because they playing a very, very hard level? I play hard level, just right after normal level, I had no problem a.i. spam lrm, I can deal with it.
I'm not sure you ever played versus Vicious AIs.
All AIs basically work the same, but depending on their level they get a few cheats to back them up. The Hard AI gets 2x the money per planet you get, the Vicious already gets 6x or 8x. They can level their Cpaships and Titans up to level 6 or 7 and they can build and reseach a lot faster then you can. If his enemies come in with a 100 firgate LRM or illuminator group it's more likely packing more of a punch than that of a Hard AI, and they come a lot more frequent barely giving you time to rebuild.
I can somehow understand where trackpads is coming from when he complains about the sheer amount of shit those AIs can send your way, especially if they gang up on you (which they will do if they can). But I'm still strictly against limiting the number of ships on a per-shiptype basis. I doubt it will really stop the Vicous AI from being... vicious (the fleet composition will change, but the spam will not stop) and it might just end up hurting human players in early stages of the game.
Err... no.
I don't know about anyone else but I love harassing my enemies with fleets of hundreds of corvettes.
I CAN fight off fleets of 200 frigates, it's not a problem for me.
I ate their brain with some fava beans and a nice chianti; it tasted like trout.
Shooter = action game = bunch of ships blowing each other up. Again, this isnt RTS, its supposed to be an expansion of the traditional 4X. We are not supposed to just throw big fleets at each other. Right now there is no balance. Also, nice language, argue much?
More edification. There are more RTS games now sold on consoles than on computers: Halo Wars alone sold over a million copies in its first year alone: http://www.vgchartz.com/article/3189/halo-wars-ships-one-million-units-worldwide/
Google it for yourself, the reason the PC market isn't obsolete is because the games are more complex than would allow a console. But if it devolves into just throwing units at each other then it doesn't need to be PC.
The AI cheat isnt what you think it is. The reason the AI will always be faster is that it will do everything simultaneously and can do all of these things at ever increasing levels. It can build ships on 12 different worlds and upgrade defenses on all of them without the human "what the hell do I do next" delay... That is what makes it hard, I dont see it getting 8x the money or resources, that wouldn't make any sense. That would actually be a kind of stupid AI level system, its only harder because it gets more money? No, the upper level AIs have more tendency to rush, they build much more defenses instead of just sitting on their cash. My only real problem with the AI is that it ups it fleet cap so much that once you smash its initial fleet it takes it forever to recover since it has already chucked its economy.
I didnt think they have ever released the info on the AI, or at-least they shouldn't. It would kind of be like giving away the opposing teams playbook. If I am wrong please correct me because I want to read it.
What I have witnessed:
OP: Hey guys, I'm going to troll you...
People: RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE
Other people: Trololololo lololo lololo...hahahahaha...
/Agree
Don't know why people are even talking about this, its a foolish idea.
Caps on units in RTS' only makes sense if that unit is intended to be above the power curve for normal units. For example Dawn of War Dark Crusade slapped a limit on each races elite units. This allowed them to keep the heavy tanks and super infantry powerful anti-everything units, while preventing the late game from being nothing but those units. In Sins, there are no such units except caps and titans. Assuming balance is working as intended, every unit has a hard counter. Spam X, opponent counterspams with Y and you lose. All major balance issues in Sins have occurred because Y was not working as intended.
If you want a small scale squad based shooter go play dawn of war 2, in the history of any navy based military numbers have always counted. I have never personally had a problem with sins when people build nothing but frigs or corvettes. I always build a well structured fleet with logistics, command, cap support and anti corvette / strike fighter and I can take on hundreds of LRM's (or w.e the lil tec missile boats are called) no problem.
If a fully upgraded starbase gets attacked by 200 frigs? yes it should go down. Starbases, no matter how upgraded are not a hard counter for any decent attack, they will stop pirate raids, harassment and can even be used to disrupt trade routes and buy you time to get to the system with your fleet, they are not supposed to defend a system against a large scale attack and destroy the attackers.
If you know how to play with a minimal amount of skill then a single unit spam can be very easily countered, adding a ship cap would destroy many builds and strategy's that people use, no ship cap allows you to customize your fleets in a way that work with your play style.
That's about all I read too. This topic is fairly lame and should just be ignored.
So let me get this straight.. You play on massive levels with the maximum AI count (which will inevitably gang up on you) with the highest difficulty and you're getting your butt kicked by one of the most basic and least effective strategies in the game so you want it nerfed (which would actually make the AI harder).
Beyond that, the easiest thing in the game to counter is a spam. While I don't play against vicious AI's, I will say that your best bet may be to invest in light carriers and kite like your life depends on it. They have significantly more flexibility than other units as they can create fighters (which would maul an LRF spam) or bombers which, well, we all know what bomber spam does to fleets lol. Using LC spam may be the only way to survive wave after wave of enemy onslaughts.
Corvettes would also be a good choice in your situation if you had any supply available. Of course, you'd need some sort of advanced warning, so for that you need to scout.
I'm just perplexed why you want to put a cap on a single type of unit. That's what confuses me. When the enemy spams a unit, they leave themselves wide open to a counter. The fact that you died to a fleet of 100 Illums has nothing to do with Illums being OP or massed LRF being OP. It has everything to do with the fact that you were playing against an opponent that can produce effectively infinite units. Remember the old adage: "work smarter, not harder." The higher ranking AI's will only ever work harder. They will work harder than you will ever be able to. They build faster, better units than you and you're going to have to live with that. You have to be smarter than the AI to beat them.
I'm just so confused that you think a unit cap would be beneficial.. It would make the AI significantly harder because it would no longer make the stupid mistake of spamming a single unit. If you're faced with massed LRF, build mass flak, fighters, or corvettes.
The most powerful fleets contain a balance of unit types. Fleets containing a single unit type are the weakest and you seem to think that they are OP.. That's what confuses me so much.. If you're having a hard time with that, perhaps you should try a lower difficulty AI because methinks the source of your problem is that you're playing against opponents that your skill level is not high enough to defeat (no offense meant here, they do have the ability to create anything they want whenever they want after all, so not being able to take down a bunch of vicious AI's isn't abnormal).
When I last checked, the name of the game is "Sins of a Solar Empire", not "Sins of a Limited Empire".
I think seriously, there should be a limit to number per type of all units. Additionally, the total number of cruisers should never surpass the total number of frigates, for added realism. And finally, superweapons should have a random chance to misfire and explode, destroying the host gravwell and halving the resident planet's population.
I mean, why stop to one (stupid?) idea.
Some of the people in this thread act like I just insulted their god. Seriously kids.
1. I always play vicious and I usually lock their teams, for real challenges I lock them in pairs so I am never fighting more than two.
2. Star bases have to be important, if not then why have the TEC Loyalists at all?
3. Spam is not easy to counter if you dont know its coming, scuttling a fleet to build a new one is somewhat absurd.
4. Stopping spam helps the AI become a more challenging and realistic opponent. Otherwise, what ALWAYS happens, is that the AI will max its fleet cap early in the match, get its main fleet wiped out and then take forever to reconstitute.
Lastly, kids, if you dont want to read the thread then why post? Are you acting a little childish and self serving? "I dont like this thread but I am going to post anyway".
''Why dont you just mod the fleet supply to be really really low? that will make every single ship very special and important'' Actually, on that great point why not just make a mod for yourself If you only play singleplayer, instead of calling out the entire game to be radically changed for your preference?
It baffles me, because as already stated there are already counters in place , so instead of calling the game mechanics to be changed because you can not beat a AI spam ,why not learn the counters?
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