Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion

[Imthatguy]

Man this is awesome why can't space rts like sins and homeworld be as common as FPS?

 

[Frankster]

I mean in the Sins of a Galactic Empire mod. They added urban planets, swamp planets, jungle planets, oceanic planets, toxic planets, agricultural planets, academy planets, industrial planets, ice giant planets, high and low terran/desert/jungle/swamp/oceanic planets...
And I can only use about half of 'em in the galaxy forge. Adding stuff to it is a bit confusing.

http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/399314
Here my friend, this should solve your map making woes Now go ahead and make that galaxy full of dyson spheres, nova planets and other paradise planets.

Otherwise OT:
I wasn't too impressed with the factions at first, I expected there to be more tangible differences and more then just 1 unique ship (and a titan at that) per faction, but over time grew to appreciate thagt those abilities did result in a preferred playstyle that could be compared to company of heroes doctrines. I do like the sound of the vasari faction which can be entirely fleet based in particular.

That would explain why I hadn't heard of it; I've never bothered with mods for most of my games.

*jaw drops* Dude you are seriously missing out if that's the case, there's quite a few awesome mods for sins beyond the inevitable star wars and star trek mods.
I reccomend maelstorm mod for a first try as it enhances the vanilla game rather then completely changing it (adds 3 races which fit in perfectly, plus adds titans and super titans but you can chose to download a mod version without those if you like).

 

[Dryk]

Otherwise OT:
I wasn't too impressed with the factions at first, I expected there to be more tangible differences and more then just 1 unique ship (and a titan at that) per faction, but over time grew to appreciate thagt those abilities did result in a preferred playstyle that could be compared to company of heroes doctrines. I do like the sound of the vasari faction which can be entirely fleet based in particular.

Each of the six corvettes has a chance of applying a specific debuff too, but I never really see that come into play very much. That said the forums think corvettes are overpowered so I'm probably just terrible with them. Also the difference between the two corvettes of each sub-faction is pretty small, they both seem to be in the same vein.

TEC: Loyalist - Speed
Rebel - Damage taken

Advent: Loyalist - Accuracy
Rebel - Firing speed and antimatter recharge

Vasari: Loyalist - Hull regeneration
Rebel - Shield regeneration

 

[Joccaren]

Got into the beta and I've been loving it. The updated shaders make the ships look downright gorgeous, and I've been having fun rolling with the Ankylon Titan. Despite being a defensive ship, that thing is incredible on the offensive. While the Ragnarok beats it shot for shot, the TEC loyalists extra starbases allow them to commit more ships to an offensive.

With an Ankylon forming the base of your fleet, backed up by a pair of Akkans, two Dunovs, and a collection of Marzas or Kols, and whatever frigates you've decided to spam, it's an incredible sight to behold.

Yeah, the shaders are one thing, but the textures are a whole other level. Played Rebellion and loved the shaders, been playing Diplomacy for a bit since I started modding: You can still see reflections and such [I think there are some slight shadows, but nothing of the Rebellion level], but the textures in it looked horrid compared to Rebellion. I especially love the Ankylon's texture: It looks like a floating steel fortress [Which it is].

And yeah, the Ragnarov will beat any ship shot for shot, but in Fleets - the Ankylon comes out king. 54% damage reduction shield ability, Inspire and Impair, and a whole host of other abilities make it epic.

I love sins and I can't wait for this mod to be finished

http://www.moddb.com/games/sins-of-a-solar-empire/mods

I finally get to play a mass effect rts

Hehe, yeah, looking forward to that. Going to make my own ending to ME3, without the Crucble. Gawd damn that mod's going well.

I just think that 4X games like Civilization, Gal Civ 2, and to a degree, SoaSE just don't lend themselves well to a story campaign, since the whole point of those games is starting with one city/planet and turning it into a sprawling empire. In order for missions to be challenging, thoguh, the reset button has to be hit on each map for tech level, fleets, and the like, and starting over from square one.

The same could be said for RTS like Warcraft 3 and Starcraft: But they have campaigns that work. If you limit the maximum level of research a player can reach for each part of the campaign, and lock out technologies, you can remove the whole "I swear I researched that ship already" problem by making them non-unlockable until you reach a certain mission, then have them always unlocked until the end of the campaign. Things like damage boosts and such don't need this treatment, as you can just handwave it away as a new series of upgrades, as everything has been scaled since all races got those 5/10/15% improvements.

Limits how you can play the campaign, but it keeps the continuity better.


OT: Had it for a while now, and whilst I love it, I'm getting sick of it. The balance issues are... Horrid. Vasari are OP. Vasari Rebels Titan is invulnerable against large fleets, and their Jumping Starbases really screw balance over. The buff to Big Red Button makes the TEC able to defend any asteroid world absolutely, with no challenge to them [Block all phase lanes with 1 BRB. Anything jumps in, detonate and the entire enemy fleet is wiped]. Vasari Loyalists can get an endgame fleet by early midgame by rushing "Stripped to the Core" and using it on all their planets, then spamming any techs/ships they want [15 minutes in and one player online had used over 1000 fleet supply, with high level research by doing this]. The Ragnarov is Epic, though I wouldn't call it OP. Gauss Rail gun is still Under Powered. Corvettes are OP against EVERYTHING except more corvettes or high level area of effect attacks [Chastic Burst for Advent Rebels, Phase Missile Swarm for Vasari [But only at higher levels] and Missile Barrage for TEC [Only available at level 6 Marza though].

Apparently a lot of this is fixed internally, but time will tell.

Looks to be an amazing game though.

 

[Joccaren]

I forget which one of them it is, but one of the Advent Titan's level 6 basically sends it into overdrive for 60 seconds before it dies... still not sold on that being useful.

Really?
So, your Titan dies, and you don't see any advantage in it becoming invulnerable, invisible, faster, able to spam abilities at massively increased speed?

Basically, an enemy fleet kills your Titan, they pop. Simple as that. They can try and run, but you just Spam Chastic Burst and AOE attack them out of existence. Its 1 minute of total devestation to anything in that gravity well, and you don't see it being useful?

Also, you forgot Wail of the Sacrifised. That changes Advent Play a little. Sacrifice a planet, wipe out all enemy fleets in adjacent planets [If you have enough population]. It can be used very well offensively or defencively.

That said the forums think corvettes are overpowered so I'm probably just terrible with them

Well, they kinda are.
They are as fast as strike craft, do quite high DPS, cost almost nothing and are constantly moving, thus requiring ships to turn to face and engage them.

If you're not good at them, you're trying to employ strategy. Don't. Just spam them. Build them, and your free Capital Ship, your Titan if you get far enough.

LRMs? Corvettes will close on them in a second, and wipe the whole lot of them.
Light Frigates? Raped by the sheer number of Corvettes you have.
Flak? Unless the enemy has only built Flak Frigates, they won't have enough to take on your Corvettes.
Heavy Cruiser? Outnumbered by Corvettes, die nearly instantly.
Capital Ship? 300 Corvettes will 1 hit that for ya
Titan? See above
Carriers? Corvettes fly straight past the bombers/fighters and take down the carriers.

The only really effective counters are Corvette spam, AOE attacks or Flak Spam. Everything else just pops.

*jaw drops* Dude you are seriously missing out if that's the case, there's quite a few awesome mods for sins beyond the inevitable star wars and star trek mods.
I reccomend maelstorm mod for a first try as it enhances the vanilla game rather then completely changing it (adds 3 races which fit in perfectly, plus adds titans and super titans but you can chose to download a mod version without those if you like).

Eh, I personally don't like mods that add new Races that much. The Distant Stars mod is a good place to start if you don't want any additional races, though it makes for VERY slow games - even by Sins Standards.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Certainly. Still bummed it's on the same single-processor-only engine, but I'm looking forward to the updates it comes with. The Sins of a Galactic Empire team is going to be able to do a lot more with the extra weapon slots on ships... I just hope they make the galaxy forge a little easier to mod. I'd love to work with all of those extra planet types they made.

I hope the team does some balancing work on the ships. A fleet of eight Star Destroyers with a Command Ship is pretty much able to wipe out entire defenses in a matter of minutes.

The battles move extremely fast once shields are down, and the ships are so small that it is easy to over zoom and miss them.

 

[Pandalisk]

I can't seem to keep up with this game to be honest. There i am, plodding along with my little empire doing everything as best as i can and *BAM* someone has a titan ten minutes in?. I found myself being out-teched, out-economiced and out-fought constantly and i can't figure out what i'm doing wrong. Its a good game don't get me wrong but i'm far too green compared to the rest of the community and its hard figuring out how to fight a human player when said human player wipes you out in ten minutes.

Roll on the eventual halo mod.

 

[Zaydin]

Well, I've been enjoying Rebellion today. Spent the 6 hours playing on one map alone, and I'm still not done.

 

[Zaydin]

So, now that the expansion has been out ofr about a day, anyone got an opinion on it?

I've been having fun, myself. The one thing I'm not thrilled about are the buffs pirates got; their gauss turrets in their home gravity well do insane amounts of damage, as do their ships, not to mention that they now have space mines and hangar defenses in the gravity well. Makes clearing out a pirate base that much more irritating.

I also had an insanely hard time repelling the culture of one of hte Advent AIs in the system I started in, even with my Titan and three capital ships in the fleets over planets of theirs I had wiped out the colonies on, they generated more culture than I could repel. Then I found the source; one gravity well with three Temples of Communion in the gravity well, and another well with four damn Temples of Communion. Needless to say, once I wiped out those culture centers, their culture finally began to retreat.

 

[Da Orky Man]

It's as fun as it sounds. I fired a Kostura shot at their homeworld while their fleet was away, jumped in, conquered it, stripped it for parts and ran away again.

How the hell is that not overpowered?

Am looking forward to it though. Probably get it when it falls in price a bit.

 

[Dryk]

It's as fun as it sounds. I fired a Kostura shot at their homeworld while their fleet was away, jumped in, conquered it, stripped it for parts and ran away again.

How the hell is that not overpowered?

Am looking forward to it though. Probably get it when it falls in price a bit.

I can't really speak to balance because I've only ever played against AI. But the planet I took was surrounded by ~4 planets, and he had no culture up... so it's the AI's fault I could.

Reading the forums it's a little unbalanced at the moment if you do it to your own planets then slowly eat into your opponents territory because it's too easy to rush. If you work up to it slowly and start moving into enemy territory I don't know what it's like, but probably not great for your opponent.

 

[Zaydin]

Kinda wish I would remember to turn on Allied victory; in every game of Sins I've played where teams weren't locked and I allied with an AI faction, when the last faction we are fighting is beaten, the AI I allied with always revokes every agreement we made and declares war after.