The thing is, RA normally doesn't shorten the game, but rather increases the length of it. Unless the Vasari player (and his team) already is the most capable, I've almost exclusively seen games be prolonged by RA, since it heavily dimishes any existing advantage the other side might have. And, due to the fact that RA is almost independent of the owner's economy, makes it pretty damn difficult to give the Vasari player the fatal blow. The inflexible fleet upkeep system normally means that losing a significant chunk of your fleet is quite often fatal, since upkeep have crippled your economy and made it that much harder to rebuild. When playing against RA late-game, this also means that unless you win that end-all military battle without any heavy losses, your win will most likely be a Pyrrhic victory.



Now, I know you aren't arguing against the usefulness of the TEC and Advent late-game techs per se (I agree with Demonic Spoon when it comes to that), but against them as "Game Enders." The bigger question at hand is naturally whether or not Ironclad did intent these techs to be "Game Enders"? I'm not sure, but I do know that I hope this isn't the case. If it is, the approach Ironclad will take in order to, hopefully, fix the inbalance of RA, will be to let overpowered balance out overpowered (as TEC trade spam actually pretty much does now). This is naturally a viable way to design games, and often also results in fun games (SupCom, Empires: DoTMW etc.). But, most of these games have been designed with this in mind from the onset of their development, Sins just doesn't feel that way and it require a fundamental redesign for it to work adequately. I fear that as it stands now, making the late-game techs "Game Enders" would greatly simplify the game and remove some of the subtle complexities Sins owes to its 4X roots. Instead of being facets and sub-goals of an overall game strategy, the late-game techs would be the strategy.

With regards specifically to strengthening the Novalith etc., I think you would just end up with Sins taking the shape of trench warfare in space.

THe ability itself isnt overpowering it is the antimatter/refresh cooldown is the problem. If you can rebuild a whole fleet with 6 Phase gates in no time. The cooldown needs to be tripled at least to fix this!

1) The expensive part is teching to dark armada. Once you have it, keep in mind you're not paying for units anymore. Phase gate stabilizers are pretty cheap compared to the units you lose assaulting him.

2) I'm not sure where you're getting this from. Dark armada also gives flak. It's known that Heavy cruiser/flak is an extremely dangerous combo. It can be made more potent with subverters but even that's not necessary. Also, since they don't need to spend money on units, they can pour all the money into research. Maxed out enforcers with regen are very very nasty. I've done 2v1 and 3v1 where I was the 1 when I had dark armada and won every game. The only game I lost was when I was 3v1 and my opponents also got dark armada.

So, I assume that since we're discussing how hard it is to beat RA 3vs1 we've moved beyond discussing if RA is unbalanced, to how horribly unbalanced it exactly is.

@Jinx,

Good point. But Siege Frigates, in their current state, would severely shrink your main killing fleet.

Another freak idea is to have RA periodically flood you with Trade Ships and Refinery Ships which do negative income, since they're taking your goods and resources back home to the Empire. You could tell them to 'go home', but then a portion of your reinforcements would leave with them.
Or have out-of-control Junra Fabricators appear at your doorstep, immediately build Trade Ports and Matter Processors on your slots, and then suddenly depart while you get stuck with buildings which give you negative income, and of course, scuttling these buildings would cause a portion of your RA ships to leave and possibly delay/shrink further reinforcements.

That would not only give RA a somewhat comic downside, but would also remind you that you're working for some "boss" back at the Empire.

Quick fix: Only one Phase Stabilizer per system (or only one can warp stuff in, a global DA cooldown for the system).
That way a vasari with 3 planets can't max his 2300 fleet supply within minutes but RA stays useful (if the empire is large enough to support many planets).

On a partly unrelated note: I was of the impression (or guessing, I don't remember) that the "thing" was the Advent.

Oh my god.. Please nerf RA... A RTS isn't good if someone decides to be a race eg: Vasari and the stratagy that is immediately put out is that we must rush them. I enjoy a long game of sins, with multiple battles, rushing can be a stratagy for those who net-play, but I play with mates, and knocking one out early isn't enjoyable as having a huge game.

I have played a game where my ally and I owned 80% of the system. Yet, the Vasari player was able to defeat both of us, with DA. Its not that we didnt have armys, it was that once we defeated his first army, with numerous casualties, he had another huge army on standby.

It has to be stopped. I don't understand how the developers have play tested this game and not had the same problem, or do they just have a gentlemans ruling of no DA.

DA should be capped to as many planets you have, eg 1 Phase gate, 1x RA ships / planet owned. additionally, if a research station is taken out, the technology stops, and super-additionally, it should be linked to your military tree, so you can't get kick ass units without upgrading both trees.

I would glady kill anyone who says that DA is a fair stratagy. In a nice way

Malice might be overpowered. I dunno, but a cap ship ability and RA are not the same thing and its,.. well its kinda foolish to compare the two.

The imbalance with TEC isn't their economy but that black market effectively makes credits too good and resources partly worthless.

Malice isn't overpowered.

RA is overpowered. At the late game, if the Vasari player gets RA and manages to get his fleet size up to yours (in other words, he doesn't die at the toddler stages of RA), you lose.

Yeah RA is definitely overpowered. I was in an 8 player FFA like the dude above me and it ended up being a 3v1, I was the 1. I took out an enemy right away and grabbed his planets to the point where I had about 10 planets. I didn't initially go for RA but when I had the economy to do so without too much strain I did. I had plenty of stabilizers and fleet cap maxed out, with the fleet cap research. It came time for the 3 players to attack me, as everyone else was dead and they had all those planets. I eventually won because my fleet would ALWAYS stay at cap, no matter how many ships they destroyed they would be replaced asap. Even if they destroyed a few stabilizers I had many more on every planet. This means I could warp anywhere I want with a constant stream of ships. It really felt like I had typed in "it is a good day to die" or something.

Anyway, yeah something needs to be done.

Insurgency is mostly useless. The amount of ships that spawn aren't that threatening. Just send a couple ships to that planet to distract them, build a few turrets/repair stations and they're gone. All it is is harassment and not that great harassment at that.

RA, however, isn't harassment - it's assault.

I should also mention that to a vasari player, insurgency is less than harassment - it's free exp. Ships can warp from any phase gate to another so the insurgency gets instantly taken out before it destroys anything.

I've played a lot of long games where opponents got insurgency. There was never a time when I though "Oh crap! He has insurgency!". RA on the other hand...