Entrenchment problems, bugs, ideas

How's your fleet logistic? That thing cripples your economy.

Get a crash after about 30 mins with the window "mini dump" as a reason? Never had a problem with sins until i installed entrenchment?

Gotta limit the mines somehow! A raid on one of your sectors normally leave 100 mines scattered everywhere. Playing against 4 hard PCs is annoying where they drop 1000 mines in their sector or at a star. Also when you capture a planet, enemy mines should be destroyed or something. Not all mines are tripped when they are passed by ships, makes it REALLY annoying when you try to clear an area stacked with mines with scouts or something small.... also the excessive mines lead to major system degregation.

Star bases are awesome, maybe give them some flak cannons or something?  Sucks when carriers come into the system with bombers and/or fighters and wipe you out. Having a trading station with the star base (if located on an asteroid belt, plasma storm or worm hole (where you cannot colonise) should add to the existing trade chain established with your planets. Star bases should also be able to repel culture like Capital Ships.

Capital ships should have some new abilities instead of the same ones, broaden the variety. Also when you have 16 Cap ships jumping together, there is ALWAYS one capital ship that is left behind and jumps 1 - 3 seconds later. Annoying.

For such a mysterious into movie, you'd think there'd be a single player story line, unfortunate for this game, there is not.

Overall, Entrenchment is pretty damn cool, mines are the bane to this games existance.

agreed, a mine sweeper addition in further releases would be awesome. as good as the 2nd coming of jesus

i pre-ordered entrenchment a while back and when i try to play i get a mini dump after about 20 mins and after atempting to verify my installation found that it said it was not installed correctly, after a full reinstall it is still having the same problem and with the re activate option it says my information is incorrect. what happened to a playable sins?

I agree starbases and at least one of the capitol ships should have some anti mine measures added.. personally I dont feel that the mines are adding anything productive or fun to the game, .. at least as they are used now, .. I would rather see more abilities added to the weapons platforms, maybe give them and the starbase the ability to lay afew mines around them to help keep enemies off of them.. but the drenching of the mines as they are now is more of a annoyance than anything else imo,....also, noticed the advent do not get the orbital refinery.. may I ask why?..

not sure why my fleet logistics should slow down my output of my mining operations, if I have 10 crystal mines and have all three levels of crystal mining researched I should be outputting 1 per % total of my mines using just my base thats with no crystal tech researched,.. then with the first upgrades I should gain 1/ 2 to output, 2nd upgrades another 1/2, third upgrades another 1/2 output per turn.. or what the heck is the point of researching crystal/rock upgrades?.. I would think having fleet logistic affect your credit per turn would be much more realistic and sensible.. it should have nothing to do with the output of your mining operations.

otherwise this game rocks, this will be the most splendid space rts ever made imo, I'm loving the game, havent had any crashes or problems.. thanks

To make them diffrent.

They can change their trade port into rafinery, though.

I get mini dumps everytime I close the game. Starting a nice collection now.

Mines slow my system down to be unplayable in anything in huge games. Simply so much in systems that have been held by the bad guys, when I get there it is just solid mines, the ships having just spent the entire game driving round in circles by the looks of it. Takes me a full thirty minutes and ten scouts with 16 capital ships just to clear it. Which is just daft

I also have no idea how you use the advent mines, they are created and then sit there just guarding my fighter bays. Which isn't much use.

And I hate it when lots of capitals jump out, always one behind that somehow has to turn back round before trying again. the same is also said of large fleets. like 20 fighter carriers, they always bunch up, collide and then jump in bits.

And the vasari moving star base is just daft. It looks silly and acts even more so.

But overall I like the add on, just sort mines out, the mine sweeping, the vasari star base and AI of ships.

Make a 20-100 mine cap.

Increase the effect of mines by 500+ percent.

Make mines targetable & give them 1 hp.

Make mines undetectable (and thus invulnerable) to all but constructors and support-type ships.

Mines is space is a silly concept, but it could work really well in SoaSE 2D space. Right now though, all they're good for is killing the framerate.

I have sins installed in a data partition on my hard drive but can't get entrenchment to install. This is weird because sins updated after i installed version 1.00.000 on the partition off of the CD. Any help would be much apreciated.

Here some suggestions;

- Limit to about 100 or so mine per planet.

- new ship, flagship one per game and uses cap ressource.

- Away to tweak graphic so that it doesn't slow down in late game with hundred of objects in the game (mines, stations, ships, buildings)

- mine sweeper

- make the jump entrance/exit smaller so that defense don't have to be spread across half the gravity well

This could be me entirely but I learned to cope with mines as they are now, however they slow down progress to a crawl. The biggest thing for me would be an increase in the range the scout ship uncovers mines, something like 5500 - 6000 range. This way its easier for my force to clear mines and more importantly not be in range of the homing type mines. You really have to stick your scout ships in there for the mines to be uncovered and it gets really tricky if some of the mines are on a vastly different height.

Yeah, I play a LAN game with my brother and we both have had a mini dump on several ocassions.  We also get out of Sync when we load a save game.  The beta needs some work soon!

Apart from the mines need to be tuned down in numbers, I'd like to have an ability to modify the Starbase configuration. One ability I'd like to see is the ability to decomission modules. As the Starbase is modular in it's essence, the ability to remove modules and replace them with something else would be a proper way of its use. And instead of self-destruct the base entirely, how about a feature to decomission it back to the constructor vessel to be able to relocate and rebuild the base elsewhere.

Another thing I'd like to see is fleet management being implemented properly. I'd like to see more formations and tactics options. And a simple "join fleet X" button, something to replace the simple "Auto Join" function. Might not fall under the "entrenchement" category, but still

And lastely, the diplomacy is too basic. As it is now it functions as a "missions rooster". All factions starts out as enemies, why would I be interrested in missions from my enemy? Wouldn't a Cease Fire and a Trade Agreement proposal be a better way to start off? Off topic perhaps, but still something that should be refined more.

as iv been playing entrenchment more, iv found something else i think needs some consideration.. not sure if it is something inherit into the base game of sins or just the entrenchment add-on, .i normally do not play with computer allies so i never ran into this before,.. i was playing my favorite advent, had a tec ally and i would go bomboard thru the vasari enemy.. totally wipe out the fleet and all of a sudden here comes my ally and steals my planet from me as it is colonize time.. now i have to say i think that sucks majorly,.. esp as my ally is being attacked on his  planets, instead of fighting off his attacks he constantly whines for support from me, then swoops in and claims my planets that i busted half my fleet taking and bombarding his colonizer got along side of mine and took the colony before i could, i have to say i think that is just wrong.. one they should be off fighting on their own, or if they want to come jointly fight with me whoever took out the majority of the enemy and their installations, or whoever of the allies was first into the gravity well with their fleet and colonizer should not have their allies stealing planets from them.

I like the starbases and such, but I've noticed that the AI doesn't lay mines until it's on the run, and when it does it drops them like flowers at a wedding. The Vasari are especially bad at this. tonight I was mopping the floor with the enemy three hours into the match and working on eliminating one oppoent entirely, when the vasari enemy showed up behind my back, and laid over 200 mines at the star my forces were jumping in at, and a few hundred more at a system that I controlled and were sieging. While I would accept this as normal battle tactics, I have to say that this is stinks because while I can bring in scouts to see the mines, I can't blow them away.

For now, I've resolved to just uninstall Entrenchment, and post the four or five dumps that the minespam forces upon my poor laptop. I'll just play regular SoaSE until there's an update on the mine situation.

Iv been thinking about the mines and have idea to help with it.. how about taking the mines making them more  powerful and have only one mine per 20 that would of been laid, so basically u have 20 mines power in the one mine, that way you dont have to have so many of them. Also, afew other thoughts on mines, which I get from David Weber's books on the Honor Harrington series, mines should be laid b4 a enemy enters a system or if theyre laid whilst enemy is in system most of thier power is negated as what sane person is gonna take their ships into a minefiled that they see, so how about if mines are laid when no enemy is in system they get a stealth bonus, giving them a high percentage chance of doing some real damage to ships that dont see them.. maybe give one of the cap ships a ability to have a chance to spot minefields and relay info of where theyre placed so u can have a chance of avoiding them..

personally i dont have alot of problems with them mines, i havent had crashes or any noticable slowdowns on my systems from them, but i can understand that some people dont have the system, especially on laptops to handle them in massive amounts. Hope the ideas help;) I love this game I appreciate the devs taking the time to make such a wonderful addon.

okay, i see alot of ppl saying that the mines have to be more targetable because the scouts scan range is very small, and alot of ppl are saying that once a scout enters a system all mines should be targetable. i dont agree, i think if u do that then scouts become useless once again and all u need it one or two per fleet and then mines become useless.

i think that it should work something like the more scouts u have the more scan range they have, as they collate data and relay to the fleet, and it should depend on the kind of system you are in (as asteroid GW are smaller than planetary ones) so for instance, 5 gives you sight for mines in the immediate vicinity, but you cant fire until the scouts get closer, 10 allows a small vicinity sight and allows you to fire, 15 gives large sight range but no targeting ability, 20 gives targeting ability and sight for an entire asteroid GW, so on and so forth. maybe 20 is too much, and 20 can see and target a whole planetary gravity well, its up to SD

also, something i just thought of, alot of ppl have been struggling with a minsweeper concept, because any minsweeper will effectively nerf mines. most people are thinking okay, strong vs mines, but low armor, well then its simply a matter of spamming enough MS to clear an area big enough for a fleet before they get destroyed, then fly in your fleet and yeah.. sounds cumbersome to me.

so i was thinking, what if minesweepers were highly/moderately armored (as a minesweeper would be) but instead of destroying them, uses EMP blasts (directional or burst style) to disble the mines (cloaking, detonating ability etc) for a set amount of time, allowing your fleet to open up?

seems like a good idea to me without any problems with balance etc...

now, with problems, when i first installed entrenchment, no problems, then, a few mini-dumps and general failures, now, no more min-dumps, but the game will stop running every 5 minutes without fail, like clockwork. it simple says Sins has stopped working, Windows is checking for a solution to the problem...

this means that i can not play the game. it does not matter what i do, i sit staring at a dead asteroid with no mines or anything for 5 mins, or i can go and fortify a system with thousands of mines, max structures, starbase, 2 fleets and enemies incoming, and still 5 mins he fails.

my laptop is very powerful, it never slows down with Sins entrenchment, but these 5 mins system failures are killing me...

I've gotten a bug related to uninstalling Entrenchment with the ONLY workaround being to delete the content of the sins install directory.  The bug is "there is a error in XML document 28,8".  I didn't have this problem before and I was wondering if anyone else had it

There is a simple solution to the mine problem.

1. Restrict minelaying to contruction frigates and certain capships. This will force mines to be used defensively for the most part.

2. Force mines to be autoplaced, or rather snap-to. Snap-to phase lane, planet, facilities etc. Have a minefield be one object that covers an area. Give the player control over the size and shape of the field, with cost scaled to suit. EDIT: This would simplify minelaying placement as well, as a corollory benefit.

3. Minefield behaviour - whenever a vessel is in contact with the minefield it shrinks. The vessel will also take continuous damage while in the minefield. Damage and shrinkage rate should vary by minefield, with more expensive mines having more of the former and less of the latter.

4. Capships can and should be able to use mines offensively, as their numbers will be limited. Mines must be prebuilt. Naturally the capships concerned would also be able to deploy mines defensively; however placing a powerful minefield on an enemy starbase should cripple or kill the starbase. Placing a minefield on another, enemy minefield would hurt both fields as the faction's mines collide, making this a valid sweeping strategy from a safe distance.

Once implemented, this method will:

1. Limit the objects in play. Say goodbye to lag!

2. Control placement. No more Vasari minespam!

3. Open up several more strategic considerations, especially with regard to minelayer capships.

Sermon over. Please, devs and community, give feedback.

It's been a few days now... Some kind of feedback (positive or negative) would be most welcome. I reckon this should address most of the major issues, however, and while I don't wish to seem rude having my efforts ignored is somewhat frustrating. Doesn't anyone out there have anything to say about this...?

Is this concerning the updates? Becaused mines cost a ton of money now.

No, concerning my own suggestions. See above...

I don't really work with game balance, ever. Too many balls in the air all at once. Impossible to see where everything will land. In general the only real unit of cost is the second; resources/sec are just a framework - governed by available resource extraction points and research completed (which can also be expressed in terms of time, even the station setup costs and research required) so as you can see the slow pace of play is very deliberate.

Where it gets difficult is when you're choosing between upgrading max poulation, for example, or going for the immediate research as soon as you can afford it. There comes a point when one is swifter than the other or vice versa; the art of game balance is choosing the point at which this takes place and through that shaping the player's actions and the gameplay itself.

And I don't have the patience to pore over stat sheets, which is why I don't make suggestions about game balance.

However if something is unbalanced it will very swiftly become apparent since a single, dominantly efficient method of exerting damage against your foe (damage/sec being another key concept) through a superior resource/sec strategy will dominate all games played online on or otherwise. That's what happens when balance is wrong.

Good balance will typically demand a number of resource-equivalent strikes and counterstrikes, so that two players 'mirroring' one another perfectly would be in a state of perpetual deadlock until one of them slips up. This deadlock is the war itself.

If your mind is spinning now, imagine what it must take to design and maintain, much less upgrade, such a mathematical construct. Nasty.

Like I said, I don't do game balance - I leave that one to the pros.

Back on topic, could you direct your gaze to the suggestions I've felt relatively confident in making? Getting ignored like this is beginning to chafe somewhat; even a panning would be something...

About the mines...I was playing Homeworld 2 again (needed a space opera game fix) and the way they work the mine field was interesting. The minelayer would lay mine in a rectangle pattern (you decided how big and where) and would continue to lay mine in the area, since the mine would expire after a certain amount of time.

I think SINS should try to implement this method and use the contructors as minelayer and mine remover, gives them another job task to do and keep them busy. Since they are pretty much useless until you need to rebuild stuff late in the game. And it would make sense in a way, their the one building the mines, they should also be able to remove them.

Cheers,
Spylord

for the advent mines, once built you select them and command where to place the mines. the hangar will then produce another "mine fighter"

and you repeat, or scuttle it when you have neough mines and go from there.