My favorite here was the mine fixes, then the bank attack changes, This may make capitals USEFULL for combat agaisnt frigates. YESSS.

Finally i loved the starbase changes.

I played 2 games of entrenchment and deamed it unplayable too hard to play a full game. i'm looking forward to having a fun time (OH DEAR) testing entrenchment.

W00t i'm page 4

I'm still concerned about the range of starbases.  While they should be significantly more effective against fleets given the new weapon bank changes, those changes will only matter if the fleet gets within range of them.  The phase destabilization helps some, but I'm not sure it helps enough.  Can't wait to give the new version a shot though.

Edit: And since I just noticed that the update is out now, I don't have to wait to try it

well, considering that the effect is 30% of current hit points, plus all of anitmatter, I'd say it works. I have played fairly little, other duties, but my experience was: placing a starbase at a choke point does make sense, because either the enemy fights it or he accepts taking said penalties for passing by. it still does not relieve you of the fact that you have to have defenses behind choke points, at least a little. yet, I think that is a good thing, a system with an insurmountable choke point is not a good thing anyway. here, there is a choice with consequences, and as defender you have to prepare for both cases.

not sure on the weapon bank changes so far, capships do seem better against frigs, but it's really too early to tell.

btw, for any questions: the mine cap is NOT like tactical caps or logistic caps, it just is displayed next to it. it's a set value of 150, you have it from the beginning, don't need to do any research or such and you cannot make it larger or smaller. in any case, I thought it might interest, I was not sure how it worked before.

Question: Is it possible to control which targets you're hitting? For instance: I have a bank that can hit 4 targets. There are 8 targets in range: 4 of frigate A and 4 of frigate B. The AI is automatically targetting just frigate A but I really want to hit 2 As and 2 Bs. Is there a way to do that (simultaneous attack queues or something)?

i applied this update and it looks like we can build multiple starbases per grav well, because i have multiple contructors and when i build one starbase, the other constuctors's build starbase button is not greyed out, but when i go to click on it and place another starbase it doesn't do anything

probably did not catch up to it.  I just ran a game on unfair with 4 AIs on a small custom map 30planets and it worked beautifully i cant wait to try out everything on a long 3 week game

I already have more slow down that I thought I was going to in big battles. I have a Pentium D, Dual Core, 3Ghz, 2GB SDRAM, and an MIS Geforece 8800GT 512 MB, running Visat 32. My setting are high, but not all the way up, and big battles slow down pretty hard. Is there any way for me to optimize (besides the obvious shutting down of background processes and such)?. Are there particular setting I should use to obtain the best balance between looks and frame rate? This game is so pretty, my system is solid, I really shouldn't have to dumb down the graphics too much.

Sounds great!

I only hope that the AI knows about this new station warp disruptor thingy, and doesn't just ignore the station and jump its fleets into certain doom, constantly.

Well..the old AI was not a big fan of bypassing hardpoints with its fleets.   I did notice in Entrenchment beta 1 that the AI did do a bit more harassment with frigates, which I thought was great, so maybe this has changed.

I can tell you right now that the AI will bypass a starbase you have in a neutral well to go hit your world. But they won't bypass your planets.

IC said that the beta is not optimized yet. So it gonna be laggy/slow sometimes. They have suggested you turn down your graphics for the time being to help with this problem.

The change list is definitely looking nice, and I'm really looking forward to checking it out.  I had to stop playing Entrenchment back in December because it was, in my opinion, just totally unplayable.  The Mine Spam was bad enough.  Maddeningly frustrating for sure, but I sucked it up and figured I'd learn to deal with it.  What made it totally unplayable for me though were the multiplayer games losing sync over time.  That was positively unacceptable from a gameplay standpoint.  My friends and I would literally end up playing completely different games after awhile.  To make matters worse, the game wouldn't throw up any desync error messages or warnings, and my friends and I were left to make the discovery on our own, often after an hour or two of gameplay.  So between the mines and the desync issues, I was simply too frustrated with the game to play it at all, which was a bummer.  Yes, I know I could have gone back to playing vanilla Sins, but I was just too frustrated to bother with it at all at the time.

I did notice though that "fixed one known sync bug" is on the change list, and I'm really and truly hoping it was the one causing that issue.  I miss playing Sins with my buds.  It's a fantastic game, and IC has really done an outstanding job with it.  I'd hate to walk away from Sins and leave it relegated to my growing tower of unplayed games in my closet because of one damn bug.

I hope I don't sound like I'm whining or trash talking or anything.  I just wanted to vent a little bit, and just toss my two cents out there for the record.  Thanks for letting me do so, and I'll give the update a try this weekend.

these updates look good

Yeah, the mines in unowned grav wells change works well for Vasari and Advent because they can drop mines anywhere, but it doesn't really do a lot for the TEC. I'd suggest a change that allows the TEC to have a free constructor frig in gravity wells they have culture in but don't own the planet. This constructor is limited to only constructing mines. That way the TEC has a way to mine their unownable gravity wells (asteroid fields, gas giants, etc) but doesn't allow them to remote-mine adjacent enemy systems (the system defenders would automatically destroy the fragile mine-layers as soon as they spawned, and assume a five minute respawn timer or such).

wow, finaly,  like all the things that annoyed me have been dealt with...all those little annoying details that tough small rly matter in playing.  now í'm sure to start playing sins again

you rly have been working hard

now i just hope entrenchment will be a big hit.. and that we'll have plenty of peopel online there....  unlike some other games where people just played the original, not bothering about the expansion

so the way i read it is if u scout a gavity well u cn place mines in it? up to 150 per player thats still 1500 if all 10 did it, unlikey i know, but can it be explained to a simply? iv not had time to play it myself yet, and

so u can place them in gravity well u own, by colonization an/or culture

but also in neutral gravity wells like ion storms for eg which cant be colonized and dont have anyones culture there

but u can also send a scout to an enemies planets an then just build mines there? would seem a bit silly, like if u have designated production planets an they just placed mines around ur factories, it would also mean keepin a scout in each gravity well to clean them up severly denting fleet capacity.

I dont know if what iv said is right like i said i havent played it yet but seems stupid to me. just give me a toggle on the game options so i can turn them off all together and il be happy

The Advent and Vasari have minelaying ships that you'd have to send to enemy planets to build mines there.  The TEC can only build in their own gravwells.

are you referring to the status quo or to a suggestion? I tell you the status quo, what is currently in the game.

TEC can build mines only at wells they colonised and they are built like any other structure, from the menu, by the construction frigate.

vasari and advent have mobile mine ships, a new, specialised one for vasari, advent gets a new squadron that their drone host can built. these two races also have to spend resources to build mines. because they are mobile, they can place their mines wherever they want, even in enemy territory. from what I understand, it takes the mines a little to activate after they are deployed, so rushing to the enemy and deploying them only works if the enemy doesnt kill them instantly.

scouts for all three races are used to detect and remove mines. no scout of any faction can lay them!

finally, the limit of 150 per well per player is pre set and nothing in the game ever changes or influences it.

hope that clears things up.

yea thats alot clearer thanx Shadowhal

still would like a toggle on them lol

I noticed that they still haven't fixed the Advent shield/hull upgrades not affecting starbases.  I haven't seriously checked the other races yet.

EDIT: Nevermind.  I must have been going crazy.  But the infobox for the shield upgrades doesn't mention starbases.  Also, does the culture upgrades affect the evangelization nodes on starbases?

Both updates, v92 and 1.13 have now causes crashes trying to start both.  I miss my game now.  Anyway to roll back these updates so I can play my game again?

I hope you will look into fixing a major wrong in the game: The players should not lose any research it has already unlocked if a lab is destroyed.  That item has been paid for and installed  and should not grayed out due to the lab lose.

Another, ships should not have to be grouped and order to group attack, that is one of the rule of combat, concentrated firepower on a target equals to a quick kill.  I have noticed ships doing their own thing and I should not have to research a command ship to direct them to that either. It should be part of the training of the ship captain.

Quick question:  Why does TEC seem to start so far behind in the tech tree? Then you have to fight like hell to hold on as you to try to get up and running.

I have two items I hope gets fixed quickly:

When the colony ship and the carriers are being attacked, I should have to tell them to move. The ships should take action to protect themselves.

in early betas it was like this. but if you only needed the research then you could get all that you want, scuttle all the labs and then stuff them w/ trade ports or refineries or whatever. no, I think it's good the way it is, because it requires you to protect your infrastructure and enables a few mean early strategies like taking out labs to prevent some units from being constructed.

Look at it this way:  After America built the atomic bomb, we didn't just scrap all the labs and call it a day.  The scientists there kept working on the technology.  In Sins, the labs are still working and maintaining that technology.  If that doesn't make sense, think about having to keep the lab around as a sort of upkeep cost for that level of tech. 

I actually think destroying a lab should do much more than it does now.  Abilities and ships that require a certain number of labs to function should be disabled if more than that number of labs are destoyed.  Want to stop a powerful late game fleet?  Stage a strike, destroy some labs and boom, all your enemies HCs and support cruisers are disabled.  As balance, it would be much harder to stop the main components of a fleet(carriers, lrms) because they require fewer labs.

This would also work for civilian labs and research. 

It's part of their lore.  The TEC did the whole "make love, not war" thing and got behind on their military research, which is why they are so far behind.  However, their understanding of economics is very high and they get trade ports and economy upgrades at a low level.