Please help me enjoy this game

1. Did you even bother to set the game speeds to the fastest setting?

2. Did you even bother to try and build up your economy with trades ports and etc, bc resources come in pretty dam fast once that's built up.

1. Yes, I always play at the fastest settings.

2. Yes and I had plenty of money, but no crystal. If I bought crystal, which was expensive, i'd still have to wait 10 minutes for the money to come back.

You attacked a horde of bombers and a starbase with a "small" armada. Being an oxymoron, gives us a bit more of a specific number of ships and actual fleet composition.

Because bombers and starbases excel at fighting against capital ships head on. Bombers are pretty much the bane of capital ships especially if used in masses.

well the ai can unlimetly build things and get better things then you faster then you on the fastest setting.. i recommend the slowest setting (1x not 8x) , i dont know about you but i always have stuff to do.. i dont wait... if you are waiting for money- take a scout look at what the enemy is doing, micro manage your fleet, think of what research would benefit you more (not just research every tec randomly) like warm hole research - its useless unless you have a wormhole on your map ect... (or you need more xp- so that your capital ships are at a higher level- thus harder to kill, you can allow the pirates to raid one of your planets lol and get xp that way) or colonizing -there is always stuff to do !

never play a game fully on just high speed because you are just not that fast......

Here's my _ step process for making this game fun for you again:

#1  Get into the mods. I recommend Distant Stars, Maelstrom, and Seven Deadly Sins, and maybe the enhanced 4x mod.

#2  Play diplomacy.  It's far better balanced that rebellion with its retarded titans.  

#3  Increase game speed to fastest in setup menu (we do not mean making it 8x.  Just mess with it when you start the game in the setup window.

#4  If you really like capital ships, ask a modder how to mess with files so that your cap ships are twice as powerful.

#5  Since I assume you're fighting the AI (Because you're bored) always be doing something.  If you're bored, send in a few ships on a "scouting mission",  if they have fun blowing up trade ships with multicolored lights of awesomeness, you can hardly blame them, can you?

#6  You need to look around the forums for strategy or watch some replays to get a better grasp of tactics.  I.e. If there's bomber spam occurring  make     kols and flak burst the bombers.

Here's my 6 step process for making this game fun for you again:

#1  Get into the mods. I recommend Distant Stars, Maelstrom, and Seven Deadly Sins, and maybe the enhanced 4x mod.

#2  Play diplomacy.  It's far better balanced that rebellion with its retarded titans.  

#3  Increase game speed to fastest in setup menu (we do not mean making it 8x.  Just mess with it when you start the game in the setup window.

#4  If you really like capital ships, ask a modder how to mess with files so that your cap ships are twice as powerful.

#5  Since I assume you're fighting the AI (Because you're bored) always be doing something.  If you're bored, send in a few ships on a "scouting mission",  if they have fun blowing up trade ships with multicolored lights of awesomeness, you can hardly blame them, can you?

#6  You need to look around the forums for strategy or watch some replays to get a better grasp of tactics.  I.e. If there's bomber spam occurring  make     kols and flak burst the bombers.

From the information you've given I think you play Sins TOO much as an 4X game. You have to be a lot more aggressive and rush much earlier than in standard 4X games.

In short don't waste much resources in defence if it's not a strategically important spot, research less and use resources mainly to pump out ships.

A fleet is mobile and can be used both to defend and attack.

Research the most important technologies like for example colonization and jump to another star if the map have more than one. The basic ship designs like long range frigates, fighter defence frigates, planet bombers and the other early ones. Bigger fleet research. Don't forget to build ships as much as you can at the same time.

A good rule of thumb when starting to play Sins is to only research the absolutely most important technologies in the different branches and to not research higher than tier three unless you're winning easily, have a lot of surplus resources or it's absolutely necessary in your current situation. Use your resources to build ships instead.

...Unless you're ever going to play DS...   In that case have fun with ruthlessly epic kol battleships.

Well they're starter tips to get going if you haven't played Sins before and not an ultimate guide for total dominance of the Sins universe.

Well first of all, using the black market a lot is probably a fact of life. If you're the TEC get the black market discount, and just count on that you'll need to use it continuously unless you get lucky with a lot of ice planets.

How exactly are you developing your economy? On fastest if you expand quickly and then build up, you can easily have a booming economy in an hour. Also how much fleet supply did you research? Keep in mind researching a higher ship limit will pertinently increase your upkeep, reducing the efficiency of your economy, so try not to research a bigger fleet than you need.

Sins is a 4XRTS hybrid, but simply due to being in real time, "Extermination" is by far the most in depth of the Xs. People from 4X games tend to make some of the following big mistakes in Sins.

1. Research too much too fast. Focus on unlocking ships, modules and planet colonization techs first. Things like +damage% upgrades are only worthwhile once you have a medium to large sized fleet (say 300 fleet supply worth), and the larger the more noticeable they are, so early on you should not be research much if any such techs.

2. Building too many capitalships. Unless they are very high level, frigates give much better damage output per cost and fleet supply that capitalships. 10 capitalships versus 50 heavy cruisers may use the same fleet supply, but the HCs will have a big fire power advantage and should win unless all 10 caps are level 10 or something. Capitalships are mostly for their special abilities, and some of these may be very damaging, but in direct DPS they won't be as efficient as frigates. Also, groups of capitalships share XP, making it harder to level individual caps up. And in Sins, a few high level caps are more valuable than several low lever ones.

If you haven't already, check out some guides or youtube videos to get more detailed advice. Once you know Sins better and can beat at least the normal AI, and you still feel its a "1X" game, follow Dummeri's advice and check out some mods that add content.

Let's continue building on this. We might even get a guide off of it.

Keep building ships all the time but beware Fleet Research as GoaFan77 said. Don't build a fleet so large that it needs so much Fleet Research that it's crippling your economy. Play aggressive and try to find the sweet spot where your Fleet Research is enough for you to continue pushing your enemy back and still have enough resources to continuously replenish your losses. It's a common mistake when you're new to build a big whopping fleet, take some planets from your enemy but then have major casualties and not enough resource income to replenish them and so get pushed back again by the counter attack.

Another note about defences is that they're generally not used for holding. Their biggest use is in delay. Build enough defences so that the enemy can't easily bypass them but don't go overboard. Defences buy you time to get your ships to the fight. Remember your military power is in ships, defences can't take planets. Resources put in defence is resources you could have used to go and hurt the enemy on his turf.

Turtling in Sins rarely pays of. Yeah there is that big annoying gun that the AI likes to abuse but still.

pfft... enablers...

game is what it is and nothing less or more.  wishing for campaign, deathmatch elements, events/raids/cataclysms, etc... is pointless.  you either like vanilla or not.  enjoy the mods, they keep most people in longer than 2 months.

Explore: Sending scouts further into the system so that you may weigh up your options.

Expand: Seize tactical locations, such as choke points, neutral extractors and other scarce resources. Larger planets are also important as they provide a strong and economically fulfilling addition to your empire.

Exploit: (As far as relations go) Short-term alliances may be exploited in free-for-alls. Other players may also take kindly to being informed that the fleet of their nemesis is currently pre-occupied with you. If allied victory is on, you can bandf up with another player and both claim victory. Otherwise, undefended enemy trade worlds provide an open opportunity to steal income.

Exterminate: I don't think that battles happen too fast on Sins, though that may be because I've come from C&C. 

QFT

Many people have no idea how fun a longer FFA game can be....