Once handsome and tall as you

Titans are good addition to middle and late game, and there were some nice balancings too, though Tec Loyalist titan is still inferior, and Vasari ones are still better than the others. Corvettes do well too, they are nice counter to long range and can snipe big ships easily (except Vorastra that can micro-phase jump). It's funny that corvettes are one of the titan counters as titan AoE's cannot affect them now.

Skilled games are pure 5v5s, though many players join games that are 2s or 3s, depending on what's available, but you will never see skilled ffa

Yes there was a nice addition of players to multiplayer scene with the numerous sales on Rebellion, I can say I am one of those people too (though I bought the game earlier, just joined multiplayer in like November or something).

Balance of faction: AR now inferior to AL (others reading this correct me if I am wrong), because Coronata is extremely dangerous, TL is absolutely the weakest, though recently some nice stuff was added, but still weak, TR is the "perfect one", noone cries it is too weak or OP. Vasari factions are still unbalanced even after the numerous balance patches.

Advent economy is still really bad, and phase missiles are still murderous against them, no fixes here... Don't expect to have higher than level4 capital ships against Vasari, and expect to see your titan die with almost full shields against Vasari bombers...

Yes, titans eat them for breakfast, but still nice ships to have, maybe you think about chosing them as starters, because it is easy to lose them, but then decide to build a Marza or a colony ship instead and maybe for 2nd if you have your titan out.

Hello there again Mr. Connor.

Corvettes made a truly interesting LRF counter and discourage blind capitalship rushes since they are fast enough to case down damaged caps from a battle. They also made expansion a bit faster since they are both fast and good against Siege frigates. 

Most people agree Sins early game balance is a good as it has even been, with a nice little early combat square. Corvettes beat LRF, Flak beats Corvettes, Light Frigates beat Flak, and LRF beats light frigates. LF + Corvettes are the slightly preferred combo but I think it may come down to your race really.

Titans will be either a hit or miss thing for you. In multiplayer they've definitely changed things. Most titans have good damaging AoE attacks, and as titans are rebuilt at the level they're destroyed at you want to do everything possible to avoid unnecessary losses when fighting them. That means using ships that are either immune to their abilities or are durable enough to tank it, mainly your own titan, capitalships, strikecraft and corvettes. At low levels titans can be overwhelmed by numbers but once they get stronger they're quite formidable. Any other advice is really dependent on each individual titan, they are really do have some very different move sets and abilities.

No worse than it was before Rebellion. Both Vasari subfactions have some really powerful unique reseach (Vasari Loyalists can eat planets to get a ton of resources, allowing them to zerg rush everyone with unbeatable fleets in under an hour, and Vasari Rebels can phase jump their starbases into other gravity wells), but both have been nerfed to be much harder to deploy in a multiplayer context. TEC and Advent Loyalists were considered the weakest two subfactions but a series of small strategically placed buffs give them their own niche. At this point I'd say if the Vasari didn't have phase missiles the TEC and Advent Rebels would be just as good as the Vasari.

Still 3v3s to 5v5s depending on players in the lobby. I've found if I host 1v1s they'll fill quickly, but you usually have to make them yourself. Weekend player counts seem to have stabilized between 150-300 players, right after a sale or patch we'll see it rise to as high as 500, and I think ICO had a record of 1000 people online at one point.

Yes they will, but Harpo might have a tool to help with that as always.

One thing you'll like is the new "Competitive Maps" they added a few months after Rebellion released. These force each planet type to have the same amount of militia and resource asteroids, and planet bonuses and artifacts have been removed. Basically it takes some of the random luck aspects out of the game. They also added some new premade maps that support teams spawning next to each other (I know Triple Entente at least was one of them).

Maybe some small bugfixes. A major patch, 1.5, and the first ever Sins DLC Forbidden Worlds was just released. Fortunately this DLC doesn't split the community, whoever hosts the game determines if the DLC will be used, even if not everyone in the game has the DLC.

Pretty much. They're still good capitalships, all of them, but Corvettes have made relying on say a double carrier rush way more risky since you probably won't be able to retreat them if you commit to an all out attack. Most people seem to have gone back to the old fashioned colony capitalship starts, though plenty of TEC commanders still go with the Marza just to get missile barrage ASAP. 

Wait, did I miss something?

Edit:

I preferred Advent Rebels to Advent Loyalists even when not using Wail of the Sacrificed. The main difference may indeed be whether you want the Eradica titan's fleet killing power or the Coronata's single super damaging attack. I'd pick the Eradica most of the time but they're both pretty good titans now.

Thanks for the updates.  I was surprised by the Sins disc as there doesn't seem to have been much of an announcement for it, it just came up on AmazonUK.  There's a music disc included as well, not that I have any use for it, as presumably I'll get to hear the music in-game.

I had a quick go, well not that quick as I hadn't changed the speed setting!  The new intro is good, but then the intros always were, and I can understand why Ironclad were pleased with the music.  It seems the superweapons are restricted now, which I feel is a good change though the implementation seems a little arbitrary, its just a limit with no explanation why.  It might be an improvement to adjust the logistics requirements so that only some planets can base them, perhaps this could also be harmonised with the DLC content?  Then the tech could ease the requirement slightly instead of simply adding another weapon.

I haven't really got the hang of the new units yet, I'll have to up the AI level to provide more of a challenge.  The new capital ship class was a welcome surprise, though I was TEC and the TEC ship looks like a shelf with lego stuck to it.  There is something to be said for anti-aesthetic design, but then there is something to be said for good design too..

The early game is still somewhat dominated by pirates ho hum.  The pirate base has at last got some mines and hangars, good work for finally putting that in.  However my complaints from two years ago still stand, the pirates are meant to prey on trade, yet trade ports are still the best defence against them.  The trade ships are durable enough that the pirates spend considerable time chasing them and also rebuild far too quickly and at no expense, rather than the pirates destroying something the player actually needs to rebuild.  I've always wanted a more complex trade system for Sins, but a couple of quick changes to the base game would be very useful- slow the rate at which trade ships are rebuilt and also implement the bounties for destroying them.  The way the game should work is that you point the pirates at a vulnerable trade planet..

A disappointing aspect of the game was the failure of my AI Vasari opponent to build any starbases at all, let alone use them offensively.  It did manage to build a Titan, but.. it almost seems as if the Titan is supposed to compensate in some way for the fail with starbases.  It might be difficult for the AI to place defences including a starbase but for the only faction where this isn't a problem to fail to even construct them is a huge let down.  Come on guys you've had years to fix this, it doesn't seem insuperable.   

Another big disappointment was the seeming lack of new maps, something that has been discussed constantly for as long as I have been involved with the game.  However I wanted a 1 v 1 game so I hadn't looked through the all premade maps thoroughly and must have missed some, I'll check next time I play.  

I'm not really pleased with the concept of 'competitive' maps especially as they involve simply entirely removing an aspect of the game- artifacts- that I believe should be enhanced.   As an alternative for 'competitive' maps you could allow the map maker to designate artifact planets?  Does the DLC come with new maps..?  Most of the Sins maps have problems, but then again many of them are five years old, is it not time the entire map collection was revamped?

As I have to an extent to relearn the game, I might embark on a project I had a long time go and never got around to, a review of the premade map collection.  I always wanted Ironclad to have a competition to produce new maps for the game, nothing special just maps that could be made with the tool.  Perhaps the new DLC represents an opportunity for this?   

yes this is a huge problem, but enemy AI will surely build one and it is funny when TEC or Advent tries to put a starbase under the nose of my main fleet, so they do use them offensively, but not Vasari i have failed every game so far where my ally was Vasari, the other 2 races are ok, they build starbases, but it's sad to see your ally to have 2 starbase builder colony ships, and no starbases there...

there are some new maps and there are balanced maps giving equal resources to everyone, so no unfair start. The concept of competitive maps is not to give anyone an unfair advantage, and not really meant to be played against AI. Now artifacts are game changing, so finding the one that gives 25% extra population and 25% extra tax will win you the game and poor opponent will never know why, so you may understand now why

I would be happy to see some new maps, I hate most of them. All focuses on small territory and immediate conflict, and there aren't ones that are medium sized and gives you more than 3-5 planets (except random, but would be nice to see more).. And lack of well-defensible chokepoints is irritating too. playing on bigger maps with fewer AI's is unbalanced, because who gets the free homeworlds, will be strongest.

Yeah there seem to be more new maps than I had considered.  I know what artifacts can do though it is a risk to spend to hunt for them, it would just be better to work them into the game rather than remove them, its odd to release new planets with new bonuses then remove them for competitive purposes.  Its never good to take elements away from a game, and removing the planet bonuses is going too far they are hardly game changing.  I've had some good online battles over artifact planets.  Perhaps you could leave the search system in place for the planet bonuses and have designated 'artifact planets' with beefy defences? 

The last map I made I called 'Sedition', a medium sized map, you might find it to your taste, its in the map downloads section.

I tried a premade map called 'New Dawn', far too small but otherwise fairly reasonable, it didn't seem to have any pirates (so why were the pirates available for purchase?).  The concept of a war zone with an asteroid and a couple of gas giants is a good one, its the same sort of style as Storm Front, a 1 v 1 map I tried to popularise.  'New Dawn' seems an improvement on the other tiny maps.  

I played against a hard AI TEC, it was quite good for a hard AI, they still seem to have problems with the starting capital ship though.  I wondered whether the need to save for titans would make the AI too passive, but if anything it overextended, skipping the ice planets to harass me.  At least it competed for the neutral extractors.  It never got to build its titan, and the game was over before I got one into action.  The AI could still use more clue about what to do when attacking a grav well, its far too easy to sucker it into attacking turrets.  Of course you then get players who try MP with the idea that turrets are the thing to build...

However the AI has definitely improved from a while ago, it had just improved when I began my extended break and doesn't seem to have faltered again.  There is still a lot of room for improvement tactically though, and its just simple changes that are needed.   Next I'll try several AI in an FFA to test the diplomatic aspect. 

Well the vast majority of people turn them off, so most of the feedback doesn't concern them.

Were you not a multiplayer Connor? I don't remember, but the competitive maps were made for them. And virtually all of them will agree anything random, including artifacts, should be removed. You don't want to say you only lost a game because your opponent found data archive in the first 5 minutes...

But regardless, virtually all the artifacts were buffed in 1.5 (seriously, you should at least check all the change logs if not posts while you've been gone if you want to talk about this stuff  ) and map makers have always been allowed to spawn artifacts at specific planets.

The new maps were added before the DLC. They are two independent features that were made in isolation from each other and with two different target players in mind.

It is if they either get in the way of the core game, I.e. pirates in competitive games where you just want to focus on beating other humans, or if it would unbalance the game and thus reduce the validity of bragging rights, I.e. planet bonuses. If you don't like that they're totally optional, but plenty of players do not like them in certain circumstances. And heck, despite the superweapon limit plenty of people here want an option to take them out of the game as well...

It can never be competitive, only if you make a map fully equal for both sides, and make maybe 1-2 worlds in the middle with nice bonuses and artifacts to fight for. Many times on random maps players are already defeated by their starting position. Having 4-5 asteroids and dwarf is not sufficient if your opponent has real planets... Even if you go full trade early you will only suffer. And for players on the same skill level it is not fun to lose and it wasn't their fault, they could do nothing about it. Consider that fair maps have the same amount of resource asteroids too on the planets.

when I finish exams (tomorrow) I will look into it. Hope it works with 1.51.

It seems to be randomised. It is funny to see an AI kill itself just because of his worst choice as starter, like Marauder or Dunov (Revelation can be irritating that's why I don't mention that here, in my Sins playtime most capitalships went boom because of that ship...).

How do you want to kill a harder AI with huge resource bonuses then? He must waste his fleets on your defenses, otherwise you would simply have no chance if he played like a human and focused on taking out starbases, capital ships and titans, and would make Vicious and Cruel useless as you have no chance against them.

True, me too (though I am too lazy to make a minimod ), it can be extremely annoying and impossible to handle when harder TEC AI's spam Novaliths everywhere in the beginning when you have no chance to steamroll his 3-10x bigger fleet or starbase everything... Good thing he wastes their firepower on pirates and specific planets, and if he shoots on one world that cannot be destroyed because of a starbase, problem solved, but still losing many worlds and many credits per sec is annoying, and he always focuses on heavy trade worlds (once I lost 20 credits per sec for half an hour because of it, from one world)... Kostura and Deliverance is not a real threat if used by AI.

It would be so hard to make a button for it, just like to turn off pirates   just a simple, little button...

It's apparently a lot harder than you think, they've only added a toggle button once outside of an expansion release. And you just have to download someone else's minimod. 

OK I know it, I can make it myself.. But having to always turn it on and off when I decide to go online.. The nice little button would be better

It's not as if Vicious and Cruel AI would be a huge loss from the game, as they took almost no developer effort to create.  I'm not sure why they don't alter the resource cheat pattern anyway, there's room to shuffle hard to 'normal plus' and make unfair the old hard and cruel the old unfair, it would seem to make much more sense.

But the basic aim should be to make AIs that can play the strongest possible game on normal level anyway?  If you just super cheat the resources, it isn't satisfying and you obscure the difference between factions with poor economies and those with good ones.  The Vasari normal AI can build titans why cant it build starbases?  Why can't the Vasari AI deploy starbases in hostile gravwells?  Its not rocket science, okay perhaps it is.

That's the wrong attack priority for AI, you profit if it attacks your starbases and titans.. the proper primary attack priority is inhibitors, constructors, repair and specialised support ships, after that maybe LRF.  I've known the AI attack extractors while a turret was built right next to them.

I played another game, an FFA against 3 hard AIs on 'Gemini.'  Gemini is a fairly good small multistar, again it has the 'combat space' between the starting positions which I recommend for a map.  I like it.  I was TEC, the AIs randomed to 2 Advent one in the same system as me and a Vasari.  I didn't put any effort into diplomacy but the Vasari had envoys, and we got a trade agreement then eventually peace as we dealt with our respective Advent opponents.

One aspect that has been toned down is the missions you used to get from the factions, which seemed entirely missing.  Perhaps I just didn't have enough of a relationship with the Vasari, and getting missions from diehard enemies was always a bad thing which I complained about.  The missions feature is still there though?  Ironclad should do something about that pacts page, it has almost no information for something which blocks the entire screen.  If it can't be as award-winningly minimal as the rest of the Sins UI, why not allow it a quarter of the screen instead?

However what I wanted to understand was the influence of the titans on the AI FFA game, and there seems to be a massive failure.  While I had a fairly good fight against the Advent AI and even struggled against its titan, the end game against the Vasari was a depressing walkover.  The reason was that the Advent AIs had resigned before their titans had been destroyed, and had left their titans in gravwells the Vasari AI wanted to conquer...  One solution would seem to be to not have AIs resign while they have titans up, its not a total solution but a good quick fix?

Sins players have always been fairly poor in terms of after-action reports, the developers get far more complaints than information, and that may have stunted the growth of the game as much as anything.  Apart from the problem with the endgame, the game I played was more entertaining than those I have had in previous versions, the map was good and the AI had a sense of what space they wanted and didn't instantly team up on me.  Perhaps we should have an AAR thread, though I'm not sure how many forum posters play the standard game, the forum always seemed split between multiplayers and modders?

Diplomacy missions, for whatever reason, have gone to shit...the AI just isn't nearly as willing to offer them anymore, especially beyond the early-mid game...you are not alone in that experience...

We've had replay threads in the past, but focus has always been on player mistakes and strategy....discussions on AI behavior have not been nearly as involved...

There are 2 reasons for this...one is that most people that just play against the AI are not very skilled and thus are more likely to find the AI an adequate challenge...they also don't understand the best strategies themselves, so they aren't going to be able to criticize the AI for not doing what they themselves don't know how to do...the other reason is that many of the people who do play a lot against the AI and are active on the forums are old timers and have simply "accepted" certain elements of the AI's "intelligence"...

Put in a different way, time and time again we've asked for AI improvements, but the devs can only do so much...more to that point, the devs themselves probably don't understand a lot of these high level strategies so you can't really expect them to program the AI accordingly...

My next game was a hard FFA on Kabel.  The map seems quite good, it is a little cramped but then that's hardly a disadvantage with ten starting spots.  Is it used at all for 5s in multiplayer?  If not, why not?

Anyway I randomed Advent and I got lucky, with four other Advents in the game, which also meant that the missions started appearing, maybe not thick and fast, but there all the same.  This seems fairly reasonable, I hadn't developed my relations with the Vasari in the previous game at all and there was no reason for extended diplomatic contact.  

I have finished the game yet, even with the fast action a ten player FFA is still a long game.  However the Advent have wiped everyone else out, which is much as it should be I suppose! Now the infighting begins!  I am pleased with how the diplomacy element seems to have worked out, from when I left off it is very much improved, the empires seem to expand in sensible directions and their relations attitudes are fairly reasonable.

The one aspect that I am dubious about is the same as the previous game, factions seem to tend to resign too quickly.  I haven't come across any abandoned titans in this game, but there are earth-type planets with starbases and fleets with several capital ships and tens of cruisers and the AI has resigned?  Resignation seems to happen far too early.  Unless a faction has no planets only asteroids, and no titan, I'd want them to fight to the end.  The only exception might be the last rival faction in the game.

My Advent Titan gains power by eating my own ships... is serious?  Why not eat the enemy ships then?  If you apply the sacrifice ability to all Advent ships, and ships are sacrificed or even just the scouts which have the ability at present, then I can see than being helpful- but why have your titan destroy your own ships when there are enemy nearby?  Bizarre.        

Good for you, in my AI games I almost had to beat them to their last planet, thus I always play with capital victory...

They give up when they feel they have no chance. Numbers, numbers everywhere. If their opponent has idunno, 10000 dps fleet, and he has 1000 dps fleet, he will resign. Or fleet capacity, if one AI has 500 used ship slots and the other 2500, he already lost and he should give up not prolonging the game with his starbases.

I don't think that is a problem (because I never faced it myself ), human players give up before losing all their defenses and planets if they see no chance of winning..

Pretty much this, but don't forget economics. If you're beating an AI in all aspects a little bit but with a huge economic lead, I've noticed the AI tends to give up often, while its rarer if I say ignore trade the entire game. 

And pretty much the only way to get multiplayer to change is to host a 5v5 game yourself with the settings you want. If it fills up maybe somebody else will like the map and start using it.

I guess there is a reason why standard 5v5 games don't really use pre-made maps, but maybe it can change.

As i dont play vs AI or have any experience in single player i ll comment on the multiplayer aspect of rebellion.

Now is the easist time to join and get into Sins MP as there are so many new players playing and joining 5s, chances are you wont get kick or abused for being new etc.. You can always the ask the host anyways if you are concerned. Im seeing a lot of "unknown" players in my games recently and some of them have picked up the game pretty quicky.

Multiplayer balance is very decent after recent patch, although im a hater of a double factory start but what are you going to do?

In my opinion TEC Loyalists are competing with Vasari Loyalists for "best" faction at the moment closely followed by AR. But there isnt much in it and often comes to personal preference etc.. AL is very fun to play in ECO spot as well.

I would just like to say that 50%+ of the 5v5 maps hosted are NOT competetive and artifacts can be found and used. When i host my games they are normally ALL RANDOM which makes games a bit more unpredictable. Last nights 5s had 8 Vasari players in it and 5 of them on the same team! That was such a sick game i should really upload the replay lol

Anyways if you need any help with MP ping me on steam on in-game.

Why do you love TL this much? I can't understand..

Well, bear in mind that i speak from purely multiplayer aspect of the game and games vs AI might be different but:

-Awesome early game potential ( best corvettes in the game etc).

-Strongest ECO that can translate into strong Lategame potential( TAR isnt very good in my opinion and DLC devaules it even more as expanding at fast rate is no longer required). Think Industry upgrades over additional planets.

-Awesome titan, matrix shield is great and that self-defence thing makes it indestructible. Group shield can also be effective but a bit more circumstantial. Also positioning and range of his guns make him do more damage than sometime it might appear. Doesnt have movement/targetting flaws of Ragnarov.

-Very easy to get Novalith Cannons + Upgrade and if you time it right they can be devastating. Just like guardians with repulsion sometimes its just not possible/very hard to counter it.

-Good titan upgrade bonuses (see VR for bad ones).

-Impossible to kill at choke planets if the game goes on for longer than 1h30-2 hours due to damage and armor bonuses.

There might be more but those are the ones i can think of the top off my head and i dont have access to the game from the office.

OK, I was interested in the multiplayer stuff, though I won't be playing for long time, just wanted to know how things changed

If there are only two players left in the game then a huge disadvantage would indeed be a good basis for early AI resignation.  However with several factions left in an FFA the AI should hang on if they have a titan, or a decent fleet, or at least one decent world.  There are many maps where the AI's 'share' of the map before conflict begins is not much more than that.

I have played mostly MP in the past, but I made both MP and SP maps and also I wanted to help out with some of the SP issues that had been brought up.  The normal Sins AI should be much better than it is, it underperforms.  The objective should be to reduce the level of cheating needed for the higher level AIs.  If their was more possibility for the players to have input into AI strategies it would improve tremendously.  The implementation of the pirates is a related problem.

I started MP before the 5v5 disease caught on, it was when there were the first appeals for PUG 5s, rather than 5s being the dominant form of MP.  My favourite type of MP is still 3 or 4 player teams on the premade maps, where you play whoever turns up.  Supposedly random 5s are all about 'know the smurf' and I could never stand that aspect of it.  So many of the best Sins players were devoted to having several smurfs, it was ridiculous.  Is it any better now?

Well, steam at least makes smurfing a lot harder. It is impossible to reset your games played count short of an exploit or buying another license of the game.

Steam has only had a minor impact on smurfing....

People can still change their lobby name as much as they want to...they can also still change their steam name anytime...sure, their game record can't change but when dozens of people you probably don't know have similar records that isn't a very identifying characteristic...it is true that you can view all prior names of a steam account, but that is very inconvenient and tiresome, not to mention people will sometimes use the same name as a well known player (since multiple people can have the same steam name)...

Players do all sorts of things to mess with their record...when losing or just plain bored they plug pull so the game isn't registered to keep a high win/loss ratio...not that game records mean much of anything, the best players do not necessarily have good records (for a variety of reasons) while mediocre players can have seemingly amazing records...

If you want to know who's who, you simply have to play a lot and depend on other's intel for smurfs and unknown names...

There are very few / no smurfs in skilled 5s. There are some that still do smurf in normal 5s but after a few games everyone gets to know them anyways. Im looking at you guys Riddle King and HowThe.

Lol I didn't know How smurfed...who does he play as now?

Arch smurf something or other has about 500 games played and only shows a record around 38 games 38 wins...