I don't know why people don't like the smack talk.  It's been around long before computer games, I can't tell you how much crap gets talked in any dominoes game I've ever played.  It's just part of the fun

Anyway, I also like it when I get stomped, dramatic increase in skill from me soon afterwards after I learn a much more effecient way to do things

1.05 was the last patch where spam was really effective.  Particularly Illuminator spam, but HC, LRM, Assailant spam all work pretty well too.  There were some advance tactics that could beat spam, but most players didn't make the effort.

Currently, there is a counter to every strategy and ship.  If you die to spam it means,

A.  You don't know how to counter it. 
B.  Your economy is so far behind you can't produce enough counter units to matter.
C.  Your enemy is micro managing his units much better than you are using the counter units.

A good player is not going to use a complex strategy to kill you if a simple one is working just fine.  Why should I use all my utensils when all I need is a spoon?

Accualy, now that i thought about sporks, there is one, the tec robotics cruisers with the officive robots ability.  build about 20 of those and send them in to raid a planet, they deal out damage and repair themselvs all at the same time.  hence both a "spoon" and a "fork"

Last two times I played MP were way back in beta, got completely steamrolled once by a guy with about 8 caps when I had 2-3, i think it was Schod.  Now I just don't have the time or desire to commit to long games.  I might try to get in a couple comp stomps for fun because at least strategizing with humans is more fun than otherwise.  I just wish the AI was more intelligent and not reliant on bonuses to be competitive.

There is a fear of expereanced players, but the fear of lag (Read: Knowing that I will lag) Is far stronger.

Played my first multi last night, 3 VS AI 3. Within 10 minutes the 1 st guy bailed , then after the second player a gal noticed he was gone, she also left me to play against the AI fleets alone . I played it it out until my homeworld was sieged and my capacity to defend was nulled. It didnt help that I was stranded on the other side of the map with 2 AI gulping all the territory in my vicinity.

I played some Empire at War games a few years  back , people screamed at you and didnt tolerate beginners , now I dont play the game or have it installed , same with Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds even earlier , people kill the community for their games by being rude to beginners .  Then they wonder why I ignore requests for game invites , I will play Sins online again and hopefully figure out a better strategy to win . Im a casual gamer , but if it aint fun (and I dont mean I have to win all games) then I dont play.

This is why they need diffrent chat/game rooms (or you can make it your self), that way you know what your getting in to

Elrosh, i have to dissagree with you on that, because (my thinking) is that its a game, and games are suppose to be fun, but if you focus too much on just winning (yes winning is defantly a fun multiplier in most cases) to the point that your not having fun, then you have just defeted the point of the game, to have fun and entertane yourself for hours.

so you buy a game to play carriers and LRM makes perfect sense what are you a complete moron or something go back and play Dawn of war or C&C most people that spam dont know how to play an X4 genre game

I sort of agree with Elrosh too. It can be very annoying for someone with 0 games to come in and upset a team balance by not knowing what they are doing. The flip side of this is you cannot rule out them being a smurf with a new account...

Here is an example of a game where a newb noob almost killed our team from their lack of understanding. This is a classic of why the pros fear the newbs!!!!

HowThe and I hooked up with Duke Greg (who ended up going 2v1 with his side of the maps opponents, but getting a feed from How who went econ from a bad starting position) and a newb. HowThe was in the pocket and the newb (yellow) was on the outside closest to the enemy (basically we were in 1/2 circles with the teams facing each other). I expanded rapidly towards the opposition and my ally (yellow), but lacked a big fleet due to the planet colonising and getting some higher level units like fighters and overseers. The opposition player (red) was getting supported by his feeder and spammed carriers. HowThe also joined up his fleet with me and we attacked red. Our ally (yellow) played like it was his first ever game (not MP game. First ever game of Sins period...) and did not attack red - instead went off colonising dead roids etc... and not getting civilian infra to prevent the -ve income. This lack of threat to red allowed him to focus on me and HowThe, spam more carriers and get support (HCs) from his feeder's fleet. The only reason our team won was by getting the yellow guy to quit and let the AI take over. HowThe was then able to feed the AI and get him to attack red's factory planet.

Now - looking at the replay of the game - the OP didn't fear us. They were aware of how the game was unfolding and therefore who they would end up fighting. They were actually winning until 1) HowThe and I managed to grind down the fighter spam some and (most importantly) 2) we convinved yellow to quit and let the AI take over. As previously stated, a bit of a feed from How and yellow had fixed up its negative income issues and was building a fleet (finally). We finally got the break we needed when one of the opposition (red) fled the grav well they were fighting in with their ally against HowThe and me (both with Lvl6+ eggs and How was putting some PJI in place) to defend against yellow. The other guy promptly accuded him of killing him and quit (which is true - we were able to phase inhib bomb his fleet and keep it there with the PJI. Plus I had some overseers and subs. So his HC were locked down with no air cover to kill the subs and the overseers kept both fleets alive from the HCs that weren't subverted. The AI that took over when he quit couldn't do anything either. Red then promptly quit when he realised we had killed his ally and could break out in two directions plus having the yellow AI do stuff to help us.

The following lessons can be learnt from this game:

1) Pros can still be beaten by teamwork. We were losing. It requires you to co-operate with each other and play smart.

2) Pros cannot always make up for a bad ally. 4 decent players vs 2 pro, and 1 total noob and 1 decent player will win as the newb will be out quickly and then the pro (who might be winning against the decent player) will be 2v1.

3) Pros are less likely to quit on each other as they know each other and stick it out to help their friends. This is the big difference I have noticed. A hurting pro can still be more lethal then a replacement AI.

4) You don't need to "win" your battle to help your team win. You just need to not lose it. Duke Greg has getting hit 2v1 but held (with a feed). While he couldn't progress much, he stopped them progressing, giving us time to work the other side of the map and hook into the back field.

Experienced players? No. 

13 year olds... Maybe.

13 year olds who have only the mastery of the word 'fag' and throwing insults at you over speach/text chat?  Yes.

If I play multiplayer its with people I know.

Nothing says 'FAIL' like throwing a bean bag at the person who was supposed to be defending!

Moriicon, I'm totally with you. That's what I like doing.

InfinityShadow, I feel for you. That's why I don't play online. Half the time they freak and leave and the other half they don't pay too much attention.

xploseve your cool idea 1 planets allocated, 2 fully developed, 3 research completed (partial),4 points (possible with allocated credits/metal/crystal otherwise no in the current engine)

from my own testing/mucking around 1, 2 & 4 are very easy to create with a custom map created in galaxy forge, but 3 a partial research can not be done

details on how to do these

1 create a custom map setting the home planet and allocated planet(s) of each player to 5 on each of the upgrades except exploration

2 alter the starting credits/metal & crystal for each player to the same values (eg credits 5000,metal 800, crystal 600)

the problem is that it is a custom galaxy forge map that ALL players must have the same version of, so there is still a co-ordination problem of each player getting the map and puting it in the correct location and having the same version of sins/entrenchment with the same modes of the same version with the same checksum or they can not play

harpo