whooly sh-- dude! you have NO IDEA. Micro is SOOO important in sins online! and focus fire is the NAME OF THE GAME.
Dude. wow. seriously, In sins online, there is NOT time to go to the bathroom between battles like you can in single player. No time for nachos.
Example of 1337 micro online:
1. Moving your flacks/illums/capital ships into positions where all their weapon banks are firing. You ignore this, your going to be doing 1/4 the damage with your flacks, 1/2 damage with illums, and with capital ships, like your akkan... it is the difference between being able to solo colonize a tough planet and not being able to.
2. Have you ever colonized a astroid with nothing but a colony frig? you better learn! and you better micro that colony ship!
3. Have you ever shut down the entirety of the enemy fleet with hoshikos? Well, its hard, but possible. (you better have good hotkeys!) slightly less hard is microing 3-4 subverters to keep the enemy fleet down. dont let all of them use their subversion at the same time! its not easy, and does require significant micro. Oh, and dont forgot to keep your overseers paying attention to what needs healing!
4. Have you prefected your Advent battle ball yet? I doupt it, but even if you have, why dont you try using repulsion to push the enemy fleet into your mine field?
5. Do you know about Strike craft and hold position? micro required, but the increase in survivability and firepower is most certainly worth it.
6. How often do you have to worry about you capital ships in single player? leave them on autocast, and only have them run if they are lower than 1/2 health? HA! In multiplayer if you hear the "severly damaged" voice over, and you are not already running for the edge of the grav well, you can kiss your cap ship goodbye! but dont you dare run early... you want that capital ship in the battle as long as possible to soak up as much exp as possible. Ever ran your capital ship with less than 100 health? 50 health? 10 health? EVER HAD THE ENEMY CHASE your capital ship the gravity well you have retreated too? and the next grav well? and the next?
7. Enemy focus firing on one of your frigs? Give it orders for full military thrust! if you can get that ship behind the enemy fleet, there is a good chance you can get that enemy fleet to do a 180 to attack that frig! and now they have their engines pointed towards you! can we say, fish-in-a-barrel? but you better make sure the enemy doesnt do the same to you! be perpared to switch your target so you dont lose significant dps chasing ships around!
8. Surely you also run your frigs to the next gravity well? If you can run your frigs like you would a capital ship, well, even if you can only run 2 or 3, that 2 or 3 will be able to be in the next battle because you built a repair bay so that they are repaired almost as soon as they leave phase space.
and this is micro, just tatics, none of this includes the massive quantities of macro strategy required. You think colonizing that ice/volc planet is a good idea? much better to skip it and get that desert 1/2 way between you and your enemy. How fast can you get your economy to +100 credits/second... 200? 300? you better be fast! Do you know how to use the black market to make profits off your enemies? Its possible!
In single player your missing ALL OF THIS. lets reread that gamespy review again.... "-- without question -- one of the best multiplayer real-time strategy games ever made.”
Today is Friday. That means tonight, there will be a good number of people online. GO TRY IT OUT. Worst thing that can happen? you miss out on another few games of starcraft. so sad. Best thing that can happen? you realize how insane the other players are, and how you realllly need to step up your game to compete, and compete you will. Rejoin the side of the LIGHT. (we dont have cookies, sorry 
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