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lloydbraun74
lloydbraun74
Join Date 04/2009
+1

Vicious level is more like it! Novalith wtf?

March 7, 2012 10:06:58 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

I played both factions on normal AI just to get a feel for what was new and couldn't get the enemies to attack me or even expand their empires beyond 3 or so planets. I decided to give vicious a whirl with one star, 60ish planets and 8 AI players. Vicious is an accurate description. In my normal complacency I lost a planet very quickly.

There were Novalith cannons firing off rounds within about 15 minutes. Every 10 seconds you hear, "A power surge of great magnitude has been detected." It gets pretty old hearing that. 1 hour into the game and you can't hold a planet as the Novalith bombardment is insane. It looks like Novalith sperm squiggling all across the screen. 

A concern I had is that I agreed to a cease fire with a neighboring faction yet he kept Novalithing my ass. In the past you could not fire the Novalith cannon at friendly targets. 

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lloydbraun74
Teun-A-Roonius
Join Date 10/2009
+42
Reply #1 March 7, 2012 12:21:34 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting ,
quoting post
A concern I had is that I agreed to a cease fire with a neighboring faction yet he kept Novalithing my ass. In the past you could not fire the Novalith cannon at friendly targets.
This should indeed not be possible, I think the dev's are aware of it though. hopefully it will be fixed before the next update.

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lloydbraun74
JA_394
Join Date 02/2011
+19
Reply #2 March 7, 2012 9:56:26 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

With friends like these...

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lloydbraun74
Xer07
Join Date 10/2008
+61
Reply #3 March 7, 2012 10:00:37 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

You, um, do realize that the Planet Shields protect you from Novalith damage, to the point where it takes 4 or so shots to kill off a planet.

Xer0 \^/

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lloydbraun74
GoaFan77
Join Date 10/2008
+629
Reply #4 March 7, 2012 10:35:38 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Xer07,
reply 3
You, um, do realize that the Planet Shields protect you from Novalith damage, to the point where it takes 4 or so shots to kill off a planet.

Starbases are even better, you won't lose the planet period. But both of those are too far up the tech tree for the first few minutes of the game.

The fleet AI for whatever reason is totally messed up in the beta. Hence the AI just slowly expands and novaliths its way to victory because thats the only competent thing it can do.

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lloydbraun74
Xer07
Join Date 10/2008
+61
Reply #5 March 7, 2012 11:51:54 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Ah, I see. I also failed to take into account that Novaliths put a cap on the max population per shot. I think 3 is all it takes to reduce a planet's population to 0 for a while..

Xer0 \^/

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lloydbraun74
GoaFan77
Join Date 10/2008
+629
Reply #6 March 8, 2012 12:01:04 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Xer07,
reply 5
Ah, I see. I also failed to take into account that Novaliths put a cap on the max population per shot. I think 3 is all it takes to reduce a planet's population to 0 for a while..

The 40% population and 100% trade penalty the novalith applies do not stack. The reason its powerful is because they last for half an hour, by far the longest duration in the game. Still, you won't be able to win a game with Novaliths alone.

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lloydbraun74
Darksxx
Join Date 02/2008
+18
Reply #7 March 8, 2012 3:05:28 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

I had some of the same issues with the AI over using the Novaliths.  Yes, you can counter them with a Starbase and Aux govt. but it does get old after a while hearing the same comment over and over as they fire that thing at you.  I would prefer an option to disable super Weapons, if possible.

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lloydbraun74
Xer07
Join Date 10/2008
+61
Reply #8 March 8, 2012 7:31:55 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Building an anti-structure weapon with comparable range to the Novalith would also solve the problem - albeit you'd have to scout the planet to get the coordinates of the structure you wanted to target, so Novaliths placed far behind enemy lines would prove hard to reach.

 

As for Novaliths stacking, I havn't played SOASE in a looong time, and the latest version/expansion I own is Entrenchment. My experience regarding modern Sins protocol is, understandably, minimal.

Xer0 \^/

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lloydbraun74
GoaFan77
Join Date 10/2008
+629
Reply #9 March 8, 2012 11:38:11 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Xer07,
reply 8
Building an anti-structure weapon with comparable range to the Novalith would also solve the problem - albeit you'd have to scout the planet to get the coordinates of the structure you wanted to target, so Novaliths placed far behind enemy lines would prove hard to reach.

Kostura used to do that (maybe still does in Entrenchment). OP as heck.

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lloydbraun74
KarlBar99
Join Date 09/2009
+9
Reply #10 March 9, 2012 12:24:08 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

[qupte]Kostura used to do that (maybe still does in Entrenchment). OP as heck.[/quote]

 

It just does a small amount of damage and a mass long term disable now. Still powerful but your not getting rid of a structure with them without a few dozen concentrating fire. Wheras even with sheilds i'm pretty sure you can still kill a  planet with Novaliths. You just need a lot.

 

Of course given how the AI's spamming them...

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lloydbraun74
GoaFan77
Join Date 10/2008
+629
Reply #11 March 9, 2012 12:31:32 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting KarlBar99,
reply 10
It just does a small amount of damage and a mass long term disable now. Still powerful but your not getting rid of a structure with them without a few dozen concentrating fire. Wheras even with sheilds i'm pretty sure you can still kill a planet with Novaliths. You just need a lot.

You're right, it used to damage ships too, now it just affects structures. Its still quite possible to get enough to wipe out a gravity well of structures though, and the point was just to show just how powerful the ability to snipe structures from across the map is.

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lloydbraun74
Xer07
Join Date 10/2008
+61
Reply #12 March 11, 2012 12:11:22 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Last I played in Entrenchment, it did NOT disable Starbases (Much to my dismay upon phase jumping there with an understrength fleet), and they disable all structures for about... 240 seconds or so, I think. So... you would honestly need 2 Kostura's for each 1 enemy Novalith, assuming 1 Novalith kills your planets off. 

Xer0 \^/

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lloydbraun74
Cooljedidude
Join Date 04/2008
+2
Reply #13 March 13, 2012 1:16:46 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Teun-A-Roonius,
reply 1

quoting postA concern I had is that I agreed to a cease fire with a neighboring faction yet he kept Novalithing my ass. In the past you could not fire the Novalith cannon at friendly targets.This should indeed not be possible, I think the dev's are aware of it though. hopefully it will be fixed before the next update.

 

Are you sure that they didn't just fire those shots before the treaty? I seem to remember putting a bunch of Novalith cannons on autocast, only to find a loooong time later that planets I had since colonized in a far off system were getting hit by my own shots.

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lloydbraun74
Scudhawk
Join Date 04/2008
+15
Reply #14 March 13, 2012 1:40:38 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

What cooljedidude said is most likely what happened. Even in diplomacy against 7 very hard (or whatever the hardest setting is called) so many super weapons on autocast would have shots flying all over. Many allies were hitting each others planets since shots were flying so far the planet would have changed allegiance or would already be empty, but lack of intel would keep the auto cast firing at it.

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lloydbraun74
Teun-A-Roonius
Join Date 10/2009
+42
Reply #15 March 13, 2012 2:31:58 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

To be honest I haven't experienced this problem myself. I was merely stating that a friendlyplayer should not be able to target other allies with any offensive weapon whatsoever.

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