Ascendancy General Information Thread (And Ask the Makers Anything 2.0)

[Kuikka]

Small fleet size, AI divides its fleet into two parts and attacks my fully fortified worlds. In a minute all orbital tightly grouped defenses lost... I kinda expected something more since I paid those defenses with all my income :'D. Big guns work poorly against huge amount of small ships, that's true. Especially since those ships are Strike cruisers and Acclamators, which both have fighter squadrons. And no AAA whatsoever, it seems. It's massacre if there's no fleet to protect those places.

If you can beat the sh*t out of fortified, armed-to-the-teeth gun platforms with frigates alone it's no good in my opinion.

[tlmiller]

While it doesn't help a ton, the Golan III DOES get a fighter squadron, so it does have some fighter defense.

Also, 2 repair facilities is DRASTICALLY more effective than 1, as they can repair each other in addition to the surrounding golans.  While yes, the Golan's still need further balancing, and needs to have laser cannons added (maybe only Golan I/II IMO), I've never lost an entire planets defenses THAT fast to nothing but Cruisers/frigates.

However, that's to be expected.  Remember, this is basically just a release so everyone can see how it is, there's a TON of balancing that corey & co. haven't even STARTED on, they just wanted to make sure things WORKED first.

[Pali]

Acclamator spam is why I said have some ships there - you'll want to have anti-fighter ships protecting your Golans, since they lack anti-fighter weapons themselves.  Remember that in Ascendancy, ships can't just build fighters forever; they will run out of supply, and the Golans can handle the ships themselves nicely.

[tlmiller]

At least until you start getting to larger fleets.  A large fleet will crush Golans regardless.  I suppose not surprisingly, the PA (currently) is actually one of the best at defense.  Throw a few Enforcers and maybe a Venator, and they're actually quite affective at assisting the Golans.

[Pali]

PA definitely has the best defense overall, though I'd say the NR defenses are better at dealing with super ships - ion cannon is more effective, though not by much, than two HPVs at dealing with them.

[tlmiller]

Yeah, but 5 HPV's really trash super-ships at a good rate.  The problem is when all 5 fire at a cruiser that's destroyed with the first hit, and then 4 HPV shots go flying into uselessness, totally wasting their blast.

[TheHubby]

Playing Pentastar, I have to ask what the intended point of the Naval Class Command Station is. The description on the ability to build it, 'A military station with heavy armaments and defenses' is a far cry from the reality of the station. It's not at all powerful, maxing at 15500/15500 hull and shields and an anemic 197/75/72 weapon strength compared to the Golan 3 at 10010/10010 1040/71, yes, 5k less in each defense, but the weaponry is just so much more powerful it's quite ridiculous. I can honestly see no reason at all to build the Naval Station instead of several Golan 3's. It doesn't even protect the planet from loss by bombardment, which is a major point of starbases in the base game and all other mods I've played. In not keeping the planet from being lost, the enemy can simply ignore it totally and take the planet from the other side where the station isn't in range. Having it protect the planet means the enemy is forced to deal with it (not that this is currently hard to do, but you can also surround it with Golans to make for a decent planetary defense).

Am I missing something? I know it can make the planet a bit tougher by trading off some economy, but not enough that it seems like it would really make a difference. Oh, also when you do the defensive specialization, Enemy culture spread rate gets a green 5% modifier, wouldn't that mean that it's actually easier for the enemy to spread influence, or should it read as a 5% to enemy culture resistance?

[Corey]

Overall, we're not happy with that space station; it's being replaced for both the IR/Pa in either 1.0full or 1.1. As for the effects of the abilities, they're correct. Military specialization was meant to increase military effectiveness around it, but decrease the economic/cultural aspects (hence specialization), but when we increased planet health in general, the buff wasn't changed for this.

[alkaid]

I'm a big fan of asymmetrical designs but I'm curious about how the Hand is supposed to be played. The defense platform packs a punch for its price point but seems underwhelming even en masse vs. later game tech from other groups. The civilian platform is neat but even with the end point upgrade I was only able to build one per planet, and the military applications are pretty underwhelming. I did alright early but the defenses couldn't handle direct aggression later on (nor could my fleet) and given the fact that you're locked into systems/lose your tech with lost structures keeps you from being entirely hit and run.

Was I going about it the wrong way or is the faction a bit lacking at the moment?

[Grand Admiral Death]

So is th Empire of the Hand ever gonna get a Titan or Super star destroyer in both mods

In ICW Thrawn when going into the Empire of the hand he could have a SSD

In accendecy every faction should not be able to buil titans but rather "Heros" with a type of SSD or Titan

Corey this mod is awesme and I love it to Death evn tho I don't like Sins of the solar empire, it gets really messy at times :D

[derp]

So is th Empire of the Hand ever gonna get a Titan or Super star destroyer in both mods

In ICW Thrawn when going into the Empire of the hand he could have a SSD

In accendecy every faction should not be able to buil titans but rather "Heros" with a type of SSD or Titan

Corey this mod is awesme and I love it to Death evn tho I don't like Sins of the solar empire, it gets really messy at times

Thrawn was all about understanding your opponent in order to defeat him, which was quite different to the Tarkin doctrine of brute force.

[Revanchist]

So is the Empire of the Hand ever gonna get a Titan or Super star destroyer in both mods

No. SSDs weren't Thrawn's style, he found them a huge waste of resources. However they will be getting more capital ships to round out their capital line as time goes on.

[GeneralHavoc]

In the NR, the smugglers research says that you can do black market upgrades for your fleet. Where are these upgrades located or how do I unlock them?

[Corey]

Smuggler's Den. It's an ability that you target your ships with.

[GeneralHavoc]

I played several games just to make sure I was doing it correctly and didn't miss anything. After doing the Smuggler's Den research and building said research, when I click on it to find the ability and use it. There isn't one. The only ability there is the passive on that says it is a trade post. Is this supposed to be the way it is or am I looking in the wrong place.

Over-all this mod is spectacularly done and I know there are a lot of things that are WIP so I will limit my suggestions to only a couple. The first covers the titan for the NR. It is fantastic. A fleet in and of itself. But it only has a single ability to put points in. While the ability is nice to have in the middle of a fight, there isn't any way except to wait 10 min for the shields to fully recharge before assaulting the next planet and heaven forbid the AI decides right then to all out assault that planet. At least 3 different abilities would be great (including the one it already has) but maybe one of them massively increases shield regen at the cost of speed and dmg while the other passively increases shielding. Or something that would increase the survivability of the fleet with it like a passive increase to shield mitigation. Maybe.

And the second is simply the "String not found" on a lot of the fighters and several of the cruisers in the role script.

Again this is very very well made and I hope that everyone involved with this project is able to continue bringing the same amount of fantastic quality I have seen thus far.

[Ayin Tsade]

New member here--learned about the glory that is Ascendancy when YouTube recommended I take a look at the XP Gamers. I've since watched all of Shack's vids for this mod and watched a lot of Gul Dukat because he is MAGNIFICENT.

All in all, I am beyond hyped to play this.

I had never even heard of SOSE prior to finding vids for Ascendancy, but I love Empire at War and Ascendancy will offer a fresh experience for epic space battles.

Before I buy SOSE and download the mod and exhilarate myself with all of your amazing work, I have a question.

There's a Steam sale for SOSE that lasts until July 4th, and I'm definitely getting the game. However, I'm not sure if I need to get any of the DLC packs also.

Is there any content in Ascendancy that I would need to have Forbidden Worlds and/or Stellar Phenomena to access? Once I convert SOSE to this mod, I don't ever plan to return to the vanilla game--after all, Star Wars trumps all--but I don't want to miss out on any mod goodies that used DLC material as their base.

[Corey]

There's some stuff, especially in 1.1 that will take advantage of the DLC, but I've been careful to make sure people who don't have it won't be too left out.

[Pali]

I would recommend getting them - as DLC goes they are super-cheap, they enhance the game, and most people running multiplayer will have them.

[Ayin Tsade]

That makes sense. Thank you for responding so promptly!

[Ayin Tsade]

Got Sins and applied your mod. It was far simpler to mod the game than I expected. Played my first game last night with the puniest AI possible, with another AI as an ally to carry me while I figured out how to play. As I thought, this game is a lot of fun! I set the parameters to capitol victory, although for some reason victory was achieved militarily before I even reached the enemy homeworld.

The main thing I'm trying to figure out--moreso than actually how to play efficiently--is how to operate the camera. I can zoom in decently closely to ships, arrow to shift the camera, and right-click swing the camera in all kinds of disorienting directions. I haven't managed to find a truly cinematic angle for engagements, though, and can't seem to zoom in quite as closely as some of the videos I've watched have managed to do. Any tips on camera operation?