How to tell what abilities are being use against you

from Sins Forums

I'm a new player.  Learning TEC first in matches against the AI.  Here's my question: is there anyway to tell what ship abilities are being used against you?

In general it seems very hard to get tactical information when watching the battles.  The ability effects are so subtle I don't even see my own go off ... and I can never really tell which of my ships are being attacked and by whom.  Is there a trick I'm missing?

strategy
1,876 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Well abilities are easy to tell. You'll see the buffs and penalties on your unit's unit cards (+25% Weapon Range, -3 armor etc.) Before long you'll learn the abilities and thus will be able to tell what ships are responsible for which effects (though if one in particular is causing you trouble feel free to ask).

The Empire tree is the best way to tell which of your ships are being attacked. Even if you have it stacked (which I prefer) you'll see the health bar of the most damaged ship in that type. There is no real way to tell what ships are attacking it without looking, but really you should only take the time to care if its a capital ship.

You might find it useful to get a graphics mod like bailknight's, since it not only makes your game look much better but its makes the particle effects much more noticeable (as well as diversifying the weapon effects, so most weapon effects don't over lap as much).

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

You will also eventually know the default "who attacking who"... for example... light frigs will always attack your flaks and special cruisers... Heavy cruisers will always attack your LRMS first... fighters priortise bombers, flacks go after fighters... and so forth.

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Pbhead, reply 2
You will also eventually know the default "who attacking who"... for example... light frigs will always attack your flaks and special cruisers... Heavy cruisers will always attack your LRMS first... fighters priortise bombers, flacks go after fighters... and so forth.
End of Pbhead's quote

Just to clarify, this is just part of the unit AI preferring to attack units it is good against, though this is by no means absolute. It also takes into account things like how far away targets are, and while the AI won't focus fire like human player do, they seem to have some additional perimeters for targeting in fleet battles beyond the regular unit AI.