If you understand them, then you don't need clarification, just further education to help you reach that Ah-Ha! moment.

Beginning Further Education

You've only considered part of the story or you'd already know the answer to your questions.  I'm sure you realize that Sins preloads all of itself into your RAM before you even play, what you're not considering is that as you play and build up your fleet and planets, so are your allies, and so are your enemies.  Every single thing that is built must be accounted for in the RAM.

For example: If you load up on the highest settings, you use up something like 1.8gigs of RAM right at the start of the game.  I don't know the exact number, I've never looked it up, so don't bother trying to correct me, I just don't care.  Now start adding in every constructor ship, every frigate, every structure on the planet, every structure in orbit, every cruiser, every capital ship, every strike craft, every refinery ship, every trade ship, and every single weapon that fires, missiles, lasers, beams, auto cannons, every ability used, all the debris in the gravity well, even the sounds that play when you click on things or zoom in and out of gravity wells...  Everything.  It all takes up space.

Some of it, like the sound effects, are used and then dumped and replaced by the next one, others like the ships, always stay loaded even if none of those are ever built, and some others still that should be dumped after they're used, do not get dumped and just take up space for no reason at all.  A good example of this is the issue that causes the phase gate loop sound to loop infinitely in some cases.  On highest graphics, you will crash in about 10 minutes or less once Sins tries to use more then it's allotted RAM.  Usually less since it doesn't take very long for you to build through .2Gigs of RAM.  More times then not, your log file will show you that a sound failed to load causing the crash.  It's because there was not enough memory left to load it into which is why the solution is to always reduce your graphics, never anything to do with the sound.

Starting everything on medium settings means the game for example only uses up 1.1Gigs of RAM right at the start preloading everything into memory.  Now all of those things you, your allies, and your enemies build, you can build four times as many or more without worry of a crash since you now have more room to work with, but you won't be spared from that fate forever.  You have .9Gigs instead of .2Gigs to build through.  If you play a large enough map, you will get there eventually and you will crash.  On smaller maps, the game is usually over before the memory is all used up, in which case, you don't crash, but the potential is always there.  If you use up enough memory, you still crash out.

Even on the low settings, like I said before, I made it through 8 hours before it crashed.  Quite a long time, but it did eventually crash once enough had been built up, though there were three of us on a large map and we were all in our rebuilding phases after kicking the crap out of the fleets, so the count of objects I'm sure was beginning to skyrocket and the 2Gig limit was crossed, at least on my end, causing me to crash out first.

If it's any consolation, normally when I play by myself to get screenshots or test things out, I have all of the graphics on high and on medium maps, I can win and not suffer from a single crash unless I've been screwing with some of the files and messed something up.  You should be able to complete a game at your current settings.

Moral of the story: The higher the settings and/or the larger the map, the more you have to worry and the faster it happens.  The lower the settings and/or the smaller the map, the less you have to worry and you get to play much longer before it happens.  And then there are all of the varied degrees in between.  The only possible way to eliminate the crashing permanently is to rewrite the executable into a 64bit executable, though that screws everyone who has a 32bit system out of playing the game.

End Education

Now to your question specifically, which is actually three questions.

Yes.

Yes.

No.

Why?  Because of that useless junk that should have been dumped but for whatever reason didn't dump out is now gone so you end up with more space to use.  The longer you've been playing, the more junk data has had a chance to build up, the more space you'll get back.  You should be aware that you're now rapidly approaching the limit and should make every effort to start wiping your enemies out, thus reducing the object counts, or restart Sins turning your settings down a little further, thus giving yourself more room to work with.  The only way you will have a save that no longer works is if you've been playing with every single option reduced to it's absolute lowest or turned off all together, using the smallest screen size you could use and manage to save it right before the moment you cross the 2Gig limit and have absolutely no wasted data in the RAM, in which case, seconds after you reload, you will crash every time.  It's extremely rare and excessively difficult to even intentionally make this happen, so you don't really have to worry about it.  Since you play on medium, if you do find yourself with a save that crashes every time you load it, just turn one or two things down and continue on, but seriously start trying to win as soon as possible.

You can also use Large Address Aware, which will manhandle the game and make it use up to 4 GB before crashing (I think the actual limit for sins with it is 3.5 GB.)

This is will send Stant into a unholy rage.

But I will save you the trouble. The LAA doesnt give SINS more RAM. Sins is hardcoded to dump at 2 GB. PERIOD. That is b/c it is written as a 32-bit program. Had SINS been written as a 64-bit program non of this would be a problem.

I just save you an forum life. Your bill is in the mail.

BTW, Ive have play 12+ hour game non stop and not crashed. It gets laggy as heck if there are 1000's of ships fighting in the one grav well. But your performance will vary on your computer.

@-Ue_Carbon QTF

Same here with me, I max out everything and I rarely crash unless I have other apps going. But then again I am only running a 32 bit OS (yes I am on of those old fossils that would get left behind) and I wonder if that helps.

I need a Dr. House De-Motivational poster to tell people that they're all idiots.

Your efforts are admirable Carbon, but not good enough to destroy the LAA myth, I don't think he and everyone else thinking about doing it feel like they're idiots yet for even considering it.

I'm just going to throw down some simple discussion points for everyone to consider.

1. Learn to read.  It's called Large Address Aware, not Use More RAM.  Being aware, does not make you able.  I am aware that it is possible for a sniper to shoot and kill someone a mile and a half away, that knowledge does not make it possible for me to be able to do it as well.  Awareness does not equal ability.
2. Sins is 32bit, and therefor only allowed to use 2Gigs of RAM.  Any attempts to use more then that causes the OS to kill the program.  Changing one simple flag does not change the program to 64bit.  If it did, don't you think every software developer out there would have done so years ago?
3. Modifying the OS to allow LAA it is dumb, stupid, idiotic, and well within the reign of you being retarded.  A 32bit OS does not have the RAM (or processing ability) to support such activities which is why the coding limits were put into place to begin with, and a 64bit OS already does better by using higher addresses to begin with.  Why bother?
4. If you think you're smarter then the industry, you're an idiot.
5. 3.5Gigs is the hardware limit for 32bit processing.  Trying to use that much means turning everything else off, including the software that tells your hardware what to do, which means you just shut down your PC.  If you really believe Sins can use 3.5Gigs of RAM while still being a 32bit program, you must have somehow figured out how to play a game with your computer off.  If this is true, ignore the first four points, do not continue reading, Microsoft and Apple will both hire you at the same time and each pay you millions, and Chuck Norris and the Most Interesting Man In The World are your new best friends, and none of the rest of us are worthy of even being remotely acquainted with you.
6. If you're running the game on a 64bit OS and you think it used 3Gigs of RAM, I refer you to point #2 and then point #4.
7. If someone ever did rewrite Sins to be a 64bit program and thus able to take advantage of the RAM available to 64bit OSes, then it would be able to use 4 Petabytes of RAM and 256 Terabytes of virtual RAM because that's the current imposed addressing limits by the current 64bit processors.  That would make you worthy of Sins Godhood and modders would be able to add in everything they want and more, and I would make sure DS included as much acknowledgment to your greatness as humanly possible.
8. Enabling LAA modifies the executable, something you agreed not to do by accepting the EULA and installing the game.  I'm not a proponent of always being lawful, but should a company be desperate for money, who do you think they will go after?  Pirates that are hard to track down, or people who have willingly admitted to violating the terms of their licensing agreement on their own forums?  They'd go after both, but you'd be in court first since you're guaranteed to lose.  Only an idiot wouldn't understand that one.  Refer to point #4.
9. Why bother doing something that has no actual upside?  It's like living in the US and voting Democrat.  Unless it's for some smoking hot girl who will fuck your brains out every night because you're willing to do useless things for her, naturally, we would expect you to do lots of dumb things then, but you'd have a free pass, so it wouldn't matter, nor would you care what anyone says anyway, 'cause you're banging some hot broad that we all wished we were.
10. If LAA was the answer, don't you think it would have been added into the program at some point during any of the dozens of updates or the additions of the micro expansions, or any of their updates?  Refer to point #4.
11. Why does Windows and MacOS come with compatibility modes if changing a simple flag, changes the program's operational behavior?  Why would these companies spend the time and resources to include such a thing to allow you to run your older programs if it were completely unnecessary since all you'd have to do is enable program flags to get it to work?  They know it doesn't work like that, so refer to point #4.
12. Common sense is not common anymore.

Dr. House De-Motivational poster

Ask and you shall receive....Bison....

Fu...

cking...

Awesome!

stant, I have gotten SO SICK of the stupid idiotic morons that keep posting the Lost Angles Anaomous, that I REFUSE TO SEE OR READ SUCH BULLSHIT.

good on you

harpo

I champion crushing that myth.  I will not stop until the work is done.  Feel free to link to any of my posting on the subject to refute anyone posting about it being the fix.

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/335474/page/137/#2670665

is a good one since it references all of my past commenting on it, as is the most recent one.

Whaddup G?  Saw that one but it's not the one I want.  I'm probably just going to make it myself.  Though that one I have used before and I still laugh every time.

Dr. House meets Monty Python. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Sigh, well I tried to prevent the jihad. Guess I cant stop the Rawk until the masses are tamed. lol

And now for something completely different:

An word on the next update.

Its going slow. (As if you didnt already know that.) But as of right now, there is an unoffical update. Created for MP. It does change some things around, gameplay wise. And is a crude attempt to smash the TSOP and DS together. Those who have been using it so far and not hunted me down with pitchforks and torches...yet. So, I take it as it ok.

If your intrested please see our MP topic. We are having a run of MSN/email tag going on, due to most of us working long hours on vastly different time zones. But its still slowly chugging along!

The mod could use some balance tweaks, mostly on the capital ships. In every game i played, with 2 to 8 people, i've never seen more than 4 capital ships built all times, thanks to the poor ratio hp-dmg/price. Also, the sight of a support capital is very, very rare, as most of the abilities are not worth the money that could've been used to buy a carrier or a colony cap. Yap, most of the games i see only those 2 tipes of capitals, as thei're the most cost-effective by far.

Let's compare the Kol Battleship with Sova Carrier.

Kol costs 5500/1000/750, while the Sova costs 5250/1450/1000. The price difference is small enough to make you wait for a Sova instead of buying a Kol right away.

Kol has 3750hp/1500sh/5armour while Sova has 3550/1350/4armour. Here also, the difference is very small, as Sova will fall about 10s before a Kol without the shield ability.

Kol has a 225 "manapool" while a Sova has a 270 "manapool". This is a very bad thing for Kol, as he has 3 abilities that are very antimatter draining with a low cd, while each of it's abilities are not game-braking as the Sovas.

Kol has 81dps while Sova has 48, still this doesn't mean Kol does more damage. With a 2 bomber squadrons and using kiting tactics, a Sova can easily outdamage and outlive a Kol, even with its abilities.

This is just an example that shows why Carriers/Colonizers are always used and the other 3 type not. I think there should be more important differences between, let's say, a Battleship and a Carrier. A carrier should be alot more expansive than a Battleship and sacrifice alot dps/hp in exchange for strike craft capabilities. Also a Battleship should beat a Carrier in direct battle, even with it's strike craft support. Also, the carrier should be an ideea slower, so that the Battleship could actually get some hits.

There are many balance problems with the mod, it would take a page just to reveal them without even mentioning a solution/proposal. For now, there are 2 problems that come into my mind. The capital ship one and the Bomber Spam. Recently, i've been playing with some players that just spammed cruiser carriers with Bombers, without any fighter suport. In one ocasion, there were 20 cruiser carriers with 3 bomber squadrons each against a Cap Carrier filled with Fighters/Gunships and like 25 flaks. In like 3-4 passes, the Carrier was dead and the enemy lost about 5 squadrons and there weren't any sigs he will lose any more than this. As of now, Bombers are too easy to be replaced and thei're too hard to be suppresed in high numbers. I would suggest adding a small splash effect to anti-strikecraft frigates (it's ironically they called one of them "Flak frigate" without giving it splash effect) and/or add abilities to the gunships to disrupt large amounts of Bombers or allow them to target multiple targets. Or, the antimatter cost to replace the strikecraft can be upped and the cooldown increased. As of now, cruiser carriers pretty much eliminate any Capital Ship in an instant and can't be countered with ease.

You could look at this mod https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/389291 and inspire from there. There are alot of changes and ideeas that could make the balance of the game better.

I'll be posting other balance problems me and my fellow players have been encountering since we started the game, and we hope our feedback will be taken in consideration. Even with it balance-not-so-perfect, the mod adds depth to the game and make it really enjoiable

We thank you for the compliment and the suggestions. As seems to be always the case with this game, we're trying to find ways to balance out the use of fighters/bombers without making them useless. It's been exhausting for some of our modders. Luckily, not me.

As for the capital vessels, I can say we have some common ground and some disagreement there. I have seen more extensive use of caps, especially support caps, in our multiplayer games, but depending on how the enemy operates, the cost is sometimes negligible. I don't see them as worthless compared to cruisers, but the fighter/bomber spam is one of the biggest factors in that.

As regards the capital to capital balance, I can see your point. I've always thought it hilariously bad that a carrier can go toe to toe with a battleship in any form or fashion. In any case, I do believe the Hp and Dps should be pulled back a bit. The strikecraft should bear the brunt of the combat, even if that means slightly upping the squad count to compensate. Moreover, I believe that in line with modern carrier designs, the carriers (maybe not as much the Marauder due to its more rounded nature as a support vessel) should focus on anti-SC fire. As for the Flak frigate, it actually fires an autocannon, so I really have no idea how to make that work out unless we redesign it to use rapid sweepers (auto flak cannon with low caliber shells).

As for the speed of the carrier, I would not support it being slower. Although carriers are larger volume than battleships, their tonnage, even with fighters, is significantly less. In real life, these vessels would achieve the same maximum speed, but at different rates of acceleration. In game mechanics, acceleration is negligible and top speed compensates for the inaccuracy. Given that a carrier can accelerate faster than a battleship, both at sea and space, I think the speed of the vessels are fine as they are.

We're always trying to better balance the scenario without doing too much damage to the core game. Some of us can give that other mod a glance and see what we think. Thanks for the input.

What you are seeing problems not with the mod but core game.

This mod amplifies everything in the game. Damage is bigger, HP are bigger, Racial differences are bigger, and so are the bug/exploits.

Your seeing something thats been a problem IMHO with the core game since forever. The vast power of SC. Again, this mod amplifies even the  smallest issues. And SC are not a small issue.

Flak ships are great as is. The problem is not their ability to shoot down SC (Fighters or Bombers) its the simple ability to host hordes of Carriers, which means hordes of SC. I have my personal views on how to revert the Carrier Cruiser back to a support role and not a primary ship in fleets, but discussion among us ICO MP'er had me not go that route yet.

Gunships already target more than 1 target. They have Anti-SC horde abilites. Again they work well.

At any rate, we could attempt to 'balance' the game as we see right. But that would require many things in the core game to be changed substantially. That is not the intent of the mod. We are here to Expand on what the core gives us, even if its not perfect.

At any rate Ive been keeping up on the recent Balance topics. I am bias already on to how to implement balance changes. Ive only made a few changes in the MP update. Small changes that were discussed as we played on ICO. I plan to further this patch as time dictates.

Also there is nothing stopping you from creating your own tweaks to the game for your group use. If you hang out some of us DS guys you learn that we all have like 3-6 different Version of DS in our mod folder. Some are personal tweaks, some are testing, some are MP, etc etc.