Found the demo I downloaded a year ago (!) and I think I really enjoyed this game! But now I'm confused about this expansion. Will it include Trinity as well, or should I buy that and just get Rebellion later?
Rebellion will include all of the content from the Original Sins (aka "Vanilla"), the Entrenchment expansion, and the Diplomacy expansion (all of which make up "Trinity", with Trinity just being a fancy name for "complete compilation"). You don't need to own any of the other games to purchase Rebellion as a stand-alone product.
Whether or not you should get Trinity now or wait and buy Rebellion later is another story. We don't know when the Rebellion beta will be ready. They say Fall 2011. I guess the big question is, how badly do you want to play this game and how much free time (until the Rebellion beta comes out) do you have to play it? If you have the entire summer off then it might be worth it to get Trinity now. (You'll also save $10 on Rebellion later if you purchase it as a download.) On the other hand, if you only have 2 hours per week to play then it might be better to just wait until the Rebellion beta is ready.
I'm also a little worried how hardcore the online play is with a game this old. Comp stomp sounds fun for this game, but I'm worried even then I'd just screw the team over (and I'd stay out of PvP for sure!). With a game this long that can't be much fun, or very popular
Is there any point in coming into the MP part of this game this late, unless i have 6 hr/day for a month to practice?
Don't worry too much about holding your team back in comp stomps. Most of the people playing the comp stomps won't be much better than you and if they are, then they could probably help you get better. Also, if you guys lose then you lose to the AI and not humans who will taunt you. However, it seems to me that most comp stomps are private games played between friends, so it might be hard to find public comp stomp games though I suspect you could try to host them.
There are still a good number of brave souls who are willing to try PvP for the first time out there. Sometimes they stick with it and get up to speed and become respectable players or at least learn to hold their own. I think it takes about 25-50 games depending on where you are when you start playing other people and how serious you are about improving. What you'll discover is that no matter how much you've played the AI, humans do things differently and you need to learn some of their strategies and tactics and to be able to anticipate what other players are likely to do.
We have a system for trying to balance out the teams in 4v4 and 5v5 games where two guys become team captains and draft-pick the other 6 or 8 players. So you could end up in a game where there is another new guy opposite you on the other team. Your goal in such a game would be, "don't die!" and "try to be a pain in the ass."
To get into the PvP you would want to spend a couple weeks or months mastering the single player aspect of the game. You would want to be very knowledgeable about all the races and their ships and tech trees. You want to know their strengths and weaknesses against the other the races. Then when you feel really comfortable with your knowledge of the game and can beat Unfair AIs, you might be ready to take off the training wheels.
Now, it's very possible that Rebellion will reinvigorate online multiplayer and bring hundreds of similarly situated new players online, in which case it will be easier to get started.
I think that one of the big challenges is the amount of material you need to learn. Older vets probably take it for granted, but you have to learn the Original Sins, Entrenchment, the Diplomacy stuff (not that big a deal for multiplayer PvP), and the new Rebellion stuff. That's a lot of content.
So, I recommend that people start off by playing the Original Sins first where the focus is on raw fleet-to-fleet combat, which is the backbone of this game. Then move up to Entrenchment where you will learn about starbases and defensive fortifications. (Entrenchment turned out to be an excellent addition to the online multiplayer PvP aspect of the game.) It won't be too hard to learn what you need to know about Diplomacy for PvP since most Diplomacy games play and feel like Entrenchment.
The addition of the Rebellion material will add another layer of strategic complexity that the vets will have to learn as well.
I'd probably be fine messing around in SP, but MP Sins sounds kinda cool! If I'd ever get the time
Ironically I prefer strategy games in general but usually only play shooters online, since it's not as "serious", and there are actually other bad players.. hehe
Hopefully they'll be a big influx of new "bad players" for Rebellion. That might be a compelling reason to get Trinity now--you can learn the game and prepare for when all of the new Rebellion players come online.
By the way, if you do play in a pro game and get stomped by the pros, it's not all a loss. You will have the benefit of being able to watch a replay of the game, allowing you to study what the other players did. If you watch enough of those and study them you'll be able to get up to speed faster.