This came from a different thread, but I felt this deserved a new thread because I was going off topic.
I've pretty much given up on Sins have tactics of any kind in it. The game simply wasn't built for it. It's pretty much a realtime 4x game... which is fine. Sins will be fun regardless.
This is completely untrue. Have you played against a human yet? Have you watched any of the replays? A few of the best ones show a lot of great tactics and I've held my own against multiple people with larger forces using tactics alone. I know exactly what tactical elements you want and I agree, Sins doesn't have them all and won't, but it has plenty - more than a lot of pure-RTS's. I also know the other races will continue to expand the tactical aspects of the game.
No I haven't... But I have played the demo on a friend's computer against the AI...
The game feels a LOT like Frontier Wars... The concept is very similar. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Frontier wars is more tactically deep then sins as it currently stands.
There are a lot of things frontier wars also did that you might want to copy... and some others that you should really NOT copy.
Frontier wars had Officers. Subordinate AI's that you could put in charge of fleets. You would give them simple orders like "search and destroy" or Repair and refuel etc... They did all the micro stuff such as when to activate the special weapons etc. If you can copy that without getting sued, do it. It was a very smart way to deal with things. Because these ships don't fight alone. Your AI seems to be working on a per ship basis. To be useful all the ships need to work together. Thus put them all under a single AI much like all the ships of an AI player are under a single command. Obviously allow the player to override anything the AI is doing with complete impunity.
Second, supply ships... supply ships were great because they gave defending ships a huge advantage and forced enemy ships to either retreat to resupply or bring along a LOT of supply ships.
As it stands it seems like the ships can resupply if you just leave them alone for awhile which isn't realistic and tactically and strategically undesirable. You want the enemy to be forced to build a supply line from his home worlds to the enemy... just like he'd have to in a real war. Furthermore, it seems like AM is only really used at this point for phase jumping and special abilities.
It should also be used for shields and weapons. You should have a finite amount of power and when it's gone... you have to run. I'm not sure if I'd let people phase jump away without AM. Perhaps give them a special emergency AM reserve that allows you to make 3 or 4 jumps before it's dry... and I don't really mind if they can recharge their AM if they're in the GW of a star. But certain types of ammunition should require access to supply ships or supply yards. Obviously this is a weakness, so to counter that you make it more potent. Give missiles extra extra damage. Remember this is countered by their dependence on supply and likely limited magazine capacity.
Things you shouldn't copy:
2D playing field. Both Frontier wars and Sins have 2d maps... I know you're not going to ditch this as you're too committed to this already. But you shouldn't have gone this way... Frontier wars got away with it but that was so long ago in gaming time it's not even funny.
Simple things you could do which would make the tactics better:
Increase the speed difference between many of your ships. Some ships should be extremely slow, and some should be very fast. As you don't want to slow down the gameplay any more, I'd suggest just making some of the ships a lot faster.
Create harder counters for various ships. That is some ships should be completely DOMINATED by a bomber attack, some should COMPLETELY dominate against fighters/bombers, some ships should be destroyed very easily by missiles, some should be almost invulnerable to missiles, etc. That will force players to pay attention to which ships are attacking which ships. As it stands it doesn't really matter. Hard counters force players to start thinking tactically.
Add some special "modes" that ships can be in... For example, pumping more power to weapons and less to engines or shields, or more to shields and less to everything else, or more to engines. Those are just some mode ideas off the top of my head. You should try to think of something more original if possible... I'm sure others here will help if asked.
Make sensors important IN combat. As it stands, scouting or line of sight is only useful BEFORE combat because once you're in combat you can see everything. Perhaps some kind of jamming field, smoke screen, chaff, etc. Then provide some means to nullify that jamming.
Each race needs a siege weapon. As it stands each "gravity well" is it's own little map that can very easily be turned into a little castle. What is needed is a weapon that can be fired from one phase jump away that can damage defensive structures and perhaps ships without risking itself. It could be some big late game unit that camps next to the phase lane to the next system and then fires something into phase space... To counter this you could force the gun to only work against defensive structures or structures that have been previously scouted.
Increase the structure cap in all GWs. I know you have it where it is to make it important to expand, but I think it's so low that it slows the game down. You don't need to raise it by much... perhaps 20 to 30 percent increase will do it. But I think it's choking the early game.
This is just off the top of my head. I might think of something else later and of course would like everyone's input. Obviously I'm not right about everything, but this is what makes sense to me.
