Has anyone else noticed that the Novalith cannon becomes unusable/buildable if you drop below 8 military lab facilities? I think it shouldn't be disabled as long as you've researched it.

Was that a conscious design decision or is it a bug?

Anyway, I'd like to see that changed in the next update, 1.03/1.04 whatever.

Please: There has to be some minor but important tweaks to the planet upgrade buttons/icon. As it is, I have to constantly click on each one to look "inside" to see how far/many upgrades I've done, and more importantly, what more I can do. There just has to be something like "0/3" on the icon (3 possible upgrades, zero purchased). Or, maybe some little white dots, that turn black with each upgrade you do. You should be able to see how many upgrades have been done, and if there are still possible upgrades at a glance, not by having to go inside each and every one of the 3-5 buttons.

Also, if your planet is fully upgraded, one those silver/grey boxes should be showing around the icon (just like how they show each tech is fully researched) instead of us having to click on and go inside EVERY icon only to see it's already fully maxed out.

Here are a few suggestions for 1.03v.
1) A cloaking scout ship. Or maybe a cloaking spy ship would be even better.
2) A new command to have ships go after enemy ships no matter where they go.
3) A new tech that can manufacture crystals and metal synthetically

Forgot to add this: Make planets, except the capital one, appear in alphabetic order in the empire tree, otherwise it is pretty useless with maps with more than 40 planets.

Even better, make it so that you can switch between alphabetic order and order in which you have colonized the planets, ^.^ thank u!

I would love to see a toggle button to enable/disable focus fire for ship fleets. Disabling focus fire would allow ships to auto select the best types of ships for them to fire at. I think one of the mods in development is using this system and it would be great to see it in the full game.

Please make exploring your planets worthwhile. I am lucky to find a unique feature after fully exploring (2/2) six planets.

Things I'd like to see:

More varied AI fleets. The "tons of basic frigates" approach or "tons of LRM and basic frigates" approach is strong in the early game, but weak in the mid-to-late game. We do see the occasional "lol I killed your planet with 20 siege frigates" fleet, but this isn't so much a smart move as it is agonizingly frustrating to play against - most of the frigates get killed off for a temporary setback in income. If the AI came in, killed off the planet, and then occupied it we'd be talking. But they don't. I'd like to see a lot more carriers too while we're at it.

More control over the map editor. Currently it's extremely frustrating to use, not allowing a lot of specific customization and a lot of randomness.

More maps. I like balanced maps, but there need to be options enough for all approaches. What's wrong with a good assortment of all planet types (no Volcanic planets and too many ice planets in Tempest SUCKS), a healthy dose of asteroids and then fun uncolonizable phenomena? Sounds pretty basic, but I've yet to see it.

I would love to see the damage and armor type specified on the ships. That would be flat-out amazing. Why not simply say "light damage 19" on anti-fighter frigates, or "10 heavy armor" on heavier cruisers, etc.? That would be awesome, and allow us to easily notice what type of weapons would be most useful against the types of enemies we face. It also makes it much easier for most newbies to learn.

Re-worked Vasari. Their earlier ships aren't worth the huge increase in resources and supply - why not a bit of a discount there? I'd like to see the Returning Armada ability fixed too - it's simply too good. Why not give a universal discount on ships? Or a universal bonus on resource acquisition? Or some other flat and powerful bonus? It means it's still a tech worth getting but not game-breaking like it is now.

Howsabout pirate raids changing in intensity according to various factors? Constantly getting stronger seems wrong. If the bounty's high enough and previous raids have been successful, then large pirate incursions make sense. If they keep rushing to their demise for a 500 credit bounty, then why such huge incursions? They shouldn't be suicidal.

I don`t like cloak/cloaking ships. I have almost never liked cloak - the concept sounds great at first, but in almost every rts I`ve played the introduction of cloaking results in assets that are game-breakers or in unsatisfactory 'gimmick' assets. Micromanagement is generally a necessity to boot.

Supreme Commander has 'cloaking' but only to radar detection, not visual detection. That works very well.

I think the entire concept of cloaking and what capability it brings to the table would have to be examined carefully for something like Sins. You don`t want to obviate or completely bypass the great epic space battles that the game is all about.

1) An on-screen pirate auction timer like the kind they have on Sid Meiers Railroads when an industry is up for sale.

2) A quick double-click on an item in the nav menu (which is not supported) should actually zoom your view to the ship/planet/fleet as if you clicked the item once and then clicked that middle thing at the bottom of the screen. Currently double-click is non-intuitive.

3) Currently the fleet part of the nav menu is not very useful because when you expand it, you cannot easily see other friendly or enemy units that are in the same gravwell as your fleet. There should be an option when you expand the fleet on the nav menu to also show the planet and all enemy/friendly units and structures. Either that or the fleet icon should jump down to the planet where the fleet is when you select it. My point is it's not really useful to see your fleet members in the nav menu unless you can also see the other friendly/enemy units and structures nearby.

4) There should be a better way to scan the nav menu and see how many movable ships you have on each planet there, even if the menu is completely contracted, and NOT including defensive structures. Or there coudl be an order called "send all idles to location." if they are not in a fleet or not carrying out specific orders.

5) The search should say "NO SHIPS FOUND" if you search for something that's not found.

6) Cinematic mode should have a secondary mode with a chase cam that focuses on the areas of most intense combat. It should always try to focus on a ship right before it's about to explode!

7) A pause icon you can click on on the screen.

I would like to see the current build status of the ships at the planet level.

Right now you see a small status bar if you go into the individual ship build buttons (Frigates, Cruisers, Caps). It would be nice to see what the current status is right at the planet level rather than having to click into the ship type que. I really don't care what is being built so much as when will it be finished.

2 very important things that should be fixed IMHO:
The Advent unit that pushes enemy ships away with its special ability is overpowered. Not so much because it pushes things away, but rather, because enemy ships that were pushed too far do not continue attacking. Rather, they will try to return to the spot they were pushed away from. If you have 5 units with the repulsion ability (I believe that's what it's called) you can just spam the ability while your enemy ships will spend their entire time trying to get back to the spot they were pushed away from. Doesn't work oh-so-well against the AI, but it basically makes other fleets useless in multiplayer as they essentially stop attacking unless their range is enormous.

Superweapons. I haven't used the Vasari one, and neither do I have much experience with the Advent one. However, I do know that the TEC novalith cannon is overpowered. I can just put my entire fleet + hangars on a planet close to the opponent, then put a novalith right behind that planet, and bomb the closest planet. 2 shots and they're gone. As long as you defend it, which isn't that hard, you're gonna win eventually through attrition. Heck, your opponent can have a bigger army, but if you defend your novalith cannon well, you will take out a couple of planets every 10 minutes. Forcing people to rush a planet because it has the capability of destroying your entire empire is retarded, since defending is it very easy. No weapon should be able to destroy an entire empire from lightyears away. At least give people a very expensive bombardment defense upgrade that greatly reduces damage. The novalith cannon should be backup for your capital ships as they're attacking a planet, but they should not be able to destroy an empire by themselves.

Something somewhat important:
A lot of the time a ship will attack, destroy a unit and try to leave to go back to the spot it started, just to stop 5-10s later and continue attacking. We also need to be able to attack-move fleets. So let us use the attack button to move fleets, which would make them move and then attack nearby enemies instead of just moving and ignoring them.

Also, you might want to look at Advent Defense Vessel vs TEC LRM Frigate. Defense vessels wreck LRM's to the point where it's not even funny. 24 supply vs 24 supply (6 LRM vs 8 Defense Vessels)=LRM dead with 6 Defense Vessels left. It's not that I like LRM's, but it's utterly retarded that Defense Vessels (which are supposed to be good against fighters/bombers) absolutely wreck LRM's.

You also need a select all of one type hotkey. I haven't found one, although I haven't looked all that hard. Just like ctrl+shift+click on an LRM to select all LRM ships on that planet. If there is something like that already, I apologize.

I could go on all day, and by the time I'm done testing a bunch of things I could write you a 10 page paper, but I doubt my suggestions will be implemented. Congrats on making a great game though.

[ Plz remove the auto refresh on lobby player list, or at list make a setting for it, it's extremely difficult to keep looking till the bottom, not to mention clicking on certain players, as it keeps refreshing and go back to the top ]

Allow variable rates (discounts) for pirates when a weaker player is buying them, to allow a losing team to easily send the pirates off after the stronger team.

This makes sense from a "roleplay" perspective, because pirates would always want a balanced galaxy, so one team doesn't rule everything (and then wipe out the pirates).