We've had the superweapon debate before. It's a general consensus that such weapons are unwanted by the majority. I hope some other way of preventing impenetrable defences is found.

Again I don't like the idea of stars being the choke points. It would be better to find some other reason to have them as a valuable target. Perhaps starbases that boost the efficiency of all the planets' structures in the solar system? A system-wide military-boosting starbase would be a valuable target...

I'm not sure I understand your suggestion. Wouldn't an "efficiency structure/star base" that boosts military defensive structures or fleet offensive capabilities make the choke point problem worse?

If planet A has a large number of defensive structures and a large variety of defensive ships parked in orbit, a smaller enemy needs access to a cheaper device/technique to inflict a large number of casualties other than an offensive fleet of greater size (and cost) than the defender.

Cheers

problems are
1) you're parralleling this with games such as starcraft, which are open and allow for quick movements and adjustments. such are not the ways of sins
2) what about people who dont need it? I presume a large military-industrial complex will be at least as good as pumping this things out, so how do you plan on balancing that?
3) finally its really just broken. especially if you're talking huge chunks of the GW (which is big, mind you)

Why?

Turtling (or really, making a strongpoint on restricted terrain) is a time-honored tactic of warfare. Where were castles placed? On the open plain? In a valley? NOT

Look at famous battles like the 300 Spartans holding off thousands of Persians.

Conquest through the ages has followed the pattern of going from defensible terrain to defensible terrain. If you get stopped in the open, you get pushed back to... defensible terrain. Sometimes you make defensible terrain, like Hadrian did with his wall across Britain. Sometimes you make just defensible terrain better - with fortifications.

Taking fortified positions is expensive. But….. You can’t win this game if you just turtle up. Sooner or later someone owning the rest of the galaxy is going to come knocking and they will be able to spend the resources to either reduce your fortification entirely, or just sufficiently to go past and raise all kinds of havoc in your rear areas. And then come back and entirely reduce the strongpoint (and eliminate you in the process).

That said, there are already attributes available to the capital ships that could make them effective against orbital structures, and if need be, others can be added. New types of ships that have specialized attacks in this area (like the flak frigate vs. fighters) can be added as well if they are needed.

Learning how to deal with this is just another test of your adaptability – not all warfare is the ride and slash cav – sometimes you have to go over the top and hope you make it across no-man’s-land, too. (Today’s version of this is urban warfare.    )

Yes, turtling has occurred in history, but also look at how long historical wars have lasted. Years. We are looking at games that might only last an hour. Gameplay always comes before realism.

became invalidated with the devlopment of guns, only returning shortly during the WWI era. I believe this should be no different

unlikely without an extreme game mode.

hear hear.

either way, its not turtling thats the issue. its the massive chokepoints, after all there isnt ONE way into any country.

I've been considering the calls for making the gravity wells around stars more important/useful. Let me (and hopefully Ironclad) know what you guys think of the following.

Ship weapons and shields could also use the same AM 'fuel tank' that the other special abilities use. A ship that fires its weapons will SLOWLY drain the total AM energy available. When the AM gets low, weapons can suffer reduced power/fire rate. Shields taking damage should put a small drain on the AM stores to simulate the "more power to the shields" action. Also, the recharge rate/maximum charge of shields should be influenced by how full the AM 'tank' is.

If AM ever reaches ZERO, ship weapons and shields should fail altogether. AM should continue to recharge very quickly around stars, but should have its recharge rate slowed down around planets.

If this is implemented, we would add a lot of strategic considerations to the game. Furthermore, stars would experience an increase in real estate value. Of course, special abilities would have to be tweaked so they don't immediately consume all available AM at the start of every battle.


*Another non-star gravity well related change that would be welcome is a reduction in weapon accuracy for ships that are taking fire. Combine this with the present shield damage absorption mechanics, and focus fire will be seriously diminished in importance.

@Para - that is what many of us are thinking right now my friend. However we have not had any real input from IG yet other then the acknowledgment that it is a major "void" in the games fundamental design. Simply put, there has to be some universal need built into the game for players to seek out the stars for practical reasons.

Not if there would be no choke points. I was writing about how to remove choke points and still have stars as valuable targets. Starbases with system-wide effect would definitely make them so, yet the attacker would have an option to attack the individual planets first (and battle the system-wide starbase effect).

The military starbase effect could be extra shield and more firepower for the defensive structures, larger fighter capacity for defensive instalations (if that's still in) etc.. Perhaps also a permanent starbase based fleet that you wouldn't pay upkeep for and you could send anywhere within the system. Ok, my imagination is running wild, I need to cool down...

I've been meaning to post this up for a while. Some of this pertains to modding, but I'm posting it here instead of the technical feedback thread because that thread seems more oriented towards graphics engine issues.

Modding

Damage types

There is ample modification for changing how weapons perform against different ships with AttackType and ArmorType, and the DamageData structure in Gameplay.constants. However, there isn't a comparable structure for controlling how weapons perform against hull and shields. There is the DamageType field for the weapons, but nowhere to define the types or control what the builtin ENERGY and PHYSICAL types do.

Shield regeneration in hostile territory

maxEnemyCulturePassiveRepairScalar and maxOwnerCulturePassiveRepairScalar control how hull regeneration is affected by dominant culture, but similar controls for shields are absent.

Hyperspace cost

Ships with antimatter lose 100 when jumping through phase lanes, but there is no way to change or eliminate this cost either on a per-ship type or a game-wide basis. Also, ships with less than 100 antimatter lose what they have, but are still able to jump. This seems inconsistant.

Destroy one's own ship on ability use

This is especially a gameplay issue for colony ships. The unit in 4X games that creates a new production center is usually lost in the process, from Civ's settlers to the colony ships of MoO and GalCiv. This provides an important check on early expansion, and difficult (i.e. fun!) decisions for the player at this critical time. Do I build more colonies or more defenses? Do I spend resouces on expansion or technology? In contrast, Sins' reusable colony ships mean that unbridled expansion carries no cost; there is no reason not to settle as fast as you can clear out the pirates.

From a modding point of view, there is so much that can be done with abilities that destroy the initiating ship. How about GalCiv style disposable troop transports? How about sacrificial ramming ships? How about ships that explode into clouds of shrapnel that doesn't harm large vessels, but shreds all fighters in the area? I've implemented both troop transports and single-use colony ships in my mod by having abilities that do damage to their own ship, but this has problems; for one, it causes the "Our ships in XXX are under attack" message to play. Please give us the ability to mod in true sacrificial ships.

Destroying/negating enemy projectiles

Conceptually, my mod absolutely depends on ships having the ability to shoot down enemy missiles, whether targetted at the "flak" ship, or just passing through the area. Nor does this just need to be missiles. Laser flak that can provide coverage against enemy autocannons or gauss guns woul also be valuable to mod in. Enough said.

WeaponType doesn't do anything? (overridden by WeaponEffects.WeaponType)

At one point I accidently had conflicting information in these two fields, and Sins proceeded without a hitch, always using the value from WeaponEffects.WeaponType in tooltips and such.

Weapon Firing Arcs

Please, please give us the ability to indicate this! In the stock game, it looks particularly bad when the Kol's forward lasers (3 large barrels on the left of the ship) fire at a target at the right-front, and the projectiles pass directly through the front of the Kol! Also, for balance purposes my mod depends on having very powerful weapons with very narrow firing arcs, so that the ability of the ship to rotate becomes the limiting factor in its effectiveness. (This allows smaller, faster ships to stay out of the arc and become a major threat through superior maneuverability.

Economy

Trade ship value

This should really depend on the distance of the destination from the origin point. Right now, a trade ship making a round trip to an ally 2 jumps away and a trade ship making a round trip to an ally 20 jumps away in another star system bring in the same income per trip, even though the former can make far more trips in the same time. This discourages having large trade networks, which is something I would like to see, along with the attendant vulnerability to raiding and attack, as in GalCiv. An easy way to do this would be to have the value of a trade ship's cargo increase by some amount every time it makes a phase jump.

Upkeep should be straight cost

Consider 2 empires, both with exactly 1000 supply points worth of fleet to sustain. Both are paying 75% of their income in upkeep. Empire A has 4 terran planets, with income of 40 credits / second. Empire B is in a more hostile part of the galaxy, and has 1 terran planet and 3 asteroid installations, for an income of 13 credits / second. Which is paying more in upkeep? Empire A (at 30 credits / second lost to upkeep)! Please consider making upkeep a fixed cost per supply point. The Space Empires series uses a simple model for upkeep, a flat percentage of the build cost deducted every turn, and upkeep is still an important part of gameplay.

Interface

Cost checking is > instead of >=

Trying to buy a technology with cost 25 crystals when you have exactly 25 crystals in the bank fails. You need 26 crystals availble. This is a real annoyance, particularly in the early game when incomes are tiny, and I reflexively click the button for an upgrade the instant my resource total hits the listed cost, only to have it fail.

Cost in reasearch screen increases beyond max rank

Take the first laser damage upgrade. Level 1 costs 400 credits, 25 crystals. Level 2 costs 500 credits, 50 crystals. However, while researching level 2, if you mouseover the icon, it shows the costs for a nonexistant level 3 as 600 credits, 75 crystals. It's a bit confusing.

Mouse wheel being caught by interface elements

I'm extremely happy to see Supreme Commander-style "zoom to the mouse cursor" zooming. However, when trying to zoom into a gravwell currently located at the top of the screen, all too often the "mousewheel up" event is caught by the chat box, and no zooming occurs. This is very frustrating since the chat box is usually hidden, and it's not at all obvious how large the region is until you stumble into it and attempt to zoom. It can also be quite confusing early in the game, when there are no events in the chat box, because no text will appear. Instead, the player's attempt to zoom is simply silently ignored.

I know that beta 1 is too early to be concentrating on the UI and balance issues, but I just wanted to list everything I've noticed so far in this beta. I'm really enjoying the game so far, and if the modding flexibility continues to take shape, I think I'll be happy with it for years.

P.S. Is Ironclad hiring?

Re: hyperspace cost

I just found the global cost modifier in PlayerTech.entity. Oops. I would, however, still like to see this quantity be moddable on a ship-by-ship basis, as well as the charge-up time. Concept: a zippy little scout with no combat ability but hard to catch unless you have inhibitors.

I know you can change charge up time
but I originally thought it was a ship-by-ship basis. apparently not.

this makes sense. shields regenerate from pure energy, hulls only regenerate from someone fixing it. your far less likely to get that much needed outside assistance in hostile territory.

the 100 point loss is meant to be there, as is the ability to jump with less than 100 AM
you missed the very large debate about this.

Yeah, we know the gameplay reasons for why Ironclad allows ships to phase jumps with less than 100 AM. What we don't like is that it just doesn't make any logical sense to allow it.

I would still prefer it if ships with less than 100 AM just couldn't jump.

This has been discussed, and it makes sense when looking at it this way: Phase jumps are not powered by antimatter at all. The phase drives are just imperfect when dealing with antimatter, so not all of it survives the trip.

I'm totally fine with whatever gameplay decisions are made by Ironclad for stock Sins gameplay. I just want to make sure that the knobs are there for modders to make different decisions.

For example, in my mod, ships don't have "special" abilities. Instead, AM is used to represent ammunition, particularly heavy long-range missiles. I intend for ships to have no inherent AM regeneration, and depend on supply ships. In a world like this, having AM consumed by phase jumps doesn't fit.

Now consider another hypothetical mod, where AM is only used for phase jumps, and ships have no AM regeneration - AM can only be replenished from orbital modules, and at high cost. In a case like this, it would be very useful to be able to tweak the AM cost for a phase jump on a ship-by-ship basis, so that a small scout can jump around for less cost than a full-sized carrier.

Again, all of this is in the context of offering additional flexibility for mod authors, not core gameplay for stock SINS.

Good morning all

ok i have finally plaeyd the game for mroe than an hour at a time, managed to put in a good 3 hours of play last night.

my first thoughts are the following.... and apologies if this has been discussed previously.

Ship movement - I am concerned as to the jittery,(for want of a better word), like movement the majority of the ships have when attacking enemy ships and structures. the only examples i can give for good ship movement that looked believable and realistic are Homeworld 2. the bumping of ships has been highlighted already so i wont go on about that.

Grouping ships- still havent worked out formations, if there are any in this build, but what is frustrating is if you drag your mouse from left to right to select a group of ships it doesnt select them approximately 30% of the time. dont know if this bug has been picked up on before.

defences - the base defences are good fun if somewhat unrealsitic when you have 100 or so at a particular jump gate... btu hey its good to watch.... the fighter hangers are good also but what is slightly frustrating is that you only seem to have 2 squads per hanger. either the hanger graphic image needs to be reduce to reflect the size of the fighters/bombers or vice verser.

Ship design - some good early designs of the ships for beta 1, i do hope the details around the engine exhausts are improved as they are not textured very well and knowhere near as good as previous space strategy games in the last 3 years. Again i am sure ship design is to improve.

Research - i think like many on here it has to be a trial and error process with the Beta to work out what exactly does what and by the 2nd hour i worked out in order to get capital ships a number of other research items has to be carried out.... (yes i am stupid). however a detailed process tree clearer than those viewed in this beta i believe is required. The icons need to be larger in my opinion.

Starting points - tried on several occasions with large map nto to start next to the enemy with 3 only 3 players in the game 1 of which was my ally. All 3 teams on 6 out of 7 occasions started in the same Galaxy. i think the start positions need to be made a little more random...

Capital ship skills- excellent idea as has been played with on other space strategy games.

fighter and bomber docking - visually this is poor at the moment, there really needs to be an improved pathway system to enter a cap ship or dockign station. it is a visual thing i know but thats what makes the game look so much better. also when bombers fire, the missiles are bigger than the ships themselves. you need to address acrose the board ship dimensions in relation to other ships and buildings.

Hit points - very noticable that when a ship fires at the target the ammunition doesnt hit the other ship. let me explain that better, take for instance beam weapons. These should strike an enemy ship not 200metres in front of it or on the side. again this is possibly a Beta 3 element which would be added a later date but everyone want to be able to see visual damage being taken by any 1 ship.

ok well thats about it from me at the moment, apologies to people if i have repeated items that have already been discussed. i do honestly believe the game is very good and with community support this could be a fantastic game to play.

many thanks for reading chaps,

Craig

I've noticed that it is sometimes possible to purchase when the UI shows exactly the necessary resources. I've spent some more time trying to characterize this, and I think I know what's going on. Here's the setup:

• 1 crystal extractor with 0.1 crystal / second production(PLANETMODULE_TECHORBITALCRYSTALEXTRACTOR.entity)


• scout frigate costs 3 crystal, no credits or metal (FrigateTechScout.entity)


• 0 starting crystals in the bank (GalaxySetup.galaxysetup)

I expect to see my crystals in storage to go up once every 10 seconds, and to be able to queue a new scout every 30 seconds.

The first anomaly I saw was that my display of stored crystal increased from 0 to 1 5 seconds after the crystal extractor finished, instead of 10. Similarly, there was a five second window after the display changed from 2 to 3 where it was possible to build a scout, and another 5 second gap before the display changed from 3 to 4. So from this, I think it's clear that:

1. resources are tracked internally as fractional (decimal) values.


2. production is allowed when storage exceeds cost (≥)


3. display of current resources is rounded to the nearest integer. So a display of 3 actually means 2.5 to 3.4999....

I think the best way of dealing with this issue is 3. above. Display of current resources should always be rounded down (i.e. the floor() function). While this may be a less "accurate" display, it is more indicative of the player's currently available buying power, which is by far the most important piece of information for the UI to communicate.

I agree, at absolute worst the hangers should start with a single docking station and you can upgrade the other 5

which brings me to another point; I want to see more active upgrades in orbital structures, for instance the creation of a shield generator around your more valuable assets, even some AA on civilian buildings (like the trade outposts)

I have to agree the hanger system is not good in my opinion as well. It should house more wings or be smaller and I think it as well as all other orbital structures should have some sort of point defense system. Right now I look at the size and limitation on wings as necessary for fighter construction component. But that only takes me so far down the road.

System:
XP SP2
1Gb RAM
P4 2.8 HT
Gainward 7800GS GLH

Result:
Game plays well but later in the game become increasingly slower. I'd guess it's because the computer focuses on using so many smaller crafts instead of capital ones.

I have only seen videos of this game but it looks fun and I hope to hop on in the second beta.

Just one thing Do the ships and buildings leave wreckage are do they just dissapear when they die?

If they dissapear i suggest making wreckage.

we got wreckages in one of our latest patches, so now when capital ships or buildings gets destroyed, we see broken peices of them

Yay this makes me want to get the game even more!

Yay this makes me want to get the game even more!

from that one new screenshot, it looks like the amount of wreckage has increased!