When your trapped at home doing homework cause your car is broke this becomes a great distraction.

Fully 3D usage, open connected maps/fully connected maps, and 'no top speed' on ships can all be done with modding. We might even be able to add orbits and different planes for planets and systems back into the game via modding.

Enjoy the basic game for what it is and trust Ironclad to make it fun. As for the other stuff, get your modding tools ready.

Phase lanes are graphically represented as lines between planets, representing the "allowed" stellar travel routes between planets (and the star) in a system.



They already apply names to planets, but its still a (huge) headache. I don't know (but I strongly suspect) about anyone else, but I generally rely on positional information -- this "constellation" of planets is mine, that one is theirs. Names don't even show up unless you click a planet, and under the current UI thats a good thing.

Question: Do you actually have beta access? If not, get it before you start talking so much

Okay in the beta stages its not very sporting to tell us we should be happy with the possibility of modding in features we want.

Its a beta... I don't want to mod these features I want them in the game.

Personally I like the idea of a very slow orbit for buildings and asteroids. The collision issue can be fixed by ships simply having more than a bad pathing AI.

the game's in system tactics are just too basic right now, its not challenging, even when it is, its not very entertaining. My ships shouldn't stop moving so much, and frankly Karma raises a good point about using a more realistic physics engine.

My ships should accelerate faster towards a planet, and sling shotting and such would be very nice, and it doesn't require that we have 3D, it doesn't require orbiting structures or some such.

That being said, I'm looking at it too tactically because more and more I see less and less 4X. OH except the worst parts... mindless repetition and too much micro management... where is my governor that makes sure a trade station is built on every damn system?

I don't think it can be modded in with any degree of quality and even if it is, it won't matter unless everyone is using the mod.

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I don't see why orbits would screw up your constellation of planets? Those planets wouldn't change position noticeably even if you played for days. After all each one represents a solar system.


As I said, I was about to but it sounds like the game has gone in a bad direction since I left. Losing gravity was a huge blow to me. That was one of the central reasons I liked this game.


The devs WERE talking about sling shotting around plants. I need that to be interested in this game.


Seriously, don't make the same mistake that Sword of the Stars made... simplifying everything to the point where it's neither innovative nor interesting.

... Gee, so you want the star systems to orbit around each other, but the planets inside them aren't orbiting?

The way you speak of things you seem to envision that each star contains a massive 3d environ where planets and such revolve around it.

This isn't the case currently. Each star or planet is stationary and is connected by lines (phase lanes) to other such planets. Each planet is surrounded by a bubble of playable area. Depending on the mass of the planet/star this increases or decreases the bubble... IE the Gravity Well.

The total area we are playing at any given time is actually quite small, merely the orbit of a planet if you will. Which is why 3D has so little use, the area is too small and vital issues such as enemy structures, resource asteroids, and Phase lane entrances are simply never out of range significantly enough in the Z axis for 3d movement to be required. It exists but its only for the sake of say a few feet instead of a mile.

No... having the planets or stars move is not required mostly because they orbit so slowly that you won't see it happening.


I'll settle for anything "smaller" then planets moving. Everything else can stay put.


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I know, that's the way it always was and I'm ok with that. I'd prefer if we had full solar systems but I'm ok with the gravity wells. What bothers me is that there isn't gravity in the gravity wells.


No, that's circular logic. It's of no use because you can't use it.


With orbits and the ability to place freefall structures at ANY orbit around a planet... including ones that go 90 degrees to the spin of the planet you have plenty of reasons to use 3d space. Carriers so far as I understand them want to avoid direct contact with the enemy while remaining alive in system... with 3d space they can run to different locations.


In addition, as I've said coming from above or below an enemy fleet has utility in that it's guns probably are designed to fire forward or to the side... not up or down. By facing them from below you gain an advantage until they turn their ships to meet you. Also you might be able to get to their back support units without having to fight your way through their heavier battleships.

In addition, it would be nice if there were few if any range restrictions for the weapons. there's no reason why a shot from a cannon or a laser beam wouldn't just keep going and going and going. The real limitation in space is accurately hitting something. So things that don't move... or change direction slowly would be far more vulnerable then things that moved about quickly.

You could build into the movement AI a combat mode. In combat mode your ships thrust very slighly to the left or right... up or down... accelerate just a little or decelerate. Just enough to make the exact position of any ship difficult to predict into the future. Then the only shots that will hit your ships will be guided missiles or closer range shots that don't give you enough time to get out of the way.


In the first case you could have point defense take care of incoming missiles/fighters and then depending on the design of your ship stay out of range of close in shots or close for a kill.



A good series of books to read if you're interested in space battles like what they're trying to do with sins would be the David Webber books... The Honor Harrington series has a lot of really detailed space battles where they talk about orbits and various freefall weapons at extreme range.

There currently is the ability to traverse the Z axis. You can use it, its just very un-user friendly at the moment. Thats why what I said is not a circular argument. Considering how strongly you seem to feel about these things perhaps you should spend a few hours reading recent posts and such so that you can become re-acquainted with the issues and the current system?

Great series period, but not really something that could ever be turned into a game.

the fact that it isn't user friendly supports my theory that it was scrapped due to interface problems.

Further, the circular logic that I was referring to holds in that you cannot build things that are high or low. In addition orbits and gravity have not be beta tested. They were alpha tested and thrown away it seems.
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Couldn't disagree more. Those books are like gameplay manuals for a space strategy game.


They deployed propes into a system that used Gravity pulses for FTL communication. Ships closed on the target. Smaller ships stayed in missile range and clustered together to make use of each other's point defense. Big ships would try to close and gut enemy ships with killer beams. Beams that were only limited by targeting.

Later in the series they shifted to huge missile carriers... that would unload thousands of long range missiles instead of trying to close... It even related to empire defense in that they talked about splitting fleets between different parts of the empire... they had static space fortresses... etc. It's a good series to base a game on.

Problem is that its just to much for the layman to understand. 99.9% of people on this planet just don't get the idea of orbital mechanics -- alas -- and the idea of acceleration being more important than speed? Forget it.

Sure, it gives lots of the information on tactics / strategy, but no way to make a game out of it.

you don't have to get it... the pathing AI does all the work.


Ok... you select your units and click on the enemy force. Are you going to sit there and plot the optimum vector trajectory and thrust? Hell no. The pathing AI does all the work for you. You click "attack" and it vectors, thrusts, and engages.


Do you have to know how to balance and walk to be able to order soldiers to run over an attack something? no... point and command.


As to tactics and strategy not giving you a game... that is what these games are all about. Tactics and strategy.


It tells you how all the units work and how effective battlefleets work in the book. So if you copied that into a game you'd have strategy and tactics based on that series.

Is not possible, since it's impossible to place structures in 3d. Ships always adjust themselves to the plane.



Open connected maps are not possible. Fully connected are, although it's a pain to make them.



Different planes for planets is not possible. Planets have no z-coordinate. The orbit one seems to be an engine thing, doesn't look possible right now.

That's my point. Everyone is saying that 3d is pointless without understanding that it's pointless because they can't use it.


it's circular logic.

Or your alone in your logic.

Whats the point of super slow orbits anyways...

things in orbit around the plant shouldn't be super slow. Realistically they would be pretty slow but why lot let most things orbit a planet in about 2 minutes as opposed several hours or a day? It would be more interesting. Furthermore before you tell me that kind of time acceleration is unrealistic, I'll note that you're building up a whole civilization and building battle fleets in minutes.


The planets themselves don't need to move because we're not including full solar systems in the game anyway. And the relation of one solar system to another shouldn't change because it adds nothing to the game and as another player said it would be confusing.


As to this being my logic, that statement if anything makes me proud instead of the insult or humbling statement you'd like it to be. Because my logic here is sound. If it's mine then that soundness is mine.

It's very disappointing that some folks feel that Sins is boring or lacking in innovation - obviously we disagree 100% but are continuing to add additional features and tweak the existing ones. 

Ironclad playtested orbits well before Stardock's involvement with the game and found that it added nothing to the play experience.  It did, however, make things more confusing because the player had to keep track of where their planets were at all times - not very good for a real-time game.

Gravity is in Sins and has been for a long time now. The gravity slingshot was removed, but the effects remain (ships move faster towards the center of the gravity well; slower away). This continues to be tweaked.

3D movement is already in the game and it's not difficult to use (it uses the same method as Homeworld, except with a different hotkey - which can be remapped).  However, 3D doesn't add anything substantial to the game and nobody seems able to explain adequately why it would.  3D movement certainly would make things more complicated for the vast majority of people who would play Sins, which is why you're not forced to use it. 

That said, ship movement and formations are still not perfected, and will continue to improve (you'll notice more of this in Beta 3). At this point it's far too late to make any major changes to 3D, but we're certainly still willing to look at this for expansions.

Any chance the code for the orbiting could be released? Perhaps after the full game is out. Some of us want the confusing eye candy...

Well, it is difficult to use. It may use the same system as homeworld (I don't really remember how it did it, was a long time ago.), but it's not a very good system.

First, placement in 3d is not shown very well and thus hard to read. (A single perpendicular line from the ship to the plane (ie. grav well) would help a lot). IIRC homeworld had that? (If not, a good example of this system is used for the gravidar in X³.)

The adjustment of ship orientation to the plane destroys every 3d feeling you get (this is the reason why freelancer felt so flat and not really 3d, it adjusted your ship all the time so you were positioned straight. Straight to what?)



Yes, people shouldn't need to use it. But because it's barely included (no structure 3d positioning, ship aligning automatically, no possibility to orient your ships in 3d, hard to read 3d positions, no firing arcs for ships, etc.) it's not even fun to use.



Well, Sins is not a bad game at all, but it has not much innovation, this cannot be disputed. The gravity effect is negligible and besides that, it doesn't have one feature that wasn't in some other rts or 4x game already.

Even the blending of 4x and rts isn't something spectacular, since Sins currently has almost nothing of a 4x game and much more of conventional rts games. Which doesn't make it a bad game. Sins is even a good space rts (well, there aren't much space rts anyway) but nothing out of the ordinary, imho.

In short, Sins is now revolution or rethinking of the genre, but it's still fun to play.

But I need to understand *how* it works if I'm going to intelligently decide which orders to give.

And the fact that most people don't understand such things is going to make them want to quit the game.

That's why I said the problem is not really the usage, but the presentation. Nobody should be forced to used 3D movement, and in fact I don't think a lot of people use it even in any other game. I hardly remember a moment I manually use a 3D movement in HW2, the only time I manually force a 3D movement in Hegemonia is when I displace the Military Base.

But presentation wise, it should done automatically with the ship orientation. I.E when you attack a planet, some ship will position on different evelation instead of just forming a horizontal line like an honor firing squad. It's less the how to use 3D than how to feel 3D. The concern is not how the players use 3D movement (and the fact is, again, we rarely bother), but the presentation needs to give a feel of 3D.

You are kidding, right? Seeking a fleet's weakest point in a sphere-like fashion and sending a strike force to that spot anywhere around it is something completely different from going left or right around it. Especially if good 3D formations and fleet behaviour were introduced. On a planet scale this can all take an even more important role. Just imagine a planet with three moons where each can be fitted with defensive structures... The line of approach takes a huge role.

Than again, if the AI can't use it effectively the player too should be hindered in 3D movement. Simply to prevent an additional edge over the usually non-inventive AI.

The planets don't need to move. Just the objects around them. Ships, structures, turrets... wreckage...


I think you're over simplifying it.


Having gravity effects adds a WOW factor to the game that I think you need.


By forcing everyone to place all their structures upon a 2d plane and then forcing all units to enter a system upon the SAME 2d plane you've removed the reason to go 3d.

In homeworld they would often place objectives above or below you. In addition your AI is not aware of and does not use the Z axis. While in Homeworld again you'd often be attacked from above or below.


You're not really enabling the feature so it's a forgone conclusion that you're not going to see the value in it. It's like a gun with no bullets in it. Useless... but with potential.



I'd like to stress that I'm just trying to do MY job as a fan and member of this community to give feedback. If I cheered everything I saw without consideration to what I thought was right or wrong that would be of no value to you. Still, my contribution might not be of any value as I could just be wrong. But at least this way there's a chance my words will mean something. Where as the other path will always be meaningless.
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People aren't that stupid... show them a little cause and effect and they'll catch on. Furthermore, they don't need to know in msot cases as they'll be giving simple orders like "attack" or "defend" or "go here"... the AI will do each of those without a problem.


In MP games however there will be more advanced tactics which will require understanding these things. But that's the sort of thing that makes MP play WORTH playing. Remove tactical depth from MP play and it's not worth it. You might as well play the AI.