Two problems showed up in a game:

One, text color for mining asteroids changes color when mines are built, even if opposing player has no scouts in system.

Two: Extreme Exploit: The pathfinding sucks... badly enough that if someone builds a turret directly in front of a fleeing capitol ship, the capitol ship will halt instantly as soon as the construciton icon is placed, even though no construction has occured. As a result, it can be made impossible for a cap ship to escape.

Short of free-killing the 0-hitpoint structure you mean? Would be rather expensive to keep the cap there...

No. Since the ship comes to a complete halt, even if you destroy the structure you still have to start moving again -- and NOTHING prevents the opposing player from placing more. If he's quick enough, he can place them then disconstruct them faster than you can target them -- no resource loss, AND he stops your ship.

Yes, and often it doesn't take much of a delay to turn a successful retreat into a disastrous loss of a cap ship. In our case I could very conceivably have killed his flagship by just dumping obstacles in its path. Was sooo tempted to keep doing it, Ronny but I behaved myself.


Seriously though, something needs to be done about the 0% structures. THEY DON'T EXIST!! So they shouldn't be targetable, shouldn't interfere with ship movement, and, imho, shouldn't even be visible to hostile players.

And to clarify what Ron said about the text color of the asteroids: I had scouted a planet early in the game but didn't colonize it and never sent another ship there for recon. However when Ron colonized it and build mines on the asteroids, the text changed to his color. This gave me some intell without even going there.

They can be repaired too. It's dangerous to use the Vasari carrier special near queued buildings.

It would be great if planets under bombardment had a very small chance of flipping to your side as a surrender.

If your culture is present this chance would increase, this could be a great and less direct use of culture as a field weapon.

Okay, so you guys are telling me that you don't lose resources if someone kills your queued structures? That is an insane exploit.

You do lose the resources you invested, however Ron says you can plunk it down then immediately cancel it before the enemy can react and target it. It will already have stopped though, and is therefore a risky exploit for slowing down the enemy capship.

I agree that structures that are not yet under construction should only be ghosts that any ship can pass through and enemies can't see (beyond the constructor moving purposefully in that direction).

Or simply make it any structures laid down/queued don't give refunds when you cancel them. Still, even then, most players would happily throw away 4-5 gauss canon purchases if it saves their flagship.

Additionally, queued structures should not be able to be 'healed' into existence by the Vasari repair tech.

Are you INSANE?!

Don't you mean to kill the enemy flagship?



Actually, you aren't supposed to be ABLE to target queued structures -- as Kyro said, thats the equivilent of a "coming soon" sign... and costing 50,000,000$ to replace the "coming soon" sign for a mall (a 50,000,000$ mall to be precise) would be rather silly, wouldn't it?

well normally when one places a "too come" sign in front of an oncoming tank, it usually doesnt stop it. thats one strong sign!

Based upon what I have seen I have a visual request. Being a big fan of Descent: Freespace 1 and 2 I revelled in the vast sparkling blackness of space. In many of the videos and screenshots, Sins looks terrifically colourful.

I realize sometimes one wishes to break up the void of space with nebulas and whatnot, but I yearn to play with the backdrop of twinkling black.

I would like to see more of that background. Perhaps make it a graphics option slider, to control the frequency/dominance of colourful fields versus black fields. Perhaps the slider would be a relative control of star radiance?

An occassional nebula or radiant gas formation is wonderful, but to my eyes it doesn`t feel right to be so very bright all the time... unless you zoom out to the maximum level.

1) Culture: There needs to be a second type of tower/beacon/module. It would have one purpose, providing stability for your planets with Culture. This would stack with your media tower, but its effect wouldn't spread to adjacent planets/asteroids. Its bonus to that system's culture would be the equivalent of two media towers. Basically, a defensive counter-culture structure. Internal police, propaganda, Government thuggery, whatever.

Example A: Current

Planet A has 2 Media Beacons and is linked to Planet B that has 1 Media Beacon. Planet A's beacons will overcome Planet B's single media beacon. Planet B's culture will still be spreading in other directions.

Example B: Proposed Structure

Planet A has 2 media beacons and is linked to Planet B. Planet B has no Media Beacons but it does have an Internal Security module. Planet A's beacons would normally take over Planet B, but Planet B's Internal Security module prevents that by generating enough 'cultural stability' to prevent that.

2) Black Market: I realize that stuff is done in 100 unit chunks, but please, for the love of saving the left mouse button, allow people a slide bar to decide how many lots of 100 they want to sell off instead of having to click 30 times.

3) Planetary Exploration: Every time I find an artifact, I don't realize it. The message that I found one isn't blatant enough. These are rare items. Maybe it is just me.

4) Racial differences: In the dozen games that I've played, I do see a difference between the two races but it isn't substantial enough. A lot of the issue comes not from the ships, but from the modules themselves. There should a much more pronounced difference in the modules than there currently are. Play up on their differences a lot more to create a more flavorful game.

5) Space Exploration: Just a note, no actual formed ideas as of yet, but the exploration of space needs to have more to it than just phasing from one area to the next. There's no sense of expectation other than 'Planet or Roid?"

6) Planet Types: More please. A larger variety. Built in bonuses/penalties for each.

The normal "shift key" multiplication factor is available, but there is a new diplomacy and economic system in development that may cover this.



Hashed to death a thousand times.

I have noticed a thing about the colony capships colonize abilities:
With increasing level, they should decrease the time you have to wait before using (working) and the amount of people starting on the planet 10;20;30
This does not work at the moment, as every planet starts with 10 as its maximum currently , so this bonus does not apply to the colony, making it quite unattractive to level up the ability!

Its going to be unattractive anyways

They really should give the drain antimatter ability to the Akkan, and the range/accuracy boost ability to the Dunov.

Give the players some kind of orientation, so we can say "north" or "50 degrees true" or something! (E. G. in homeworld, the sensors mode had a little "compass" around the edge of the map so you could tell where north south etc etc were...)

I also hope that "fireworks" remain realistic and unridiculous.

To explain that, I point to one of the (many) problems with the Star Wars Empire At War: Forces Of Corruption expansion pack. Particularly in the planet surface combat, the designers implemented all sorts of terrifically flashy stuff... totally at odds with the effects we had seen in the films.

Too much flash makes this sort of thing cartoony instead of unto/like Babylon 5. Stay 'real'.

I dont know if this complaint was already made, but the Antorak phase out ability should not reset the orders of a ship.

Ship Speed (turning & forward velocity)

Based on my gameplay experiences to date, and just an opinion...

Its obvious some units travel faster than others as it should be, I would like to see an indication or measure of speed for a selected unit in the UI. The infocard probably being the most obvious choice.

I would also like to see some flavour of speed increase in either abilities e.g. running caphips engines at 110% for a short time or simply a research item for improved engines on certain units.

The Kodiak already has a research based 'running engines at 110%' for a short burst.

The Kol has a to low hierachy positon in the Empire Backdropwindow.
Why are supportships at first and the Kol at last?

Enemy Ships:
You hear that enemy ships are phasejumping to a planet, but you cant see them, in the empire backdrop window, till they arrive.
With better Sensors those ship should be shown in the empire backdrop window.
So you can hear that ships a phasejumping to your planet and you can see which planet is it, how many and which ships jump in.(But only with advanced sensors)

Mind explaining yourself a little better?

As things stand, without sensors your notified when an enemy has reached your system, with sensors you can "see" them while they are jumping towards your system. What are you talking about with "empire backdrop window"?

I think he's referring to the empire tree on the side. The way I understand it, he's suggesting that if you have the right psidar rank researched, the enemy ships would show up on the empire tree as if they had already arrived at the planet, even if they're still mid-phase jump, so that you could see their exact numbers/composition as well as know exactly what planet they're jumping to without having to zoom the map out far enough to catch a glimpse of the right phase lane.