I hate to be the grammar guy, but please, do me a favour and write poll. a pool is also a cool thing to have, but its something slightly different.

I voted for 4x because as of right now the RTS part is pretty solid in my opinion. I see this as kind of a balancing act where earlier RTS might not have been developed enough, and now the penedulum has swung the other way. My guess is that the stuff currently in the pipeline will help a lot with many of the weaknesses in the current 4x part of the game. In the end, Sins will never be a 100% 4x, but hopefully it will be more than 100% RTS too.   

I wasn't talking about planet development. That falls into the "exploitation" category. Sins doesnt seem to have an issue with that IMO.

Exploration. To go out into the unknown, and discover that which you have not seen before. Sins does this to a point with the unknown planet icons. It is a die roll to discover an ice world, gas giant, nebula, or asteroid. There is still that missing element. On fixed maps you already know what is there after you played it a few times so there really is no exploration. Only on randomly generated maps does the exploration need get to be partially satisfied. There needs to be even more diversity in the worlds. More "surprises" so to speak. More risk. Like not just encountering a few scattered defenders a neutral world. More like a random chance of finding LOTS of defenders, or a chance of "oh shit! is that a hostile capitol ship i see over there?!". Perhaps discover a new random AI faction. Rewards like finding a derelict Kodiak, or command cruiser that joins your forces, or gives you that technology.

Galactic Civilizations 2 should be the example followed here. There you can discover a random minor race (friendly or not should be random as well), or find rare artifacts floating randomly in space. You can find artifacts in sins as well, but that again falls under the exploitation category after a planet is already discovered, and colonized. I am talking about finding derelict ships, Relics from long dead civilizations, and the like. Most of this would happen in the early game when you 1st start scouting out the map.

Give the feel of actual exploration instead of playing connect the dots.

Finding a minor civ would be kind of cool but also something for an expansion/Sins 2.

I voted for the 4x preference in this poll, but bear in mind I have not personally sampled the game to know what the balance currently is. This is just my instinctive leaning when somebody posits the question "real-time emphasis or 4x feeling?"

The best 4x game I ever played was Bugs Of The Federation (so re-christened due to the out-of-sync error this turn-based game possessed...). It had the best feel to it. The tactical combat needed more depth and proper co-op accommodations.

Regarding the tech tree in Sins Of A Solar Empire, I prefer a lengthy tree that cannot be exhausted for a long time, especially when players have the option of resuming saved games. It makes each individual research achievement more meaningful & critical. I say make such a thing an option in game setup.

ok, so I got you completely wrong. sure, some of those elements would be nice to have, what I would love is that some planets not only have militia but also limited infrastructure you need to bomb first, like 500 hp and then you colonise. also, there are mods that change the altogether static mode of planets a bit while still preserving their distinct uses.

as for pure exploration: I dont see how what you really want can be reconciled with the jump lane system. space is mighty big and there may well be tons of treasures lying around, but in all honesty it would take ages to explore it all. sure, you can add little things, like derelict ships, a map of the surroundings, a low tech if you want or a left over station, but that's not so much the exploration I think.

do you think a "search for jump lanes" function would aid that exploration part? it could be like having your ships sit there a moment and calculate where you can go from the new grav well and only then will you see the jump lanes and be able to use it. it would of course slow down the beginning quite a bit, if your cannot send your scout just along, because it might get destroyed by militia while sitting there and calculing jump lanes, but still.

or you make it a research. like stellar cartagraphy and it gives you the jump lanes to new worlds as you arrive there, but only a limited number of jumps from your hw. so at the beginning you can only explore some 2 - 3 jumps and as you research more (or possibly set up colonies closer to the limit range) it becomes farther.

ps. I think minor races were considered, but scrapped for time issues.

Regular 4x games do this by making some research just take a large number of turns. The only way Sins can do it is by taking research itself take a lot more time. But when you make the transition from turn based to real time, everything becomes faster. You don't need to wait for every player to complete their turns, it doesn't take 3 turns to travel from point A to point B, it can take a minute. Relatively speaking, "stuff done per unit of time" (very loose, I know :P) remains sort of the same. Everything takes longer to do in a turn-based game, and research is likewise measured in turns. In Sins, since you can get from one planet to another in under a minute, relatively speaking, a tech taking 3 minutes to research is similar.

The point I'm trying to make is, Sins games are shorter by the very nature of it being real time and not turn-based, and in relative terms the research is just as much of an achievement as in turn based games. In absolute units of time, though, yes, you can get it all done much faster. If a turn in GalCiv2 translated to 5 seconds realtime, the same thing would happen where you can research everything in a few hours.

I really don't see a way to change this, it'll remain the way it is just because of the real-time nature of Sins..

If a turn in galciv were 5 seconds in sins, a huge map would be a medium single star game...

Most of your tech advancement in a 4x is from one weapon type to the next. Most of your advancement in sins is from one ship type to the next. This is the flaw, not how long research takes. They went with a bad research tree for scaling purposes, you need to be able to actually use the stuff. Imagine a frigate game where you maybe got to carriers and possibly the first support cruiser, never saw the late stage techs, maybe couldn't even get to refineries. It would be a really shitty game, it would be what you'd have in a 3 hour game if the research tree were scaled as is to a 100 planet game.

To design it right and have it scale with the game duration you'd do the following. Quick access to all unit types, support cruisers, carriers, heavier combat ships, etcetera etcetera. Special abilities perhaps spaced out through a long tree, some unobtainable in a short game, no core abilities out of reach though. Side defining techs like phase gates would likewise be accessible reasonably soon, but shit in a can compared to their ultimate form after hours and hours of research specifically into that particular technology. Individual abilities would have their own research trees that improved them, hours of research. Different weapons systems, sensor suites, engine modifications, anything and everything to improve the entry level ship designs would be in there and vast in quantity.

You'd then have what we have now for a short game, and in a 100 planet game that lasts a week, the cobalt would out damage the original kol, a carrier would be an army unto itself, perhaps cloaked, with multiple hangar bays and bombers that have been replaced with rapidly manufactured suicide drones that pierce the shields and detonate directly on the hulls, capable of killing those starting cobalts with single impacts, able to kill entire fleets of the original units.

The tech tree doesn't work for a long game because it's just not a real tech tree, it's like getting your armor and damage upgrades in a standard fantasy rts and expanding up through the tree of units. Armor upgrades, melee damage upgrades, range increases and damage upgrades for archers, unit specific damage multipliers, cavalry speed increases, mana capacity increases for the casters. Sins more damage upgrades and in multiple types of course, but damn does it look familiar. It looks like what a lot of rts games would look like if you took their tech tree and put it on a page instead of in buildings you purchase and upgrade through as you get access to bigger stuff.

That's largely irrelevant. The type of research has no bearing on "how much" there is to research, nor how long it takes. When you count the various research ranks, and individual techs in Sins, the number is very high. Much higher than any standard RTS, and at least rivals some 4x games.

Adding a ton more techs to feed research through longer games is a pretty blunt "solution" that dilutes research even more

I think Sins has what it takes to be both a successful RTS and 4x. The most important aspect ofcourse is the 4x element but I think prooven RTS micro elements can work.

I see the "RTS" as the technical aspects of micro and how people use their mouse clicks. What needs to be microed and just as important what doesnt need to be microed. Ive gone of on a a few tangents about raiding , and ways to improve micro and I think it can be achieved in Sins so that it doesnt burden the casual player or those wanting big 4x games but is accessible to those who dwelve into the realms of Expertism.

Infact I believe any player really entering the realms of Expertism will be those that WANT to see the RTS elements of Sins. If Sins ends at the point of just being a 4x then I dont think expertism will exist in the way it exists in many popular RTS games , but I am sure it would be a form of expertism akin to 4x games.

In Civ , if you were building something costing 10 prod and you make 3 prod/turn. On your fourth turn you make sure u reduce your prod to 1 and move 2 prod to 2 gold. Then 5th turn turn it back. Do this for every city you have without fail for whatever you make. This is the sort of Expertism in pure 4x games. Thus I feel Sins advantage as a RTS , is that Expertism can fall within the realms of RTS style microing which can be fun if done right.

The number of techs is irrelevant, how long they take to research is irrelevant. The design of a tech system is how it is ordered, not how big it is. The typical rts tree has different types of units that are accessed as the game progresses. Later units are better than earlier ones, if perhaps serving different roles so the early ones are still useful. You advance through the different units as the game progresses. Another version is one like in age of empires. You do not advance through different unit types, you advance through better versions. Your basic infantry, cavalry, archers and siege units are available rapidly, but they upgrade to bigger and better versions as the game progresses.

One version scales with the duration of a game without leaving blank spots, one doesn't. Core units cannot be halfway up the tree and have a tech system that works in both a 100 planet game and a 10 planet game, it's impossible.

that sounds about right. core units should be available even in relatively small games, so this forcefully leaves to everything you experience in very large games as non-core. the main issue is that it is barely possible to use the same tech tree in a fun way for a 2 hour game and for a 20 hour game. you have to tweak some aspect of it. now cost is obviously hardly an option, as it would be more of a waste of money if upgrades were seriously expensive (unless resources are never an issue anyhow, which in itself would be bad too), so you could try time, plus adding some more late game stuff, but then its a difficult choice adding lots of stuff in that possibly won't be used by a large part of the gamers, plus testing it requires long games i.e. lots and lots of time.

there is another tiny aspect which is more rts to me. later upgrades take more time to research I think. in 4x, since your research capacity rises in the course of the game, this need not necessarily be so and as more labs should also give you more scientists, the two effects of more complicated techs and more funding/ personnel should cancel out. my feeling is just that early techs are researched so damn fast, even though I'm used to 10 or 20 turns for starting techs at 4x.

And it's still completely irrelevant because the complaints are not about *what* there is to research, but that you can do all research in a (relatively) short period of time, which is all that my posts were adressing, and you went off on a complete tangent that does not pertain to anything previously discussed in the thread

Maybe I'm just over-analyzing, (very possible as I've been playing RTS's since the venerable Dune II) but to me an RTS has always seemed just a smaller version of a 4x played out in real time on a smaller scale. Exploration is there, Exploitation is there (controlling/mining resource nodes), Expansion is there (acquiring more resource nodes), and Extermination is most certainly there. Sins is a certainly welcome addition for pulling back from the tactical clickfest and rewarding more strategic play, but the 4x elements are more interchangeable than people seem to suggest. It's why I think an RTS/4X hybrid is appealing and believable. Moreso than other "Hybrids" (RTS/FPS anyone?)

BUT, in the interest of the poll, A slightly longer, deeper feel to the tech tree would certainly go a long ways towards generating a more "4X" feel (otherwise knows as EPICaliciousness). To that end I support moving the Prototypes down towards the bottom of the tree and increasing overall research time (for individual techs).

We now return you to your regularly scheduled argument.
-Kilumanjaro

I don't to return to the other argument. I feel like hijacking it a little longer with the level 1 prototype / individual research time idea. I think it's awesome! I would love to be able to chose which ship I want first, the carrier or Kodiak or... (with respectively diff cost in money, resources, n time). I'm not sure how this supports to OT or the research argument above, but it adds variety to strategy in a 4X/rts way? I'm done.

I really like that. In fact, I did propose something like some weeks ago, but it was for new lanes (additional lanes discovered as the game advances, to make it more strategic)

I really think that could be one of the way to help.

I understand what you`re saying... though I am still fond of the possibility to control said times.

I think I might contend that applicability of research speeds is more dependent upon size of star system than on the overall real-time nature of the game, which is why I suggested making Research Times an option configurable in a server/host setup screen. For small star maps you can set the setting to its Default/Normal speed, while for a larger star map (player discretion) you could set it to Campaign speed, which of course would make the research take place at a slower rate.

I know there would be circumstances in which the group I game with would want to extend such time periods for a certain flavour of game. I know there would be times & circumstances where the regular ressearch speed would be desired as well.

Yes, Sins is unique in that map sizes don't really change overall game times in a very linear fashion. Just adding a second star can add a disproportionate amount of time to complete the game. So if you blanket it by universally greatly increasing research times to benefit the longer games, in short games you'll barely get any research done.

Modifying it so that single/few star follow one time setting, and larger games another could work, but it's unlikely we'll see it.

What about an option, in the game creation screen that would change the research speed ? Like GalCiv 2. Everybody wins on that point hhehe.

Micro != fun, ever.

RTS / FPS hybrids are incredibly fun, actually. I've only had the change to play one -- a half life mod -- but it was incredibly fun and rewarding, and worked very well.

Some how I don't think spending the first three hours using just cobalts and conquering a couple dozen planets before you get a second capital ship will interest people much, that's the scope you're looking at here. Why it's not immediately grasped remains a mystery.

Personal opinion. I very much enjoy microing in Sins

The micro addicts are the reason sins leans toward the RTS. Just once i would like a game to where i tell a fleet to go do something then go off, and read a paper knowing the AI will handle the rest.

And when two fleets of near equal strength meet for battle you're happy for the outcome to be largely determined by the actions of the AI or elements of chance?

ahh, nice thought. or rather make micro have only rather marginal returns i.e. you do get better battle results, but not significantly, so using to time to focus more on empire management may be more rewarding.

psychoak's argument is also valid that waiting for hours to get a second or third ship type would not be so much fun. tbs solve this by introducing better version of existing units and from time to time different units altogether ( gunpowder, tanks in CIV games), but I don't see this as much of an option for sins.

to the different game speed options on different game scales: I'd say if entails more balancing effort, so its not as simple as it first sounds.

edit: oh, and dthif1980, I remember your thread about the jump lanes, I liked that idea, but what I proposed is sth different. your proposition would change the dynamic in middle to late game, my idea(s) would make early exploration slower, but maybe more exciting and diverse.