Inside the Stardock / Ironclad Sausage Factory

I would welcome AI replacing dropped players. I play strangers online and all too often someone has to leave for one reason or another.

Definitely needed, superweapons in this game are a little difficult to counter short of destroying them.

Not what I expected, or wanted. (That said, the Advent SW could use some little love...)



Like the Vasari tech?

Awesome glad to see you guys giving the game the famous stardock treatment. You guys are my new favorite developer!   

Frogboy, let me be the first one to say that we really love what you created and the way u are communicating with us like you were one of us "gamers".
Thats defiantly unique and simply one of the best things about Sins.
So i hope that u dont take any critics too seriously/personal cause most of em complain because they rly like Sins and want it to get even better.
With that said i think there wasnt any reason for you to "justify" the changes although its great that even in this case u are stating exactly how and why those changes will be included.

Btw all those 19 points look to me like very good ideas and something u should defiantly consider to include in the next patches.

ai surrendering would make a huge difference in single player games. they'd cut the game time in half in a good way.

Ummmm....a monk-ability for planets to host/repair allied ships???   

j/k

1 superweapon per system!? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! *Darth Vader*

Only acceptable if you give us planet destroyers!

Sounds unbalancing. Can you build more than one in the same gravity well? Does it have a radius like the regular jump inhibiter? Are capital ships immune? If not, will scouts get some researchable immunity so you can recon before you send your fleet into a do-or-die fight?

Like I said, these are just ideas we have discussed. This is not a list of features that will be necessarily going in.

I like them all and that would be icing on top of the icing on the cake!

9. Not such a good idea IMO. SWs should be insanely high up the research tree and expensive to build, thus making the player trying to make one extremely vulnerable...BUT if he were able to get it, watch out...he's going to smoke you.

19. Let's expand upon this...how about allowing new players the ability to take over an AI player mid-game as well??? (WiC)

RANDOM EVENTS!!!

Do it, and I will be your love puppy for all eternity Brad.

Wait, scratch that, do it and I *wont* be your love puppy for all eternity. I Galciv2 random events.

1) Re: AI smartly surrenders when it's losing badly (planned for 1.03)

Please make this optional for those of us that like to see it through to the bitter end.

2) AI behaviors:

a) Less likely to run. Especially if fleeing will cost it a planet (AI flees too often and fails to recognize the value of attrition or the detriment of sacrificing planets). Fleeing as it stands is a bit out of control. The AI seems to never stand and fight unless it has a huge upper hand. This is rather low on the fun factor as you have to chase it all over the place just to get a single fight in this military focused 4x game. Currently the only interesting fights are against Pirates or an AI that has fled down to his last planet. The game feels more like a car chase than a epic space battle game at times.

Recognize the value of economic and military tech. The AI barely techs and forgoes building trade port or refineries, yet will dump 10s of thousands into bounties. Most games end with an AI with zero trade income and 0 to 10 tech in each group.

c) More likely to attack with balanced fleets (ie no more 12 siege frigates that jump and run all over the place).

3) Either better descriptions or an easier way to see the direct result of upgrades. For example, my bombers had the same damage at the beginning of the game as the end, yet I have researched damage upgrades several times. What did that tech do?

4) Population dies very very fast yet I have to keep bombing-- why? Some kind of damage ratio that makes more sense (planet health vs population)?

5) Moons instead of planets always having asteroids?

6) Space monsters or other MOO2 like random events?

I disagress about Siege Frigate HP decreased, how about Siege Frigate decreased rate of firepower? They seem go too fast for spam and spam missiles after missiles. Siege Frigate HP should stay, dont want end up Siege Frigate Hull is like a paper to easy to tear!

Go take a Howitzer or even a mortar into a battlefield and see how long you last.

Repair and support, What is that have to do with it? Said, I can kill them about 3 to 4 second each for Pirates Siege Frigate. If Siege Frigate alive because Howitzer, should look at Howitzer, not siege frigate, again I think real problem lay in Siege Frigate has very fast rate of fire, Not a HP.

ICO Improvements = yay.

I know there are fixes/work arounds to get people online...but those shouldn't be the first things to do in order to play online. For some of us, that's an easy item - others...not so much.

AI suggestions:
Evasive AI: AI will try to avoid major conflicts with you; often resorting to hit&run tactics, while being largely defensive
Brute Force: AI masses their units, leaving small vulnerabilities. Main tactic they use is plowing right over enemies with their large force; they do not retreat unless extremely outnumbered.

Yet another reason I love Stardock so much.

A "DEMAND SURRENDER!" Option.
please, seriusly, I know ruleing an empire is supoosed to be less fun the conqering it, but the clean up just drags on and on. makes me consier abjucating the moment the war is over to avoid the paper work.

as a friend of mine just said "Its what RTS and 4X games have been missing for a very long time."

I dont mind the stress of fleet and empire command, the hard work of winning a fight. I mind being the guy mopping up that last miserable dreg of an empire that holds out like they are fanatics. (even if they are fanatics, for the love of feth, give the greenhorns the easy busy work!)

And I love Ironclad too. A match made in heaven.

Preferably like the Age of Empire's system, where the AI offers their surrender, with an accept or 'Die treacherous dogs!' option .

I like all of them really, especially 9 (even though I'm usually the one with the superweapons :P) 12 (No more scouts wandering my rear planets uninhibited? Yes please) and 17 and 18.

Glad to see you guys have such a list. Personally I see it as a good thing as it shows you had more ideas than you could fit in, which is usually a good situation (at least when the ideas are good, which they all seem to be here).

Thanks for the update .

I really want the Advanced Phase Jump Inhibiter. Ideally it could be put on a Cap ship, so it's mobile, but make that ship relatively weak, and maybe unable to jump to a different system because of the inhibitor system interfering with jump drives.

I'd like mobile versions of the super weapons and proposed Counter Super Weapon Techs.

I also want a way of slowing down incoming trafic, or even blocking phase lanes. Have something of this nature very large (in terms of Tac slots) or costly, perhaps with a percentage lost of your resources to keep it working (and it blockng your own ships as well).

Antimatter factories that would build antimatter freighters automatically, and supply your military ships with them automatically, increasing their recharge rate depending on the number of antimatter freighters reaching you, but if they were blown up could cause daamge to all units and structures in the area...(lots for the factory, and some for the freighters) Also could be sold on the Black Market.

I think Cruisers should be built on a more advanced shipyard, and a (again!) mobile light shipyard that could build frigates would be a nifty add.

As far as Capital ships, I think having to research them just as researching Cruisers and most frigates would be cool.

I'd like a larger difference between planetary and interstellar phase jumps. Interstellar jumps wouldn't be available to all ships...

Finally, how about non fighter ships without phase jump drives? They'd be cheaper than normal ships, but unable to leave the planet they're built at. It would allow you to build a strong defensive force in some important areas, but they'd weaken your ability to attack unless you bought speciallized jump ships capable of carrying them to different areas. They'd take a different shipyard from the Frigate yard, have several types, (small medium large basically) but still take away from your ship cap.

19. Let's expand upon this...how about allowing new players the ability to take over an AI player mid-game as well??? (WiC)

I was thinking the same thing!

Golden! Me too!

I would ask that I be able to change game speed on the fly.