Last night I was playing with my buddy against two AI on a custom map with around 30 planets. After we cleaned up the pirates we focused on one of the AI. After a couple miscalculated phase jumps, I thought, wouldn't it be nice if there were phase jump timers? For example: I click on my fleet and mouse over the next planet to attack, it says 3 minutes and 42 seconds to reach it. My ally checks his phase jump timer and decides he will reach the planet I'm leaving from before it would be possible for the enemy to reinforce. Now we have coordinated a decisive offensive without wasting any time. Your thoughts? If someone has already suggested this or I am missing something, forgive me.

Oh, to add to my previous post- PJIs desperately need to be buffed. Defensive lines are completely meaningless- anybody who says they "stall" enemy fleets obviously has not had 200 heavy cruisers make 3 jumps through defended planets to their home system.

Turrets are also for the most part useless.

In terms of improving ICO, I would like to see a better more "pedestrian user" friendly way to change the default hosting port. I can literally host games in my collection (that's about 10 current games from the past year or so) but not SOASE because the hosting port is "awkward"...or something. My ISP is instituional, so even if I could talk to someone who knows what a port is, they won't change it. So if I could change it in-game to something that I think or know will work without having to dig around, that would be great.

Yes, I can join games fine in SOASE, but no hosting for me.

I think it would be cool to be able to buy out the nuetral factions or pirates gaurding nuetral systems kind of like in Rise of Legends. I also think the minor races should be in control of the world so start out with, so you have to take them out to get the world.

Agree totally on a major buff for PJIs. Please fix, kthx.

I haven't played the game for that long to be able to come up with more specific and technical suggestions, so I'll give you the most important request I have on my mind at this time:

More [immersive] content.

Now, when I speak, I speak for at least 4 other 4X veterans (of varying degrees) I know who hold similar views. When we play games like that (usually co-op alliances against AI), we always long for more content that would allow us to enjoy the game for a longer period of time. More diverse planet types with specific planet requirements, more technology upgrades (I haven't finished any most of the tiers yet but they seem very limited), especially more unique and/or rare galaxy objects and events. Anything that makes the gameplay less mundane and repetitive after a couple of weeks/months of playing. I'm a game developer myself, and I know it's much easier said than done, but I also know that things like that really, really do add up to the gameplay and enrich it. Those specific planet requirements (and related events) will allow to play two similar maps with two different planet types and think of them as of completely different game experiences. I also find random events and distant/hidden galaxy objects to be of utmost importance. You may blame it on Star Trek, but I need to see my universe full of mysteries and surprises. And here lies the problem with those of us who center on the eXplore part of 4X: the time when the game gets predictable is also the time we uninstall it and start waiting for an expansion pack. Or an alternative, whatever comes first.

Ok, before I shut up, here's more specific proposal, ripped right from Civilization: (optional) technology trading among allies who get their @$$es kicked by the mean AI. And, please, forget the balancing and just give us the new content. That is all.

I agree completely. There are a couple of skyboxes I can't use, because I can't see what's happening.

On the other hand, some sort of a game editor would be nice. Modding the game files manually seems to be too cumbersome for anything but the most simple mods.

While I dont agree with the PJI totally shutting down a phase lane, since breaking through the lines should be a viable tactic, and a bit of clever placing and a massive fleet could give a player a titanic advantage, using such a tactic should be accompanied by large casulties. You have just ignored a players battle fleet and moved past it, you should have been shredded.

Decreasing uni health may be a bad idea, as it would make the battles even more hectic. I think that what the PJI should do is cause (as has been suggested) ships to have a 10%/14%/17%/19%/20% (diminishing returns, you can build 5, but you wont get 50%) chance of having their phase jump engines fail when they try to leave a system with an active hostile PJI. They would then get a "Phase jump engines" disabled debuff for 1 minute.

So breaking through the lines would be a costly and difficult, but still possible process. If you want to ignore the eneamy and blast towards a main resource world it will be possible, but youd better bring enough forces to do the job right. And be willing to accept that many of them wont be coming back.

As a gameplay example I give you this. Player X has built a superweapon at his home planet. His main fleets are holding position at heavily defended outposts on the border of his empire. You dont have time to engage this fleet, you must kill the superweapon. You create a large fleet of ships and attack his system, promptly jumping past him. Here 20% of your fleet is left behind and defeated in detail. At the next jump point you split your fleet in 2, with half heading deeper into space and half stationing to delay his pursuit. Your fleet fights his, and attempts to hold it back long enough for your assault fleet to get enough elements to his homeworld to blow up the weapon. Losses on your side are horrific, and success far from guaranteed but you could attack, and he could defend. Currently only the former is possible

I'm glad someone thinks so. I think it could work and would be a pretty good alternative to simply raising the fleet cap or changing the rules (especially since that can have unintended consequences). The militia wouldn't count against your cap, either.



I like this idea quite a bit... Simple, but it would help with both multiplayer games AND with coordinating strikes in single player games.

I also like the idea of more content... Not necessarily a huge amount (the tech tree, for instance, is ok as is with me until an expansion) but I would like to see more planet skins, different sized planets, planets with different benefits, that sort of thing.

theres already a mp pause.

I wouldn't mind better camera control and more random pirate fleets compositions

in-game ability to change game speed so that in the end game when you're going planet to planet and doing the final assaults on an enemy who stands no chance you can speed it up

Modify the font slightly to make it less "fat" and more clearly legible on InfoCards and the like.

Add some PDF documentation or preview functions that allow players to see how ships' special abilities work before they build them. How am I, as a new player (or a player trying out a race I haven't before), supposed to make intelligent research and build decisions when I don't know what ships' special abilities even do?

I'd like some control over victory conditions. Maybe checking a little box for the ones that count. For example, being able to choose between "normal victory" and "they all must fall". And maybe a victory condition where the first to destroy the pirate base wins. You just pump up the pirate's starting ships and it'd be great.

Oops, forgot one more thing I think the game needs: One hotkey button to expand/collapse the entire Empire tree. Might not seem like much to some people, but having to use two keys for it right now means finding two unused keys near each other on the keyboard (or even worse using a Shift/ctrl/alt+key option). Neither are very easy options in the heat of battle.

Superweapon quick button from planet select. It sucks to have to zoom into the planet and specifically select the superweapon itself just to use it.

Give us more time to do diplomatic mission especially on larger map. Give us a research time multiplier option at the start of the game (instead of "normal" "slow" "fast" something like 1X base time 5X base time 100X base time or 0.5X base time for faster gameplay)

Cheating AI, definitely.

Make light carriers easier to use; ideally you should be able to set them to automatically start building a squad when they finish construction.

Agreed. In fact, superweapons should autopin to the empire tree in their own group.

Another small suggestion... And this is mainly cosmetic... But allow us to name fleets like we name ships. That might make it easier to select the right fleet from the Empire Tree... "1st Offensive Fleet" or "3rd Defensive Fleet" would allow is to at least keep track of which is which without getting mixed up on colors... which I tend to do, but that may just be me.

Better AI, better AI and better AI.

Slower speed setting (especially research and production) would be nice, too.

What Sins also needs is some kind of scaling mechanism depending on map size. When playing a huge map, you are usually done researching everything and have reached the fleet cap when you haven't even set foot on one of the other star systems.

Oh, and the diplomacy system... but that is so screwed up that you probably will need to rework it completely and that will take longer than two weeks.

Did I mention better AI?

1.timer insted of the yellow bar on the research.

2. beeing able to rearrange the research queue..pause something i started rather then cancell it.

3.make the AI work as a team atm we played vs 5 hard AI and what happens is that they sometimes attack without thought and some flee b4 the others can arrive to help.

4.the AI never builds defenses...almost not at all...he should have max use of his slots like maybe have 7-8 hangers etc..

5.beeing able to chat during pause.

thats all 4 now great job the game is awesome!

ok i really like the idea that has been bought up around phase jump timers and time to target. this would be really helpful.

As to the pji idea for causing it to be a debuff that stops phase jump for a minute - it can take a fleet a minute just to travel across a planet - this would have to be at least 3/4 minutes with a HIGH chance of occuring. all in all i'd prefer it to simply act as a stopper, and force people to fight you for land control. In reality you cant simply take a large army behind enemy lines, you need to force the point and create the incursion.

As to the guys who responded around my earlier suggestions thx! in regards to my 3rd point about speccing into a certain tech tree line - it was more as a way to allow different play styles even within a certain race become more accentuated, and allow for those who wish to play a more defenisve type of game vs those who want to be an economic / culture / offensive powerhouses. it might only be hihger level techs that are not allowed to be concurrently researched as (for purposes of storyline) you need to invest all your human (and i use the word loosely) capital into researchers of a particular field to gain such high level techs.

Yes, more speed options please. And that's all I have to say about that.

Reduce the AI's ridiculously high emphasis on seige frigates.

As a player, once you realize that at least half of any invading fleet is going to be seige, the AI becomes extremely easy to defend against. All those seige frigates, which die so easily to hangar defenses and small frigates, eat up a lot of the AI's supply. That means that, when your big fleet clashes with the AI's big fleet, you're going to have a major advantage. While the AI is wasting enormous supply on seige, which are useless against your fleet, you're pummeling his few supporting caps and small frigates (the AI doesn't use many cruisers) with all of your ship-to-ship vessels.

The AI needs to realize that bombing your planet into oblivion (assuming the seige don't all die to defenses before getting the job done) is meaningless if you wipe out the AI's entire fleet in the process. While the AI has to struggle to replace its fleet, all you need to do is re-colonize your planet. The more effective strategy is to wipe out the enemy's ships and static defenses, and then bomb the locals with impunity.

Until the AI starts making smarter choices when filling out its fleet, it will never put up a decent challenge.