Actually I was thinking the same thing, you should be able to scale it back down. But, so people can't just due it willy nilly strap on some costs and make it so that it has 'de-research' for a fairly long time, making it so that the player still has to pay the upkeep for a bit AND the added cost for 'de-grading' the system.

The problem with this is, the military isn't going to throw away technology they need to win a war after they have acquired it, regardless of cost, if it is during a time of war.

This is why I support the "haulting the supply lines" theory of it slowly scaling back and costing less and less if you suffer heavy losses.

Add a slider in addition to the tech. You can research the tech to unlock larger fleet sizes. Then you have a slider below it. You can move the slider up and down, the minimum being 0 upkeep but no tech enhancements and the top being maxed out with 70% upkeep (75?). You set a point on the slider that you want. The point you want does not represent where things actually are. Instead there is a secondary value shown behind it (Like a media player on youtube, there is a slide for what is loaded and where you want to be) that slowly creeps up and down until it hits where you want it to be.

So lets say I had all the fleet upgrades and my entire fleet just got whompped in a 8 way FFA. Well then I slide the slider down to 0% upkeep and start building ships. However I still keep paying large amounts of upkeep until it creeps back down over a couple minutes.

The slider should allow you to set a point less than what you currently have (Say you are using 500 fleet points but you only want 400) but it won't move under 500 until ships are scuttled or blown up.

To all the people saying it would be realistic to have scalable logistics;

We're fighting in ****ing space, with ****ing sounds, with some big bad space empire on the ****ing run, and humans haven't had a ****ing war for a thousand years.


Oh no, we better make those realistic! Gotta remove the sound and add some wars into it (making the tec much more warlike), and the chances of meeting an alien race are pretty slim, so we gotta remove the Vasari. And some PSI-ability race bent on revenge? Yea right, gotta remove that also because it's just not realistic!

[Moderator edit: Please refrain from using the f-word.]

Windexglow, I think that is a cop out to avoid discussion of if it is broken, if it is good desirable behavior and how to fix it if the answer is yes.

There's a thing known as "realistic unrealism" as well, whereby a person designs a world and gives it rules. In this world, some logics are removed (such as, currently, psychic powers are impossible). However, in the future, genetic engineering rampant, a lot of this stuff would be possible.

Sounds in space can be explained by having near-omnipotent sensors on your ships that capture all data they "see" and then synthesize a sound associated with what it would sound like in an atmosphere.

Your entire argument is just trying to derail this conversation because you don't like the thought of adding realism to parts where it, get this, makes sense. Wow, what a novel concept!

This game, despite what you may think, is very realistic in its unrealism. It may be a fictional world with currently impossible things, but it is still realistic in many ways.

All of this said, if for no other reason than gameplay, having a scalable upkeep of some form would be of massive benefit to the game, as long as it isn't an instant 1:1 ratio.

Mixed bunch of replies I see!

What I'd like is the ability to "scuttle" the fleet upfleet cost. Even if you get no money when scuttling and have to research them again at a later date that would be fine.

As it stands, I was 2 hours into the game. We had a huge battle and an enemy slipped down the side of the map and wiped out all my resources. My ally had a fleet at home so battled them off whilst I fought the main battle which I ultimately lost. By the time my ships were dead my ally was at the front and the enemy retreated.

Now in any normal game (as lets remember its a game not real life!) you could spend time rebuilding your empire whilst the enemies are fighting you back again. Would have taken me a while but it may have been possible if my ally could hold out.

However what happened is I was unable to build anything at all. I had two planets left with a negative amount of credits so was stuck on zero. My ally was doing his best to help me out but everytime I received money it went to zero pretty quickly.

After an hour of only being able to build a few frigates I just quit the game as it was pointless. So then my ally shortly quit too as it was 2v1.

For all those saying that the fleet upfleet cost is realistic however - think about it. I'd lost all my structures so what is there to upkeep! I had no buildings!! We managed to hold off the final attack against my homeworld but what was the point if I couldnt do anythng afterwards anyway!

The fleet size mechanic works for Sins, bottom line. When you decide to field a larger fleet, you commit yourself. Smaller fleet empires will have more resources to play with & devote to things such as defenses and research, while you will have greater mobile striking power.

The mechanic makes sense in a 4x game - explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate implies growth of empire, not some kind of reconsideration or scale-back.

Working things this way also gives far greater importance to taking and holding worlds later in the game... the stakes resource-wise are higher, because even simply the sheer fleet size (nevermind its make-up) depends upon it. Larger empires pay a price for becoming that large. I like it a great deal from that perspective.

Scale upkeep to actual force size in Sins and you`ll wind up with a game play mechanism by which players crank out units and throw them into contests with abandon, because they can easily regenerate them. Replenishing forces after a costly battle should *not* be easy.

I'd have to agree to some limited scaling back of upkeep costs when you lose a fleet, with a fairly slow decay and a cap on how low it can go. For example, let's say you have a maxed out fleet at the highest supply level- which will take the full 75% upkeep. Later, you fight a massive fleet battle, which costs you your entire fleet. At this point, I would be for having the supply costs begin slowly falling to around 50% upkeep. While you still should pay a hefty premium for the potential fleet capacity of 2000, you shouldn't be paying 75% of your entire economy for an actual fleet of around 200. I'm also opposed to immediate decay, because you should be punished for losing a fleet- just not as much as the game currently does.

I would also support the idea of no decay occurring until your fleet (plus queued ships) falls two supply brackets below your actual level. This way, if you only have a few losses, you don't benefit from the reduced supply costs. To put it in the supply line model, this would simulate the supply lines only scaling back for a serious reduction in the size of the fleet. I also wouldn't mind seeing this scaling back as an expensive, high-level tech along the lines of "Adaptable Supply Doctrine".

You are punished though if you lose your fleet! Its not as if you can instantly rebuild another one! By the time you've built up a large fleet again the other team will have taken over a load of your planets and be raking in the cash.

As it stands, you play the game for 2 hours, have one decisive battle and then if you lose you know you cant rebuild so just quit. Whats the point? No point sitting around for another hour or so fighting a battle you know you cant win back on due to a lack of resources. Its a game after all so people arent just going to sit there!

Why not make it an option in the multiplayer menu. Fleet scaling cost or something. Either on or off. Then everyone is happy!

LOL... yes, the player should be punished for sacrificing his/her fleet. The point is that if you *know* you're going to lose your fleet, you have to retreat BEFORE that happens.

In war, unlike most RTS games, knowing when to retreat is as important as knowing how to win. "Live to fight another day," as the old saying goes!

The fleet upkeep is a bit annoying, but I tend not to max it out until I am know it's the big, final push. Keep it a couple notches less, so even if the opponent has a bigger fleet, you have the economy to replenish your fleet more quickly.

Hey, it's only been 3 weeks... it takes time to adjust and learn Sin's deeper game play.

I agree with you here, loosing a fleet, even if it is lost while defending a planet should not cripple the empire, for it will take a long time to rebuild the lost fleet. Even though, this is offset, by the strategy of having a big fleet requires a large empire, preventing having just 2 planets, turtling up, stockpiling ships and creating a monster fleet.

I think the fix to this, is easy in the mods we see in the modding section. An increase in fleet supply offsets this. I find a 50 to 75% fleet supply increase is a good number for battles.

Most of the games i have played, i usually cap out at 50 to 60% maintenance upkeep for a good balance. If i get close to my max fleet support, i think, do i need to attack? or increase my upkeep, usually i attack.

And sometimes you suffer crushing blows trying to defend a strategic and *important* location.

Then the rest of the army goes "REMEMBER THE (insert place of crushing defeat) to rally and inspire the rest of the army that wasn't at that place.

The simple fact is, your empire should not be crushed because your army got hit in the arm with a sledgehammer. There should be viable methods of recovering from a crushing defeat, since not all defeats come at the hands of idiots wantonly throwing ships about.

I think "research" should also make the fleets more effective in supplies higher the level you go. Using set costs would be great instead of %'s , Maybe cooldowns would work too? Like after 5 minutes if you don't have your fleet back up to that supply level it could drop down to the next lower %. Plus being able to SCRAP DIFFERENT UNITS would be great!!!! If Diplomacy worked in this game compared to other games this all could work perfect. During long peace times fleets are usually smaller in general. The game play is all there but the dynamics of being able to micro manage small parts aren't if you want to! A easy way to fix it all is make a treasury scroll even to determine fleet supply by setting your own percentage of devoted resources. Alot of games your able to even go into the negative second / turn due to fleet size. This should be a option during times of despiration of lets saying you end up fighting fleets on opposite sides of your empire. If you have the reserve you should be able to do so!.

Well, if it was like a loss at Pearl Harbour, then I hope your cap ships survived. But I do agree that the actual fleet size should factor (partially) into the upkeep equation.

I've been mulling over a few possibilities, and the one I favour is right-clicking to back-track on upkeep upgrades. Having to repay the price and upgrade time should be enough of a penalty, IMHO. Not that my opinion matters anyway.

Maybe even scrap the fleet upkeep thing all together and simply have a unit limit like all other RTS games.

Problem with the fleet upkeep is the Vasari mainly. Once they have the ability to call in dark fleet theyve won. Its why MOST people play them. After a large battle, the player playing as TEC will take AGES to get enough resources again to rebuild his fleet. In that time the Vasari player gets loads of free ships so never has to worry about fleet upkeep.

The Dark Fleet ability is completely stupid when there is a fleet upkeep cost which stops other players rebuilding their fleets. Why isnt darkfleet affected by this too?

I would like to see the fleet supply upgrages happen automatically. You could build more ships and pay more for your fleet, or lose a couple ships and slip back down to the next lowest level.

Pervasive Economy + Industrial Juggernaut. Also a Vasari using only RA ships without any support craft will die to TEC fleet.

Those only go so far when the majority of the TEC's massive income is absolutely decimated by the massive upkeep levels you incur. Likewise, if a vasari player has RA, they don't care about upkeep, so they stop using the black market and start upgrading their fleet to max, since they can produce free ships (except, no siege frigates ). In this scenario, if both armies are at max fleet, the vasari will have the advantage just due to the absolutely massive advantage RA has over any other economy imaginable (what with getting 50 free fleet worth in ships (potentially) every 6 minutes per gate built). Not even TEC's ability to produce ships at a lightning pace can keep up with the vasari once they get RA ramped up to full.

That said, PE also scales best when more players are in the game, which causes the vasari advantage to be best in 1v1 games against TEC, whereas TEC get better and better as more players are present.



Perhaps, instead of just being an either/or thing, they make it so fleet starts to slowly bleed off upkeep if the cost is dramatically lower, with the ability to unlearn the fleet upgrade for a dramatically faster change if you so need it?



This would also be somewhat acceptable, though would work best if the max allowed fleet upgrade was somewhat tied into another research ability. Such as, you cannot get rank 8 upkeep unless you have a rank 8 research in one of the other things learned, or if you have 14+ capitol ships built. Capitol ships should also benefit from this change (auto-scaling)

The only problem with this method, however, is the game was designed around needing to research increasing the upkeep cost, which is why I prefer an "auto-scaling" method most.

upkeep should be Money cost. Should not affect metal and crystal as it does now.

I assume upkeep also affects metal/xtal for my production drops off later on in the game.

My recommendation is to keep the current tech structure but have the tax fluctuate down one step if your fleet size is less then what the current step provided in fleet logistics value in the current step.

For example, If I am at level 6 in my supply which gives me say 800 points and the difference between step 5 and 6 is 200 additional supply points. If I have more than 200 supply points available (which means that I have lost ships since the upgrade), I would pay the step 5 upkeep cost instead of step 6's. Once my logistics supply went below 200 (which would mean that I am now in step 6 supply step) I would start paying the upkeep cost for step 6.

Since you can only go down one step max regardless of unused supply points, there isn't any "cheating" especially in the end game the lowest you would be supporting is ~53% then when you rebuild your fleet the upkeep goes back to your max level.

In chess a pawn can't move backward. That's not very realistic either but it does added depth to the game's strategy.

If it were up to me, I would split the difference between upkeep and actual ships fielded.

Right now, when you research the first fleet cap upgrade, it costs you 9% of your economy. I would make 3% a constant effect from the research itself to represent general overhead. I would then balance out the remaining 6% to come from the 270 points of ships themselves, each ship having a small cost per second applied to your overall economy.

This would allow another method for balancing ships and races. I would make 50 points of cap ships cost a little less per second than 50 points of cruisers, which would cost a little less than 50 points of frigates. This would encourge people to invest in cap ship crews so they can field cheaper fleets, and discourage early frigate spams because they would delay getting to the mid game. I wouldn't want this to be so major as to nerf frigates, just enough to tip the scales a little in favor of cap ships, and away from frigate spam. It seems logical that a bunch of little ships would require more logistical support that one big one anyway.

Then, you would always have to pay the 3% per tech level, but if you took major losses in a big battle, your economy wouldn't be so bogged down that you can't ever recover. This could also help re-tune the Vasari's Dark Fleet so they're not entirely 'free' (they'd have to take over the upkeep per second on the arrived ships), and TEC's huge economy advantage and fast build times which lets them prevail in a war of attrition all other things being equal.

I like this idea. I ensures taht you still maintin your rank during wartime and at the same time it adds the reality of diverting fleet costs in proprtion to fleet size. I think this is the best solution I've heard so far. It seems to cover alot of bases and when you add a time delay from degrading/upgrading decision to actuality it adds alot of sense. It's like dismissing all your engineers for a time and divering their skills towad mining while the fleet is rebuilt and overhead costs slowly fluctuate downwards to the dynamic market. This solution is great. And its very dynamic which adds cool pointsd to the game

Sounds like a lot of complexity in all these solutions! Which decreases the chance of any changes coming...

Like most of these things, people will always prefer different options, so I would suggest a simple checkbox option in the game start screen, called "Proportional Upkeep"

Checked means researching the higher upkeep allows your MAXIMUM fleet to get to that higher level, but the REAL upkeep is based on actual fleet size.

Unchecked means upkeep works as it does now.


If the above is too hard, the other option is that the research just 'unlocks' that level of upkeep, but you can select any of the lower levels of upkeep at any time. Some may say that's too simplistic, but for any chance of fighting back if you lose most of your ships, you need that cash to get back on foot.

Cheers guys