This reminds me of Starcraft's "Team Melee" mode: up to four players have shared command of all the units, buildings, and research on one side.

It's great fun to play over a LAN, as the game only ends when one side has been knocked out, and thus no players are eliminated early. It also allows different people to concern themselves with different aspects of the game (combat, economy, etc).

This was one of the biggest omissions from Sins, in my opinion. Heck, even Rise of Nations had it.

The best approach would be to democratize it so each player on the team can control everything: buildings, units, research, etc. The players themselves will determine who is to be a soldier, who is to run the economy, etc.

I'd like it. Lots. Maybe in a patch?

@the captain

Starcraft exactly

Man i like how your brain works - here and in Cap Ship thread...

Thanks for support and nothing further to add...

Personally, as this is Clan play you are concerning yourself with and not quick match or everyday games, you are catering to the most experienced/and community orientated section of the community

If you want large games you have to have some sort of cohesion, which means friends or matches either something like this is a must to implement or similarly to what is suggested above, or do something else to help.

I have been thinking, TIME is most peoples issues.

Resuming Saved games seems to be an issue, finding everyone online at a time where everyone is ready to play, but not yet in a match etc.

What would be good is some sort of thing tied into IC online. everyone has Email addresses attached to the game account I believe?


Simple answer would be to have a Outlook type calender, built into IC Online, where everyone can put down times they intend to play, how far in advance I would leave to the Dev's but say 2 weeks at a time would be sufficient say... When you log on, just a tab that says calender box similar to the friends box, which you can open, 3 columns, date, expected online Start time, expected Duration. All that would be needed is 3 drop down boxes and an add, also a repeat by week feature would be nice for people with regular schedules. You wouldn't need to look at it at all, unless you are in a saved game, then a pop up box could come on screen saying something like incomplete game please check your calender, just to remind you.

When you save and shut down a game, IC online looks at everyones calender, and then emails the players when it believes the best time would be to finish the game based on everyones scheduled active times. If it can't match in the next two weeks it sends an email saying unable to resolve a date/time, lists the players in the game, so you can add them as friends and help you re-arrange at a later date. For IC's servers and space issues, I wouldn't advise allowing for re-rearranging.

I know it sounds a real pain, but I think that by giving people some sort of matching facility you will get more games finished which is the point of the match right. I can't always dedicate 5-8 hours in a row for a game, but I would be willing to do a few clicks each time I come online to plan even just a week ahead.

Obviously IC would have a fairly large chunk of code to write, what do people think though....

Am I just dreaming, living in cloud coucoo land or the only sad one that has such a busy life that has to try and schedule everything in? Or would other people find this or something similar helpful in actually completing those epic matches which just never seem to get completed due to never seeing the people online again?

lol

Just tell me Im a fool if not

eeeeeeeeeeeee

lol not using outlook man, I only said the filth of MS as to give you an idea of wht it can do.

I don't care how good you are in a 5v5 you aren't gonna finish in one go if you have a 4 or 5 star system map with 80+ worlds, well not unless you wanna play all day/night long.

The reason I said what I did is to make things as painless as possible, you simply put in when you are intending on playing, and then the game can do the rest?

Otherwise why have the ability to save games, if you aren't going to finish them?

I can see the point of having shared trees, and ability to hand off fleets to team mates, is all great ideas, and I would say add them in, but when it comes down to it, not all games will be do able in one go, how do you combat that or at least make it simpler? Or those games will never really get played and you will loose part of what is great about the game!

I have never completed a game bigger then 1 star system, and I would love too, but just can't arrange to finish a started game like that.

I'll shut up now.

My ideas were sort of more global to deal with big games, and I missed the words new mode in your OP embarrassed much lol

Yup i play 4v5's all the time the games dont last longer than 2 hours and we havnt lost yet go figure.

Its the level of skill and the sims in space mentality that makes it drag on for you.

Yes, that's what I was saying. When we play against other veteran players the games last 45-120 minutes.

Playing against newbs they last 15-20. So we don't do that, it's not fun. If we just play with random people we do 3vs7 or 4vs6 and even then games don't last THAT long.

RE: Enhancing MP experience

IMO in addition to the smaller map that was mentioned by OP, the limiting factors in this game are credit+resource rate and movement. If you increase those things, it should go faster.

In the new options ships move fast enough..


And like drex said.. In multistar maps, like 5 stars, games can last more than 2 and a half hours for experienced players. That's why you just play 1 star ones with 35-60 planets.

Resource rates don't need increasing, you need to learn how to get more resources.
You don't increases resources because new players don't yet know how to get high income rates quickly because if you increase theirs, say, 50%, you're making the game 50% faster for the experienced players which is too much.

Look at my income rate at the scores at the end of games..
I can get you some replays when i get home tonight but i'm just going to zip up some random ones and not look and see what's in them.

Thanks for support man

And it is exactly what i am talking about - an extra mode without any influence on game as it is played now... And main reason for this is???

Yes - team work is one of the reasons...

Yes - game with extra mode attached to it is more fun is another reason...

Etc...

But main reason really is that Sins is awesome MP and Claning platform yet due to its size and time needed to complete large 5v5 game it isn't really taking of and it never will (not as cool clan game anyway)...

So more teamwork, more players in a game and less time to complete a round with as little compromise on what makes Sins in the first place = game would find its way into Claning scene way easier and become more popular...

IMHO if IC wants to break into Clan scene with this game - this or very similar MODE is simply must - asap as well...

go on sins IRC and we'll arrange a game against you.