Some Planets should have more then 1 moon and you can upgrade them. Some moons look like astroids.. and orbit the planet.

--- moons can be destroyed not only by capital ships, but also by huge random astroids striking it.

also---- Creaters on planets when attacking it -- more realistic!!

Warning Superpost Ahead

The tech tree sections should be broken down into two sections. The first is the same for all races and the second is race specific. Just renaming the tech is transparent when the stats are exactly the same, so be blatant about it. This would let you focus on your development and balancing of the racial technologies since the general is automatically balanced.

Another modification to research should be an icon change if you are going to keep the stacked research. A little green arrow in the upper right corner to indicate that you have exhausted that upgrade would be really nice.

Each level of technology should take much longer than its predecessors to research but this should be reduced by the number of research labs you have. A level four technology with the bare minimum four labs should take twice as long as a level three with three labs. This would space out research a bit and add a research development path. You could also include race specific (or non) technologies that reduce research time.

One time artifacts that give you a random technology that is currently available for you to research.

No free Capital Ships at the start of the game as a Game Option.

Increase the shields and hulls of cruisers by 10% and Capital Ships by 20%.

Filter the audible warnings that a fleet is being attacked when it is a trade ship as a Game Option.

Constructions that combine military and logistical capabilities using slots from both (see #7 below). They should have the same slot costs with a slight (10%) saving on resource costs, with higher hull/shield ratings (if any).

Mobile defensive structures.

More artifacts that are randomly chosen at game generation and then randomly distributed. They could be linked to a story line, so that uncovering them brings up some historical story and point to the possible location (no names, just hints) of two other artifacts.

You should be able to give allies a planet/ships.

When be asked to do something for a race there should be two options provided for success. One should be a strike mission and the second should be a payment that is relative to size of the empire asking (larger require more).

Diplomatic Surrender so that the race continues to exists but they have to turn over all their artifacts to you (that you do not already have) and agree to never attack you again. This would be good if you defeat the vast majority of their fleet.


The following are my agreement with all those above
1)Research Exclusive Pathing
2)More Research Topics with more variation
3)Cultural Effects Reworked
4)More Ships of all three classifications OR a new Class (Dreadnaught)
5)Some Customization (cannot be full with this game design or it would be a nightmare to design but three or four slots across the levels)
6)More levels of defenses mainly passive to increase planetary survival
7)Outpost/Starbase that combines defensive platform, trade outpost, and refinery.

Adding Moons, and a lot of other objects to the game, even with a low poly count would make this game much less likely to run well on the highest settings in large games. If this is being considered please make it an Option that we can toggle. Not being conceited, but my system could handle it, but many others could not. These moons should not be colonizable (A Pop. of 1 = 1 Million) since they would be wiped out ten seconds into a raid. They could be used to mount special planetary defenses, like an upgraded weapon (extreme range and triple damage) OR shield system (covers both the planet and the moon from all damage for a limited time - 60s).

Artifacts should not be on the market. If you sell one then an enemy could buy it and use it against you. You would keep them even if you have multiples of the same (which I have never seen). What would be good is the ability to give one to an ally thereby forming a permanent alliance so they no longer ask you for missions (game effect is locking that team which the AI can do too).

To be fixed
By forming an alliance all your allies should be set to peace and if they break that then it pops up a decision box asking which side you wish to support (degrades the relation with the other). By not having to supporting anyone, it is very unrealistic right now. You should also have the option to influence peace and diplomatic relations between two races, so that you can form larger alliances (AI's too).

Currency, by its very definition, is not a commodity.

That's enough (for now...)

I personally would like to see mobile frigate factories that take up two or more capital ship slots and a hell of a lot of supply. They would be slow, and poorly defended, but well armored and capable of jumping.

Why? They are cheap to slap onto a planet and provide a secret line of defense since they do not take up a tactical slot. I have a lot of them, and strangely enough rarely use any of them except at my home world (Capship Factory is there too) for building a new fleet. I love waiting for the frigate sneak when the AI sends a few planetary assault frigates in behind my lines. By the time they get there I have two or more ships waiting for their "surprise". Then they jump back to my fleet into my experience pool.

Now a mobile home world would be something to see...

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/306747

we need an end game ship that costs like 100 supply and tonnes of credits metal and crystal. it should be a mobile planet. something that is exactly like a planet but on wheels. thrusters


would said planet sized weapon say I am Unicrom

I really really want a mega sized ship at the end of the research tree. At the moment we get ..... a canon? What? I want a death dealing, titan of destruction, majestically moving through space taking on all comers and laughing at them. I want to send it to the pirate home sector by itself and just watch in awe as it's mighty shields stand up to all they have to throw at it while multiple beam weapons and missles blow the pirates out of the sky.

That's what I want.

Please!

Wow, lame. We are going to end up with a super ship. Everyone seems to want it. *shakes fist*

I hope there is a super ship defense that can be built for like 4/5 super ship price...

ya it would be good to research (endendgame) a mobile planet,or supercap, or the ability to build super defesne stations that incircle a gravitiy well (would have to cost tonnes and the restriction of building say 1 per every 10 planets. that way u just dont mass em but strategically have to place em. and supercaps/ships limited to 1 and a mobile planet limited to 1.

ya it would be good to research (endendgame) a mobile planet,or supercap, or the ability to build super defesne stations that incircle a gravitiy well (would have to cost tonnes and the restriction of building say 1 per every 10 planets. that way u just dont mass em but strategically have to place em. and supercaps/ships limited to 1 and a mobile planet limited to 1.

whoops double post

I was just talking about a mobile home world, not a death star.


Actually the last ship you get is the heavy cruiser, which is really lame. I can build any full blown Capship immediately, but it takes at least 5 labs to research that?!?

I wouldn't even call that thing a cannon since it doesn't do much. A cannon puts big holes in things, but when I tried two of them out (in different games) they were quite useless.

A single Supership would be easily taken out by any Immobilizer buff powers that each race seems to have (at least two of them do). More diverse ship designs of the current classes would mean more possible fleet combinations, so that would mean a more interesting game with higher replayability.

I'd love the ability to offer or collect crystal or metal bounty, not just cash. Might help with the high reliance on the black market. Pirates could simply equate all resources to their present black market value when determining who they want to attack.

Yes, if you're a bad enough player to send one in alone. But pair it with a couple capships and damage-distributing or shield-restoring covering ships, and have any player worth his salt verify there's no hyperspace inhibitor in the system or any that is there can be taken out first, and it's suddenly not quite so easy to destroy that mothership.

Add me to the list that doesn't want to see uberships unless they're *carefully* balanced so that they don't become the automatic destination of every player's build tree and players can win without ever building one.

-- Retro

I like the experimental weapons that you get at the end of the research tree in Supreme commander. and when I played Masters of Orion II, I loved the fact that I could get bigger and better ships as research went on.

It's a major disappointment that with SINS you have access to all the capital ships right away, while a heavy cruiser is at the end of the research tree.

I don't think it's lame to want something interesting to use at the end. And SINS is all about ships isn't it?

I don't think it's been posted yet so...

Space Mines, that's really all I want.

I'd like the AI to be fixed so that it will concede when it's hopelessly doomed. Having to bomb every last crystal extractor into oblivion is tedious and takes away from a fun endgame. I know some folks like the satisfaction of destroying every last bit of the enemy, but maybe we could have a "surrender" toggle for the AI? Please!

Retro,

Excellent idea!


I should qualify that I only play on hard, so this comment is geared to that difficulty. With all the myriad of paths to attack your empire and the cost of a Supership you would have to be a serious gambler to send it in with anything other than a disposable fleet of frigates and cruisers. I have had simultaneous counter attacks on two of my systems while I am only able to attack one, otherwise. Of course, by the end of the game you have all that you need.


Try overlapping inhibitors. I don't remember which mod it was. I noticed the first and took it out immediately but missed the second, until I tried to jump of course.

I agree about the balancing of the Ubership, and forward that it should cost Capship slots if you want to build one.

Don't forget that you get experience for the structure kills. Since it takes time which means that Capship cannot be somewhere else, it becomes a strategic decision. If the surrender is offered and accepted then the player gets none of the XP for remaining structures, while if declined the player can continue normally.

* culture: some consider it too weak, I'd say its maybe a bit too simplified. my problem with it is that there is essentially only one way of getting it - construct media structures - and not so many ways to boost it. research, build more hubs and population? planetary bonuses you cannot really influence so I dont count them here.

also, the ways to counter culture are limited. you can build hubs yourself, you can research, you can station capships. to be sure, I do like the diversity of effects, culture provides, increase of allegiance, endangering enemies and race specific boni, very cool. but there are too few ways to profit from it imo. can't think of much you can change there, bc options are limited in the way the game is right now. one way would be to split the research items into the various effects culture gives, so you can increase either the race specific thing or the offensive thing ( or the allegiance thing, but that is limited to advent now anyways. might be interesting to make this more available, but just way stronger for advents).

especially on the offensive front, I think it makes you more of a target that it helps you non-militarily attack anyone. I will have a few ideas in another point below.

* bribe planets: frankly, this idea is straight from rise of legends. as we want an rts/4s hybrid, some econ strategies should be rewarded more and one way would be to give players to possibility to bribe neutral and player planetary governors (note: governor is just a word here, I dont want to get into governors as a gameplay item aka MoO II) to join your empire. the cool thing would be that the amount of resources needed would depend on culture/ allegiance, trade, fleetsize or maybe simply happiness which - as shown above - includes all those paraneters.

the bibery should have a lower limit where its a bit doubtful where you achieve or just waste money, but the more res. you offer, the better your chances get and the more items will change side. with high bribes you wouldn't only turn the planet to your side, but maybe even some ships and stations as well. to help the victim, the bribery should be instantaneous, but take a few minutes and, depending on happiness and bribe offered, either soon or fairly late between the bribe and the actual swith a warning would be delivered to the defending player. so effectively, some fighting will take place, but the attacker aka ecnomist will have a better position. also, it might make diplomacy more interesting, if this could work with players not currently at war and not cause war (aka 'they joined us, they are just sick of your oppression')

* tax level/ happiness: I think you should be able to determine on a per planet basis the level of taxes you collect from population ( and maybe from tade on an empire wade basis also somehow). the limit of tax level should be set by another new item, the happymeter (happiness meter). basically, that's a fairly common thing in 4x games and is influenced by a number of options, like colony size/ infrastructure, size of garrison fleet and defensive structures, cultural influence and of course taxes. the good thing about it is that you can adjust it readily and some good econ strategies will be to find ways to keep happiness even with fairly high taxes.

now, what should be the consequences of low happiness. well, population might protest and refuse to pay taxes at all for a while, angry mobs could damage infrastructure, population may be lost in insurgencies, ships or stations may go renegade and fire on sth, saboteurs could destroy things in orbit, or in the worst case, the colony may outright declare independence or join another empire ( and before that will be much more susceptible to bribery, but see below for this).

* victory conditions: currently we have basically "destroy everyone you cant force into an alliance". not too much for a hybrid.

- I'd like to transform this one into some kind of domination victory, where you just need to get a certain % territory, or military strengh or population. rise of nations is an example of an rts that implemented multiple victory conditions with this being one of them.

- also, some kind of ecnomic/ scientific victory would be nice. research two or three techs, build a handful of very expensive things and you win. no superweapons. no killing enemies. just a win. there can be warnings. it should be expensive. but there should be some way. make it some kind of transdimensional gate. or a "call god to kill those guys" device or whatever. but the scientific way now via superweapons is still militaristic.

- cultural victory? well, why not, but the way advent is geared towards culture, it might be unfair.

* ships designing: I know, I have been against it. yet, thinking about the ideas, I remembered a few games that did do it in an rts. earth 2150 + 2160, IG II, incredible creatures ( though outside the actual game flow). I guess this is just too radical a change even for an expansion and it may still take away too much time, but it could work.

just keep it to the basics. select chassis, select weapon, select defensive item. some chassis maybe be able to fit special equipment instead of weapons. just make different weapons/ chassis/ defenses have different effects instead of just getting stronger, bc otherwise there would always be an ideal superunit and diversity would be futile.

there could be long, medium and short range weapons, heavy, medium and point defense weapons, as well as equipment to disable stuff like ion cannons or electronic warfare.

for defenses I can see shields, armor and point defenses.

a nice option could be to sacrice jump drives for more combat capacity ( and use them as garrison ships).


now, in spite of all the 4x, some suggestions for the rts part.


* evasive maneuvers: ships in sins have firing arc which makes things nice. why not take it further and give stances for "stand ground" and "evasive maneuvers" and maybe more. the benefits would be that you get hit less, if enemy ships have a narrow firing arc, but you wont get to fire as you yourself. this of course requires ships speeds to be modified a bit. it wont work, if only one or two capships are concerned by it, even the smaller ships like some frigates should have trouble constantly hitting maneuvering ships. note the "some". ship balance could be tweaked to distinguish more between frigs/ cruisers with narrower and broader firing arcs with all the accompanying benefits and drawbacks and as such different ships would be useful in different situations.

main problem I see is that this just gives the option to make everything a semifigher and that its not really tactics, but simplistic stimulus-resonse playing as in "enemy has or does a = I do b"

* morale: I would go for ultra-deep implementation of morale. a few simple things would work nicely, like negative effects if you lose a nearby capship or your planet gets bombed. positive effects if reinforcements arrive. maybe some panicing ships. while not all is necessary, total war series displayed a lot of stuff here.

no idea how ppl like those changes. one problem may be that it adds more than any person can handle in a single game. after all I make battles require more attention, while shifiting focus a bit towards individual planets which will also take up time.

Since all of my wonderful ideas I have in another thread have already been covered here, I will toss one in I have not yet seen.

An optional game where you already have your empire (as in you have all of the planets) and have to maintain it. You have to deal with rebellion and external invasion threats along with corruption and political indecision. Of course as you loose worlds you loose funds making it hard to keep the fleet going. Shoot maybe you ought to have a economic option to pay the fleet or buy off a rebellion. Maybe if you don't fund the fleet it gets slow or worse parts of it goes rouge. You are trying to keep the empire together vice building it.

For an expansion pack:
***- New, cleaner HUD
- Better Sound! (The sound could be better)
- A NEW RACE!
- Scarier, bigger, more powerful new capital ships.

& like others said:
- Bigger gravity wells
- Moons
- Different planets (size, type, etc...) and destroyable planets (a must)
- New Stations and "Planetary Defenses"
- Stealth Ships, special abilities
- Even more complex strategies (new features)

No single player campaign or new graphics. It's a lot of work, and doesn't really add to the gameplay. Be realistic guys - this is an expansion, not a new game.

I would like horseshoes for unicorns! No seriously, give us additional modding ability and tools.

I dont see this as being feasible but i think on the moons would be awesome but i think that just space station in general to be built at planets that can evolve differently ... for instance lets say you have a space station in an area you have way back in the back where a enemy fleet has little chance of getting to make it where it is a diplomatic haven or speeds up production is a giant trade hub... but you have a space station you built at a choke point make it a veritable man o war that bristles with whatever weapons your race uses .. advent-beam tec-kinetic vasari-missle but make it where you can pour your resources into it and it can expand and build into a behemoth.... and my other idea though it ties into the first, would be a large say cruiser sized vessel that is minimally armed but has construction abilities so you could fly a fleet into a gas giant or asteroid belt and build a station there. Just some thoughts to add to any list

1. Interdictor Cruisers
___________________________________

2. More complex logistics and fleet capacity. It should be based on infrastructure and training capacity and raw material production and factory output. That leads too..

Every ship has a maintenance cost. Which means you can end up with negative resource production if you have too many ships and not enough mines and trade routes.

Examples:

Frigate costs 1,000 credit, 250 metal to initially build and has a constant cost of 10 credit and 1 metal every minute it is operational. Perhaps double this number (ship per ship)when a ship is damaged and it is self repairing

Capital Ship cost 4,000 credit, 3,000 metal, 3,000 crystal for initial build and has a maintenance cost of 80 credit and 30 metal and 30 crystal per minute.

The example shows larger ships have a relatively larger maintence cost.

If all of your mining production gets destroyed, your existing ships will continue dwindling your reserves until they reach ZERO. then random ships will start to become scuttled due to lack of maintence and you get the partial refund for that ship which buys a little time until your next ship will be scuttled. The game would scuttle smaller ships before bigger ones and provide you with warning when reserves are low and dropping, so you are able to choose what to scuttle.

Certain technologies can be used to reduce maintence cost for a particular resource or make certain ships nearly free(like scouts)

3. deathstars

Not sure if this has been said or not, but how about an instant battle option. Like in rome total war, u can choose each sides forces and map and just have a fight. Maybe take off the 16 cap ship limit for it. Thats my 2 cents.