Realverse

Potential Mod Ideas

from Sins Forums
Just my ideas that I needed to get off my chest. Hopefully some skilled moder will take a liking to one, some or all of them and bring them to life. Game is brilliant BTW and was built by brilliant and, most notably, good human beings and I don't know them. The following sums it up...

"Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for now, for your customer's sake, for your daughter's sake, ya might wanna think about buying a quality product from me." - Tommy Boy

Fleet

Humanized Commander - Optionally limit the size of fleet that a single commander can handle.

*Fleet Command Abilities - Special abilities given to fleet commanders.

Ships-Speed - Fleet commander to controls the fleets speed. Needs: Motion to cost anti-matter (which might just mean less anti-matter).
Anti-Matter Usage - Fleet commander controls how much/often AM is used
Special Abilities Priority List (?) - List ships with available anti-matter and special abilities ready. Next and Previous button would be nice to get to the next ship with abilities ready for use.
*Volley - All commanded ships stop and fire in sync.

Ships

*Scout Carrier - Automatically keeps 2-4 scouts in the surrounding systems that will send out a new scout once one has been destroyed. Optional scout range that will allow them to stay within a number of jumps from the carrier.

*SAS - Special operations units that can handle commandeering enemy vessels and pulling off covert operations. Idea is for this to have a long while in between missions due to training but allow me to take over a enemy scout and go into their teritory unnoticed and plant..say 3 bombs (@ shield, antimatter or planet defences). Something that puts a real risk to thowing out scouts everwhere. Also you should only remain undetectable for a short period.

Buildings

Supply Station - A trade-like-station that supplies and supports fleets and buildings with materials, ammo, food and anti-matter. Moving into new/enemy territory put a strain on your demand for supplies. Ships must make a longer, more expensive haul to support the fleet.

Supply Research - Allow for 2-4 researchable items that increase the capacity of this station.

Traffic Control Station - .Planetary station that controls the traffic within a gravity well. More ships means more traffic. Organize the flow or risk a catastrophic chain reaction of death.

Traffic Research - Allow for 2-4 researchable items that increase the capacity of this station.

*Missile Battery - Slow firing, longer range planetary defense weapons.

Planetary Defence Station - Package deals sell better. A tatical station with 4 turrets, 2 missle bays and a shield generator.

Repair Bay [Terran] - Make the ship enter a "dry-dock" for repairs but at a slightly quicker/less exhaustive pace. Also allow it to charge shields. Allow it to fit 4(?) ships.

*Repair Bots[Terran] - Repairing bots for large ships that can be attacked by strike-craft.

Races

*Origins - Must all races evolve from pristine planets? Divide up the races so they some favor different types of worlds. Say one likes the volcanic and terran while the other gets more out of space dwelling and dead planets.

*Transdimentional Pirates - For some yet to be discovered reason, beings from another dimention take over the souls of the crew and thereby their ships.  (haven't thought though where they would come from but it just sounded sweet and sinful.


 Scenario

Scale it up - Hard one but it really needs done in some manner or another. Stars need to be black holes, planets need to be stars and asteroid need to be planets. It just makes a lot more sense for everything. This would make a need for distant stars to be small and appropriately bright. The idea to make them look like constellations was a good one.

*Buildable Areas - As long as my influence over a system is complete and there is no colony in the gravity well then let me build stuff there.

Orbits - Let bodies inside gravity wells orbit their common center of mass(star/planet). Possibly change the connections of phase lanes by this as well. So when placing a structure you are placing it into an orbit that can't intersect another (but can have mutliple in the same orbit and speed)


*InnerWell Phase Jump - Allow me to jump to a specific spot in a well and stay in formation. Maybe make it drain my shields the closer towards the center I jump or too close and it seriously damages the ship.

Manual Upgrades - Allow the user to manually upgrade each or all buildings and/or ships with the current technologies, thereby reducing the cost of research. Apply the missing cost upon the installation of upgrades.

Controls

Building Elevation - Evidently I'm an idoit on this one. mouseDown + mouseWheel = buildingElevation

Ship/Turret Directioning - rightMouseDown+dragDirection= Move ship to location point there. (like COH)

Effects

*Ship Tails - Ships sitting still for long periods would gather dust/ice particles that would then "burn" off when approaching stars or shatter off when a sudden/sharp maneuver is performed.

*Shield Attacks - Ships are able to drain shield through shooting at the planet. Nice rippling type of effect where they shot.

Rock, Paper, Scissors - Collisions between ships/buildings/planets/stars have consequences. Items with shields will drain a bit and bounce off (too many bounces and no shields). Items lacking shield will take damage. Items that are inexcapable(like stars) cause destruction (rarely happens).


[last edited 5/12/08]


modding
7,521 views 15 replies
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Got some great ideas here. I don't make policy but some really caught my eye.
Can I make some other suggestions? (I'm going to without waiting for your answer).

First let's cover the (IMHO) flaws.
What is the logic that explains researching a tech that is only applicable to ships built BEFORE the research? Seems bassackwards to me.
Ship designs are highly unimaginative. Shoebox, pencilbox, Crayola Box (8 pack). I realise that aerodynamics are moot but geez peeps, make them LOOK better.
On the subject of looks, the ships colors are horrid. How about makeing your ships color selectable, or maybe the same color as your in-game icon.
And make the icons and circles marking the selected ships disappear when in cinematic mode.
Whoopsie, I went ahead to suggestions.
Cutting it short because this is Zillosophy's thread.
Sorry for the intrusion.
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
I think they are going to be doing the same Customized Ship Designs like in GalCiv (or someone will). I spent half the time in that game just playing with ship designs (the other half waiting for my ships to get to their target) Anyway...that's why I left that stuff off my list.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Building Elevation - Have it so I can click-down to place a building and then scroll my mouse wheel to change its elevation
End of quote


you can already do this.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Whats with everyone asking for upscaled universes for the sakes of realism? Do you really want to wait any longer for your ships to travel between stars or wallow in even larger gravity wells? You can make your own maps with the new tools out (its easy, just point and click) if you feel that habitable planet/star ratio is unrealistic, (it is, but in real life, no one will find a terran/desert planet in a 5+ star map).
I don't understand what you mean by "Humanized Commander", care to explain? It sounds like you want to limit the number of ships you can put in a fleet, or how many ships can be deployed?
Special Ops are already available, they are called Arcovas with bombs. However ship-capturing is a great idea and it is being explored in many other mods (see battlefleet gothic)
Fleet limit for gravity wells is unrealistic and hinders late game massed assaults (limited invasion fleet size as well) and negates numerical superiority.
What really bugs me is how fleets move slowly in the stars gravity well due to "heavy gravity" even when gravity doesn't affect the speed of orbiting bodies (in fact it should increase speed due to angular momentum, but thats beyond gaming) and the fact that on has to go towards the centre of a solar system to get out of said system.
Great ideas you have going there, sorry for the rant
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
well my personal opinion is id like to see grav wells 5-10 times bigger so you have a actual area to combat in, not just BAM, combat right away. if like to have it where you can actually sneak or move around a particular planets defense. it adds strategy, as well as makes defending allot harder. but i guess strategy is a bit useless in a game like this where everyone wants to spam different ship combinations to win without no real micromanagement, personally id like to see an ability to switch or choose the weapons on a given class of ship. im more of a person who enjoys hardcore battles over taking out key planets.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Sounds all really good, I like those ideas.
As for aerodynamics.. correct me if I'm wrong, but in space there is no air to be concerned about. So all you gotta worry about is the strain on the hull integrity when pulling off high G maneuvers. Although I wouldn't know how to design a ship with that in mind, I'm no engineer or physicist or whatever ;)
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
I'd like to see some customization of capitols once they are built. That would be awesome. They way it is right now some caps have a preferred weapon style. So to keep from deviating from that too much you would have classes of weapon slots and you pick which specific type of that weapon you would like. Say some missiles have longer range and fire much faster but have poor damage. Or some missiles do tons of damage but cant track faster vessels very well. Those types would fit into a general "missile slot" but a gauss or ion weapon would not. Just my 2 cents.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
I'd like to see some customization of capitols once they are built. That would be awesome. They way it is right now some caps have a preferred weapon style. So to keep from deviating from that too much you would have classes of weapon slots and you pick which specific type of that weapon you would like. Say some missiles have longer range and fire much faster but have poor damage. Or some missiles do tons of damage but cant track faster vessels very well. Those types would fit into a general "missile slot" but a gauss or ion weapon would not. Just my 2 cents.
End of quote


Ya, but then people would cry because they are two lazy to micromanage what weapons the capitals will have, its kinda lame really. but i have to agree with you, i love the idea if it were possible to implement.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
@StCobalt
you can already do this.
End of quote

I almost cried from joy when I read that. I need to look at that, must have missed the binding and changed it like a dope.


@streakingsnake

Humanized Commander - Under the fleet research panel, look at the names for the command slots. They are all engineered super race commanders, I want a normal Joe

Special Ops - Commandeer a vessel, take it behind enemy lines, plant a spy, saboteur, thieve some resources, blow up stuff... you know... let the good Lord see you're true nature. (muahahaha)

As for the upSized Sin - You said it yourself...

"in real life, no one will find a terran/desert planet in a 5+ star map"

Thats because it is too small. Just think about having 3 planets a moon and some asteroids in one gravity well with a central star. Then you fill a lot more "space junk", nebula, star clusters, dead stars, stars in formation.. tons of stuff that would then be realistic (and more easily achievable). Plus if we're still limited to only building (key structure) in habitable wells then you would only have to actually defend fewer locations. But like in C&C you're resource collectors are able to go get the stuff where it's not habitable.

Fleet size - I wanted it mainly for the computer AI and so that people would have to coordinate their attacks into waves which would make the strategic planning of the attack that much more demanding. Specifically on targeting and hopefully giving a more raid like approach (which the AI does well now). But you could also add in as a research item that allows you to store a massive fleet in the gravity well but only late in the game.

[edit] Also it only really occurs for the defending fleet. The attacking fleet can bring as much as they can support. My other ideas try to balance for this.


@Flexomatic

You're right, if we built ships they would be modular and box-like, but you'd have to imagine that there are influences in the phase lanes that act like water (occurs friction) so it must maintain a level of aerodynamics.


@Dunroth

That's what they had in Galactic Civilization II, a nice and easy way to customize ships (all ships) and if you wanted to upgrade one you could do it (from anywhere). But that's neither here nor there. The creators will probably give us a hint or two of the same or similar features (already made it once, second time should be easier especially if you planned for it from the start.

I like the weak-tracking missiles idea. That sounds good a for missile battery and on ships.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
I think they are going to be doing the same Customized Ship Designs like in GalCiv
End of quote


We've got no plans to do that in Sins.

or maybe the same color as your in-game icon.
End of quote


They already do.

And make the icons and circles marking the selected ships disappear when in cinematic mode.
End of quote


They'll disappear if you deselect them.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
Mod it is then. (hopefully)

Any thoughts on the difficulty (relative to a good modder) of modding that fine capability of GCII or similar into Sins?

[edit ahh..can't fix grammatical errors in previous post...so nub]
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
Sorry 'bout my complaints,,, I guess I have a different viewpoint since I'm older than dirt and blind as a bat in a soundproofed room. The ships just blend in too well with the 'space' background. But I thank you stardock people for your response. Check out the new thread I'm about to start. "What's wrong with this site?" You might be interested. Bwahaha
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
I like the sound-proofed room bit, most usually neglect such specificity.

This site's not bad, not great, but not bad, defiantly better than average. DNA based beings, much like websites, share 98% of the same stuff. Downside is that websites also share those 98% of similarities with that of the massive turd I left in the john earlier today.
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
Simple concept of Upsized Sins





Also, I wasn't raggin' on this site. I'm a "desiloper" (Designer first, developer second.. or third)and I was referring to the other horrors out there calling themselves websites.