"Demanding" is pretty rude, don't you think? Makes your post seem more like a rant than a suggestion for improvements.

You don't have hard points because the game didn't have an unlimited development budget. It would be HUGE amounts of work to develop and test a hardpoint system with variable weapons - the game would need configuration screens, ship set-up screens, and weapon type researches at minimum. I think you're looking more for a Mechwarrior-like RPG or simulator than an RTS.

Frankly, the game is already complex enough.

-- Retro

So, you basically want to play a completely different game, right? I suppose you could just try playing different games. The 4x genre has plenty of games where you can customize and build your units from scratch. Certain single player games like Mechwarrior offer the same thing.

Those games offer unlimited time to do the customizing. I don't see how you can have a customization warehouse in the game when you should be on the field making strategy. It's not going to be a fun thing to spend half an hour perfecting your best unit, only to see the "game over" screen. The victory will end up going to the player who can customize his units the fastest to counter his enemies, which only means intense micromanagement and use of hotkeys.

Also, if you have the option to put enormous weapons on your ships, the ENEMY can do it as well. So you're stuck back where you started. In fact, you're hinting that the system would almost deliberately allow you to create unbalanced units, so that you can utilize the imba to beat other players. That alone is reason enough to not put it in the game.

Hi twelvefield, new hear so bear with me but If I follow correctly then you are saying for example play sp games , try ship designs out and save them , then use what designs you want in an online game?

If that is your idea then I have to say thats the best way I could see of immplementing such a system, then again if it was as in depth an editor as gciv 2 or better then I imagine 2 weeks after release there would be many balance issues as players as per usual would find multiple exploits owing to the no doubt thousands of combinations being very hard to test in full.

I must admit your idea is the most realistic way I have heard of immplementing that kind of system, and if it could be done so that there was a semi decent balance while still having power house ships then it would be great

For me personally I dont think it will happen , would be cool but theres just too much things to go wrong . Its funny though because I bought gciv 2 + dark avator and didnt play it much and thanks to sins I have it installed again. You know what I didnt like about gciv? the way the ai colony spammed, thats why I like the fact every col in sins has a defense force else it would be a button bash. (I will play gciv 2 again soon - feel like I have the best of both worlds hehe. Just got stardock support to merge my 2 accounts to 1 account and they did it in under 12 hours......impressive)

To get back to your idea , I love it in theory , but doubt the devs will have the inclination because the game has sold well anyway so business wise they probably think okay we can make more money with an expansion. I know its seen as unrealistic but give SD their due they realise the business model where a company makes a game, applies minimal patches and goes bye bye isnt the best and even though I dont know if your idea would work I would still hope SD sees the sense in having part of their team still making small/med additions to the current game. (It would create a hell of alot of good will)

Yes, well, seeing as it's all my idea, what I call the Ship Hull Integrator by Twelvefield (S.H.I. er...), I also would suggest that everybody here send me $5. If you do that, I will see to it that your "karma" gets a boost. And it's a grand idea, as all of my ideas are.

Seriously, though, I don't know whose idea it is. I'm just passing it on. I, too, love it in theory. I think as ideas go, it's probably even feasible. After all, the Ship Designer in GalCiv was added on as an afterthought, and it's proven to be one of the best things in gaming, period.

However, like you say, don't hold your breath waiting for it to come. The business model of the developers is the single most important factor in game design, and like most other game companies, the devs aren't making it public. We can make the suggestions in the forum, but I suspect the amount of weight of these suggestions is rather low.

Still, it's fun to speculate.

The Ship Hull Integrator by Twelvefield as I see it is just a way to make new ship designs by plugging in pre-made modular parts. The actual function of the ship would not be changed in any way. It's just a method to make flying saucers or star destroyers or space Elvises (but no space elves!) as you see fit.

However, people want to change out all the weapons, too. That would involve a Basic Armed Ships Twelvefieldian Advanced Radical Design tool, or B.A.S.T.A.R... well, I have to work on my acronyms. I would think that to balance out the ships as they stand, the devs have assigned some kind of internal value to each offensive and defensive system on all of the ships. Folks in the forum have certainly spent a lot of time and effort working out that system. To make the B.A.S.T.A.R. (you know) work, the user would have to be given an understanding of these values.

So, ship X can hold 1,000 points. Its engines must be at least 300 points, its armor must be at least 200, which leaves 500 points for gunses. As long as you can fit the parts into the ship, then it should work. I am over-simplifying, but you get the idea. There would have to be trade-offs: the more antimatter you need for weapons, the slower the ship goes, or the more missiles you pack, the weaker your armor, that sort of thing. As you advance up the tech tree, you'd have more advanced desigs waiting and ready to be used.

I would entirely expect that the B.A.S.T. etc. would create game imbalances, especially leading to multiplayer exploits. I would think that would be part of the fun. Eventually, the best libraries of ships would get published, and the really serious players would establish limits on which libraries could be used in their games, if any.

I don't think that B.A.S. (and so on) would be very different from the system the devs used to create the original fleets, only it would be accessible to the unwashed masses (us).

So, as far as speculation goes, this is a lot of fun. As far as expecting this kind of thing to turn up as a real add-on to the game, I expect none of it to happen, but it would be nice or at least mildly intersting if it did.

Actually, in reading the thread, I found all of the replies were serious.

And you can't really compare Sins to Starcraft. They're different genres. Starcraft is a "pure" RTS and doesn't have diplomacy, culture, missions, units that upgrade with experience, an upgradable economy, supply limitations, base building points (i.e. planets) with different levels of upgrade capability, research labs, or a seventy-odd item research tree. Sins is a "RT4X" and doesn't have cloaked units, consumable resources, or air/land unit distinctions.

But your comparison does spark a question: would you complain about missing hardpoint customizations in StarCraft 2?

-- Retro

Lord of the Rings the Battle for Middlearth II has a hero customizer exactly like what you are describing. It works great. If you want to design a "capital ship" like hero with all his special abilities fireball like attacks, that's totally up to you. It's a good idea. It's not going to happen.

Um, Total Annihilation didn't have in game unit design... Maybe it was Impossible Creatures?

Well, I don't think too drastic of a game logistics change is wise at this point in development, let alone likely to be accepted. However, many players do prefer a degree in customization in the way they play... wether it be Spec in WoW, custom Heroes in Battle For Middle Earth 2, or endless other design aspects through the ages.
I know I wouldn't mind the 4th option for a somehow tweakable race, or even a small amount of choice in the design of a capital ship, but I'd still play Sins without those. There's no denying the fact that players love to make something theirs to really own it.

The game Twelvefield is likely thinking of is one of the Earth 21XX series games, because TA definitely doesn't allow you to design units in game *still plays it*

One other thing...




Missiles would be the most powerful weapon, but certain defenses, like electromagnetic defenses or point defense (we have developed point defense lasers nowadays, not to mention a large variety of missiles and guns for point defense), would be able to shoot down most missiles with no problems.

Terraziel remembered the name of the game right for me, the Earth 21-- series of games.

I do not wonder at who plays Total Annihilation, though. I guess it's beneath my wonder threshold. Sorry.

Actually, missiles would be the most powerful form of weaponry, they'd typically have some form of nuclear warhead or plasma warhead to actually cause damage to the ship's hull, beams...well...there's still no way of knowing what they would really be like. Every directed energy weapon we have tried to make on Earth had an invisible beam, (As far as I know) on a ship, I'd have to say that beam weapons would have to be fairly large, as you need room for capacitors, accumulator rings, possibly their own reactor, and you wouldn't be able to simply flip a switch and leave it on, there would be issues with reactor overload and overheating (This was an issue with the neutral particle beams we've tried to make) you'd be able to fire the beam for a few seconds at most.



Uh...no...the most effective countermeasure against directed energy weapons is MOVING, because the targeting systems on the weapon would have to calculate your position before it fires, and if you keep moving around, it has to keep reaquiring a lock. Countermeasures against DEWs, weather conditions (Increases blooming) and high-speed movement (Weapon cannot aquire lock)

Though I would like to see a few more ships myself, mainly Cruisers that are actually combat effective, it seems like the Cruisers in the game are simply support ships rather than a heavier class of ship.