Small Changes?

unless you found a new bug i can't confirm for beta 2.5 neither the tec torpedo cruiser nor the advent adjudicator do any damage to ships.

try 20 ogrovs or 20 adjudicators firing upon 1 ship, it looks fancy like massive damage but in fact doesn't do shit against even the smallest frigate

I agree with the idea of changing the combat relationship between anti-structure cruisers and ships.. though I disagree with how it has been tackled by IC. I think it only makes logical sense that the destructiveness of these massive weapons be preserved, even against ships (why would said weapon do 1% the damage to a small frigate that it does to a massive, fortified SB? does this make sense to anyone out there?). What SHOULD be done instead is that against ships these lumbering anti-structure cruisers should fire at like a 5-10% chance to hit -- specifics of percent chance to be worked out by balancing. Realistically, the only advantage a ship has over a strucutre is maneuverability (one thing strangely missing from the Sins game experience.. fixed battles are somewhat odd from a tactical perspective).

With regards to starbases, I would advise posting on the Starbases 2.5 thread, which may have already suggested much of what you are looking for.

Agree with the range increase for scouts, along with maybe some kind of 'detonate mine field' ability/gun', but not with the notion of extending the ability. I like what the developers are trying to do with rehabilitating the role of scouts on the battlefield, it makes sense and makes for a more interesting assault experience -- though presently needs to be refined not to be a frustrating necessity.

New strike aircraft... meh. I don't think it can/should be included in this expansion, and am uncertain of whether I would want it anyways-- complexity for complexity's sake is perhaps best avoided.

Agree that scouts are pretty useless clearing mines during battles. The player using mines can just effortlessly wipe them out with a single pass of fighters.

Capital ships should have mine sensors. Perhaps with tech research.

Because these are giant, nearly unguided torpedoes that can only easily hit stationary targets.  Anything mobile just gets out of the way.  Would you prefer them to code it that 99% of the time the torpedo misses the frigate, and 1% it hits and does full damage?  That might make more sense, but it'd suck for gameplay, especially considering how shield mitigation works.

As for the scouts, I've said something like that before.  IMO they should add six new techs to each race:

1> Gives the scouts' minespotting ability to a specialty cruiser.  For Vasari, the Overseer is the obvious choice.  (Tier 8 tech, 1 rank)

2> Gives the scouts' minespotting ability to all capships.  With crews of thousands, you can spare one or two to watch for mines...  (Tier 6 tech, 1 rank)  Alternate version, if possible, is that the capships could attack phased mines as if they were unphased, but the mine remains phased out (so other ships in the fleet can't help).

3> Increase the range of the scouts' minespotting by 50%/100%/200%.  This only applies to the actual scouts, not to #1 or #2, so that you still have a reason to prefer them.  (Tier 3 tech, 3 ranks)  Sure, the capships can spot for their own secondaries, but you still need someone to protect your heavy cruisers; tripling the scout's detection radius allows a few of them to keep a bubble around an entire fleet.

4> Decrease the resource cost of minefields by 20/40%.  (Tier 4 tech, 2 ranks)  Alternately, simply increase the number of mines laid down in a single deployment by +1/+2, so that instead of a Ruiner laying six mines, you're placing seven or eight at once; not quite as cost-saving, but it also saves on deployment time.

5> Improve existing mines offensively... the method would vary by race.  Vasari would get a tech that upgrades mine damage, Advent get one that increases the range of the homing mine, and TEC would upgrade the blast radius.  (Tier 5 tech, 2 ranks)

6> Improve existing mines defensively... the method would vary by race.  Vasari mines would continue to blink in and out of phase, making them partially invulnerable even after detection (similar ability to the scout's phasing upgrade); TEC mines would gain extra armor, Advent mines would gain (HP?  Speed?  Reaction time?  not sure).  (Tier 7 tech, 2 ranks)

The first three make it much easier for your fleets to see mines, the last three make the mines more cost-effective or durable.  The problem with the current implementation, in my opinion, is that mines are just too specialized; only scouts can see them, but once seen they're practically harmless.  Improving things in both directions would be good; make them more integrated, so that they're more common and less game-defining.

I would not need to suck for gameplay at all, it would end up being more tactically realistic. Also, if you made it a really small chance to hit (I believe I suggested 5-10% rather than the slightly absurd 1% -- and who are either of us to say what is a 'realistic' chance to hit between those two options... this is a video game in a ficticious world, and they are rather large looking projectiles!) you could have the added recuperative bonus of a small area of affect damage dealt to nearby ships/structures that would make them not TOTALLY irrelevant in battles. These are massive, expensive, and vulnerable fixed-target vessels that should not LOGICALLY be any more irrelevant than artillery was during the 19th century. Sure they may, and should, specialize against fixed fortifications, but there is no need to make them absurdly useless just because of some preconceived notion of 'rock-paper-scissors' tactics.

The Solanus targets six enemies at once. They'd get very powerful very fast.

I'd like to see mines invisible unless you have a scout in your fleet... it really makes you have to THINK before attacking (pardon the pun at the beginning)

Solanus could be balanced easily enough. just make its chance to hit lower, area-of-effect 1/6 the dmg of the torp, etc.