My Big Ole List of Suggestions

from Sins Forums

First of all, I would just like to state that I love Sins and I really like what Entrenchment has done for the game. I feel it is definitely much better now than at original release. That being said, I have a lot of ideas for things I would like to see added or improved in this game. These are simply my opinions, other people might not agree, or they might find one of my ideas really good and expand on it.

Let me start with some basic features:

 

More Planet types:

-- Oceanic / Aquatic: There could be research options available to be able to construct under-sea cities. Extra tech would increase population of these planets.

-- Forest / Jungle: Treetop dwelling and primitive hunting could make these planets an interesting part of an empire. Perhaps add some tech to be able to harness the power of these planets in unique or interesting ways.

-- Toxic Atmosphere: Perhaps with a bit of technology, a planet with a pure nitrogen atmosphere could become hospitable. Or other types of toxic environments.

 

Diplomacy Overhaul:

-- Right now, the "missions" that the AI give you are pretty bad. Especially in team games. They always ask for far too much and they are always asking for something. I think the mission thing needs to be scrapped and/or completely overhauled to make more sense.

-- One idea I had is this: Add new "Luxury Resources" that can be obtained from different planet types. Allow players of different factions to trade these "Luxury Resources" around or sell them for gold. Let me expand upon this idea a bit below:

 

Luxury Resources

Each planet type (Terran, Desert, Ice, Volanic (or other -- see my suggestions above) would be capable of producing one or more semi-unique resources. For example, perhaps the Terran planets could produce Ivory or Silk or some other good that would be worth trading to other worlds that don't have it.

The whole planetary trade thing could be greatly expanded and each planet could be randomly assigned (from a set of criteria) a chief export and chief import. In the example above, the Terran planet might export lots of silk, and the people that live on this planet might really covet something like diamonds, which are plentiful on desert worlds. When a player creates a trade hub or star-base with trade capabilities, that planet should begin exporting its Luxury Resources to other planets.

Pricing for these Luxury Resources would work as follows:

-- Low Demand: Only 50% of the price is paid by planets that do need or want this good

-- Normal price: Planets with no restrictions will pay normal prices, or 100% for the Luxury Resources

-- High Demand: Planets that are extremely interested in a specific Luxury resource will pay 200% the normal price when a trade vessel brings this resource to the trade station.

 

As another example, lets say Aquatic Planets are added from my suggestions above. The primary export of the Aquatic Planet is Purified Water. Desert planets might consider Purified Water to be a High Demand resource, and whenever a trade ship from the Aquatic world docks at a Desert world, they receive 200% of the normal price of their goods. However, if the trade ship with Purified Water cargo were to dock at another Aquatic world, the demand would be very low so the ship would only make 50% profit.

This would tie into Diplomacy, because it would encourage the various factions to open trade routes with other factions who might have a specific Luxury Resource that they want.


New Races:

I would like to see at lest 2 new races added, with their own starships and technology trees.

-- Aquatic Race - to go along with the Aquatic planets suggestion

-- Forest/Jungle Race - to go along with the Forest/Jungle suggestion above

 

New Starships:

I would like to see more starships added to all races

-- More Frigates

-- More cruisers

-- More capital ships

Another idea I had is for a new ship type, the Titan Class.. The Titan Class ships would perhaps be a one-at-a-time huge ship that requires a large amount of tech and resources to build. This would be designed as a late-game ship to help keep the momentum of an offensive push going. These Titan class ships would be extremely powerful and very costly. Building one would give a huge offensive advantage to the race that builds it. Perhaps to balance this, whenever a Titan Class ship is built, a game-wide alert is made so that all other factions are aware that a Titan is on the field.

 

Culture Improvements:

-- I would like to see a greater benefit added to spreading your faction's culture. Perhaps culture could provide extra trade benefits.

-- One idea I had is that the neutral factions that act as planetary defenses could be enhanced a bit. Maybe if you spread your culture to a neutral planet, they would be less likely to attack you when you move through their airspace. Or perhaps even with a great enough amount of cultural influence, the neutral ships would convert to your faction and you would have an easier time at inhabiting the planet.

 

15,004 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I like the idea of a super ship, late game only. Maybe, ALL offense and defense reasearch is done JUST to unlock it, requires a terran planet to build (it builds ON the planet), takes 4 mins to build, and for the duration, the planet provides NO taxes, no recourses, and cant build anything else. Maybe have it cost 40k cash, 25k metal and 15k crystal, for each fraction, and it starts out with 10k shield/15k hull points, and caps out at lvl 5 with 50k shield 70k hull =p

 

 

It would be slower then a capital, ONLY able to shoot from the front, or a 45 degree angle from the front, its main attack hits average of 200, but takes 6 second between attack. Secondary attacks would be on par with a lvl 2 kol or something...

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

My first suggestion is just something I considered one day when one of my friends told me this game was "boring".  It doesn't really affect me as I personally enjoy the pace of Sins, however, I just wondered if anyone else might agree that it could attract a lot of new players.

I thought it could be a great option when starting a game if we could have an option of selecting the starting research levels.  Lets say that I want to start out with most of my military tech, lets say level 5 (levels referring to the number of research platforms required to research said tech normally) for example, and some of my civilian tech already researched, it could be great if I could select this starting the game, along with starting resource levels.

Some of the people I know who don't play this game, as I said before, say its because of the time it takes to accomplish anything and get to the large scale fleet battles.  This could give players an option to speed the game up that could gain the attention of those who don't like the long amounts of time spent on research and just want to get to fighting large battles with lots of ships.  As I said, not necessary in my case (or in the case of most of us probably), however, I just wanted to throw this thought out there.

My last suggestion has to do with the audio.

While I was playing a long game of Sins the other day, I was waiting for some research to finish and just staring at my flagship sitting in front of my homeworld.  Then it occurred to me:  Aside from all of the ships flying around the atmosphere of the planet and the lights on the surface, I really don't get the sense that a vast population of people are supposed to exist on these worlds.

I feel that a good way to really make it feel that there are people on the planet could be done through the audio sounds of the planet itself.  In addition to hearing the ships in the atmosphere, I thought it would be nice to hear different radio and communications transmissions of the inhabitants of the planet.  What they are saying doesn't have to be able to be understood.  A good example of what I mean can be heard on the movie "Serenity" (the "FireFly" movie) in the opening of the scene where Mr. Universe is introduced, as the camera is moving through the ion cloud surrounding the planet he lives on.

As the population grows, the communications would increase.  This could also be a way to drive home the point of how devestating that orbital bombardment your ships are carrying out is.  During an orbital bombardment, these transmissions would become less numerous and fade into static, as the population or the broadcasting equipment has been destroyed (not sure how hard it would be or if it would even be possible to program this).

I feel that this could be a good way to give a form of life to planets and demonstrate that people actually do live on these worlds in this game.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Those are both great ideas. I really would like to see planetary development expanded as well. Make individual planets more valuable. The more a player is able to invest in the planets, the more valuable they become.

 

One thing that kind of bugs me about the current system is that with the limited number of Logistics slots, it can be pretty tricky to build planets the way you want to. Since a lot of the best Logistics structures are fairly late-game tech, by the time you've research them, all of your core worlds are generally already full. I don't think I've ever had a Refinery or Broadcast thing on my homeworld, simply because I need the Logistics slots on my homeworld for research and ship factories.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Lucascraft, reply 3
Those are both great ideas. I really would like to see planetary development expanded as well. Make individual planets more valuable. The more a player is able to invest in the planets, the more valuable they become.

 

One thing that kind of bugs me about the current system is that with the limited number of Logistics slots, it can be pretty tricky to build planets the way you want to. Since a lot of the best Logistics structures are fairly late-game tech, by the time you've research them, all of your core worlds are generally already full. I don't think I've ever had a Refinery or Broadcast thing on my homeworld, simply because I need the Logistics slots on my homeworld for research and ship factories.
End of Lucascraft's quote

Currently, as I expand I will scuttle some of the structures that can be built elsewhere as I expand my empire to make room for new structures later.  I do wish that my homeworld, at least, could have more logistics slots, seeing that it is the "heart" of my empire.  On a gameplay note, however, it does provide incentive to continue expansion as one planet can't have everything.  Perhaps just a little tweaking to the system is all that is needed.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

One your suggest on planet types I suggest you use the Distant Stars or the Sins Plus mod, or even the Celestial bodies mod.

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting ice27828, reply 5
One your suggest on planet types I suggest you use the Distant Stars or the Sins Plus mod, or even the Celestial bodies mod.
End of ice27828's quote

or how about the devs release it as standard? no reason to to require downloading a mod for something that is obviously so popular

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Meh, what if the people who orginally created mods, want to update them?! If they are doing the planets, why not include the graphic mods, and the volumetric also?!

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

I would have to agree with Mooster on this one, not only that, how would people get credit for their work, in loading screen text only?!

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting ZimatDeltaHalo, reply 2
My first suggestion is just something I considered one day when one of my friends told me this game was "boring".
End of ZimatDeltaHalo's quote

Were they referring to single player against AI or online multiplayer?  Online multiplayer might be described as very challenging or suspenseful but I've never thought of it as being boring (at least not until the game has been decided and a sore loser refuses to quit or surrender, forcing you to mop up the map).

Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Mooster, reply 7
Meh, what if the people who orginally created mods, want to update them?! If they are doing the planets, why not include the graphic mods, and the volumetric also?!
End of Mooster's quote

not quite sure what you mean here...

but for instance, i hear Bailknights graphic mod is very popular, (but since i cbf to downgrade to 1.05 i havent tried it)

if its so good, and the Devs think its worthwhile, why not incorporate it? (with their own tweaking of course)

same thing goes for planets whatever, i dont see why iC cant use modders ideas to improve the game. if someone wants the credit, they could have, sure if they want money, well, thats up to IC/SD

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting CenturionJixra, reply 9



Quoting ZimatDeltaHalo,
reply 2
My first suggestion is just something I considered one day when one of my friends told me this game was "boring".


Were they referring to single player against AI or online multiplayer?  Online multiplayer might be described as very challenging or suspenseful but I've never thought of it as being boring (at least not until the game has been decided and a sore loser refuses to quit or surrender, forcing you to mop up the map).
End of CenturionJixra's quote

Sorry it took so long to respond to your question.  I'm not always able to get online (my biggest reason I hate online activations in games).  To answer your question, we were playing a LAN game.  We had three human players and an AI player.  He was referencing the beginning period of the game while we were still trying to research the different ship classes and fleet upkeep levels.

Once we got access to more of the ship types and larger fleets, which result in the larger battles, he agreed that it was fun.  However, I haven't really been able to get him to play recently because he hates the beginning parts of a new game.  This is why I think that the starting research levels should be adjustable.  He would actually play this game if we could just jump into the larger battles, meaning another player and more sales for those who haven't bought it for the same reason.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting CenturionJixra, reply 9



Quoting ZimatDeltaHalo,
reply 2
My first suggestion is just something I considered one day when one of my friends told me this game was "boring".


Were they referring to single player against AI or online multiplayer?  Online multiplayer might be described as very challenging or suspenseful but I've never thought of it as being boring (at least not until the game has been decided and a sore loser refuses to quit or surrender, forcing you to mop up the map).
End of CenturionJixra's quote

I was thinking more about the last point in your recent post.  What if, on a large game with more that two players (would work best with 4 or more), you actually could surrender?  The way this could work is when your empire is facing certain destruction, you could surrender to the enemy.  The way this could work is that you would become permanent allies (even on games where the teams aren't locked) and finish the game in service to the victorious player.

There should also be penalties.  For example, a certain percentage of your resource income would go to the victor and you wouldn't be able to colonize any more planets.  This would add a very important decision to the gameplay.  Do you surrender now while you still have 3 or 4 planets, or risk only having 1 or 2 if you surrender later on?  You would still be able to build more ships and maintain control over them, but they would only be able to attack the victor's enemies.

This would allow even defeated players to continue playing.  It would also add more player diplomacy to the game.  The conquering player would of course reserve the right to refuse your surrender, which would possibly lead to negotiations over the price the conquered player would have to pay to not be completely wiped out (I'll accept the terms of your surrender for 500 wealth, 500 ore, and 100 crystal).

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

As far as planets go, aquatic ones would be cool...

Uh... Terran planets are by default jungle planets...  That is why they are green...

 

As for the titan ships, check my Olympus Mod...  (first one to ever come up with the idea)

 

The other factors here such as luxury goods are all well and good, except that it screws with trade routes...  Personally, I think it would be cool, but so over complicated that it would do more harm than good...

 

I also like the idea for culture, or at least part of it...  Perhaps if your culture was above 75%, frigates there would begin converting by the order of fleet supply thus meaning that LRMs and Cobalts would be the first to join your side and last would be Kodiaks...  That would be kind of interesting...