A broad Issue

Good point. I agree.

Yea, I know its beta, but im nervous with the direction. Not many of us were shouting diplomacy, we wanted bigger tech trees, cooler ships, different types of wells ........And as a single player locked teams kind of player I'm confused.

Ya maybe the reasearch could be geared more for improving your diplomatic skills with another race instead of unlocking stuff.Its kind of weird you have to unlock feeding to another player.I know they are trying to change the game and all but what would be the reason for not accepting resources?

There's been talk about how 'feeding' in early game hurts game balance. For example, feeding a Vasari player to starbase the enemy might not be how the game was intended nor balanced for. I don't play online myself, but I can see the point in this.

Just I wish that, for example, you could research espionage to provide you on how much resources at hand a certain player has. Could be a little panel that goes "According to our (relatively weak, nonexistant, strong, overwhelming etc) espionage strength on Player X, we can determine that this faction has approximately X metal, X credits, and is losing X credits from upkeep. This player is currently researching X."

Something like that, obviously, I'd envision a "Espionage Fund" like function in the diplomacy panel that allows you to direct a certain amount of income towards espionage at that player, and likewise one could feed money into one's own counterespionage efforts.

I know mow mow its just unrealistic to me.Now I like the universal translator tec.Thats pretty common.I could see needing this to feed someone resources or maybe until you unlock a tec maybe resource understanding that other player only recieves a percentage of what you fed him because he would need to refine it for his technologies.Also for creds maybe need a tec to make your money worth as much as other players.Like converting dollars to pounds.Would need diplomacy and maybe propaganda for populace to accept it as valuable.

Oh cool, people seem to understand what I'm talking about. These are all good ideas. Basically, it seems that I, and a couple other people, want to have basic abilities (the original treaties, resource giving, missions) be usable either from the start or by researching one tech (universal translator/language). The research could be used to improve efficiency- for example, with no tech, feeding and missions only give %50 of the resources.

Basically, for diplomacy to be effective, you have to start doing it early, before you get into a real slugging match. It's impossible to get friendly with an AI when you're destroying its ships by the truckload since they keep jumping into your systems.

Thats the point. In Entrenchment you can have a starbse up in less than 5 minutes if necessary, and the effect of having a starbase in a system is huge. All features that have been presented for Diplomacy so far would not have any impact on the game in early stages and even later in the game their effects would be mediocre. Entrenchment gave you new choices - build early starbases to prevent nearby enemies from attacking or focus on getting powerful fleet or strong economy and many planets. Diplomacy does not add new possibilities of this kind (yet). So I would suggest to make diplomacy a viable option that is really useful also in early stages of the game. Also you could make diplomatic research primary high-tier but very powerful. This way players would use it after they are heavily entrenched and there is basically a military stalemate on the bord with nobody having the chance of getting upper hand soon - which would be quite realistic if compared to real conflicts. The downside of doing this woud be that many people would go for a quick win first, then entrench with starbases if they don't succeed attacking and only then go for diplomacy. Therefore i would like to see featues in Diplomacy that are really useful in early stages of the game or on small maps with few (or one) enemies that are close to you.

My feeling is Diplomacy should make the game deeper, but having said that, I don't see anything that is going to make me turn off locked teams. Let's remember that SINS is primarily a space BATTLE game.

true, but it doesnt mean that you shouldnt have the ability to play two sides against each other while you smash the other

Even with locked teams, there's a lot of possibilities. Say, friendliness-  a research/advancement that causes cultural loss whenever a certain enemy attacks you (Ie. does damage to ships or structures in YOUR gravity well).

What I'm saying, is so far Diplomacy has seemed to remove or make difficult features that existed- rather than making new, interesting features that spawn new tactics.

Of course, I am interested in pacts, but those aren't really working yet.

One cool thing that could be used is a diplomatic way to deal with neutral planets. Maybe they pay you off a percentage of their incomes if you dont blow them to smithreens? Or you could tell neutrals who and whom not to attack if someone enters their wells.[quote]true, but it doesnt mean that you shouldnt have the ability to play two sides against each other while you smash the other

I wouldn't worry too much. We're currently in the process of removing the early roadblocks and putting in the updated tech trees for each race. They should be in the next beta update.

Alright, I have high hopes for you guys, do your best!

Can't wait for the update- I find myself constantly checking impulse to see if its there yet.

Im so glad there are all these stupid issues with using Diplomacy, I knew this addon would be crappy and to see all the issues most of you are complaining about just makes my day.

I still belive that this addon was a complete and utter waste of time to make, they should have stuck to making a normal addon instead of trying to make an alliance with someone you set out to conquer in the first place.

@Darksxx

and yet with the second round of the Beta, they made it useful (and solved most of the issues)