Right now it's rumored that while there's *something* in the works for Sins, it most certainly isn't a sequel. The current consensus is that Ironclad's next project is some kind of land-based RTS.

Not a fan of voice-comm, and the community needs to reach a certain critical mass for skill matching to work, but those other two would be very nice indeed.

If Ironclad could come out with a Sins 2 that had the level of polish that we see in the final version of Sins, it could take the market by storm.  This is one developer that has earned my loyalty with their first creation, and I'm eagerly anticipating their second.  With that said, the last thing I want is something rushed out the door.  I'm willing to wait if the prize at the end is another masterpiece.

Well, why announce a sequel when the original game itself is not yet dead...

Take a look at https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/400364 ... the post there is around one month old ... they announce a future update for sins... 

Sins II will be something for when there will not more be original Sins update...

I think adding land based combat to sins would be a great thing. It would really bridge the gap and hopefully give some character to the game. 

I would guess that he is thinking of something along the lines of Star Wars: Empire at War. Personally, I think it would be very hard to make a game that has both and is still fun and playable on the scale of Sins.

It's been confirmed that Ironclad's next project is not Sins 2. In an interview with PC Gamer a while ago, they said that their next project will be a land-based RTS, but gave no details beyond that. According to a later interview done by Frogboy (CEO of Stardock), Ironclad is a little burnt out on space at the moment, since most of them worked on Homeworld: Cataclysm before Sins. Therefore, they're doing something different. In the same interview, however, he also said that they are not done with Sins just yet, and he expect that there will be a sequel at some point.

There were many things that drove people away from SoaSE.

1) Lack of Campaign. Very limited background story and intensely vague story progession through use of expansion sets. And some people just love to go back and take a break from multiplayer and replay the story.

2) Entire faction damning balance that shifts dramatically with each patch. I can't recall a time when a single faction wasn't completely unplayable in a competitive online meta. While this shifted and strategies sharpened and perfected, our current situation is an undeniable Vasari domination. TEC is a econo-pocket-boomer faction that works best on a team with the other two factions and bleeds money into the "team economy" and really is only good for Novaliths in the late game. And Advent is a mid game faction that has such a weak early game that a neighboring Vasari is absolute trouble can take massive advantages of with an early scout raid and earlier LRMs.

3) 2GB RAM limit and no multi core support. This spells big problems on very large maps with lots of objects in game.

Well, I usually don't go online because of the incessant latency. It's a geological thing, I suppose (which means I'm just too far from ICO). Which is the same reason why Starcraft 2 and possible Diablo 3 is a no-go for me. I often play SoaSE over LAN, however, if that helps. And keep going until someone wins or we desync - whichever comes first.

As for surface combat, that really appeals to me. I'm a plan-from-the-bigger-picture type of guy (ala SupCom and TA), and meting out the logistics and tactics involved in synchronous orbital and surface engagements in real time is the only thing I haven't experienced in any game yet. I would surrender a limb or two to be in charge of a full-blown planetary siege.

Sins may be all about space combat, but it doesn't seem to give off the same notion of "space combat" to me as it does for you. It's more like Risk with guns blazing - that's all.