This is essentially a "laundry list" of things I need to see fixed to make Rebellion a must-buy, and as such you're welcome to add your own, with solutions if possible. Some of these are partially referenced in "5 things you wish to see in Rebellion" (https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/408935) but I thought I'd just expand on what's in that thread. I am aware that some of these improvements are only slated for Sins 2 (whenever that comes out), but IMO unless the Sins 2 engine is a DRASTIC leap forward in terms of image quality and performance, then Ironclad are better off sticking with the current engine and upgrading it incrementally.
As a consummate lurker, I won't be posting any further in this thread, but I will be checking up on it from time to time. Go forth and flame!
Issues:
1. When I have 16 capships that I tell to attack a starbase from across a gravwell, invariably half of them will bunch up around the starbase, and the remainder will bump up against that half trying to get close enough to the starbase to attack it. This also applies to ships that are set to Group Jump.
2. AI going bat sh*t insane laying literally hundreds of mines in a gravwell it occupies, which have to be cleaned out after I take over that gravwell. I want to spend my time blowing up enemy ships, not minesweeping.
2.1. AI refusing to colonise an unoccupied planet with enemy mines in its gravwell, unless EVERY LAST ENEMY MINE is destroyed. Compounded by the fact that AIs are also incapable of clearing said mines themselves, meaning *I* have to do minesweeping duties for them as well.
2.2. Scout frigates being used in minesweeper role do not go after mines logically (e.g. target only the closest mine) but sometimes decide to wander off after a completely random mine on the other side of a gravwell. Due to the behaviour mentioned in (2), this often results in said frigate plowing directly through the minefield you've asked it to sweep, which makes the frigate go boom and me unhappy.
2.3. Mines are phased out, not invisible, which means when I ask my ships to travel through a hostile minefield, they should do their level best to avoid as many mines as possible.
3. Ridiculous ship turning circles. When I order a moving capship to turn 180 degrees, it should not traverse a massive arc to achieve this. Especially if that arc causes the ship to blunder through a minefield.
4. Starbase experience points are fixed at 400 regardless of how many upgrades the starbase does or doesn't have.
5. Multi-threading is not used effectively, if at all, with the result that my almost-ancient QX9650 never hits 100% on a single core with Sins running, never mind pushing the remaining cores. There's no excuse for this in 2011.
6. Sharing experience is good, but capships at max level should not receive experience points they cannot use. For example, if I have a level 1 capship and a level 10 capship, and both those ships destroy a target worth 100 points, each ship gets 50 points - when it would make more sense for the level 1 ship to get all 100 points and the level 10 ship to receive none.
7. Starbases should be able to level up like capships.
8. Pathfinding should not just take the LENGTH of the route into consideration, but also the SAFETY of the route. When I tell my ships to travel to a friendly gravwell 3 jumps away, and the shortest route is through an enemy gravwell, they must NOT choose that route unless there is no other option.
Solutions:
1. Make ships able to effectively maneuver in 3D space, i.e. go above/below each other. Add ship formations (e.g. Wall from Homeworld way back in 1999).
2. Fix the AI. Make mines invisible as well as phased out by default. Make scout frigates able to reveal all mines in a gravwell when they enter it, this will discourage enemy fleets from phasing in without doing recon. Add a researchable, intrinsic ability to minelaying frigates that allows them to detect enemy mines and "reprogram" them to your faction's cause.
3. When I order a ship to turn 180 degrees, it must either (a) lower its speed while performing the turn, so the resultant arc is smaller or (
switch off its engines, rotate on its axis, and restart its engines - whichever scenario achieves the fastest turnaround.
4. Starbase experience points should start at 400 and increase by, say, 50 points each time an offensive/defensive upgrade is installed. That means a fully-upgraded starbase will be worth 800 experience, which more accurately represents the challenge it takes to down one with such upgrades.
5. Thread the engine if this has not already been done. Threading will hinder debugging and require synchronisation, which increases overhead, but the throughput gained from increased parallelism will be dramatic. If the engine is well-threaded, refactor the threading code to more effectively split operations to cores so that the load is more equally balanced between them. This should also solve the late-game lag problem.
6. Prevent capships from receiving experience points when they reach the level cap.
7. Allow starbases to receive experience/share it with capships, but cap them at a lower level cap (e.g. 5) to prevent them from becoming too powerful.
8. Safety should be considered before length of journey, unless the player has explicitly Shift+clicked to set the route.
