Or ahve a tunable before the game that will allow you to disable them for some matches?

I agree that this is an excellent way to balance the game for your intention, yet it comes at a cost.

Titans are cool.  I would recommend fixing how the player acquires them. As always, the time element in this game is the most important, so therefore developers should design titans to take more time to come into the game.

First things first, the developers would need to either improve all the starbases in the game to match the defensive capability of the orkulus (by giving TEC/Advent SB's movement), or they would have to nerf the orkulus.  This would prevent the vasari quick expand/starbase every world(spam corvettes to defend against ogrovs/starfish)/eco/titan/win strategy.  Right now this strategy is practically invincible.  Or, the developers could really buff TEC/Advent ogrov/starfish units to actually defeat orkulus starbases within a faster time frame.

Second, design the game so that minimum titan build times are balanced so that titans can only be acquired later in the game.  A titan acquired in the late game would be far more vulnerable to a large fleet.  Having a titan require 8 labs, double or triple the construction costs, and increased research costs (having 4 more additional research requirements that cost as much as regular tech lvl 5, 6 , 7, and 8 techs). In this way going titan won't be a strong early game changer, and thus the game won't be so dumbed down because the titans will finish construction much later in the game.  Also, developers can also modify how many logistics slots/ capital ship crews these ships require quite easily.

Eco players would have to choose to either titan up, or feed their allies, as they would probably get the earliest titan.  The game should be tested so that getting a titan requires about 1 hour to acquire.  The developers could add even more to titan construction time, letting players have a viable counter to a titan, that "I'm going to cross the solar system to kill its production before it builds".

I would say that my suggestion is easier to implement, and would still allow the cool titan unit in the game; It would just be where it should be, initially weak, yet the potential to become very very strong.  

Titans would play more like the "research victory" option, yet instead of being a "I WIN BUTTON", they would have to be carefully leveled up.  Also, by the time they enter the game, any competent player should have cleared the pirate gravity well for their own capital ship xp.

Single players would benefit from having later titans as well.  Because titans take so long to build, single players would have to rely on their skill and understanding of fleet mechanics to hold the line vs the AI to then build their "I WIN WITH TITAN" button. After all, a singleplayer game gets boring once you've built a titan, its all about easily grinding titan experience off the AI and nuking AI fleets easily with your uber ship o' death.  This type of game design kills replayability in singleplayer.

In conclusion, I trust this would justify titan power in the game without taking away from the entire point of rebellion, which is pretty much the titan units.  Mecha, your way is a harder sell to the devs because it is directly in conflict with the project lead's primary focus on game design for rebellion.

Thanks for the post, mecha-lenin.

Wasn't carrier spamming an issue before Rebellion as well?

Yes, survivability does rocket up a lot here. Level 1-2 are not hard to kill though.

Depends. They are harder now than earlier patches due to increase cost with each level. They're noticeably more expensive once they have a few levels on them to rebuy - so it depends on how the game is going for eco.

It's kind of rare to see a Titan be a factor here. I've seen culture force people out before Titans arrived. If a Titan is needed to force someone out in a 2v1 suicide spot, allies should really be making a lot more progress elsewhere.

I wouldn't count this as a good thing. But I don't see how a Titan changes this much.

I think Rebellion is less likely to have stalemates due to things like Titan, Strip and Wail. I'll admit I didn't play in Diplo (only in original and Rebellion) but my impression from others is that stalemates are less likely now.  

I do agree though that it makes going 1v2 a lot harder as you can't really skill your way out of 2 Titans vs. 1.

I also agree games focuses a lot around them but just disagree on some of your reasons why. I also don't think the player count being down has any direct relation to Titans being strong. Balance overall is probably a factor. But I think the real reason is just Rebellion didn't attract and hold onto enough new MP players as a whole and so it's normal over time to lose the playerbase from previous years. It needed more MP features to attract and hold onto players for a 2012 game. It's just not an easy game to retain MP players with in general.

Totally agree with this bit.

I'd go further and say that middle ground between mecha and ekko would be that the single player experience is being negatively impacted by the titans because it does make the game so easy for them.  After all, the single player games have easily farmed AI to lvl your quickly built titan, while the AI doesn't do well with experience starvation gameplay.

This results in singleplayers having high lvl titans that are almost unkillable, and makes the singleplayer experience bland. From my own experience I'd say most games on ico are comp stomps, and the single players just lost interest because of this mechanic.

Yes you are right aries, yet this can be a good thing.

You see, titans are special units.  too much "special" and the game might not feel so "special" after a while.  I do believe this is occurring right now.

Getting a titan should cost a lot, and be a strain on the eco guy (if there is one). 

Not every game should have a titan in it, as that gets rid of that "special" feelin'.

Replayability is the key, keeping that "special feelin" alive is key.

Also, requiring 8 military labs and more research isn't that over the top.  Also, the devs could balance the less used titans by making them faster to acquire in the game, via requiring a little less resources and build time.  The window might be somewhere in the area of 3-5 minutes of advantage getting your titan out first...perhaps.

Perhaps loyalist titans would be the ones that are a bit quicker into the field, yet all of them aren't "pure power" early game titans.  Would be an interesting dynamic.

These days, Zombie, Seleuc just jump on the troll wagon..

 then you have comments like this:

 I mean wtf!

So just because you suckers can't handle a level 1 titan with 10 drone hosts then we have to suffer your unforgiving nerf requests?

Hows about you stop rushing for titans and rush to get eco up and blow your bomber counts off the roof.

So you ask for nerfs and get skill status? Goa or greg asked for flak nerf and now everybody thinks there pros.. i mean wtf is going on these days. Its nerf this, nerf that-wail spanked me, wail cockholded me? Rebel titan kissed my behind and shot it to pieaces? Who the F cares.

If You think you can survive with your frigates at a suicide spot then ahead-dont complain when you loose.

This I agree with.

BS. They need to lose ALL their levels when they die, just like ANY OTHER CAPITAL SHIP. I would say keep them hard to kill, but if you do manage to kill them, they go right to the bottom of the scale and start over.

I mean isn't that the point of making something hard to kill, that it's a HUGE loss when you DO lose them and a huge Victory when the person killing it actually kills it.

I mean if you pop a titan that should be worth hella XP for all the ships involved in its destruction.

-Æ

no I would say, implement ALL of mecha lenin's ideas for fixes but admend the -1 level on loss to All of them. there is no reason it should keep those levels, the crew is DEAD, how the hell can a titan magically keep it's XP if the crew on board the new one is a completely different crew then on the old one, since the crew of the old one is DEAD.

-Æ

LOL modder trolls are so cute and clumsy.

I've said before and will repeat: Sins is not DoTA, frigates are not creeps. Intoducing such mechanics into 4XRTS is... well.. interesting.

Better leave it for Sins of a Dark Age.

If you want to change that, just remove titans all together and add in another capital ship class that's more powerful and more expensive and takes longer to build.

So we are now balancing the game based on the five percent who play online?

Titans should lose their levels pure and simple, I remember people saying how Sins ran to long..now we have people saying if you lose your Titan, it isn't fair to the loser of such. People would have to learn to retreat, and the issue of feeding a Titan knowing that if you do lose it you will be right back to where you were will go away.