Pnakotus

The options available for Sins aren't very detailed, and the .entity files contain many options that could perhaps be convienient as an ingame option, to let people tweak the performance of the game to their systems. So far, I've noticed a few: - slider for fighter/fighter trail visible range - slider for ship-icon appearance range - slider for debris lifetime The ability to tweak these settings would allow stronger or weaker systems to manage performance, in the way

Ideally I think you'd want smaller debris pieces: big enough (and detailed enough) to be recognisably 'the ass of a Kol' or 'the knobbly bit of a Mothership', but not big enough to be constantly driven through by other ships. Excellent work.

MeepZero, can you show that it's capable of handling rotating turrets? This is all I really care about, since my concern is modding and not the vanilla game. I can't find any evidence or statements suggesting it can, hence this thread. However, the 'it's not perfect but I like it' defence is irrelevant. I like it too, but if modders can't use rotating turrets, that's going to cause problems and it's really disappointing. The game definately requires some of SD's standard excellent s

Without limits, it adds nothing. All it does is slow down your resourcing, and by lategame it won't matter, most particularly in larger maps. It's supposed to have 4X elements, right? In a 4X game, a mismanaged economy or an over-large fleet results in negative income and slow death. Thus, minimum costs per fleet tier would discourage people from teching up the fleet supply before their economy is larger, and prevent small empires working under the same fleet limits as far, far larger empire

Indeed, I imagine the intent with the rising costs was to limit it to larger empires at the high end, but it simply doesn't work on the huger maps where even small players have many planets.

Yeah, LoupGris, this is what I imagined. It's why I keep mentioning GC2 getting model animation later: they're a small team, but they give longterm support. I'm not sure why you mention LODing, when I've been talking about LODing for several posts now. However, I still don't know if the engine supports animation, or how mods would use what animation functionality there is.

Fleet supply should just cost money. The problem with the current system is that it's a rate (ie, 79%) so anyone, no matter how small, can field a max-size fleet. That's what needs to be changed. I don't like 'hard rules' like 'need 10 planets to get lvl5 fleet research', which is why I propose a minimum per-second cost for each level of fleet supply, to basically price it out of the reach of smaller players until they expand.

Does that really make sense to you? You know there are graphics options, right, where you can turn the game down to run on weaker systems? Should they have left bloom lighting and high-quality textures out, because only those with a good computer can use them? Of course not. This is ignoring that it *isn't* necessarily the huge load you apparently believe it is, and that such loads can be managed in established ways like LODing, options, and various GFX functions. Even the hopelessly ineffi

The simple change I suggested some time ago would also resolve this ridiculous 'anyone game have max fleet supply because it's a rate' thing, which makes it ridiculously easy for small guys to defeat big guys - and actually makes it difficult to defend a large empire, which makes the endgame incredibly tedious while you're mopping up for reasons described by others. I suggested that each level of fleet supply be place in 'limits', ie there is a minimum and maximum dollar-value it will c

[quote]First, did you ever make your way through Homeworld's campaign? It really is a great story, same for Cataclysm. Second, did you play the original Ground Control? I enjoyed it's campaign quite a lot and am very upset that I lost the expansion while only being half-way through it.The point being that not all RTS campaigns are boring crap, just a depressingly large number of them, especially recently.[/quote] Homeworld's campaign 'story' was daft if you ask me (lol we killed the

Name a frigate with a turret. Aside from the TEC scout, there aren't many. So your massive underestimates of modern PC hardware aside, it's a worthless point. I guess none of you have heard of LODing, either. And they say kids are 'imaginative'. :) The examples are Dunov and Kodiak, with large obvious turrets that don't move. If they didn't want to use animation, why'd they model on turrets? I can live with the magical turning bullets at the end of immobile gun barrels (even thou

Let's introduce an entirely new sploitable game mechanic to the game with existing balance issues.

Campaigns in RTSs are boring crap anyway. I mean, did anyone sleep their way through the Supreme Commander campaigns? Snore. The World in Conflict campaign is hideously easy and has no bearing on multiplayer (actually being misleading as unit balance is slightly different). I mean, I know some people compulsively play campaigns for the cutscenes or something, but honestly. Ever played the GC2 campaigns? Ugh. If a campaign existed, I would never use it. Imagine Sins with a typic

Wow, he's in the future. That's weird.

[quote] After watching a few replays I need to add a 50-100X speed right after 8x for replays. [/quote] Damn straight. 3 hour games make this a necessity.

Since Stardock doesn't put any byzantine Steam-like dependencies in their software, buying it online, downloading it, and archiving it somewhere is the best way to get any of their stuff.

It would be REALLY nice if pirates actually had a goal and left after it was done. If it's 'get bounty', they should leave when the bounty is gone (or at least start to avoid serious combat as unprofitable). If it's 'disrupt trade to make money' they shouldn't hang around a system full of defence ships when there's no trade/resouce base. They should actually pay attention to who has what sort of fleet: going for the highest-bounty guy when you have NO CHANCE OF SURVIVAL is not very pirate-lik

The expansion, obviously.

The problem is really just a timing one. The smaller ships disappear when the explosion STARTS, and thus isn't obscuring the ship yet. Even games like HW2 used the old-fashioned 'wait for the explosion to hide the ship then delete the model' method. We can't all have FS2-style debris fragments.

Does the engine support it, ie would mods be able to use model animation?

I've noticed that none of the models have any animation. Nothing moves. Ships with obvious turrets (like Kodiak and Dunov) have fixed forward turrets. Gun barrels just stick out at right angles, with shots flying in all directions. The flak in particular is quite glaring: four CIWS guns, totally fixed, firing streams of bullets that track fighters. :) Is this intentional? Does the game not support animation? Is it possible it will be added later, as it was with GC2? How would thi

A patch could easily implement a minimum cost to each fleet supply tier, I would imagine, which would help to eliminate the 'tail chasing' phase of the game. When you've got no planets you'd be in negative money (instead of 74% of zero = zero cost) and you wouldn't be able to constantly build/upgrade new planets because you saved 30k beforehand. Destroying trade and population would actually count for something, because there is a level of economy they must maintain to not be constantly losing

I think the auto-attach is cool, but if it causes people problems there should be a toggle. I never want to fly the camera around HW-style, but when the screen is full of objects it IS really hard to zoom in a given direction without becoming attached to something.

I think I should reiterate the problem with only being able to jump at the line, and not outside it: yesterday I played a game where the fight spilled out into the outer areas of the tactical grid, and nobody could leave when another fleet appeared, even though they were outside the jump-limit in the arc of a phase corridor. Both fleets scrambled back to the line, but the third fleet had moved into position and it was pretty messy. You should be able to jump anywhere outside the jump-l

[quote] Longer names for capital ships and the ability to designate one of them as your flagship instead of the "highest level is your flagship" system. [/quote] I actually thought it was 'first was your flagship', but you're right I guess. At the start the first one is highest, and if it dies it transfers to the next-highest. Longer names are a doubleplusgood idea.