Sins is marketed as an RTS 4X Hybrid, much of the 4X stuff that was intended was toned down or simplified, however that does not mean that a sequel should walk down that path further.

1. I thought that was just the Egg.

2. Supercapitals might be interesting.  Not sure how the balance on that would go though...

3. Why do they need a new one?  What's wrong with the Athena Ankylon (seriously, why did they rename it?   )

4. Idk about Vasari, but for the Chaser HC, pulling a Megazord-type thing could be cool for the new faction.  Perhaps all their ships operate that way and in doing so create something that changes in capabilities depending on constituent parts.  Reminds me of Knights of Sidonia.

5. This would be a great way to boost refinery popularity.  You'd just have gas giants have capturable harvesting stations which your refineries would send ships to collect from.  Since we don't really want to add a new resource, perhaps the more you collect the more efficient your refineries become?  Idk what the Advent would do though.

6. Come to think of it, we have nothing in this game that reduces vision.  That's something you could design an entire faction around.  If we assume that the Chasers are the ones that originally built the PJIs, then the ability to create event horizons at will to block all transmissions could be cool.  You'd have to be careful though if you want it to be a fair fight online.  Perhaps you can still order your ships but for a brief period (<15 seconds) you can't see any updates on the status of your ships, letting the enemy do all sorts of scary things in the interim.  Dude... I really want think more about a titan with such powers...  That sounds awesome...  Perhaps their superweapon could be something that halts all Planetary activity for a period.  When I say all, I do mean all: resource collection, tax, trade, phase lanes shut down, and planet health regen.  It wouldn't disable ships or structures because we know from the old version of the Kostura how OP disabling all ships is and to disable structures would be too similar to the Kostura as it is now.

You know what?  I'm going to take this idea and run with it.  Not only does this sound awesome, from a lore perspective, it fits perfectly.  I'm going to be spending some time thinking about this.  I'll assume in this case that the PJIs are the creations of the Chasers which means that they're likely some ascended race that resides in Phase Space.  I'll assume that the Viturska Transport Lab was trying to figure out how PJIs worked and finally stumbled upon a solution.  This must have sent a warning signal to the Chasers who became frightened that their safety had been threatened and returned, using their PJIs as portals to get back into normal space.

Let's say then that they spawn their ships only from PJIs in a way that resembles Vasari Titan Factories in that from a lore perspective, it's a portal, but gameplay-wise, it's just a normal factory.  I'll walk through a few faction-unique things I think they could have...

• Weapons: phase cannons (low direct-to-hull damage), gravity cannons (impacts have knockback), rift beams (standard beam weapons with a fancy name),
• Strike Craft could have shields but would be single-unit squads or perhaps they're just kamikaze missiles.
• Scouts can warp to whatever position they were in 10 seconds ago (even if that means going to a different planet)
• Colony ships can capture enemy PJIs
• LFs could perhaps temporarily remove AM from enemy frigates (say they remove 100 AM and 20 seconds later 30 AM is returned)
• LRF could fire gravity cannons, keeping enemy units at range
• Flak ships could be technically unarmed but instead could send pulses through phase space that deal low aura damage to SC or perhaps they have an AoE that whenever ships enter or exit it, they take damage.
• Corvettes could naturally slow phase engine charge speed
• Siege Frigate bombing could be done by using some sort of gravity device
• HCs could have phase cannons and perhaps the ability to revert their health to what it was five seconds ago, making them able to withstand titan AoE
• Defensive cruisers could boost all rates on ships (regen, weapon CD, speed, acceleration, and ability CD)
• Offensive cruisers could do the opposite to enemies

I'll post stuff about capitals tomorrow.  I have a presentation for upper management in the morning, so sleep is calling.

EDIT: I'd be fine with getting community involvement if only to prevent another Rankulas.  Also, I don't really think it's our place to PM them ideas.  If they see them they see them.  Beyond that, for all we know, the announcement could be something other than Sins II, so PMing this thread to them could seem presumptuous.

[quote who="Volt_Cruelerz" reply="77" id="3484054"]

1. I thought that was just the Egg.

what do you mean egg?

2. Supercapitals might be interesting.  Not sure how the balance on that would go though...

yea, well they could make titans twice as expensive for then to be truly rare... not sure if this would be a good solution for MP crowd
3. Why do they need a new one?  What's wrong with the Athena Ankylon (seriously, why did they rename it?   )

oh, no you misunderstood, without the 2gb limit they can add more titan options to the already existing ones - so 3 more options per fraction that would be aweeesomee

4. Idk about Vasari, but for the Chaser HC, pulling a Megazord-type thing could be cool for the new faction.  Perhaps all their ships operate that way and in doing so create something that changes in capabilities depending on constituent parts.  Reminds me of Knights of Sidonia.

thats true.. hmm it could be cool if done right

5. This would be a great way to boost refinery popularity.  You'd just have gas giants have capturable harvesting stations which your refineries would send ships to collect from.  Since we don't really want to add a new resource, perhaps the more you collect the more efficient your refineries become?  Idk what the Advent would do though.

it works, but i still wana see a new type of a refinery ship specific for gas  (ill post an idea soon )

6. Come to think of it, we have nothing in this game that reduces vision.  That's something you could design an entire faction around.  If we assume that the Chasers are the ones that originally built the PJIs, then the ability to create event horizons at will to block all transmissions could be cool.  You'd have to be careful though if you want it to be a fair fight online.  Perhaps you can still order your ships but for a brief period (<15 seconds) you can't see any updates on the status of your ships, letting the enemy do all sorts of scary things in the interim.  Dude... I really want think more about a titan with such powers...  That sounds awesome...  Perhaps their superweapon could be something that halts all Planetary activity for a period.  When I say all, I do mean all: resource collection, tax, trade, phase lanes shut down, and planet health regen.  It wouldn't disable ships or structures because we know from the old version of the Kostura how OP disabling all ships is and to disable structures would be too similar to the Kostura as it is now.

totally well most of my advise is for SP not MP, so idk in MP the "new fraction will probably be OP" but im not sure... but either way they have to be based on "vision" and enabling and disabling nodes.. 

the thing is that i want to have that "oh shit" moment just like i remember seeing the vas loyal titan eat almost alll of my fleet.. it would be just awesome!

also i think that the vasari scout should have an invisibility cloke for a time .. it would add more paranoia and micro for other players and it would fit the lore 

[quote who="Volt_Cruelerz" reply="77" id="3484054"]

You know what?  I'm going to take this idea and run with it.  Not only does this sound awesome, from a lore perspective, it fits perfectly.  I'm going to be spending some time thinking about this.  I'll assume in this case that the PJIs are the creations of the Chasers which means that they're likely some ascended race that resides in Phase Space.  I'll assume that the Viturska Transport Lab was trying to figure out how PJIs worked and finally stumbled upon a solution.  This must have sent a warning signal to the Chasers who became frightened that their safety had been threatened and returned, using their PJIs as portals to get back into normal space.

or they were asleep some how and the vas. lab activated their sleeping cycle - so they woke up, their ships powered up. and maybe they are like the "reapers" from Mass Effect. i just cant wait to see even their smallest ship i remember before SOASE:R came out i was reading articles and i saw that 2 star bases could be in the same gravity well and that was just mind blowing lol i kept on imagining - woow lol so i hope sins 2 will be the same way

Let's say then that they spawn their ships only from PJIs in a way that resembles Vasari Titan Factories in that from a lore perspective, it's a portal, but gameplay-wise, it's just a normal factory.  I'll walk through a few faction-unique things I think they could have...

I'll post stuff about capitals tomorrow.  I have a presentation for upper management in the morning, so sleep is calling.

 

EDIT: I'd be fine with getting community involvement if only to prevent another Rankulas.  Also, I don't really think it's our place to PM them ideas.  If they see them they see them.  Beyond that, for all we know, the announcement could be something other than Sins II, so PMing this thread to them could seem presumptuous.

yea i have a shift tomorow too we shall discuss some more, i also think that they should have the ability to make an enemy ship go crazy: irrational random movement and shooting at friendly units - all according to the lore, and then get deactivated for a while "symbolic for the crew gone mad" from the lore

so in addition to the different new classes of ships that are going to be added, i would love to have additional 2-3 more new unique ships added per already existing class, these ships will have the same basic role but will have 1-2 unique capabilities and looks to set them apart for the player to choose

as an example ill use a vasari scout: Vasari in general are paranoid, sneaky, deceptive.

scout a: will have the ability to cloke and become invisible from a given amount of time. you will physically see only the distortion of light while its moving. if you try to target it, you will get the "x" mark and the cant target sound this ability will take time to recharge

scout B: will have the ability to fake a planets ownership. so when the game started especially important in MP these scouts will be able to cast an ownership icon on to a neutral planet. the enemy will not be able to know that this planet dose not belong to the vasari so their only option would be to come closer to the planet or even start bombing, after there will be a pop up that would indicate that this was a deception.

Scout c: will have the ability to see the amount of research you have done. in order to do that it would need to target a research station in a gravity well where 2 or more research stations are present. the info will only indicate what % of civ or war research they have done. this will be important for the MP crowd.

Scout d: (long term primerally for Single Player) it will have the ability to sabotage AN ALLIED a planet ( in other for this to work- you will need a diplomacy vessel in the same gravity well. the Allies planet population will start declining, they will go into NEGATIVE taxes) however this is temporary and the enemy will have no way to tell except to watch the population, income and his allies.

just like the above examples this game could expand so much and even incorporate the lore into these abilities just like irolclad did in the past

advent,- they are crazy, stuck up- revenge, psychotic 

scout a: able to sense antimatter only up to medium cruisers. its will see "red" blobs on darkened planets and even undiscovered worlds this will be important in early game

Tec 

scout a: the Intelligence scout will be able to see how much of what kind of upgrades you have on your starbase (once again it will only tell you % of upgrades on defensive (armor) of offensive (weapons) only if it gets to a certain range from the starbase- so it will need a distraction for this ability to work

scout b (the pioneers)- only 2 can be built it will be able to colonize a planet with early "settlers"- the pioneers. only when 2 or more capitol ships are present in the same gravity well. when colonizing it will not be able to move for 2 minutes, the population growth will be 68% slower than regular but the ship will act as a "defense" turret for those 2 minutes its not mobile, the turret can be activated only while colonizing 

scout C: able to "capture  "militia" weapon defense turret on a militia controlled world or a pirate world 

Wow just stop dude if any of your ideas were actually implemented the series would be dead in a week.

I'd also like proper cloaking capabilities (can move but not fire when cloaked) that actually makes the ship invisible to all except the owner.

And possibly even have visual detection and sensor detection.

Sensor detection for example would show say near by grav wells (or scanned ones) but would only display 'blips' representing where ships/structures are but not revealing what type they are.

Visual detection would be the same as when you have a ship in the grav well (and probably the advent far sight ability)

I personally would prefer a LOS system as well, so that ships obscured by a planet (or storms, asteroids etc.) would only show as sensor blips until your ships sight them, but I know some people may not like that idea.
(Think something along the lines of Supreme Commander)

If you own the planet though, you should naturally get full vision of the well.

For Sins-2, can we get a warning/confirmation box before a planet is scuttled, especially a homeworld.  Something like, "Scuttle Planet - Are you sure you want to do this?  <Yes/No buttons>"

lol these are just examples of ideas bud.  i think the scout in general should play a bigger role (based on real life- rangers scout unit, or navy seals) in other word - not just explore but have an additional"power"

whats with this guy "sinkllr any way?" lol 

i always thought it would be cool if the Vasari chasers had the option  did not to use the existing phase lanes. So they could chose to use the phase lane (which they can travel faster than most races, but can not use phase lanes but they go super slow. To balance this their ships would move a lot slower in the gravity wells of planets.

this is what i mean. i want more titans per race and fraction. 2-3 more so you can choose to build the original or the new 3 ones - 4 in total per fraction 

so they can take it 2 ways 1. make brand new very different looking titans or base the design on the original titan. i would prefer brand new looking ones...

I don't agree with the idea of multiple titans because there will be new players that I'd rather not utterly overwhelm. Also, the presentation for management went well and I've figured out what I think is a really cool vision for the chasers.

I just more variation in base ships/buildings. Its the same ship, same building no stat changes nothing just a tad bit more random based on random variation. Its the same base design base function just add some randomness to multiple ones

I like and agree with most of the suggestions in this thread.  Couple that stick out to me that I don't so much agree with:

• Turn based - While I like turn based, I like real time, too, and this game started as real time.  Thus, to me, it should stay that way, otherwise it essentially becomes another game.  As is, actually, I happen to remember reading a thread somewhere about SD acquiring the license to a really old space exploration/colonization/etc that was turn based and even had a lot of RPG elements to it.  Something Control?  I don't remember....  If someone wants turn based, then they might want to encourage SD to release that.  While I'm thinking of it, though, I hope that's not their announcement (as I'd rather have a Sins II).
• More ships - OK, a couple (3-4) per faction I'm ok with.  But not a dozen or more.  I find myself (for once) agreeing with Sinkiller, even if his comments are rather rude.  He is correct, though... you can only bring in so many "different" things before you end up with simply variants of each other.  You can try giving them each all these "cool" and "unique" abilities, but at the end of the day, only the one (or two) that are most useful will get used by 95% of the community.  If you think about it, in order for any of these Governments to approve production of these "variants", the variation from the standard would have to be worth that production (and R&D) cost.  Think about it... of the major powers in this world, how many different types of naval ships do they have in production or would produce should the need arise?

All of that said, one thing I kind of hope for, is less stuff in orbit around a planet.  IE, actually build the things on the planets themselves (reference: MoO2).  Either that, or, everything actually orbits the planets.

Don't forget, too, if they do this on the Nitrous engine... it's a whole new engine.  Everything will need to be built from the ground up.  We don't need to limit our thoughts to Sins I coding.  IE, ground troops... it should be entirely feasible for them to have actual troop counts on the worlds with their own armor/health/weapon stats rather than it just being another HP number that takes damage.  And yes on allies being able to deploy friendly troops to assist defending!

I would love to see worlds with moons orbiting them... that can be colonized separately!  Even have their own grav wells, but allow for well to well movement without phase lanes if they're close enough (ie, touching).  Have the moons (slowly) orbit their worlds, and even the worlds around their stars.

Have everything operate in an actual 3d grid... not 2d with a bit of z-axis variation.  This includes ships, any orbital structures, and even the planets themselves!  (Well... ok, on second though, maybe only really the ships themselves... and only if defense structures get regulated more to the planets themselves, allowing them to fire to the planet's northern and southern hemispheres and ships bombarding from those locations do reduced damage, maybe (seems the worlds populace tends to shy away from the poles).  After all, even in RL the planets mostly orbit the Sun on a 2d plain with z-axis variations. ;))

Heck, do away with phase lanes altogether!  Line of sight travel (ie, you can't travel through another world that's in the way)... but with distance per jump limitations (representative of refueling/allowing the jump engines a chance to cool.  NO ONE is to have unlimited range... their food stores would eventually run out ;)).  The exception to this would be things like Vasari phase stabilizers... have them be actual gates that they pass through, or like space-time folding devices whatever.   Either way, you need one on both ends.  It would make it so that on some maps your "buffer" zone between you and your opponent is multiple worlds thick.

Course, I realize that last one might cause deviation from what makes Sins I what it is (it was something of MoO2 I liked... but disliked the unlimited travel research and often modded it out...), but figured I'd throw that out there.  It'd also be kind of cool to be able to jump to locations that are not grav wells, though that may require more extensive coding and balancing.

One thing I'd like to see is a lot more variation between the sides.

Frigates for example, we could have roles that the other races have no direct comparison to. The new capital ships in the Rebellion expansion went in that direction, but the Rankulas was well ... ineffective.

I kind of hope as I said that we get some sort of a ship designer.

Okay...  Time for the post.  This should be considered a continuation of my previous post when I summarized what I thought the Chaser frigates should look like.  Unless otherwise stated, assume all effects affect both allied and enemy troops.  I've tried to design the faction around tradeoffs, giving them particularly powerful abilities that cost something.  In theory, a Chaser player could positively wreck their own fleet with their abilities while a good one will use them to annihilate enemies with good positioning.  I've also eschewed things like direct damage or healing in most cases, making this a race that will rely on abilities to manipulate the field of battle and use their weapons to do the killing

Strike Craft

• Interceptors: verylight armor class SC that deal antiverylight damage.  Squad size of 3
• Torpedoes: verylight armor kamikaze SC that deal antiveryheavy damage.  Squad size of 1

Battleship

• Gravity Well: creates a gravity distortion at the target location, pulling ships towards it similar to Magnetize but on a larger scale and with a slower acceleration with an radius of 1000/1800/2400/3200 and a max range of 5000.  Colliding ships take 300/400/500/600 damage.
• Rend: fires a massive gravity pulse at the target enemy ship, hurling it backwards, dealing 300/400/500/600 damage and equivalent damage should it hit anything.  This cannot target Titans or Starbases.
• Elevation: passively decreases enemy accuracy while increasing allied accuracy (in Nitrous, this would be done by applying minor repulsion forces to shots aimed at allied ships and minor attraction forces to shots aimed at enemy forces)
• Transpose: all ships within a radius of 3000/5000 of the caster are instantly teleported to the target location in space.  Any ships within the same radius of the target location are instantly teleported to the origin location.  Ship orientation does not change when this occurs.  The maximum range is 8000/14000.  In other words, this lets fleets trade locations.

Support

• Accelerate: increases all over-time stats of all ships within 4000 by 5/10/15/20% (weapon CD, ability CD, passive regen, max acceleration)
• Pause: stuns a target unit for 5/6/7/8 seconds.  All damage dealt to it during that time is dealt upon expiration of the buff.
• Forewarning: passively causes nearby SC to take evasive maneuvers when they are fired upon
• Rewind: restores a capitalship to its exact status 3/4 seconds ago

Carrier

• Supremacy: all allied fighters that fly within 3000 units of the caster over the next 10/20/30/30 seconds are coated in 20/30/40/50 non-recharging shields that drain away at 3/2/2/1 shield point per second.  Shield mitigation is deactivated as soon as the shields break
• Optimized Command: all subordinate frigates (this goes back to my UI overhaul idea, but basically all units that are of lower rank and in the same battle group as the caster) passively have their upkeep costs reduced by 10/20/30/40% up to a cap of 5/15/25/40 units
• Inevitability: culture passively spawns from the planet around which this ship orbits
• Decapitate: imbues own SC with a buff that increases damage to capitals, starbases, and titans by 150%/300% for 30/60 seconds

Colony

• Colonize: colonizes the planet and reduces terraformation upgrade costs by 30/40/50/60% and reduces terraformation duration by 20% for 240 seconds
• Reboot: stuns and removes all psychological and technological debuffs to allied ships (so things like Reverie and Ion Bolt would get removed but things like Nano Disassembler would not) within 4000 units for 3 seconds.  After the reboot, all affected ships increase their passive regeneration by 100/150/200/250% for 10/13.3/16.7/20 seconds
• Population Boom: passively increases population growth of any allied planet this ship orbits by 100/200/300/400%
• Endure: for the next 3/5 seconds, no ship within 6000/8000 units may be reduced below 1 hull

Dreadnought

• Eject Reserves: dumps all stored antimatter in this ship into space around it, dealing {.04/.08/.12/.16}*AM/100 of the current hull of each ship damage to all ships within 6000 units.  Though the damage scales off hull, the damage is dealt to shields first
• Ignite: converts the target Gas Giant into a Star, allowing it to regen AM and house multiple starbases
• Smite: deals 400/600/800/1200 glassing damage to the target planet.  Can target owned, neutral, and enemy worlds.
• Annihilate: deals 30/40% of the target's current hull as damage to all ships within 6000 units.  Target may be up to 8000 units away

Unique

• Incomprehensible: kills the target frigate and 1/3/7/15 other frigates around it
• Test Subject: scuttles a target frigate to reduce the remaining time on the currently researching topic by 30/40/50/60 seconds
• Ascended: allied capitals within 5000 units passively receive 20/30/40/50% bonus XP from kills
• Omniscience: for 1/30 seconds, all entities are visible.  At the first second, you effectively get the same result as if a scout left every planet in the game.  In the second, you actually have time to look at a few things.

Titan

• Resurgence: allows the titan to construct frigates and cruisers with 50/100/150/200% build speed
• Overwhelming Power: increases targets per bank of the caster by 3/6/9/12 for 30 seconds
• Terror: passively has a 5/10/20/25% chance to stun enemy frigates for 5 seconds when they are struck by the titan's weapons
• Blackout: all enemy units within 10000/20000 cease sending information about their status to their owners for 5/10 seconds.  The owners of those units can still issue orders that will be followed, but they will not see any changes in any units.  In the interim, they will simply see the units where they last were in the state they last were.

Starbase

• Event Horizon: creates a bubble with radius 5000 centered on the starbase that persists until toggled off, draining 30/25/20/15 AM per second.  Units, abilities, and weapons fire cannot penetrate this barrier.  Ships in phase space can pass through the barrier.  If the starbase happened to be positioned correctly, the barrier could block superweapon shots.
• Reject: returns the target capital to the planet it last jumped from
• Antimatter Shield: all allies phase jumping away from the body around which this orbits shall lose no AM in transit.  This is passive.
• Command Hub: increases the tactical slots of the planet around which this orbits (presuming it is an allied planet) by 4/8/12/20

Superweapon

• Sever: deactivates all phase lanes from a planet.  Any ships that were in transit receive 30% hull damage and are returned to where they departed from immediately

Iconic Research

• Gravity Repulsion: Gravity Cannon weapons repel enemies they hit
• Native Environment: Ships travel faster through phase space
• Scarred for Life: enemy frigates damaged by your capitals or capitals damaged by your titan permanently deal 5/10% less damage
• True Purpose: PJIs can be used as factories
• Rightful Ownership: colony frigates can capture enemy PJIs
• Culture Upgrades: in addition to the standard strength increases, the faction specific bonus is lowered upkeep costs

Thoughts?  Sure, some of it's overpowered, but IMO, not bad for a first draft of a race.  Personally, such a race sounds awesome.

Number of successful rts games with four races- 1

Number of successful rts games with three races- too many to list

You can't argue with math.

May I ask which 4-race RTS you're thinking of?

Also, what reason do you think all those other games failed?  If the balance was largely worked out in Sins I (and I believe it largely was), adding a new race and balancing it against the current races shouldn't be too difficult.

Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance had 4 races.... that's the only one I can think of.

:EDIT: wait! Dawn of War had four races; Space Marines, Chaos Marines, Eldar and Orcs.

 :2nd Edit: Come to think of it, Battle For Middle Earth had four races too... Gondor, Rohan, Isengard and Mordor....

Of course, planet ownership should grant full vision of the surrounding grav well.

Sorry, pressed the wrong button =P

Any comments on the idea for the Chaser?

There are definitely some interesting ideas there. Though it's hard to make a judgement due to the fact we don't know who or what the chasers are....

I also feel that if the chasers are revealed in Sins 2 that they should be unplayable.
Have them feature in a campaign, and have a multi-player option that the Chasers arrive after a certain amount of time or something.

as a side note I'd love fighters to be able to have shields without crashing the game =P

Volt, I meant warcraft 3.

Yes, Im sure those were all balanced with deep, immersive units for each faction.

(Sarcasm)