As SoaSE already is a gem, i can't think of much things to change (besides the obvious modernization stuff).
It is more like making adjustments:

- The idea of orbiting objects and even moving planets is just great, had this always in mind for a successor -> i'm excited
- Keep the look and feel of the factions in general (there are not many games without a campaign creating such great stories through the sheer fantasy of the player). Maybe you can create some unique differences between loyalists and rebels to support the imersion?
- I appreciate "realism" over "gamification", we need (demand) large and complex research trees, please don't simplyfi to much.
I'm sure a new and younger audience can handle that as well (maybe better) 
-As often mentioned: no comic style
-Better/more interesting pirates
-More planetary differences and specialities, stellar phenomenon was already a huge step
-Of course i would love to have some old maps in there
-At some point a campaign? That would be great, even as a DLC
-More differences between the ships/classes
-Send me a picture of a Vasari Capital please!  

In general i'm looking forward for the new mechanics and the new engine.
Thank you very for the work you guys are doing.

I love the game!

I've always wanted several things:

• The means of "stealing" technology from other races.  For example, disable a ship and gain the ability to research the technologies it possessed.  Or, once a technology is used against an opponent, that opponent can research with 2-3 research tiers penalty.
• Trade ships / cargo ships should have some means of defending themselves.  Even if it is a pathetic single use missile per trip, ramming the opponent, self destruct, something, anything other than accepting an inevitable death. 
• Constructors being able to travel 1 hop away from their home planet would go a long way to quickly building up a new planet.
• Split screen / detachable windows would be a nice feature.
• A purchase queue, that buys or sells resources as needed to complete.   For example, queue up a research Trade Stations, then build a trade port at this planet, then a trade port at this planet, then logistics slot at this planet, then trade port at it.  Then research, star bases, and the game mechanics handle the rest. 
• The ability to buy or sell resources in larger quantities.  And / or automatically exchange so I don't have to kill my mouse button.
• After enough research stations are built, lower tier technologies have their costs/times slowly decay. 
• The ability to give most things to allies (ships, planets, starbases)
• Terra-forming
• Right-click on almost anything and have AI automatically control it while leaving enough resources untouched that I can focus elsewhere. (planet development, logistical structures, tactical structures, diplomacy, research, frigate construction, you name it, I want to be able to right-click it to automate it) - perhaps even with priority levels
• Giving fleets general tasks (auto-explore and colonize, withdrawal if outnumbered, reinforce nearby systems if incoming fleet detected, patrol several systems, after clearing an enemy move attack the next planet)
• Clicking on a higher research item would automatically select all prerequisites.
• The ability to hold a fleet until the production queue is empty before heading to a rally point
• Eventually I would like to be able to mod the computer player's AI, so I can customize my opponents strategy and/or train it to counter my strengths.

I've played thousands of hours of the first game, and I'm grateful for its longevity.  The developers did a great job with it.  I usually set the race to random, and I'm rarely disappointed with what I get (sometimes the map would have favored a different race).  There are many things I hope don't change.  I like having only three resource types; I don't want tons of different resources that are impossible to find.  I like that the game is well balanced; I don't want unique items / combos creating unfair playing fields.  I like that I can pick any type of map I want; I don't want to have to unlock something in a prior game or have to earn achievement points to unlock more game features.  I like that it was developed before social media ruined many games; I don't want anything to do with social media.  I like that everything is always available; I don't want limited time events or features that come and go with the whims of time.  I like being able to shift-click commands and stack them.  I like setting ships as rally points.  I like being able to select the victory conditions.  I like being able to turn the pirates on or off.  I like sending waves of mass fleets to their doom against a vicious computer player to stall them while I go for their capital.  I love the game!

Modding, was part of Stargate Invasion back in the day. 

I want massive fleets and customization l, would be nice to go bigger and add an extra tier of capital ships and have 3 or 5 of the current bigger capital ships that having one gives a perk and have a single really slow Goliath capital ship that moves extremely slowly that has its own gravity and has to be maneuvered carefully not to destroy enemy and friendly space objects alike, maybe they can un-pack in a solar system and give a bonus but take time and be vulnerable during the transition in/out much like the base construction?

Would also be nice to:

* Show damage or planet bombardment in different stages, 

* Show different stages of upgrades on ships and plants 

* Allow different manual upgrades on ships 

* After battle be able to collect the scrap and recycle it back into a portion of the resources used to make it 

* Solar systems can have natural events, Asteroid hits, plagues, super nova's etc... 

* What ever happened to the threat the Vasari were running from..... 

* The odd Alien civilization planet you run into that you can choose to to subjugate or recruiter as an ally and trade with that gives special perks and technology. 

* More than one pirate faction that can attack you and attack each other. 

Quoting G_Bison, reply 8

I'm excited for the pure fact that after 15 years, we're finally getting Sins 2. I weep with joy!!!      

oof... 15 years. I'm old now.

Excited though! Hope it turns out good!

Also:

- More artifacts
- More random planet bonuses and penalties 
- More capital ships (or more ship designs in general)
- As someone mentioned before: Another class of ships (something between caps and cruisers maybe)
- Maybe 2 different starbase designs per faction
- Similar to supcom 2: Maybe release titans or capships in emergency situations earlier with a penalty to armour and weapon systems before they finished construction

tltr: keep the core gameplay and please add more ships and strategic options!

Thanks!

Really excited for this! I was one of the people that did not expect it (as I did not follow the Facebook posts, nor got to see the swarm showcase). I just want to see in regards to the Epic exclusivity for now: if you care about getting a good game, give feedback on the early access. If you don't want to, it's fine to wait until release, but you'll have less impact on the game development.

A few things I would really like, I think most have been said already:

• Something in regards to a campaign (yeah, I'm sorry). A DLC would be fine, or an official partnering up with modders for example. I also appreciate that you guys understand that the story is very much present in the game lore and thus will keep to what's already been in there so far.
• More choices in regards to (at least) titans; give us a few choices of titan per faction (both loyalists and rebellion), or (much easier) let us choose a specific number of abilities (to upgrade, like 5) from a set of 10 abilities.
• I really like the moving celestial bodies mechanic, so please make it right AND random; tidally locked planets, weird orbits, fast spinning and orbiting outer planets etc. Or at least give enough modding capabilities to make these happen (looks promising on that front).
• Something with a FTL trade-off. Since I believe that celestial bodies can be REALLY close to each other, it would be nice to be able to remove FTL capabilities for ships/certain shiptypes just don't have FTL, and have more power overall. This suits defensive gameplay slightly, but could also be an offensive threat when celestial bodies move extremely close.

Again, I'm excited! Let's make Sins 2 a success and give it a long lifecycle -just like the treasured Sins 1.

I'd like to see the ability to sell tech and ships to your allies.  Perhaps even an ability to steal tech from other civilizations.

I'm not preordering until I see some gameplay, however just playing sins again which will basically be Rebellion at launch and hoping that if it is a success they will add even more features like... The mysterious force behind the Vasari Exodus. 

Quoting Thrawn2787, reply 55

Quoting G_Bison,

reply 8

I'm excited for the pure fact that after 15 years, we're finally getting Sins 2. I weep with joy!!!      

 

oof... 15 years. I'm old now.

 

Excited though! Hope it turns out good!

Sins old-timers unite!

One thing would be really important: Moddable AI that is not immensely stupid. So many ideas go to waste in SOASE at the moment because the AI can‘t handle any deviation from the default ship and research layout. 

No Colony Capship? AI dies... 
No Siege Frigate? AI dies…
Need to research something before Colony Ship? AI dies…

and so on.

Please fix this in Sins 2. That would be really great!

I'm most excited to see the story continue. 

I'm looking forward to the end of late game crashes that I'm guessing 64 bit will bring.

Also as an aside, I forgot how soothing a quick read of the forum is.  It's refreshing. 

backs out of the room slowly   

The Mods

Quoting Thrawn2787, reply 55

Quoting G_Bison,

reply 8

I'm excited for the pure fact that after 15 years, we're finally getting Sins 2. I weep with joy!!!      

 

oof... 15 years. I'm old now.

 

Excited though! Hope it turns out good!

I think I was about that age when I played Sins back in '08... Smash Mouth wasn't kidding, the years start coming and they don't stop coming

I hope we get some great music again! The original game had wonderful music, looking forward to hearing a revamped reprise of the main themes!

I am so excited for this game!!! I haven't played a lot of Rebellion, but the things I loved the most about it was the perfect balanced of the speed of RTS with the slowness of 4X. While I find most RTS games too emphasized on like APM or being as efficient as possible, and 4X games being way too long and slow, this game lets me have those delicious giant space battles I want from RTS while letting me think with my slower brain like 4X. I can send in a big fleet to defend a planet under attack, and while that fight is still going on I can build and send an entire backup fleet to extend the beautiful fight.

The concerns about the art style (like planet lighting, not having a dark side of planets or having city lights is sad to me, and overall brighter style that reminds me of Planetary Annihilation (a game I also really like but never played much due to having other RTS games I'd rather play) which isn't bad at all, but it is kind of jarring in comparison to Rebellion.

Mod support (ingame mod browser!!!!!) is something I am most excited for personally, as well as of course modernized engine and such for even more beautiful space battles.

One thing I and other people I try introducing Rebellion to get hung up on is the UI. It really can be very confusing and overwhelming at first, and even now I still struggle to know what I'm looking at or what I'm doing when things get very fastpaced and hectic.

Overall I'm beyond hype for this game, preordered and cannot wait to see it grow and evolve with time. And don't let the haters sway you. There's nothing wrong with 1 year Ipic exclusivity. You get the money to make your game succeed, plus IIRC a bigger cut from people buying it, among other benefits. And those who feel betrayed by y'all need to know that nobody on the team ever made any promises on what platform to put the game on. If you really want the game and want to support the devs, the best way to do that is with preorders and by buying it on the platform that earns them the biggest cut. And while I doubt this game is coming to itch.io, Epic is a great deal bigger of a cut than Steam! It's a free launcher too! What's the problem!! Just know nobody is "forced" to wait a year to play the game.

Thank you for making this game and being involved with the community Stardock/Ironclad. It means a lot!!!

Improved Online Multiplayer features and functionality and hopefully a very vibrant and active online multiplayer community.

Without seeing more of the game, it's hard to know what exactly to be excited for... but I do like the prospect of a new engine. Ever since the days of AotS and the Mantle engine, we were shown what APIs and game engines can do in terms of complexity and high unit count.

If SoaSE 2 can leverage similar technology, it'll be amazing to see giant squadrons of fighters zipping around, turrets tracking them... oooh, can we get projectile tracking for amazing missile swarms?

Seriously, SoaSE 1 but with a technical refresh would be a sell already. But curious to see more... especially, if we get as healthy a modding community again as we had when SoaSE was younger and fresher, waiting for these (hopefully) inevitable Star Trek and Star Wars mods. Maybe we'll see Expanse mods, too.

I would love better modding support:

• no reliance on softimage modtool (would prefer a single Blender -> Sins pipeline) (though I understand if a conversion step like the current converter will remain necessary)
• extended scripting. I like the current scripting system but it's way too limited (so many times I there's no Type for what you want to do).
• more influence on the AI behaviour from a modding perspective
• smart AI, please please don't make difficulty settings by only giving the AI advantage/the player disadvantage, but by deepening the AI tactical search depth
• updated support tools for modding. For example the particle forge is quirky at the moment. The galaxy forge could use some help. Also, more influence on starting positions (with race filter). Scenario's (fixed setup).

Really excited to play this!

One thing though, could you please at least consider releasing it on steam along with epic? I have rebellion and all the DLC on steam already and would love to also have SoaSE 2 there as well to add to my library.

I'm not happy in the least. Quit disgusted that you would betray the very community that made you. Good luck on Epic... You're going to need it. 

Some food for thought -- some games simply would not get made without external funding like you find with Epic.  So...in many cases the choices are nothing, or some period of exclusivity.  For me, that seems like a no brainer.  Don't take my word for it.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/sweeney-epic-games-store-is-making-the-industry-better-but-gamers-dont-see-that

https://www.eurogamer.net/original-x-com-creator-faces-backlash-after-signing-epic-games-store-exclusive-deal-for-phoenix-point

https://www.techspot.com/community/topics/some-developers-are-ditching-steam-in-favor-of-the-epic-games-store.250901/

From a purely financial perspective, Steam takes 30% of every dollar you make.  That's effectively a 30% tax on the entire industry before you make a single dime.  Epic takes 12%.  

Assume positive intent folks.  

Ron Burke
Director of Live Services, Stardock

I wish it were possible to just purchase the game directly from Stardock and cut out the middlemen completely; then you could have 100% of the revenue.