Balance & Bug Fixes: April 2024 Change Log

Currently not available while we fix a pesky assert. Back soon!

Must be quite a bug if it's still not released (unless I downloaded it and didn't realize). I've been holding off on playing again until the next update.

It's available now.

v1.25.5 saved single player games do not show up in the load game dialog.

Did you mean 1.21.5? Weird, working on my side. Do you know how to recreate it? Would love to fix it for you

Tried again after my post and it worked fine.

Looked like an update had happened and didn't recognize the previous version save.

Do you know what version you were on previously when you made the save game? Today's update should have been compatible with 1.21.4 save games.

Question, since its going from Sins 1 to Sins 2, there arent any new units? That seems rather odd for a second iteration of the game. In fact, we lost some units and even a capitol ship from game 1. Is that in the works at all? A new capitol ship? Or maybe a ship between capitol and titan?

That's usually how to appeal to players of the original game give them more toys and ships and more ships.

Not in this case...they have capitols running away in a undermined state because they can't protect themselves and they eliminated a frigate that could be a protector. 

And they are still technically in the building stage of the game. Better to start at a base level, aka the original ships, and add to it from there. We don't know what the final product will be. Especially as they have modified or added to much of the structure of the game, aka orbital planets, new economics, even new battle concepts, so that new ships are a bit over the top right now.

• Jusotra Fabricator: allows Vasari to manufacture corvettes and frigates wherever the fleet is and can operate as a mobile retrofit bay (ability to customize ships without returning to a planet) and harvest debris for resources. Dives deeper into Vasari's mobile nature and allows deeper integration with a two new game mechanics.
• Harcka Heavy Cruiser: a heavily armored warship equipped to deal with multiple medium armored targets. Not a simple replacement for the old TEC heavy cruiser. It's multi turreted capabilities are required to satisfy the far more simulated combat system that relies on turret angles, turret speed, armor and durability mechanics, and to fill a hole in the combat counter diagram.

• Corsev BattleCruiser: ugly and a clunky ability set. It's best feature was "Boarding Party" which has interesting gameplay at both the early stages of the game (which is difficult) and of course in later stages. This feature has largely been replaced by the ability to invest early in the new Influence system to gain access to the new Pirate Minor Faction's "Boarding Crew" item that can be installed on your capital ships. Better integration with two new game systems.
• Sivuskras Ruiner: mines were added in the Entrenchment DLC and have proven to be an endless source of problems - from frustrating unit ai, at one moment too effective and at other moments useless, places an undue burden on player micro, etc.

• Akkan: Adds mobile tradeport. Embraces the lore of the Akkan but more importantly gives TEC a number of interesting strategies and interactions with the TEC's unique Empire System "Trade" (which is completely different than the Sins1 trade system). (For those playing the current version of the Akkan, it has been further improved behind the scenes).
• Sova: Adds mobile corvette factory. Embraces the Sova's lore and gives TEC a variety of new tactical and strategic decisions such as early deep strike capabilities, close battle reinforcement, improved intelligence gathering (via frontline scout production), and overall building support.

• Sulsarak Defensor: A small, quick ship capable of hunting down opposing missiles, strikecraft, and corvettes. Again, needed to give Vasari the ability to deal with new combat mechanics, adds a variety of new tactics and has the side benefit of further differentiating from the TEC in way that is more line with the Vasari's lore.
• Tosurak Raider: A small, quick hybrid ship well equipped to perform raids on enemy orbital infrastructure and earns resources on attack. Better for Vasari lore and gives them the unique ability to raid early (a rare concept in Sins1), threaten enemy structures early on (a costly loss), and boost the resource hungry Vasari economy (especially early on). Serves well in the latter part of the game as both a distraction and ability to shut down critical infrastructure (e.g. common to kill research stations to stall enemy tech advancement).

Not going play Monday night quarterbacks and second guess your business decisions, cause lets be honest this is a business decisions not betterment for the fans, the brand or the game. If you want us to buy your expansions packs you are already planning on creating, you better step up your plans for this game. 

I can only speak for myself and if you want more of my money (already starting to regret joining this beta) maybe you actually do what players want:

New gameplay - kinda in progress maybe

Better graphics - check. ( you did the minimum) hopefully there is more

New ships and structures - Not seeing it. Did you really try to justify removing content and not adding a  viable replacement ?

my 2 cents and if this view is not the same as the rest, you will only really lose my future money.

I'll take that as neutral or maybe slightly positive. I think all the new features, content, and mechanics do bring a lot of new gameplay to the table without ruining what Sins was. A lot of it isn't immediately obvious but we'll try and do better to expose it. Also, Advent will bring some additional new gameplay.

Thanks. Yes, there are more graphical improvements coming. Working on some this weekend in fact.

I listed a few new units above but there are more in-game. Also, when Advent arrives they will bring a few more.

That is a good question and fundamental to the game. If we removed a unit and didn't have a viable replacement then the tactical (and potentially strategic) interactions of the game wouldn't work (at least for the race in question). However, as I admitted we did find a couple holes that may require a new unit (or rework) to fix. If you have a specific unit that was removed that doesn't have a viable replacement, we are happy to dig into it because it could mean there are some broken interactions we don't know about yet.

@Blair Fraser:

Disagree here on a few points, will try to respond to everything and add some feedback thats coming from myself and my brother who I play the game with:

Orbiting planets, new and unique racial mechanics, more racial and sub-faction differentiation, new game systems, new combat mechanics, new high level strategy options, unit and planet customization, new fleet management, new empire management, new minor faction system, multi-core/64bit engine, in-game mod support, and so on service this one goal.

-Orbiting planes - win

- New  racial mechanics - ok, but can be pushed more, will wait for final verdict, so far progress

- new combat mechanics - sure

- new fleet/empire managemetn - sure

- mew minor faction system - yes, this has been positive, enjoy that

- New high level strategy - dont think so. And i think this is where we get boggled down a bit. To paraphrase Grubby(Warcraft 3 streamer and big time gaming icon), if the gameplay is sound the game will succeed. 

A lot of the "new things" are quality of life changes that are generally linked to a patch, not a whole new game. When you present a new game in the RTS world we as a community expect new units. In every single RTS game that I've ever played and has had a second game delivered, there have at least been some new units along side reworks to other units.

Starcraft > Star craft Brood war > new units

Starcraft Brood War > Star craft 2 > massive differences and new units etc.

Warcraft 2 > Warcraft 3 massive differences and new units

Age of Empires 2 > Age of Empires 3 > massive differences and new civs, units etc.

While I understand the "keep the winning formula" and i think the base fantasy of space battles with "hero" capital ships is awesome and must be kept. But if you want to excite the community you need a bit more new toys and units. Cutting units or ships that didnt feel like they added to the gameplay is fine, but pruning is not the same as adding new units. That might streamline pre-existing gameplay, but it does not contribute to new gameplay which is what Sins 2 should bring over Sins 1.

Specifics to the current gameplay:

-Strike craft are more or less fire and forget and the interaction is minor. Capitol ships dont have a way to deal with them like they did in Sins 1, maybe streamlined, but no new interactions. The flak frigates are not enough of an interaction in my opinion. Plus no active abilities to deal with them.

- Dunov capital ship is not enough of a threat and i currently dont feel like its good enough in its role to be picked over a Kol, Marza, Sova, or Akkan.

- Vulkoras and Antorak capital ships are in the same boat. 

- I dont find any use for tier 1 frigates past mid game(Cobalt and Ravastra). The anti-matter burns / CD increase they had in game 1 made them useful post early game. Another prune that just takes away gameplay. Finding ways to make all units relevant all game via abilities/upgrades might add that, but we dont have that currently.

- The Harcka Heavy Cruiser doesnt feel new at all, its basically a TEC copy of the Enforcer, who does the exact same thing but actually has the flavor of having a PD turret. So essentially it just becomes a "type" ship, meaning everyone has it, or at least TEC + Vasari currently. So nothing new here. The Kodiak used to be very tanky, and noticeably tanky, so that was that flavor.  Need some more flavor to the Harcka to even think about being "new/redesigned".

- Defensor and Raider are just your standard issue corvettes, so again, it feels like the Harcka treatment of here's a generic unit for everyone and you just play ball. 

- The mines an Cielo's, while possibly not great gameplay, again, you're pruning, but not adding anything new. So instead of 4 ways to play, with 2 being bad, now its 2 ways to play. While not a bad decision in a vacuum, it doesnt make a difference if this was Sins 1 just not using those units in terms of pure gameplay. 

Final thought, like I mentioned earlier, the fantasy of the game is great, and I think so far there's been a good amount of quality of life changes, but I think if you want to the game to pick up speed or explode even if its just from the Sins 1 community, you need to add more gameplay toys, specifically new units/ships that are usable and add to gameplay instead of just taking away the ones that did not. A failed new ship can be balanced, a pruned bad ship cannot.

Just my 4 cents,(2 from me and 2 from my brother).

I don't agree with the notion that Sins2 "requires more units" because it has a "2" at the end of it; nor do I understand the notion of "new games must have more units". This said, I am curious as to which roles/units are still thought to be missing from sins2. I don't think sins2 has progressed past sins:rebellion (story wise); it strikes me as a "revision 2". I'd assume that future expansions are most likely to introduce new units (story wise, because the factions get a chance to respond to each other in their endless war).

• Personally, I still think sins2 should explore cloaking more with the Vasari & their phase-space control (and also for mod support). This would allow for the addition of units that have cloaks themselves, give cloaks to others, see cloaked units themselves, or allow allied units to see cloaked enemies - be it an aura or target area, be it indefinitely or for a duration)
• Even as a cloak variant, giving scouts a "cloak" that stops enemies from auto-attacking for a duration would be nice (a more pre-emptive version of the envoy ability in sins1).
• I'd even consider 'sensor ghosts' to be akin to this (the deceptive illusion ability of the advent illuminator vessels in sins1)

It would be awesome to see some of the old units return for militia & minor factions. As a cameos of ideas-past kinda thing. As much as I'd like to see this I'd rather the devs finish implementing their sins2 goals first. Another take would be to have the minor factions use units/designs that weren't deemed fit for the playable factions but could be used as nods for "what might have been".

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I really miss rank-n-file units having abilities though...

• Turrets
  • Most notable one for me would be the Vasari's disruptor nanites on the phase missile platform. I'm sure it's debatable from a PvP aspect on whether it was "useful" but I liked it. Originally it stopped passive regeneration; I wonder how it'd play out if instead it interacted with the new shield restore mechanic? Reducing the shields-restored percentage, increasing the shield burst cooldown or a bit of both would give them more of an edge against shield-heavy ships/abilities. Perhaps it'd negate all regen while active (allowing abilities & components to attempt to fix, but fail because of the nanites - this would add some teeth to the phase missile platform anyway)
  • I'd like to see gauss turrets gain the ability to use concussive charge
• Carriers
  • I think it'd be cool for Vasari carriers to get a modified version of the marauder's distort gravity; instead of boosting speed for friendly units it would slow enemy missiles & strikecraft that are in range. The ability could be an aura or an activated AOE ability.
  • I think it'd be cool if the TEC carriers could unlock the ability to deploy a "repair drone factory" (instead of a missile battery, it's a stationary unit that attempts to heal target units in range) which would give TEC a redundancy on their hull repair. Alternatively allowing them to use the "timed explosives" ability from sins1 is a more aggressive path. Perhaps the defensive one is a TEC-Loyalist ability while TEC Rebels favor the extra DPS?
• Frigates
  • The Cobalt used to have "sabotage reactor", rather than have that ability return as another "no abilities for X duration". It'd be neat to see this return in a form where enemies under the influence of this take damage whenever they use their abilities. Perhaps damage dealt equals the antimatter cost & the damaged ships armor strength is decreased for X duration? I'd love it to stack too, similar to what's described below (note that numerical values are just placeholder for conversation)
  • The Skirmisher's "interference" ability used to increase antimatter costs & ability cooldowns. It'd be neat to see it modified so that it increases the antimatter costs of abilities. Ideally so that each ship that causes damage increases the cost. To give an example, lets say the ability lets the skirmisher's attacks increase enemy ability antimatter cost by 1% for 10 seconds. If 10 skirmishers are using that ability than the victim's antimatter cost is increased by 10%. If 60 skirmishers are using it, then ability costs are increased by 60%.

I also ponder about expanding the component system a little bit. Using TEC cruisers & ship components as an example - Harka cruisers would be given a single component slot. Unlike the capital ships, which can have unique loadouts, the mass produced ships are only set-up to support a single variant at any given time.

• The component options available to the Harka are: [Combat Repair System, Structural Integrity or Volatile Accelerants]. To equip, the player would need to research one of those equip options for the Harka.
• To change the equip, the player would need to research a different option (which would "un-research" the previous option so it can be chosen again later on). I don't think you'd want to do this for every ship type mind you, just 1 or maybe 2 of the cruisers
• I see cruisers as mini-capital ships so this seems like a neat method to create more interactions for them. Between research costs & speeds, players can't immediately refit all of the cruiser components.
• This would need to add the capability to un-research things and would need to be present in its own 'category' - so instead of falling under [Training and Recruitment, Ballistics and Rocketry, Structural Subsystems or Experimental Design] it'd be added after 'Experimental Design' as a new category called "loadouts" or something more thematic to Sins2.
• Functionally, this is a toggleable ability for a specific type of ship.

For miscellaneous musings:

• It'd be nice to see a variation of the "trade ship sensor" ability be added to the game, where sensors could be attached to hostile ships (granting vision of the afflicted enemy ship), but only for a duration. This would most likely be a TEC ability (since I'm citing their trade ship sensors)
• It'd be cool to see more disruption type affects from rank-n-file units. Things like:
  • Reduced turret tracking/range/reload (idea/goal is for small ships to impose this kind of debuff on larger ships)
  • An inverse to the ragnarov's "warpath" ability that results in enemy ships having stacks that reduce damage for a duration. To me, this is a play off of 'War Weariness' from civ6. I imagine this kind of ability would be unique to the advent though..
  • an ability that can temporarily enable friendly fire for enemies in range (turrets/missiles/abilities would track/hit your units or an allies units). Basically computer virus or advent mind control theme that can be used to punish all-in enemy attacks - at least that's the goal/theory anyway
  • the ability to 'taunt' units in-range into attacking.
  • The TEC have robots & they have the red button - I'd kind of like to see them use self-destructing ships. In theory this is another way to push back against deathballs..
  • ability to reduce an enemy turret's ability to track ability owner. The mas version of this would stop turrets from acquiring ability owner as a target (cloaking/evasion)
  • we can create temporary phase lanes with 'stabilize phase space', it'd be cool to do the inverse and disable a phase lanes with a 'destabilize phase space' ability
• Methods to reduce/negate specific types of weapons
  • passive ability that would reduce incoming energy weapons, but not missiles or physicals weapons
  • could instead be something that disabled named weapon systems
• I would like to see Pirate ships get equipped with "Infallible Jump Drives". Lore wise, stealing loot doesn't matter if you can't escape with it and all factions can equip it on their scouts. Pirates don't have shields, so maybe they forfeit shields in favor of being able to escape phase jump inhibitors? It would also make the pirate mercenaries more interesting for TEC Rebels I think.
  • Of course, I'd also like them to have looting crews & non-consumable boarding crews as well..
• I'd like to see magnetic singularity:
  • cause all strikecraft in range to ball up in it's center for the duration
  • to force non-strikecraft into moving in tighter formations (as a set-up for AOE abilities)
• I think it'd be funny if TEC broadcast centers could use the 'inspiring broadcast' ability
• I think it'd be consistent for the Garda Flak Frigates to have the Flak Burst component ability (considering their name); just that it'd be weaker than the capital ship version

    I think a Sins 2 that focused on small scale battles with more depth per ship should of been the way to go to differentiate from Sins 1.

Crews,Captains,Admirals. etc

Really deep into the tech of each ship.

Maybe at max 100 ships per race but tactical and deep in the Sins world.

It's probably not too late.

I for one am having a blast with the new game as it gets better and better. It is true it doesn't have as many new actual "units" as one would expect in a sequel, however it does have new gameplay so it's more like a re-tuning of the first game and an actual improvement in most respects. 

Things I like;

I like how the different factions are truly different now instead of just slightly different.

I like how fleets actually work.

I like how micro has been reduced.

I like how you can now build star bases on their own instead of having to use a clunky builder ship that used fleet capacity (always made it awkward to build a SB in the first game, especially if you capped ships and went over the fleet max).

I like the graphical improvements, though the explosions are a bit underwhelming.

I like how minor factions and influence works now, giving it a new unique gameplay mechanic.

Things I don't like;

No new faction. The first game's lore strongly indicated another faction that the Vasari were fleeing, only to not see nor hear anything more about them. 

The lack of new units. 

The music still using the old synthesizer from 2008 (or so it sounds).

The sound effects are getting better, but still sound too "pew pew" instead of meaty.

Most common ships have no abilities now and therefor have lost any personality to them being little more than "swarm" ships. 

Sounds more like the Homewold series. A perfectly legitimate game wish but quite far from the RTS-4X blend that Sins strived for. Maybe a spin-off could eventually explore that?

On the wider discussion, yes, it is somewhat odd for a sequel to keep that many of the original's units and even drop some without replacements. On the other hand, I'd prefer that to adding stuff for the sake of adding stuff and appreciate the focus on wider gameplay mechanics. "Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." More focus on units would be more crucial for a traditional RTS.

On customisable cruisers - kind of reminds me of the enchantment system in AoW4 or even the Mods system in AoW: Planetfall. 4 is more high-level in that all units of a class (e.g. all shield or all archer units) get the enchantment, whereas in Planetfall it was specific to that unit type (e.g. all assault troopers, all laser tanks; I simplify slightly). While many players liked the latter variant, I found it too complex for my taste (and maybe its own good) and it would certainly be a lot for Sins2. But I think there are already Mk IIs for some units. Maybe those could involve a single choice how to upgrade them, what specifically the players wants to improve. I'd probably leave it at that and not bother with changing that choice later on. Just smells like too many potential pitfalls. But as a one-off choice for cruisers ... maybe? Of course, it needs to be fun and balancing it could be tricky. No point if there is always a single best choice.

Oh, and yes to abilities for ships. Antimatter sabotage was a neat ability to keep light frigates relevant later in the game in Sins 1. Shame to lose that complexity in 2.

Never heard of those games (and yes, I live under a rock); curious that it was found to be too complicated though. I do think it'd be cool to set each cruiser individually, but that would add a ton of micro to things (this is already possible to add via modding). I just figured that a compromise to a class-refit (or the mentioned enchantment) system may be better for the scale of sins2 (which isn't currently possible via modding, to my knowledge). The things I suggested amounted to a passive stat increase, an ability-based sustain & an ability-based movement - which could both be impeded by anti-ability things for some counterplay)

As for the "single best choice", there will always be one regardless of how the game is set up if playing competitively. Adding/Removing complexity just changes what the script would be for those looking to win easily.