What?  Thats some powerful space fuel you've been downing there...

So what you claim is that the Vasari did their hazardous and doomed experiment in their lab- and an iguana popped out?  I had expected either some form of sentient infection, or a dimensional rift.  If it was a dimensional rift the monsters would probably be amoebas, not that they couldn't be any kind of monster but amoebas are traditional, there's something about dimensional rifts that make the ability to see the brain floating around inside the body almost compulsory.  I just can't imagine a starship crew and an entire empire being scared of an iguana, even one that was nearly as big as the lab it was spawned in.  I suppose it could be zombies, they're very popular, but they would count as an infection. 

However what I don't get at all is why insects would fear reptiles in particular.  Crocodiles don't eat insects, nor do many snakes.  Giant anteaters and aardvarks are mammals.  Insects might fear birds- or more especially spiders, I'd expect you to realise that- but I'm not convinced that reptiles make vast lunches off the insect population, so that they would be terrified of them.  I suppose its difficult to ask an insect, and humans aren't scared of cars even though cars kill plenty of humans.  But I'd like to know more, it doesn't seem an automatic kind of fear to me.

I would just abandon the existing backstory if there was a Sins 2.  It never made any sense anyway and it handicaps the game rather than helping to rationalise it.  The Vasari are ancient but are at approximately the same technological level as humans?  The Advent were loathed into exile but no-one could be spared to check on what they were up to subsequently?  One of the very few reasons why different humanoids would ever make first contact at approximately the same technological level is by the previous design of some incredibly powerful and ancient race, an honoured and serviceable backstory that has worked for as many aeons as the space-based rts has existed.  A variant is where a powerful empire is dedicated to non-interference but other more aggressive factions gain their first space technology by trading with it.  Either of those would work somewhat better.   

Yes, thats because of the shield mitigation thingy. Such artificial nonsense. I would completely remove shield mitigation, and increase HP and shields of all ships accordingly (+50% for all, +75% for starbases and capital ships, more for Advent). Much better and simpler, IMHO.

No, shields and shield mitigation are two distinct things, shield mitigation works even if shields are down. I am only advocating removing shield mitigation, not shields/hull system.

All SM does to phase missiles is effectively increasing their damage by cca 50%. Moving this from SM to actual damage value would have the same gameplay result.

"IF" Sins 2 is to be coded in 64 bit (which it SHOULD be) Then the number of playable factions will not be an issue at all. Nor will any sort of "2 gig" limitation. The game will only be limited by your hardware. Which is what was intended for Sins, but over time failed, because of the jump from 32 to 64 bit machines. The age of 32 bit was starting to come to an end when Original Sins was released.

Most RTS's until now were limited to the 32 bit standards. So they were more or less limited to 3 factions due to hardware, and software limitations (with the exception of the dawn of war series). That is just speculation since Dawn of War proved you can have many different factions in one 32 bit game, and it still ran smooth. Granted those extra factions came from expansions.The models, and textures are pretty low res compared to sins as well.

I think the reality is there was not enough time. Time to create more factions for these games. Being a model, and texture artist myself i KNOW time is a game company, and artists worst enemy. Time to make concept art, then to model, texture, import in the games proprietary format, do voice overs, add music etc. etc. Then create a UI, and other finalization's of said factions. Then balancing, and play testing. This takes LOTS of time. Even with a large art department it may be time that the game developers just do not have. With the "next big thing" having a release deadline of yesterday thanks to greedy publishers looking to make a quick buck... Who cares if the game is good or not, or if it even works, or not. Making more than 3 factions may not be realistically possible in the limited time allocated to create a new game. That is just my thoughts on it.

While i like most of the ideas posted, It seems most want more RTS in Sins 2, or a new expansion than 4x. Making it more like Homeworld, or Homeworld 2 than Master of Orion 2.

I would like to see IC implement some of the original ideas they had for Sins, but couldnt do it because of limitations at the time.

Like multiple orbiting bodies (planets, moons, asteroids etc.) True Solar Systems with structures orbiting the planets, moons, stars instead of remaining stationary after construction. To add more strategy on decisions on when is the optimal time to strike. Also when would be a good time to dig in, and fortify.

Get rid of the phase lane system.. Originally Sins was supposed to be an "open" universe. The devs did away with it, because of a perceived "Whack a Mole" syndrome in the gameplay. If an open universe was implemented along with fuel usage (antimatter), and range limit from nearest 'friendly" planet/star base like in Gal Civ 2, It can be done, and this will add more strategy than take away. It will also add to the 4x element.

Better diplomacy (than even the diplomacy add on). Diplomacy IMO is still very limited compared to most other 4x games. Spys, and espionage similar to gal civ 2 would add a lot to Sins.

Ground Combat... it doesnt have to be complicated. Imperium Galactica 2, AND Gal Civ 2 had a simple yet effective ground combat system. With Sins 2 you shouldn't have total control of a planet until you send in the MARINES, and have a military garrison on the surface.

Add some more focus on Exploration, and Discovery. The current system doesnt really feel like i am exploring much of anything. Except what is on the other side of the phase lane.

More to say, but i am tired.

what id like to see is less hardcoded parts so for example wanted to make my a campaign for a sins mod hardocoded cant change the ai or create scripted events

so basically drastically reduce the amount u cant actually change for example u can make a third person shooter in sc2 y cant i make a campaign in this awsome game

There should be a new multiplayer user interface that better facilitates situational awareness.

Here is what I am talking about:

http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Ts11c1yi

This interface would make it so that you don't have to constantly switch back and forth between the lobby in and out of games in order to see how many people are online, what other games are being hosted, etc.

Also, on the right side of the screen, it should tell you the number of available slots in a game, i.c. 4/10 after the game name.

Advantages:

1.  Be in a game and monitor the chat in both the main lobby and in your game room

2.  See if any other games have been created while you are sitting in your game room waiting for people to join

3.  You won't need to switch back and forth between multiple screens to gather information, everything is visible

Disadvantages:

I can't think of any real ones.  People would need to learn a new interface, but that's not really a disadvantage.

I'd like to see a way to allow better micromanagement during large battles.  My problem is that I get into battles with over 200 ships and it becomes almost possible to order groups of ships to attack enemy ships, which I normally do from the Empire Tree.  But when you have so many of your own units around, you can't even see the individual enemy ships on the tree and it bounces around.  It's rather frustrating.

Because that's not the way the mitigation system works. It's supposed to increase as a ship takes a lot of fire from a certain damage type, and drop back down and start to compensate again when the ship starts being pounded on by another damage type, meaning if all you're doing is pounding away with lasers, the shields will adapt to make lasers less effective forcing the attacker to bring in ships with different damage types like beam or missiles or gauss and keep enough variation involved to take out the ship easier.

Not completely.

Depends on what you think is going to happen if you wait. The cost isn't going to drop much if at all, there's not going to be a mass influx of people all of a sudden one day, I doubt there will ever be a single player campaign added, but who knows...

Sure.

It is.

https://www.sinsofasolarempire.wikia.com/wiki/Shield_Mitigation

Thats not how mitigation works. It increases with damage dealt regardless of composition of damage types, and protects ship from ALL damage types equally. Variation is useless against mitigation, only higher damage/shot weapons work initially better (when SM is not yet maxed). It does not work like shield adaptation.

Shield mitigation works even when the shields are down, so again, its not shield adaptation. I would like to see shield adaptation to damage types implemented, though. Good idea 

This are damage types, not on the fly adaptation of shields to different damage types - something like mitigation, but specific to each damage type.

Must have fixes:

stationary turning, its space!  Perhaps a penalty to turn speed while not having any forward momentum to provide an opportunity for a foe.  An effective advent healing unit, at tech level 6 it better have some USE!  Rebalancing advent's early game.

Additions:

1.  Adding a new research tab for Capital Ships.  Three sub trees would be something along the lines of Ability upgrades, offensive upgrades, and defensive upgrades.  This would be an easy way to improve capital ships, give the developers flexibility with balance, and provide another area to focus resources, and make capital ships more viable in end game.  Want fighter defenses on your caps? buy them at tech level 1 for a measly 400/500 creds.  This would help rebalance carrier capitals without a nerf (aside from bomber spam on the vasari cap, that needs an increased antimatter cost/increased cooldown).  I strongly assert that increasing capital ship utility will diversify the game play, increasing strategic options and overall increasing the fun!

2. Adding more planetary upgrade options, and more planet types.  When scouted, a planet(not an asteroid) has a blind spot behind it that is unseen unless the scout actually drives around the planet.  This would increase the difficulty that other players will have in scouting your entire empire.  No need for cloak, just make them work for that sexy scan data!

3. Improve the Random maps that are used so often in multiplayer matches.  Have less predictable phase lane placement, and less predictable homeworld locations. Reduce the occurrence of the "suicide spot" situation in 4v4 and 5v5, as it gets annoying.

4. Perhaps adding a few more upgrade slots to really max the starbases out?  this could be a tech lvl 8 purchased defense upgrade, and lordy what a good one that would be!  Also provide more health upgrades for advent/tec starbases to make them on par with the vasari SB. As it stands currently vasari have the inherent advantage when they siege a planet being able to pick and choose the precise location of battle.  Considering fleets of even currency investment and similar tech level, Player skill should allow both players to fight for this advantage.

All starbases can move intrinsically or via upgrades.  Using the vasari starbase as the top speed of 1, the advent starbase would be .75 and the terran starbase would be .5.  Fleets should be able to easily avoid the red button of death with improved pathing.  Fleets should be able to avoid the advent starbase with a little more difficulty since it is not as quite as devastating as the red button of death, but still very scary.  The vasari would have the fastest starbase and would have a much less "guarenteed win" besieging a planet.   Having slow moving terran starbase would allow terrans to reposition their "red button o death".  Also a red button sneak would be pretty epic, you never know when those small fleet distractions sent into an enemies heartland will draw their attention!

I'm not a fan of the existing shield mitigation system.  The worst part about it is that it fails to encourage players to spread damage instead of focus fire.  Its sole justification seems to be to protect the big ships that are introduced too early in the game (so tell me again why a faction can build carrier capitals and not carriers?), which it does until the middle game, which is when the complaints begin that the capitals aren't strong enough to take focus fire.  The rationale for mitigation, especially the part about it retreating into the armour when the shield is down, is laughable.  I could come up with six different game mechanics for shields and armour space-based combat that would be more convincing than that.  Twelve.  Once the shield is down, the phase missile impacts directly on the armour, bypassing the mitigation that is in the armour itself?  Rubbish.

Turn-based games like Master of Orion limited focus fire by means of stacking limitations, independent shields and more limited ranges.  I've repeatedly said that Sins would profit from an approach that moved away from penalising focus fire and rewarded spread fire more.  One problem with the existing system of mitigation is that the threshold for mitigation to rise is set too low so that it affects spread fire rather more than focus fire.  An entiirely different approach would have fire penalties when more than a couple of ships engage the same target, and also inflict fire penalties on any ship taking fire.  There should also be a penalty for any ship switching target, so that instead of mitigation rising, fire output rose on any ship that maintained the same target over a period of time.  That way the fire output of a fleet is maximised when it engages all or most of the enemy fleet at the same time- which is the way in which admirals have always engaged down the centuries.  Sins also has no penalty for collisions, which further encourages formless mob focus fire.  Would having four different shields take that much implementation?  It might add considerably to the game.

I've never understood the constant calls for a Sins campaign, the scope of a game with multi-star maps doesn't seem right for one.  Master of Orion never had a campaign, every game was a campaign?  Set up a large enough map, maybe alter the research rates to prevent tech getting to heavy too quickly, there you have a co-op campaign?  Perhaps more variation in the victory conditions would help?