This thread is for speculating and suggesting ideas for confirmed features. At present, this is the list:
New Factions: Players decide whether to become Loyalists or Rebels, which unlocks a unique new tech tree granting them new technologies and ship variants.
New Titan-class ships: Massive warships for each race that dwarf capital ships, these deadly new monsters are capable of wiping out entire enemy fleets single-handedly.
New Capital Ships: A new capital ship class arrives, giving players new strategic options.
New Corvette-class ships: Small, highly maneuverable light ships that are adept at a variety of tasks.
Loyalist and Rebel versions of some of the existing Sins’ frigates and cruisers, each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses.
Updated lighting and particle effects for enhanced visuals.
New Victory Conditions to allow for more variety, differing strategies and shorter game sessions.
Additional capital ship ability levels, for greater strategic choice.
Impulse::Reactor support for chat, friends, achievements and more.
While I know this community has a wealth of creativity and ideas, I want to keep this thread focused on stuff that's going to make it into the game. So, as much as we all know that people want a campaign, that's not on the list. Feel free to write any comments, suggestions, ideas, or random responses to any of the stuff on the list.
So without further adieu, my own ideas and reactions:
Impulse::Reactor
Please, please, please have built-in map/mod transfer. Thank you.
New Victory Conditions
Victory conditions I'd love to see:
Domination: Control at least 60% of the galaxy for at least 30 minutes. The timer counts down twice as quickly if you control at least 70% of the galaxy, and six times as quickly if you control 80%. Victory is instant at 90% control. Uncolonizable gravity wells do not count to this requirement, but pirate bases do.
Artifact Excavation: All artifacts locations are revealed at the start of the match (there will be at least 2 per player under this game setting). To win, your team must control at least 75% of the artifacts (so if there are 5 artifacts, you must control 4 to win). Victory is instant when you achieve this.
Mega-Weapon: Super-weapons are disabled under this game mode; instead you build a “mega-weapon”. Its position on the tech tree replaces the super-weapon tech. The cost varies by faction (more for Vasari, less for Advent, compensating for prerequisites), but once it completes a count-down begins until it activates. Successful activation causes that team to instantly win the match. The location of a mega-weapon is revealed as soon as construction begins.
Contract Acquisition: All players can bid on a special contract to win the game. In order to win, you must maintain the higher bid for five consecutive minutes. Unlike bounty, this bid never depletes and does not contribute to anything except winning the game.
New Capital Ships
First off, I'm still hoping for the Dunov, Revelation, and Antorak to get some love. They've always come across as a bit "rushed" and never have really shined on their own. The guidance rework is a nice start, but doesn't quite get there. But hey, new caps, let's talk about what each faction could use:
TEC: I'd love to see a “command class” capital ship that focuses on controlling the battlefield. The only capital ship ability for TEC that's anything like this is targeting uplink. Here's a concept ability to see what I'm talking about: Disruption Matrix: All units, friendly and hostile, in an area of effect around this capital ship are immune to all special abilities. Persistent effects that are already in play are not removed.. Wouldn't that go nicely to counter guardians or subverters, eh?
Advent: With the Progenitor, Rapture, and Halcyon already providing more fleet support than Advent could ever need, an entirely different approach should be applied here. Advent could really use a true “dreadnaught” like the Marza or Vulkoras, since the dinky Revelation certainly doesn't apply. Pack it full of hard-hitting combat abilities and good frontal weaponry, and perhaps an ability that has stricter cooldown limitations to finally give a good combo for guidance.
Vasari: What do Vasari really need? They have great combat options, great support options, great specialty options... easily the most well-balanced capital ship lineup. I guess the only thing left to add is the sugary cereal to go with the balanced breakfast. How about an industrial capital ship that has the special ability to act as a frigate-factory, enabling it to produce units mid-battle (uses a cooldown rather than a build time, so the unit is produced instantly)?
Titan Class Ships
This one really gives me pause. What is the role of titans? What is their purpose? With capital ships and starbases both countered by bombers, and bombers being the dominant late-game unit to begin with, it would be total overkill for titans to be the same. So I'm actually rooting for some relatively strong anti-strike craft weaponry on these guys. The question becomes, what should their weaknesses be? They can't be unstoppable engines of destruction, after all.
Here's what I'm thinking:
Titans should be weak against capital ships and – wait for it – light frigates. The titans should have special abilities that require antimatter, but unlike capital ships they are not immune to the disruption abilities of light frigates. Once drained of antimatter, titans are much easier to take care of.
All titans should have anti-structure, anti-frigate, and anti-strike craft weapons. This enables them to be used to take down starbases, and tightly-packed frigate/SC forces. They use their antimatter-based abilities to boost their combat performance and plough through enemies, but are less powerful in the long-run once depleted and lack good weapons against high-durability targets that are not structures.
That's my angle on this issue.
Faction/Unit Variants
Am I the only one hoping we see a Skirmisher that gets phase missiles? One-way ticket from least-used unit in the game to everyone's favourite light frigate.
Eh, I'm gunna stop myself there...
I'm kinda thinking the titan ships will be superweapons with engines. Which would be great and explain how to make them hard to get.
As for the new capitals, I think a dedicated Anti-module capital would be great to counter starbases and make the titans the new starbases.
Corvettes.... I'm not sure what the deal is here. but maybe they could help against bombers? I would also imagine they might downgrade the scouts to be corvettes. or they might classify things like constructors and tradeships as corvettes. I also have read people's ideas for scout-counters and this may work, but it seems slightly pointless to me. I would imagine that these might be some of the first things we hear about when new details emerge, however. My only other thought on this is: what if its like a class of starting ships? you would get access to all the things you need to counter anything else at the outset of the game, just in a weaker form. I could see them being used to counter LRM early in the game as corvettes probably move faster than LRM can turn. I would also imagine they could counter strikecraft with their speed as well.
The whole loyalist/rebel aspect: okay, so now i think this will be cool, depending on how its done. if its simply 2 versions of the same faction, "meh", I say. If you start of as 1 of the current 3 factions, and then splinter into 2 groups, this could be really cool. It might actually bring *gasp* diplomacy to the game. you might cause unrest on a player's planets, causing them to lose the planet and eventually trigger the split. this might lock him out of certain regular features and add access to new ones (to throw them a rope, i imagine). You might also counter this by quelling unrest on your planets. culture might help stabilize the region. all this sounds like it would take alot of effort in the civil trees, so meanwhile, the military-minded players are building their titan ships.
i also hope for new starbases
I just had a new idea for titan-class ships:
they generate a gravity well. so none of your ships use AM to phase jump, all your strikecraft are already launched, your fleet can be organized into a perfect formation and in perfect unison.
Some suggestions:
- allow longer ship/station/planet names, allow players to name fleets, GalCiv style fleet management window
- new planetary (and non-planetary) bodies
- fix this pathfinding/arcing turns issue:
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/374505/
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/363293/
- fix strikecraft flying straight through a star or a planet
- I would really like the possibility of being able to fleet down
Corvets will they be given fighter behavior? If not they like frigets? What is their concept and role we don't know.
The way the Corvette is described... it really sounds like how scouts played in 1.181. We'll have to wait and see; the description is much too vague to say what their role will be. All we know is that they'll be relatively fast (probably 600-700) and relatively small units (probably in the 2-5 command range).
well, its possible they are frigate size, just with bigger engines and less armor
"small" may be relative; I'd describe a scout as "small" as far as frigates go, heck I'd go as far as to describe LRM's as a relatively small unit. The description is vague enough that you can really justify anything 5 command and under.
Maybe they are like corvettes from Homeworld, bigger than fighters with fewer to a squadron, but still need a carrier.
They could be buildable squadrons of corvettes with no carrier attach.
squadrons... mmm...
Alright guys, did some research and these are M6's or corvettes from X3 Terran conflict.....
And a description from the X3 wiki on corvettes, these ships could be Titan killers....
M6 ships are corvettes frequently found leading fighter patrols or escorting capital ships. They are too big to be considered to be fighters, but too small to be considered true capital ships.
More boat than ship, corvettes are manned by a small crew, and they can carry quite powerful weapons. They are several times the size of aM3 ship (typically 120-280m long) and most have a lot more shields. They are not as maneuverable as fighters and therefore need to use their power and shielding to take down enemy fighters, as their speed and turning is usually not adequate to dogfight.
Most M6 class ships have both main guns and a few turrets. Some of the M6+ ships, recognisable from their regular counterparts by the moniker 'Heavy' in their name, can mount the most powerful corvette weapons in all turrets but they are generally slower then the normal M6s.
The M6s are the class right in the middle of the ship scale, and are generally regarded to be capable of taking on anything with suitable pilot skill, from M5 swatting to M2 strafing. As such, they are commonly used as player ships.
Regular M6s listed below tend to be better suited to taking on small, manoeuvrable fighters, whilst their M6+ cousins tend to mount heavier weapons to deal with bigger ships......
Or escorts to Titian class ships....
In the Sins universe, that places them squarely as frigates.
Escourt units for capital ships are definitely needed, particularly as fleets grow larger. Either suppressing LRF (a possible role that's been mentioned already) and bombers or protecting capital ships somehow.
All speculation, though, as we don't know whether what the devs have in mind is like what's in X3.
I was thinking about this just now. What if one of the new upgrades for the capitol ships was a magnetic titan piercing round or railgun. After the titan's shields were depleted, one of these could reach the hull of the ship and create a magnetic cloud that disrupts all antimatter abilities and regeneration for say... 15-30 seconds? Then the ability would take 1min - 3min to recharge. It could do 500 damage (this is guessing that titans have a freaking huge amount of hull points), taking a nice chunk of points and abilities out of the picture. Maybe the new capitol ship class has less hit points, a lot of firepower, and this railgun. Then this would cause you to keep this ship back till you see danger looming. If the ability was on a regular capitol ship, then it might have to be researched, after the titan. "Anti-titan rounds" or something. Just an idea.
I love the "Dammit Rammit" and having them blaze a path is a wonderful idea. Does anyone know if the Titan's will have to be researched before they are used? Will you receive a half crew or price ship when you do research it? Exactly how many hit points and shields / weapons and values will they have? Abilities anyone? Vortex planet sucker like the vlasari? Or ability to board enemy ships and take them over like the advent?
Well, more than likely, Titans will be late game entry like the Novalith, Caps now use 50 fleet supply, Titan's should be at least 150 to 300 in fleet. A whole lot of creds, metal, and crystal to build, not to mention, at least a 5 min build time...
I've never played X3, but they might be using a Star Wars-esque deffinition of capital ships where anything that can get into and travel in space by itself with weapons is a capital ship. Under this system everything from a Correlian Scout to a Star Destroyer is a capital ship, even though the former is a small frigate by Sins standards. Thus corvettes would be some more like a patrol boat.
And yes, I know that off the top of my head...
I want Vasari Titan to have only one purpose/ one weapon...to be planetkiller I am not sure how would it be useful in the game, as most of the times you want to suck the planet resources with the Egg, but it would be certainly cool.
I can see it as glorified Siege Frigate, you would use it to kill badly protected enemy planets with the difference, it would kill the planet in one single instant blow. So if enemy defence wont be up from the moment you jump in, no chance for them to stop you. It could ofc go as far that it would actually render planet uncolonisable or blow literally to pieces (turn into asteroid field)...but again as Vasari you want planets too, so destroying them would hurt you almost equally as your enemy. Anyway i still see this titans more like a gimmick, than something essential for the win, if you played Command and Conquer 3 and remember Scrin Mothership, i am thinking something along the lines of it....generally cool and nice option to have, but only useful with enemies on their knees already, to finish them off faster....
The downside would be no other weapons on it (so you would need fleet to protect it), less hitpoints than other titans and the main gun would need to recharge for few minutes after each strike.
In real life a corvette was an escort to smaller ships, in a convoy, but sometimes assigned to protect the big guns (battleships,etc) nowadays we don't really use them
So will that be their job?
All this is interesting... but what I want to see right now is Titan VS Titan slug fest. Or go crazy and put all three in a asteroid field and watch em tear each other apart.
NOTHING in the X3 universe can travel by itself, they all use jump/stargates.
That said... I wouldnt call m6's (you got a split and a telladi one there, me thinks) capital ships. m1, m2, and m7s would be capital ships.... they DWARF m6's, (and m0 would be titans)
In either case, a x3 mod would be awesome.
What if covettes can be built by capitals? so, they are like strikecraft in that theres a limit depending on the level of the ship and you can choose from a few different options to customize it, but maybe these cost you resources to make? Then they are setup to escort the capitals. eg. you might augment your capital with anti-strikecraft or repair ships, add gunships to make your battle ship stronger, or you could fill in gaps like adding siegeships to your carrier to make up for it's pitiful bombing. These would maybe have to dock for phase jumps, and maybe docking repairs them.
might also have the ability to build them straight from the planet to act as an emergency defense force. Or the apparently beloved patrol craft. Heck, there could even be research that makes some built for free (you know, because theres rebels about and your system needs policing).
Typically in fleets Corvettes are the smallest class right after patrol boats. Now in sins that would be in-between strike-craft an frigates.
First Possibility to add covettes and the simplest one also maybe the most boarding one would be to simply make the like our current frigates. Build-able 1 by 1 from a factory. Being able to issue them direct orders. Basically they would be like the normal frigates we are used to only smaller cheaper, faster with new abilities or similar or nerfed down versions of the ones of the frigates we know. These could still be fun to play and could be a nice addition to sins but I could see a lot of the Faction stuff doing these roles and possible doing it better since they would be more powerful ships.
Second Possibility would be for them to be build-able as wings like Strike-craft style. This gets more interesting and they are two ways to make it happen one more fun and one lest fun.
1st: The lest fun version would be to build uni-variety (from a factory) wings like SC are all fighters or all bombers in 1 wing. Have them not attache to anything so you essentially command that whole wing like you do frigates and you could also give them SC behaviour in combat.
-Now for replacing dead/loss wing members I would personally make it sot he wing has to fly back tot he factory where you can order new ones.
2nd: A more fun version would be for you to be able to build customizable wings of 5 corvettes each. That way you could chose and mix and match the types from combat ones to support ones to make the wing in a sense self supporting.
-Now come the question do we allow these wing to support other ships outside their wing or do they form their own closed micro space and only worry about each other. If we allow them to support regular ships how do we want it to happen?
-Do we allow them to get support from normal frigates? If yes auto-cast or only manual player command?
Third Possibility and the most fun original one would be for them to be capital ship escorts. Here is a piece of my VERY FANBOYISH ravings on it. (all numbers figures are ball park ideas)
1- Caps can have up too 10 escort frigates escorting/protecting them.
2- Can be combine with the Wing system of 2nd point for easy management or build individually to be attached to caps waiting around receive them when they are built. Wing system allows you to send wings out to be attache to cap in areas away from the production centre. While individual building would require the Cap to go to the production facility to rebuild their corvette escorts.
3- Escorts should help their cap by various mean via abilities that are used only to support the cap as well as other corvettes in the escort group.
4- Corvettes would have the ability to absorb part of the incoming damage to the cap by attracting incoming fire to them selves away from the cap kinda like Animosity. And to push it further you can give each type a preference on witch types of damages to absorb. But also the more fire the cap takes the more the corvettes will attract fire and the least likely they will receive their desired damage source.
Corvette Frame ideas are as follows: (mostly based on existing frigates)
-Standard combat corvettes (bases of LFs) would have good hit point base and decent short range dps. They would be the type that would put them selves in hard way to defend their cap the most and thus could be given a self defence ability like variations of Adaptive forcefield, reintegration and whatnot can be imagine in this sense. Very Good damage absorbers.
-Long range corvettes (Based of LRFs) would have long range weapons only their damage type would be anti-light so they would offer killing solution to help defend your cap from hordes of LRFs. Their range should how ever be inferior to that of the standard LRFs. Poor at absorbing damage.
-Flak corvettes ( you guessed it) all thou flaks them selves should be more effective vs Bombers should be there to defend the caps from bombers. They could also be given a special ability they would have a positive effect on their group and cap, like maybe reduction of damage received from SC or Long range weapons. They would also be good damage absorbers.
-Logistical Support (based off support cruisers) would carry repair support equipment like repair bot instead it would only repair 10HP p.s instead of 20. It's there to provide additional support for the cap and the corvettes. Medium to Poor damage absorbers.
-Combat Support (More support cruisers) Would provide combat boosts to the group like range increase of weapons, RoF increase, Dmg increase, boost the effectiveness of other abilities of the group. The possibilities are enormous. Medium to Poor damage absorbers.
-Seige Corvettes (Bases on siege frigates) would essentially increase a caps power to bomb worlds either by directly bombing them selves or by boosting the cap. Medium to Good damage absorbers. (still unsure if these should be added)
-SC support Corvettes (not based of carriers since they do not have any Actual SC) These would only provide additional support to the SC of their capital ship that are assign to only. What support coudl they provide? I'll only name a few ideas, heavy strikecraft, rapid manufature, adept drone anima, concentration aura, repair cloud, as well as others that have yet to be imagined. They would be Good at absorbing damage. (unsure if this should be added either)
-Colonization Corvette (Based of colony frigates) General idea would be to have them boost the colonize ability of the colonization caps. In a way shape or form. Should the corvette been consumed upon colonization or not? Should they be allowed to colonize by them selves? If so then the rate or growffe should be inferior to that of a colony frigate. Poor damage Absorbers. (Still unsure of the usefulness of this class since it would be very limited in use.)
Anyways that is what I would really love to see would add a lot of depth and would help solve the problem that more caps where a lot weaker then more fleet without boosting the caps them selves to ludicrous levels.
Now something else they have not mentioned and would like to see would be a sub-capital class. More info on that later when I get around to typing it.
If corvettes were to be used in the way you suggust (possibility 3), I do belive you should be able to turn on an "auto-replenish covettes" option, that when a corvette protecting a capital ship dies, the nearest ship production facility automaticly ques up a new corvette that will automaticly rejoin the capital ship/ titan. If you dont have enough resources, the ship is qued, just like building starbases, untill you have enough resources, at which point the building comences. One should also be able to scuttle and rebuild corvettes in a simlar manner to strike craft wings, except, you lose money for the loss, and the new corvettes have to catch up to the fleet.
Perhaps the higher the level of the capital ship, the more corvettes in its wing, and titans should be able to have significantly more corvettes than capital ships.
maybe.
i dont know.
*shrug*
If by typical you mean real life, I believe you mean after patrol boats. Can't really get much smaller than a motor boat with torpedoes and machine guns. Thus they would be inbetween patrol boats and frigates.
Yes, which would probably classify all Sins frigates as capital ships. Fortunately Sins uses more logical ship deffinitions.
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