I have started this topic because I want to share with you my vision of an even better Sins of a Solar Empire. I love the game as it is and I would hardly want to change anything to what Sins is now. But, I have been thinking on this a long time and come up with a large and detailed description of things I would add to Sins of a Solar Empire, to expand it more and create an even deeper, more tactical experience.
Perhaps you have already scrolled down. If so, you will also most probably have noticed I put quite an effort in this. If you wonder, why, I’ll tell you! I have a large imagination, and with that, I came up with all kinds of ideas. I gave all those ideas some good thinking, and decided ‘this is it’. I want to tell everyone who loves Sins this and hear what they have to say. And, if the developers at Stardock read this, perhaps they will be inspired by my ideas and add something to Rebellion or a future (micro-)expansion.
There are four additions I describe. The first is Cloaking, the second has to do with Artificial Gravity Wells. The third is about Planetary Ground Invasions and the last is about Fleet Formations/Slave Circuits. This last one should relieve the player of intense micro-managing duties.
I am aware that some of my proposed abilities don’t fit in the HUD anymore. But, having in mind that Rebellion will probably expand the HUD anyway, I have taken the liberty to write my ideas down as they are.
That having said, let’s go! I hope you like it.
Cloaking
Winning a game of Sins has much to do with intelligince. Knowing what your enemy does, what moves he makes, what targets he attacks and defends, etc. Scout ships and upgrades that allow you to view enemy moment are very important to this. I have a twist in mind to this, cloaking!
Ships will not be cloaked when an enemy ship or fleet is present in the gravity well. Ships will only be cloaked to enemies viewing with a Probe, culture or keeping an eye on phase lane movements.
TEC:
A new ship with a passive ability that can cloak ships from movement in its gravity well. When friendly ships make a jump from a gravity well with this ship in it, enemies won’t be able to see them. Additionally, this ship has an active ability that cloaks ships in a radius entirely from view.
Advent:
A new technology that allows ships to jump to other planets undetected, when the phase lane used is under Advent culture. Additionally, the Antimatter Recharger can cloak ships in its gravity well through an active ability.
Vasari:
A new upgrade/ability to the Overseer that can cloak ships movement in its gravity well. When friendly ships make a jump from a gravity well with this ship in it, enemies won’t be able to see them.
Gravity Well Simulation/Artificial Gravity Wells
The Vasari have a powerful ability to slow down enemy movement towards a gravity well. I like the concept and think it should be expanded. I came up with a couple of ideas that allow players to create their own gravity wells. Nothing can be built in this gravity well, but is the ideal option to slow down an advancing fleet.
A new upgrade/ability can be researched for the Raloz Heavy Constructur. It is then allowed to create a maximum of 1 new artificial gravity wells in a phase lane. These gravity wells force enemy fleets moving in the phase lane to stop at the gravity well. They will then have to move through the gravity well and make a new jump. The Constructor is lost in the process. Nothing can be built in the fake gravity well. it will remain the entire game.
A new upgrade to the Temple of Communion. When a phase lane is under the players culture, it slows down enemy movement towards the gravity well. By researching the ability more and/or by having a greater culture spread rade, the % slow increases as well.
A new upgrade/ability to the Orkolus Starbase. It can now move through phase space and stop anywhere in a phase lane. When it halts in a phase lane, the starbase starts a very powerful gravity generator. This draws moving ships towards the starbase. When the starbase leaves the artificial gravity well, it collapses. Only 1 artificial gravity well can be created in a phase lane.
Ground Forces/Planetary Ground Invasion
I think that wars are not only won by space ships, commerce and culture, but also by footsoldiers. I think that soldiers who invade a planet and than fight in its streets, can add another dimension to capturing planet, without damaging a planet much.
A new upgrade that allows Percheron Carries to also spend their slots on Landing Crafts, instead of Fighters/Bombers. For example: 1 Fighter/1Landing Craft. Or: 2 Landing Craft.
The Carrier can launch Landing Crafts at any moment when it is in a gravity well. The Landing Craft will attempt to reach the planet. When it does, soldiers will land on the planet and commence in battle. A battle will take a certain time, when the time expires, a planet is conquered. The amount of Landing Crafts that reach the planet, defines how long it takes to conquer a planet.
TEC can defend against enemy soldiers by a new Planet Upgrade, which creates their own soldiers. This will not defeat the enemy soldiers, but increases the time it takes an enemy to conquer the planet. A ground invasion is stopped by destroying the Percheron Carrier that launches Landing Crafts. Carriers who do so can easily be identified by enemies because of a flashing icon above the ship.
The advantage of using a ground invasion, is that only 75% of the Planet Health and Planet Population will be damaged. When you successfully conquer a planet, it is strong and healthy. When enemy culture is still strong, the planet will only be liberated. When enemy culture is not strong, the planet will automatically be colonised. In fact, it already is, but control transfer to the conquerer.
When a planet is being invaded, it will not give tax income.
The same as with TEC, but then with the Aeria Drone Host obviously. Instead of damaging only 75% of Planet Health and Planet Population before a planet is conqured, both are damaged 50%. But during the ground attack, enemy culture is also strongly reduced.
The Advent can also defend their planets with a Planet Upgrade, the same as TEC.
The same as TEC, but with the Lansurak Transporter. Instead of damaging only 75% of Planet Health and Planet Population before a planet is conquered, the Vasari damage both 50%. Additionally, the planet becomes a Phase Stabilizer Node as long as the Lansurak Transporter provides soldiers to the planet.
The Phase Stabiliser might seem overpowered. To defend against this ability, the Vasari Landing Craft move slow and can be picked off by Fighters more easily than the TEC and Advent Landing Craft.
Fleet Formation/Slave Circuits
When I try to fight off an enemy fleet, I always rely heavily on supports ships that can heal and manage a battle. Often their useful abilities are wasted, because the supports ships to not stick close to combat ships or because they use their abilities on low-priority targets. I think this can be changed, by adding an entire new Technology Tree to Sins. It’s called the Fleet Formation tree.
For all races, it adds new options to Tactics Management. The Research Tree contains a number of upgrades that allow different formations and behavioural types. Before any of this can be done, the Slave Circuit technology needs to be upgraded. When done, it allows Capital Ships that are leading a fleet, to initiate a Slave Circuit. This means that all ships in the fleet, will move exactly the same as the Capital Ship leader. Same speed, same turning rate.
When this upgrade has researched, different Fleet Formations can be researched. A number of examples: support ships in centre, combat ships aligned around them, capital ships at the head. Or: long range ships in the back, short range ships in the front, capital ships at the flanks. Or: carriers in centre, combat ships in flanks, support ships in back, capital ships in front.
When a Fleet Formation is selected in the Tactics Management screen, combined with the Slave Circuit, fleets should become more effective as they stick close to each other, can immediately aid each other and the ships in the front give extra defence to ships in the back.
Another addition to the Research Tree is called Behavioural Types. This allows the player to set behaviour for a fleet with Slave Circuits. By clicking an icon in the Tactics Management screen, a new windows opens. It looks a bit like the Give Mission screen. In this screen, you can set the behaviour for the selected fleet. I have a format in mind and I will give a number of examples. The format is:
When [value, ships] is [value > or < or = or lowest or highest] than [value, ships], [value, action].
The examples:
When [enemy support ships] is [>] than [enemy combat ships], [attack support ships].
When [enemy long range ships] is [<] than [enemy short range ships], [attack short range ships].
When [enemy Capital Ship Level] is [highest level], [attack Capital Ship].
When [enemy Siege Ships] is [>] [5], [attack Siege Ships].
When [ship health] is [<] [70%], [use repair ability]
When [ship shields] is [<] 30%], [use recharge shield ability]
When [antimatter] is [<] [50%], [use recharge antimatter ability]
When the initial research is done, only one behaviour can be set. By doing additional research, more slots can be opened to write Behaviour into.
Basically you want to make Sins into Supreme Commander.
No, not really! Why do you think so? I think Supreme Commander is much about micro-managing your troops, I would decrease micro-managing in Sins with the Slave Circuits. At least that's the idea!
PS: I have only played Supreme Commander 2.
Well, they are very similar in gameplay. (SupCom 1 and FA, and SupCom 2)
SupCom 2 has neural nets taught to do what you call slave circuits.
While micro is the key to success, the units can still manage on their own. If you are good with microing in either game, Sins or SupCom, you have a great advantage over players who don't do that.
Indeed, I agree with you on that. But I feel that sometimes a player is tasked with so many things to do in Sins, that micro-managing one (or even more!) battles is too much to do. That's why I came up with the slave circuits. 'Slave circuits' is something from the Star Wars novels btw, that's where I got the name.
Do you think such a feature would be a good addition to Sins?
I think that it would make games go faster, actually, but I think that it would consume computational resources faster.
It's a good idea. It's also rather hard to do.
Here's your first karma for thinking this up. I really honestly hadn't thought about automating certain things, but I have thought about the problems with ability choice. Certainly an automatic ability chooser with prioritizing would be great, as 50 Stilakus Subverters that target the same frigate are worse than useless.
*whisper* Look at your thread title. Professional is spelled with one 'f'.
Thanks for the karma and thanks for the hint. I'm not a native English speaker, so forgive me a little mistake here and there. Kinda silly too, to start a topic with the word 'professional' and than write it wrong.
It's forgivable. Maybe.
Let's see, my opinion on some other things that you mentioned.
Cloaking devices. This was the main worry of mine. Having a fleet suddenly appear at your home planet under cloak after having crept through all of your heavy defenses kinda ruins Entrenchment and choke points.
The Advent culture Phase jump slowing idea is actually moddable.
New Gravity Wells. A Raloz is significantly less expensive than an Orkulus SB, so the idea of making gravwells is kinda unbalanced? Orkulus with Phase jumps would be a game-ender instantaneously. If you can't build stuff in your new gravwells, then what's the point? If you could build stuff, then why not fill the Phase lanes between your home and adjacent planets with new gravwells and Starbases? I think that the idea to make new gravwells is rather unbalanced or just annoying more than anything.
Ground forces are a good idea, but I think that planet bombing would still have to take the cake for hostile planet management.
Your fleet formation ideas and slave circuit ideas are great in my opinion.
You may disregard anything that I say if it offends you. It's all just my opinion.
-edit-
Oh, and Professional also has two 's'
The remote scouting techs are already pretty limited to begin with (except for the Vasari one, which is an end-game T8 civic tech and really should be awesome). This would be a massive amount of development effort to create a specialized system that... might not even do anything if your opponent isn't using a very speficic and circumstantial technology. This idea would require a fundamental reworking of the entire intelligence-gathering portion of the game, because right now 95% of intel is gathered by scouts... so an ability that blocks the other 5% of intel gathering is almost never going to be worth spending a penny on.
Scouts are cheap, fast, and really good at what they do. As a result, I very rarely find the need to research the phase lane detection techs. The first level offers you maybe 10 seconds of warning time, which is pretty much negligible in this game. The second one offers a little more leeway, but unless you get a good "listening post" that lets you spy on lots of enemy-controlled lanes it's still pretty marginal and rarely worth the cost when compared with the minimal effort it takes to do a scout fly-by every now and again. Advent's ability to spy using culture is limited by their absolutely abysmal harmony tree; there are so few useful techs on the harmony tree that most Advent players stop after researching trade ports and never look back.
While there's nothing wrong in principle with slowing the advancing fleet, creating "artificial gravity wells" sounds nightmarish both from a technical complexity standpoint and in terms of what human players could do with it. Also, the idea of an Orkulus phase jumping just makes me scream "no".
I get that fluff-wise, planetary invasion forces are iconic and central to a lot of the science fiction interplanetary warfare and are missing from Sins, but crunch-wise this wouldn't add anything to game. What you've suggested (and many many people before you) is basically bombardment in strike craft form. It sounds really cool from a concept perspective, but in terms of adding something to the game that makes it play differently, not really. I find it silly to suggest what is essentially a replacement for a unit we already have (the siege frigate) and bill it as a fundamental gamechanger.
Balance-wise this could also be seriously problematic. The siege frigate is expensive, fragile, slow, not particularly fast-acting, useless in fleet battles, and doesn't leave any planetary improvements intact. Unless you were thinking of "like siege frigates, but significantly better in every conceivable way" your idea for planetary invasion forces would likely be irreconcilably powerful compared to the other equivalents currently in the game.
In principle, I can sympathize with the bad targeting AI of support units. The Domina is a particularly nasty one that needs attention. Aside from the hoshiko, I manually manage my support abilities because I just can't trust the AI to do a decent job.
However, I totally disagree with your suggestion here. Creating an entire tech tree for customizable behaviors would be nothing more than an expensive novelty and a massive waste of programmer time and effort. First of all, only a fool would spend valuable resources on this tech tree when the alternative (manually controlling your units) is free. Unless your fleet is absolutely massive, manually controlling your units would almost certainly give better results in just about any circumstances. Secondly, it would be a huge amount of effort that would detract from other aspects that could be added to the game. Thirdly, any sufficiently complex script would slow the game to a crawl when multiplied over a sufficiently large fleet.
The developers should spend their time on producing a well-rounded default behavior, and leave it at that. If you want something tailor-made to your situation, then just manually control your units.
I think a lot of these points would be great discussions to have for Sins 2, but for this game they just wouldn't fit in very well. I suspect they'd require disproportionate amounts of developer resources and likely wouldn't add anything meaningful without fundamental reworking to large portions of the game.
I read your posts and agree about the Orkulus moving through Phase Space. Bad idea. I came up with that because I wanted some more diversity between the different races. Since the Vasari don't have an expensive starbase contstructor, perhaps it's a good idea to have the Orkulus grant this power through a new Ability.
As to the use of this idea in general, I really think it could work. Darvin3 pointed out very well that a player can, in most cases, know exactly what nearby enemies are doing. So being able to slow them down a bit more would be really useful to me. During the time an enemy fleet is slowed down, a player could reinforce a plant more with defences/ships. Or even evacuate entirely, if neccesary.
@Darvin3: I don't get what you mean with:
Adding a max. of 1 gravity well to a phase lane, what do you think is a problem with that?
Concerning Ground Invasions, I believe the advantage is in damaging a planet A LOS LESS than through bombardment. The planet starts generating money faster and will cost less money to develop. It will also be more defended against an enemy Siege counter-attack. Think of the scenarios where you just liberated and colonised a planet, and lose it shortly after when the planet is rushed by Siege Frigates.
About Cloaking. I get your Darvin3, and have to agree with you. Most players will be doing a lot of scouting, which would render cloaking useless. It would only be a useful tech against stupid players. I believe cloaking could still work, but the concept needs to be reworked than. Thanks for the feedback!
I mean abusing technical aspects of the implementation. Whenever you have something that is very technically complex, players will use it in strange ways. The concept you've described is extremely complicated from a technical standpoint, and would require probably dozens of boundary case conditions and behaviors, any one of which could be used creatively in ways that can outright break the game.
For instance, a player could create a gravity well in the middle of a phase lane when the enemy fleet is phase jumping through, timing it so half the enemy fleet has already passed (and will continue to their destination) and the other half gets stopped.
What's setting off alarm bells for me is the technical complexity of such a system, and the capacity for players to abuse it in strange ways.
Beyond that, I'd be somewhat worried about stagnation if too many of these pop up. Asteroid gravity wells are already nasty for ambushes due to their small size, and since you could control where you place these, artificial gravity wells would likely have to be about as large as a full planet gravity well. That's more than a delay, that's a massive stretch of empty no-man's land.
In any case, such a feature would be completely impossible in the current engine, and this would be something more for discussion with respect to Sins 2.
Bombardment is already very slow, and I don't see much room to go slower without hitting zero. As a result, damage alone isn't enough to bring this into line. Remember that carriers can scuttle squads and build a new type of squad, so you can go from bombardment to combat units pretty quickly. Carriers are also extremely tough and difficult to kill. Siege frigates are the opposite; they're some of the most fragile units in the game (comparable with scouts, despite costing far more) and are absolutely horrendous in fleet combat.
On further contemplation, I also think there's the difficulty of how to resolve the case where the planet is both being bombarded and invaded simultaneously, or if it's under the effect of the owner's culture. "Flipping" control in this case becomes considerably more complex.
I think this goes down in the list of things for consideration for Sins 2. You'd need to reconsider how planetary bombardment and take-over works. I don't think there's room for a more complex system on top of what is essentially just a hit point bar.
If you have carriers, then the siege frigates won't even survive long enough to reach the planet. The regular counter-measure to bombardment - auxiliary government on a starbase - would remain the standard countermeasure here.
I see your point about something being too complex, or would be too easily abused. In theory, I like my concepts. They seem possible to, but you have convinced me they can't really be implemented in Sins 1.
Though I still believe that Invasion could be implemented to Sins Trinity. An Invasion should be halted when the planet is bombarded, as sieges damage planets and so would be the soldiers. That resolves one of the issues you mentioned.
Now you mentioned bombardement becoming even slower. I don't see what you mean by this. Invading a planet is not like bombarding (you mean Bomb Squad that attack structures/ships?). It takes as long or a short as the players want/allow, because of the amount of carriers, hostile ships and anit-invasion planet defences (see my opening post). So that doesn't have anything to do with bombarding.
Perhaps it would be better if invading a planet is not done by a Carrier Landing Craft, but by a new type of ship. One that has hull/shield points that make it not under/overpowered.
Technical side alone, something like creating gravity wells isn't happening for Sins.
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