No new ships! Are you kidding me! I absolutely disagree 100%! Sins has such a lack of general content it pains me to see Rebellion attempt to call itself an "expansion." I have been a very loyal SoaSE fan since its conception, and since then I have found there to be a great many number of substantial flaws. The most noticeable being the general lack of content, that being said I refuse to believe that Sins has enough content. My personal vendetta is partial to the maddening lack of faction customisation within any given game. I tend to think big, and if I ever had the chance to make Sins of a Solar Empire 2, well lets just say that the game you think to be so cool now would be unrecognisable, in a very good way. I would be more than pleased to elaborate on my ideas, if you so wish to endure them.

I love Sin and love the mods fans have made.

What I would love to see is a map like the game Endless Space.

Where the Icon are Solar system instead just a planet.

I've been playing Sins since it came out and for the longest time now I've wondered why you can't have multiple players control one empire. I've seen some cool mods and seen the game changed COMPLETELY. So why cant you have multiple players control one empire? I mean honestly how much more fun would you have if you and your friends could all play as one empire and only have to worry about what you were assigned to do with your friends? And then you could even set up a tier system where one person was say "The Admiral" and he had basic economic control and logistics and planet authority, and he was in charge of production and research and fleet coordination. "The Commander" would be in charge of large fleets and would recieve his ships from "The Admiral" and could in turn pass on ships to "The Captain" who would not have access to any of "The Commander's" or "The Admiral's" ships, only what he was given.

And to combat the problem of people leaving, or conflicting agendas, The game could incorporate a voting system in which everyone on the team could choose who the "Admiral(s)" "Commander(s)" and "Captain(s)" were on the fly so that your team could adapt as needed.

My idea comes from Starcraft Brood War, one of the game types was called "Team Melee." It allowed multiple players to control a single base and allowed for a far greater ammount of teamwork at the expense of production capabilities (i.e. 200 unit limit compared to 800 unit limit.)

Also Enders Game the book is another great example of this idea.

I realize that this could not be made into a mod because of the source code problems involved. But I think this would make Sins 2 an awesome game and increase gameplay value exponentially.

Let me say something so this post will go on top again.

There you go.

Sins2 has already mastered RTS4x. The only thing left to do is to master the true feature of 3D which involve a lot when dealing with space and make it a real space game. Then bring in unrivaled scaling, meaning scale as in human to ship scale, fighter with 1 human cockpit fighter to frigate that carriers 22,000 personnel scale, and also planetary scale so large that  you will be able to see your ship burning up the atmosphere watching it dissolve while it falls below like an asteroid leaving trails.

I do believe that with the zooming feature sins engine provide can make it happen. meaning that when you zoom out we all see nothing but clusters of stars then when we zoom in we see your current galaxy backdrop. With this possibility, zooming in should also bring in planetary detail and see crisp landscape features down below. Planetary bombardment will never be the same and then make an animation nuclear hit effect where we can all see tsunami waves reaching the land surface every time a nuclear missle goes off then likewise with land bombardment.

You are right. I think the word "mastered" is a bit over stated. But lets look at how long sin's been around. Few of these titles you've mentioned was never thought of when sin's began testing IC engine. From the looks of it, the games you mentioned derived from accomplishment of what soase had created.

I wouldn't lean too much in favor of analyzing what other titles are doing specially the new title that seems to copy in the same nature as sins of a solar empires breakthroug. In regards to unrivaled scaling. Although it is wise and maybe beneficial. It wouldn't hurt a bit but to improve, polish, go step further as not only in 4x strategy but also in scale and scope of the possibility of what IC engine had already proven.

I think they need to arrest you since your depicting an animal of a horse as your main character photo profile. Your degrading the horses by abusing their nature state of being. Although as it seems that you might be a lost pony who post on forums that are not meant for pink horses. I think you need to google my little pony's forum and troll your pink horse towards the other direction.

Burn...

i got one too a more nomadic ships appears rarely and randomly and sells you some crazy weird looking ships

How about ship location damage like in Star Wars empire at war?   

Bridge destroyed, engine destroyed.. these turrets destroyed, shield generator destroyed..  its a pretty cool system in star wars..  would be awesome for this game..

Also one other thing id add is star wars had a cinematic mode.  press space bar and bam the game zooms in on ships in combat duking it out, changing between ships.. etc it was pretty cool.

Also rotating turrets!  

I think this could be changed.. With somehow making "melee" combat a viable thing in Sins, like in the new Star Wars movies when the two ships are next to each other and firing like crazy.

My select few wishes regarding content generally and factions specifically in Sins 2>

first of all, i would not mind the current six factions from Rebellion to remain. OFC i would expect them to be further improved and their differences to be made even more profound via adding more cool new technologies, making their ships more unique (if only visually), etc...

Bottom line, aside few notable exceptions, which could perhaps use overhaul/major improvement, like diplomacy, mines or exploration part of the game, i would prefer, if the content of Rebellion was there in its entirety more or less. Dont substract anything please, just because its a new game. I absolutely loved how Rebellion took all the previous Sins games and built upon them instead of dumping half of their content. And i absolutely hated how for example Dawn of War 2 took completely another route by getting rid half of the factions from original DoW.

Anyway, if certain race/faction related mumbo jumbo/realignment was about to take place, if only to refresh things a bit or move the story forward, personally i could see/ would love to see following changes>

- I could see TEC Loyalists and Vasari Rebels to merge into a single, new faction, with completely new ship/structure design of their own. Additionally they would keep major traits and techs of the parent factions, like orientation toward economy, defenses, nanotech, VR diplomatic stuff like shared networks,...they would keep dual bases, jumping bases, phase stabilisers (even though maybe somewhat gimped in contrast with main Vasari faction)...obviously they would lose access to things like Insurgency and Returning Armada. Could have brand new Titan or perhaps stick to either Kultorask or Ankylon. Doctrine-wise their goal would be to make a stand against the nemesis by use of TEC´s expertise in defense and their knowledge of local space.

- TEC faction, based off TEC Rebels. Still aggressive, xenophobic, even more oriented toward cooperation with pirates and various insurgents. Basically TEC Rebels with all their current ship/structure line-up, keeping iconic things like Akkan, Kol, Marza, Sova, Argonev, Ogrov etc... with hopefully few additional bells and whistles, if the devs can come with something. I would give them Novalith Deregulation, since they feel more like using it than the other joint TL/VR faction. Definitely keeping the RAGNAROV in all its beauty, just with higher polygon count and rotating gauss cannons. This goes generally for all the original vessels in the game, keep the basic design, improve on polys, textures, details. The current ship models (especially all the capships, Titans and stations, alongside few notable smaller ships and structures) are good enough for any scifi show on TV, dont scrap them just because!

- old/new Advent faction, being the merge of AL and AR with all their unique stuff. Perhaps you could see, as the only faction in the game, choose a technological pathway between the original AR and AL doctrine, leading up to choice between Coronata and Eradica as your Titan. This would probably require certain re-design of current tech-trees to allow such branching. Once again i would like their iconic stuff (both visually and functionally) to be kept. And since i always considered the Advent factions in Rebellion to be weakest in design, they could use some new stuff as well. Since we recently talked about cloaking around here, how about give them access to that? Or in general, build their game more around superior ability to gain/fake information, cloaking being one part of that.

- Vasari faction - basically Vasari Loyalists in all their glory. Someone might say, they have technically no place ingame, since they left the TEC space lore-wise. But i cant see it, since they are so cool and their gameplay can be so unique, they definitely have to stay. Once again, i cant stress enough, they need to keep their current capital ship line-up, Orkulus as it is, and VORASTRA, with all its menacing looks, teleporting, ship summoning and devouring...additionally they need to keep hold of things like phase stabilisers, civilian evacuations, mobile rulership, shipboard labs, dark fleet beacon and STTC. One change i was thinking about, was perhaps making them fully mobile faction by default, starting with a un-armed, heavily upgrade-able Vorastra instead of capital planet. Not really sure if this would be a good solution though, since it would kinda pigeon-hole the player into a single strategy. Currently you have a choice of going fully mobile or not, this way that choice would be taken away from you. Might make for more interesting gameplay, but ultimately less varied.

Finally, a completely new faction, or maybe even 2. I am probably one of the few, but i would prefer this facton not to be the Vasari nemesis. There i said it. Would prefer something else, like a race, which Vasari Loyalists encountered on their move away from the TEC territories, basically some kind of TEC neighbours. Could be some kind of Galactic Republic, or Council, some kind of alliance of more smaller races. God knows. Just not the nemesis. This should still become in the backstory and slowly unveiling itself, but never completely. The mystery shall be preserved.

Usage of the new upcoming Nitrous engine by oxide...