Welcome to the second dev diary and the first of a series of close looks at the key units of the TEC.
Thirty-five years into the war, much of the TEC fleet has evolved to adapt to changing combat needs, technological advancements, and resource availability. Many ship designs have been decommissioned, some have been progressively updated, and some have had massive redesigns. While it's gone through several variants over this time, the Kol continues to be a mainstay of the TEC fleet.
Originally designed as the TEC's first dedicated warship, the initial model can now only be found in the hands of rogue Pirate Lords. The latest version includes several key changes critical to keeping the Kol in its role as an essential frontline combat capital ship.
Major Updates to the Kol-class Battleship
Sins II: Dev Journal 11 - The TEC Rebel Ragnarov Titan
Sins II: Dev Journal 10 - The Vasari Kultorask Titan
Sins II: Dev Journal 9 - The Ankylon Titan
Sins II: Dev Journal 8 - An RTS with a Changing Map
Sins II: Dev Journal 7 - The Argonev Starbase
Sins II: Dev Journal 6 - The Dunov Battlecruiser
Sins II: Dev Journal 5 - The Sova Carrier
Sins II: Dev Journal 4 - The Marza Dreadnought
Sins II: Dev Journal 3 - The Akkan-Class Battlecruiser
Sins II: Dev Journal 2 - Exploring the Kol-class Battleship
Welcome to Sins of a Solar Empire II: Dev Journal 1
Really like these explanations! Every change is grounded in lore, and this also gives some nice hints to what will come in the game (namely, further improvements along the line of the original -> entrancement -> diplomacy -> rebellion). It really makes the world feel more alive. The TEC is of course most suited to this type of development, so I'm very interested to see (in due time) what the Vasari and Advent have done!
very interesting, this explains why the ships have changed
I like the lighting in this shot. It looks less glossy, and I think it fits the art direction better.
To be honest, i expected more, given the time it took to write that down
anyway, it looks good, cant wait to play it in a week!
one little nit-pick, dont make windows to have team color, there is enough red on the model as is. Instead, have something like yellowish/blue for TEC, blue or purplish for Advent and green or red for Vasari.
I will limit the following to one disagreeable element of this new Kol design, but I hope the artists will receive better direction in the future.
I don't like the twin autocannon turrets, I suggest another going over of these turret positions (they are bolted on after all), as they don't feel practical in their placement, a few outright getting in the way of each other, and think about the tasks of the weapon systems involved (not just two guns that side, two guns the other, etc). I am somewhat put off by that the turret designs follow the very same layout as large the gauss weaponry (the guns being located at the very edges of the mounting); is there a reason for this (has TEC suddenly changed to using recoilless guns, and so need room for backblast)?
Twin autocannon turrets have not shown up much before these new designs, but I suppose the Dunov BC has one, yet nothing so... delicate, these do not look protected. Autocannons have usually been a singular weapon per turret on TEC vessels, relying on rate of fire (most real life guns can be tuned to have higher rates of fire, but are limited by thermodynamics), and I would suspect, the useful mobility of smaller, compact turrets for ease of targeting; if weight of fire is the primary driver with this design, it sort of makes sense, but it would imply extra sets of ammunition feeds now need to fit in each turret, making it bigger, and now more costly with its loss (the gun barrels are perhaps too big, think about some shell sizes, and then how they move from inside the ship magazine and up into the breech or bolt).
I would expect a more visibly armoured turret mount from TEC ship(I understand the turret design really doesn't give easy answers as to how to armour such a floppy thing), but maybe the argument for them being the way they are is about keeping the turrets agile or high performance and forgoing protection, yet not using the armour of the ship to protect the vitals of a weapon system does not feel particularly TEC (those large hinges are a very critical location that may indeed catch direct enemy fire on the regular, especially given the turrets look like they open up more once they engage targets at high angles). Why did those that be choose the hinged/oscillating turrets, these are not satisfying to look at, and are very...simplistic if you'd ask me.
Please get rid of those big stupid bolts screwing the turrets to the ship, these are ugly, and as far as I can recall, not TEC.
Sorry about the ranty response, but I wish good for this series and luck to those involved. Thank you.
thanks for the update yarlen!i am happy that the changes are at least grounded in lore... despite favoring the old design, i am ok with this i guess so will we encounter the original KOL when fighting the pirates? or was that just some lore info piece?regarding hangar/strike craft removal: i noticed the akkan also lost its hangar bay... is it therefore correct to assume that most caps will no longer have strike craft? it always felt like having one strike craft squadron really gave the caps their "capital ship" feeling though. i guess it is a minor thing but it would be sad to see them go on all caps except for the dedicated carriers... (of course if strike craft have been reworked and now are much stronger than before i would understand that...)regarding windows and colors:personally, i would agree with the previous poster that the windows would look cooler with some yellowish/white tone rather than the team color, but again, i am overall not that fond of the color usage as it is a bit too much for my taste. (but i suppose its just personal preference and up to you guys in the end)
again thanks and i am looking forward to see what the game will look like next week!
sincerely
raba
Nice! looks great, actually brings back some memories for some reason .
The info is very interesting, I have some questions. They could be a bit specific to modding and may be a bit early, so I understand if they can't be answered yet.
- I guess the pitch and yaw angles are relative to the hard point orientation. Can the hard point orientation be offset or angled between the fore and left for example. Or aft and right etc?
- Will the turrets be their own asset / file group of mesh and textures? and interchangeable between different ships? I imagine for the auto cannons at least this could be the case.
- How many triangles?
Anyways, looking forward to the journey and finding out more when its ready.
I hope the unit balance of the capital ships has been updated for the sequel. The Kol was the worst offender.
I am such a sucker for space ship diagrams, love this.
Also love the extra detail on the Kol compared to the initial screenshot, beautiful roughed up texture with less shine on the paint and lots of scuff marks looks like a real battleship.
Trying to keep my expectations reasonable for SoaSE 2 & very much looking forwards to the hands on technical beta experience.
Awesome, love these images and finally....ship dimensions. Can't say I'll miss the hanger bay.
This should answer most of your questions:
https://discord.com/channels/266693357093257216/271243791166472192/1033067998199681064
This should answer most of your questions:https://discord.com/channels/266693357093257216/271243791166472192/1033067998199681064
Thanks Blair. Excitement level has just gone up several notch's after reading that .md.
Been playing Sins of a Solar Empire since the beginning and still love it and can't wait to see where the sequel evolves the story and game play.
Eager to see the Vasari ships, but for now I'm excited to see my favorite Capital Ship the Marza Class Dreadnought and I really hope it is added soon.
Also hoping we find out at some point what it is exactly the Vasari are fleeing from, a new playable (possibly over powered) race to play as? I'm a long time fan of the Vasari's technology and ship designs, especially the Phase Missiles with their shield bypassing ability and Phase Stabilizers to cross dark space and create shortcuts everywhere.
Loving the changes so far, the only issue at the moment is the low credits income as others have found. My personal fix for it is to build more towards credits income in the early game. Commercial Districts on the surface of the first four planets along side Surface Research Facilities and Orbital Research Facilities and Trade Ports, which also the new Mobile Trade Port ability on the Akkan Battle Cruiser helps and is a really cool ability.
Hello. I just wanted to say how excited I am for this game. I absolutely adored the first one - a real-time 4X game set in space? Yes please. I made a point to get the Rebellion edition with the Kol battleship model and posters and all. And I am really excited for - and find really promising - the mechanics of the sequel. And hope it really builds on the magic of the first game.
I just had an observation, in case it's of any value. I really appreciate the effort to make things a bit more "grounded" in sci-fi and now I have dimensions and scale to work with in my head. I used to enjoy reading the descriptions of the various technologies and lore and the like before also.
Anyhow. I hope this isn't too pedantic. But I looking at the figures for the speed and acceleration of the different engines, I cannot help but notice a few things. The units for speed are the same for acceleration. They are both listed in terms of m/(s^2). But velocity should be m/s. Assuming this is just a typo, I cannot help but notice another figure. The velocity for the phase space engine. Now I imagine this is used for traveling alone phase lanes. 155,000 m/s is fast. But for travelling between stellar bodies, this is slow. It's just over 0.05% the speed of light. A 1,000 times faster, and it's still less than 52% if the speed of light. If it's meant to be FTL, shouldn't it be a lot faster?
II suppose the range of the various weapons - of the megaton equivalent of the nukes for planetary bombardment - "feel" a bit on the low side, but of course happy to accept just about anything from the lore side of things.
I don't mean to be facetious of nit-picking. But just thought I would pass on something notice, in case it's of any help. I notice the new journal entry kind of replicates the same figures. In any case, I wish you the devs and this game every bit of success it rightfully deserves, and hope many can have - and relive - the kind of fond memories I have with the original game and expansions.
In my opinion... IF Ironclad plans to add a refit facility which allows some upgrades, i hope that this Kol Battleship has some room to retrofit missile launchers OR torpedo somewhere not in the front ship BUT this part is 2nd priority to me...
Main part is IF they allow capital-grade Railgun which only usable on Ragnarok Titan to mount it on these new Kol Battleship on the lower side of the dual gauss cannon turret if it can't mount both of Railguns...
I prefer replacing its Experimental Beam Cannon with improved Railgun IF seriously possible and place these new Beam Cannon on the lower side of the dual gauss cannon turret BUT that's just me... Also i choose improved railgun than this new Beam Cannon is because new railgun might have almost doubled the range of original SINS railgun, considering Snipe Ability proves that its highly practical although i was hoping that it would at least reaches 10000 ranges instead of mostly 7000-9000 ranges (((Sorry.. i don't know how they measure distance in space SO i use the word range for now)))
Hopefully they allow these kind of upgrade although it commonly have some downside as well... No Offense guys... Just some hopeful, wishful thinking of seeing a uniqueness of upcoming SINS 2 here
Main part of refitting these improved capital-grade railgun seems quite hard to apply to both TEC factions, so i suggest that these refit only feasible to Rebel as they are using Railgun on the Ragnarok Titan meanwhile Loyalist can further improve its Kol Battleship with more weapons like upgrading its twin light & medium autocannon to quad version or replaces some of the autocannons with laser weapons...
Main point of this suggestion is making these Kol Battleship a truly versatile, dedicated warship capable of deterring anything smaller than titan to certain degree down to strike craft and even anti-missile/anti-torpedo BUT also an alternative to only using as it is..
In summary of these suggestion.. Loyalist & Rebel can upgrade/replace some weapons within similar size and capability..
Difference here is Loyalist can add some more of these autocannons OR laser OR even missile/torpedo depends on where it can be added if possible MEANWHILE Rebel can only change gauss cannon turret with capital-grade railgun or improved beam cannon OR even multiple missile launcher/torpedo turret BUT they cannot have multiple version of weaponry and having a bit less weaponry in return..
In short.. Loyalist have MORE guns and turrets but moderate firepower while Rebel have almost twice less than Loyalist BUT able to mount Railguns or Beam Cannon or missile/torpedo launcher for stronger firepower
1 good thing they make it better than SINS 1 so far... That Gauss Cannon mentioned is improved Gauss Railgun Cannon unlike usual Gauss Cannon seen only on base defense...
I hope that this guns also adds on 1 or 2 more capital ship (not including experimental cap ship OR dreadnought) and Hopefully upgraded Ragnarok's secondary guns which is Gauss Cannon... although i expect that maybe Ankylon also might get this upgrade upto 4 dual Gauss Railgun Cannon at best.. It would be quite a fortress-hardened to beat it even if enemies surround it with a few capital ships
Imagine all its gauss cannon upgraded to this Gauss Railgun Cannon and then some... IF this one got upgraded to Ragnarok's Gauss Cannon turret.. I'll definitely play Rebel side 1st for this kind of firepower...
Seems that its not Gauss Railgun that were added but a heavy version... not bad but a bit disappointing..
Still i hope that Gauss technology got added into Trader factions on some existing ship or completely new and experimental capital-class & hopefully new Dreadnought-class (idk a proper name for this warship type) ((Not type like Marza or Vulkoras))
I believe that IRONCLAD not gonna add a brand new Titan BUT i was hopefully they add a new warship to fill the role between fleets of capital ships and Titan aka Dreadnought-class (again idk a proper naming for it) using Maelstrom Mod's Dreadnought warship as basis for upcoming SINS 2
For now, someone please tell me the difference between standard Gauss Cannon and Gauss Railgun as it seems to be a heavy gauss cannon instead...
I was also hoping to see Gauss Beam Cannon which i got inspiration image from Space Pirate Captain Harlock's Battleship main turret fires beam energy shot, Gauss Cannon version although slower version would be nice...
The main weapon that is tied to skill is not the 'Gauss Railgun' on the ships bottom. That one is the front beam now. Its main feature in R version was that it bypassed shield and mitigation that was normally applied to the hull.
In another post, I wrote that I would be fine with if Gauss on the Kol was just single-barreled to keep with the big gun, it fires one shot at a single target, visually it is 2. To resemble the old 'gauss rail gun', and make it quite sizable I proposed to make it long barrel, keeping performance as is. Yes, the over the top weapon is the beam, useless without skill. Same as old gauss rail gun.
The video is ther ealready with kol how it has two-barreled turret so I wonder if they would want to change what was shown in the cinematic. Multi-barrel fits smaller calibers more imo. And Gauss as is is not the heaviest thing out there with 100-130 pen. Beam is 200 afaik, like LRM Javelin. Maybe that is to not make it too universal. If they think it looks cool, I think it does, but I thought a bigger single barrel, with quite a size would look better. Especially if it is longer, the slow turret traverse seems then much more justified.
1st part you mentioned, i hope that it won't be offensive-type ability like in Rebellion SINS for this game.. As for Experimental Beam Cannon part.. i was hoping to see IRONCLAD adds an overcharged/supercharged Beam Shot akin to Radiance Battleship but a bit different as Ultimate Ability as it was still experimental beam cannon
2nd part.. nice idea but i did mentioned earlier that if possible, only Rebel factions have access to change their heavy gauss cannon into either capital-grade railgun or multi-heavy beam turret like ankylon used or missile+torpedo hybrid turret or even completely new weaponry if they gonna be added...
3rd... What i meant heavy gauss cannon is basically what was advertised while medium gauss cannon are what being used on Ragnarok itself and the defense turret in SINS 1 are light one i guess.. I have no comment on Armor Penetration..
Kinda wanna see a proper light/medium/heavy and super type weaponry itself added in game akin to see twin/dual/quad/six-barreled/8-barreled turret depending on firepower used on.. IS WHAT i meant by being heavy version of weaponry itself...
Gauss cannons are rail guns are not the same thing.
Coil Gun (Gauss Cannon)
Railgun
Some interesting videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAHKS0nVlL4
https://youtu.be/izW1X2555Wg?t=174
Video is good, I knew that the Gauss and railgun were two things, so I kept the things as they were in SoaSE:R. The new effects show that there is no gases causing the propulsion, but something like a lot of heat, so that is good. I didnt try the Kol if it still fires 2 shots at once. It looks a bit funny when you have 2 shots at once always hitting the same thing - or why is there not a bigger, a more powerful one.
Like 5-7 years ago I saw a plasma gun too, except it did not fire plasma, but some very fast very light projectile.
I did take some proper look at the new fortress, the beam gun, how it rotates in two axis (or Axes ? ) (amount of text displayed cant fit in the screen though)
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