Let us know what you'd like in v1.03

Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

Let us know what you'd like in v1.03

Wow. We're just so happy that people are liking the game. We're also happy that the reviews are coming out very positive so far. And, well, we're definitely happy with the sales. It's doing even better than Galactic Civilizations II did which was really well.

Here's our upcoming schedule:

Get a v1.03 update out
Make Demo
Start work on v1.04

We hope to get v1.03 out by the end of the month (no promises though). Ironclad (and Stardock) are pretty exhausted from the final weeks of effort and the first week of launch so resting will be done.

So think of v1.03 as a few key tweaks that you think would really make the game more enjoyable not just for you but other people.

Here's an example of things we're talking about right now:

Updated AI players
More Game Speed Options
More aggressive AI players replacing dropped players (i.e. active AI)
AI surrendering
Improvements to ICO
Unit cap increases

We have lots of ideas. But the key thing to remember, we want to get 1.03 out this month if possible. So sure, we can all imagine things like random events or fancier diplomacy or other things of that nature but those would take far too long to get into the game.

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Didn't read the whole thread,too many posts

I know this has been brought up before,but im gonna say it again,because it's a serious issue on large/huge maps:

Make the defenses more powerful so that i dont have to use 1/4 of my fleet cap to defend 1 chokepoint.Raising the fleet cap is not an acceptable fix for this,all it does is let the AI throw bigger fleets at me,which in turn needs larger defence fleets,in other words it fixes nothing.

It would also be great if the starting positions in large/huge random maps were a little more spread out,as it stands at the moment all the players are crammed into the same 2 systems.Saves me making my own crappy map

All the other things that annoyed me were brought up on the first page so i wont go over them again.

Still a great game though and the after sales support is just amazing,i've never seen a dev team ask what we want in the next patch!

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When my entire fleet dies the upkeep needs to go back to 0 so I can rebuild. In the current system the upkeep remains constant regardless of how many units you have deployed.

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on the IN GAME map creator, there needs to be a way to determine WHERE all of the starting planets are going to be placed, I.E. I may want randomness in how the planets are interwoven, but I only want THREE ai per star, or I want all ai to start on THAT star, or I want all teams to start in different stars etc.

that one single aspect needs to be advanced.

signed

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Thanks, Stardock, for listening to our demands... er, requests.

Here are some things I'd like to see in Sins:

- The ability to name fleets. Right now, it's a bit hard to identify fleets. Also, it'd be nice if fleet icons were visible on the farthest zoom level. That would make it much easier to direct fleets without having to zoom in or look them up in the tree.

- Some way other than missions to improve diplomatic relations with another faction. Offering them gifts of resources, and maybe even planets, mining stations and ships, should be a way to improve relations. Maybe relative empire strengths should also play a role in diplomacy.

- A way to tell your ships not to attack ships of a certain faction unless provoked. If I'm trying to get a cease fire with a faction, I don't want my ships ruining it because they shot down one of his scouts.

- I think the buttons that tell a faction to attack or defend something should be in the diplomacy screen. It's a diplomatic option, so it doesn't make much sense for them to appear when clicking another faction's planet.

Some more ambitious ideas, maybe not suited for a patch:

- Some kind of espionage option. Maybe with cloaked spy ships that generate intelligence points when tasked on an enemy planet, with which you could 'buy' covert operations on that planet.

- An option to invade planets instead of nuking them. Maybe with a simple ground combat system (no full-blown rts, of course).

- Maybe some more types of fighters. Shuttles that board ships? Fighter-bombers, kamikaze bombers, interceptors, missile defense drones, etc.

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All I need is when I move my mouse over the menu button that the pop-up window in the bottom right has the current time so I can quit this #%@#$ game and get some sleep.

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I would like to see that colony ships do not have a antimatter penalty for phase jumping.

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All I need is when I move my mouse over the menu button that the pop-up window in the bottom right has the current time so I can quit this #%@#$ game and get some sleep.

ROFL!

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Some suggestions from someone who did not like the game at first, but has grown to appreciate it since I started playing without pirates.

1. I still would like to see the ability to turn off pirates when generating a random map without using the map design feature.

2. Unit caps need to be significantly higher in order to play the larger maps. All of my efforts to play maps with more than 2 stars have been abject failures because I simply run out of units to conduct the multi-system wars necessary. The games degenerate into what I might compare to the final stages of a game of Risk. Large fleets travel from planet to planet killing worlds while it is impossible to have enough ships to adequately conduct offensives and maintain a semblance of defense. In short, the low unit caps mean that defense is basically worthless on larger maps.

3. Planetary defenses are very underpowered. Phase jump inhibitors are not worth the cost and the short range of cannons means that they must be place perfectly in order to have any value. Right now, you are best using hangar defenses to try to stall an attacking force until your fleet arrives or simply not building any defenses at all (outside of repair facilities). Defense is just not a viable option in Sins without large fleets and the unit limit is set in a way to make large fleets for both offense and defense problematic.

4. The AI needs improvement. It is overly reliant on pirates at the moment during the early game. Pirates are exactly the crutch that many people thought they were and its very disappointing.

5. Ship animations need improved. The graphics can look both breathtaking and ridiculous in the same shot. This is a superficial concern, but when you are playing as much as I have been, you notice these things a lot.

That's all. Interesting game. Its not anywhere near as well-designed as Galactic Civilizations I or II and its not nearly as compelling to play as any Europa Universalis type game, but its still better than most RTS.

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1. Hot keying a fleet includes only current members...so new members are included and members that leave get removed. Also include naming fleets.

2. Fix diplomacy.

3. Fix FPS drops when text is present on screen. It usually goes from 60 to 30 whenever it happens, and jumps back to 60 once the text disappears. I have an 8800GTX and I'm not sure if it's just an issue with 8800's and are waiting for a driver update, but if this problem is fixable that would be nice.

4. Ability to set a scout to automatically keep placing probes in the same sector until he dies. Have him jump to the closest sector until he can place the probe again. This way you could always keep an eye on the systems one jump away from your border systems.

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One big problem for me has been fleet selection in the sidebar. for some reason when I select my fleet it scrolls down(moving the fleet out of my view), making it impossible to double click so I can focus on it. I really think that sidebar should only scroll when I do the scrolling myself.

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I created a few topics in the "Technical" Forum with [Bug]-[VERSION] and [Suggestion] in the title. I hope you can take a look at them.

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Yarlen

Join Date 01/2005

+369

Yes, thank you for the subject headers. It definitely makes it easier to find stuff with all the new posts taking place.

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A weird one... make the ships seem like they are in combat. Right now the only thing moving on the screen are fighters/bombers. Make ships flank, make ships spearhead, make ships encircle... just something rather than two picket lines shooting to make the other picket line smaller.

The game is obviously designed so someone doesn't have to micro manage a fleet. Giving ships options on different approaches would be nice. Lower siege frigate's health. Siege frigates should be coming in once the defenses are down... not to take down the defenses.

Make the scuttle button easier. Honestly I needed someone to show me how to do it because before I had no idea and had structures that were taking up valuable space.

That, and allow promotion of a Flagship. Give it bonuses when it's a Flagship (the leader ship of your race) and penalties if it's destroyed until a new one is made.

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I’d like to see a renovated diplomacy system in Sins that includes a bartering ability. So that way you could trade metal, crystal, or credits to another player securely. Right now one of you has to give a resource on good will and then hope the other player fulfills his part of the bargain. I’d also like the player to be able to inform the AI who he is allied with, ask for time extensions on missions, ask the AI player to make peace with a specific faction, and be able to make a long term alliance that involves more than 2 factions.

On the game-play front I’d really just like to see smarter fleet AI and dynamic use of logistics so the player only pays for the upkeep he is actually using. Fleets right now are a double edge sword while it does make controlling large numbers of ships easier it seems to me I have to do a lot of micro management with support and carrier ships. It would be nice if carriers and other support ships were intelligent enough to stay a relatively safe distance behind the frontline fleet. Nothing irritates me more then when my carriers start moving into the frontlines because I gave a new attack order. Also the standard assault frigate needs to be more resilient for all three factions since most people seem to stop building them once they have the long range attack frigates. It seems the standard assault frigate almost always loses even one on one to the long range frigates which doesn’t make since to me.

The only other issue that I have is how come damage isn’t registered instantaneously or why does it appear to be delayed?

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I would like a feature such as a quck key taht centers on your capital planet, or a button that when u press it it centers the map if u are zoomed in and at like a 45 degree angle during a fight, u can just hit that button and it will center your view to direct overhead...(similar to command and conquer 3's numpad 5 button, which resets view to standard game start view)

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We need an option to change game speed during game.

Having a clock somewhere (possibly with an alarm system?) would be nice.

AI Surrendering is a must for large games (once they lose their home planet / all terran planets, perhaps?).

Giving an AI a resource should make them like you more, instead of having to wait for missions (although this would be mitigated by starting off with a higher percentage than 0).

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Stronger defense bonuses.

More hanger squadrons, with upgradability.
Bigger defense bonuses for fleets guarding planets.
NUKE the LRM

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Some Tweaks to Diplomacy would be nice. Sometimes missions are always to kill player1 ships even if player1 is extremely far away from you and if you fail a few of them they still want to attack player1 even if there are 3-4 other players around.

And giving them ressources as gift should give you a few allegiance points? (maybe not for just 100 but if you give them a few hundred or thousand you gain a percent?) It seems that it does not give you points if you send them ressources as gift right now. (the button should be disabled if they are only for the missions)

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I would have to say my biggest problem would be the diplomacy. I find it very difficult to achieve all of the missions the other civilization want me to do, especially when there is hugh space gaps inbetwen me and said mission.
Im also not a fan of the fact i cannot ask my allies for resources but they can ask me to do anything, i would like to be able to ask my allies to do all the same things they can ask me to do. thanks

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This is a little late, so I'm not sure if it will get read. One thing that bugs me is the ridiculous amount of time it takes ships to turn compared to how fast they move. If an enemy spearheads through your lines (which they can do with relative ease) they'll be practically ready to phase jump before your ships can turn to give chase.

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I like the fact that they turn slowly...like boats in water. It gives it more strategy. Ive found myself having half my ships facing one way with others facing another direction in case of an incoming attack from aweird angle...which happens 90% of the time.

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Ask AI Players for missions or ressources would be nice.

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Building more labs should also speed up research, instead of just unlocking new techs (and if this is already the case, it should be clearer).

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i think they need to make AI not flee as easily, this would prevent players like me from making a fleet of 16 capships and no frigates from being able to kill every AI fleet

in a previous large game, 3 huge AI fleets were trying to take my last remaining planet... i had a 16 capship fleet and no frigates, every time an enemy fleet came, i focused all firepower on their capships, almost immediately after the capships all died the rest of the fleet fled despite them almost certainly being able to kill at least 2 cap ships before i killed them all

what made it worse.... is they didnt just flee, after about 10 minutes, that same fleet would return, without even getting new capships, just to enter the gravity well and flee before i could even engage them

currently, the AI are so terrified of capships that a 16 capship fleet is unstoppable by them just because they all try to flee when the fleet enters the gravity well
if they stood their ground and put up a fight a capship only fleet would be forced to retreat or suffer heavy damage and perhaps a loss

while i like capship fleets... i dont think they should be so overpowering

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SUGGESTION 1: PJI's should affect ships differently (I'm not entirely sure they don't actually, but let me explain). Cap ships should be affected the most, taking significantly longer to jump than smaller ships. So scouting ships would be better able to slip through the inhibitor's grasp, but fleets of big ships would be more hindered. Especially if you have the 'group all' jump thing set.

SUGGESTION 2: Make different types of ships have different phase jump speeds. Scout ships very fast in phase space, but cap ships are slow. If you phase jump a group of ships, they travel at the speed of the slowest ship in the group. IE, send a scouting party or raid of light frigates and they move fast between planets. Send a fleet of cap ships and cruisers and it takes a long time.

SUGGESTION 3: Have a tooltip or something that displays the estimated time of arrival for ships travelling in phase space. IE: I select my fleet and hover my mouse over the next planet over. Tooltip pops up telling me (ETA: 27 seconds). That way we can coordinate attacks to arrive at the same time on multiple planets with precision.

SUGGESTION 4: Make an option where you can increase the overall time it takes to jump between planets. As it is, I think it's too fast but an option to increase or decrease the jump speeds would satisfy everyone.

((Non sequitor) Sort of related to PJI's and phase jump speeds.. One thing that I like about Sins is the fact that you have to accept the idea that if you send your gigantic fleet towards the enemy homeworld, it's quite possible they've sent one towards YOU as well. It may just be in phase space.

In that vein, I'd love maps where every planet is connected by phase lanes to every other planet, but travel to the most distant planet takes a reaaaally long time. So sending a coordinated attack to all your enemy's planets would mean sending your fleet towards the enemy's homeworld a long time before sending your last fleet towards the closest outposts.

This was an idea I came across in the "Ender's Game" series of books ("Ender's Shadow" in particular).)

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