This is my jumble of ideas I want to suggest for Sins of a Solar Empire. Would be nice if the devs considered some of them.
Some of these need to be explained more in-depth, but this is what I have so far.
Since Ironclad and Stardock are working on fixing the 2 gig limit. I wanted to make some suggestions for what you can add to the game with the new updates and for what you can create in Sins Of A Solar Empire 2.
I have a lot of suggestions that I have written down as I played Sins, and there are still a lot more ideas floatin' 'round in my head that I forgot to write down, but here is what I have.
I have played Nexus The Jupiter Incident, and I have noticed a lot of things from there.
-First would be their devices; all sorts of weapons (flak cannons against commandos and incoming fighters; weapons to barrage shields, overload, and deplete them; weapons to damage hulls), engines, life support, scanners, communication systems. Things like that that you can disable or even destroy and leave the enemy ship stranded wherever it is.
-The next thing would be the commandos. You have a certain number of ships and commandos that can sabotage enemy ships from the inside. I suggest they can do that and also commandeer ships that have been abandoned after a battle or just overtake the ships and get intel from enemy scientists, engineers, and spies. Things like that
-Another thing is the way the shields look like when taking damage. For me that is just beautiful because it fits what I have seen in the Stargate series and would like to see that for Sins. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhhnRXdNXCw
-Last thing for Nexus would be the way the shields activate. In my opinion that is cool because shields aren't always up so they need to be raised before they go into battle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdVZ2vbA8c4&feature=related
-I understand having devices for so many ships as Sins has, will be a pain in the rear to micro manage each one. But it could be for the main Capital ships or higher end Cruisers.
-I have also played Homeworld 1 and 2 and have noticed that fighters, bombers, and small ships have formations in groups of 3-5. It would be nice to have formations in Sins. For ex. you are lying in wait and want to create a 2-front war you could position your squadrons in formations for better damage to ships. Rather than having your squadrons massing your enemy with a blob of fighters all attacking different ships, they are nice and organized.
-If possible Sins 2 or the next update should have moving parts especially like in Nexus to create different kinds of effects and customizations for ships.
-When ships blow up, they can take down nearby ships like the self destruct ability of starbases, but ships do that all the time rather than it being an ability.
-After constructors finish building something, they should go back into a sort of hangar/depot for constructors only, or land on the planet or just go back to a designated area where they get more materials for another construction.
-Or when you want to start building you give enough resources to your constructor and it starts building what you tell it to.
-Constructors can be upgraded with research by allowing them to hold more resources at a time.
-When building ships that cost a lot of resources, you have to collect those resources and send them to the planet that has the factory you are building the ship in.
-The shipments of resources can be stolen from your container ships, so you have to protect them as well.
-A MAJOR thing that needs to be fixed is the ratio of size of planets compared to ships. Especially when you are trying to create a mod based on a show that used large ships the way it looks is unrealistic and messes up what you are trying to make it look like.
-when pirates are given missions in Diplomacy they don't do anything with it. They should be allowed to do some things the AI can. For ex. rebuild after attacked, research, able to be hired for a certain amount of time, can have massive armies from all the bounty and missions. Things like that.
-Local militia can also do what pirates can as they can be also hired so they make money.
-If you aren't prepared for war, when you get attacked, it takes twice as long to ready your ships and repair your shields and such.
-Ships need an increase in skills as what ideas people have, and what they can do is limited by th 5 slots.
-RPG should be added.
-RPG can be open world gameplay. Choose to do storyline missions, Side missions, Building up your fleet.
-To repair different systems of the ship you require different kinds of materials. They can only be found on certain planets
-You can scan.
-Get rid of the Phase Lane.
-Time between jumping from galaxy to galaxy should be longer.
-Different Artifacts/Relics can only be on a certain ship. For ex. You find a hyperdrive still intact left by an Ancient race. That hyperdrive can only be on one ship until you research mass production of them for your fleet.
-Artifacts take time to be integrated into the ships systems as trial and error take time. For ex. you have found a relic that is a power source beyond anything you have ever seen. To integrate it into your sheilds, comm systems, weapons, engines takes time.
-You can sell Artifacts that you find or mass-produce then sell.
-Certain artifacts can only be used for a certain amount of time, as they run out of power, or they get damaged beyond repair.
-You can have communication systems. Scenario: You are chasing after an enemy ship that has abducted one of your teams you sent to explore a planet. You find them above another planet and engage them in battle, but aren't able to take out their hyperdrive engines and they run away. A few moments later you then recieve an encrypted sub-space message from Home base that the ship you have been chasing after has just jumped out of hyperspace above an allied planet and have not made any moves. Possibly repairing damaged systems. You then input the coordinates into your system and plot a course to hyperspace there.
-Some alien ships that you have your commandos take over have consoles that your people have never had experience with and have a hard time getting the ship to work.
-For ex. TEC coming over to vasari ships cant get control over them as they have different language, different controls.
-RPG gameplay should have the ability to customize ships you control.
-RPG shouldn't have you control as many ships as regular gameplay has, but maybe 20 ships maximum.
-If you are in battle and the enemy take over your ship, they take over any relics currently on that ship.
-Missions should be cuztomizable.
-All RPG gameplay can be customizable to fit the story of the mod you want to create.
-You can salvage different parts of ships. For ex. you jump into a shipyard full of abandoned ships floating around in a section of space where a great battle took place.
-There should be shipyards/ghostshipyards.
-You can aquire blueprints of enemy ships, engines, parts.
-Squadrons: every ship can house different amount of squads. For ex. from 0-10. Scenario: you exit hyperspace and find yourself being ambushed, but you already had your squads, ship personnel, and your squad pilots at the ready to launch a counterattack.
-If you aren't ready for a battle and you exit hyperspace and get ambushed, it takes you longer to get ready than usual.
-If a ship in your squadron gets blown up, you can only have a certain amount of spare ships and pilots ready. This is good so that people don't rely ONLY on the strikecraft of your fleet.
-Strikecraft can cloak with research.
-Stealth fighters.
-When ships that have the ability to colonize start colonizing, they need to have enough resources to finish, otheriwse the people on the planet won't survive.
-When you want to take over the enemy planet, if you bombard it, you won't be able to colonize it yourself for a long time.
-When trading at enemy planets, they may refuse to trade with you or may just blow you out of the sky.
-Different kinds of planets should be available. Ocean, Desert, Volcano, Ice, Jungle, Ancient. There may different bonuses from different kinds of planets.
-Some missions of the storyline require you to act IMMEDIATELY or the mission will be lost or failed, or your planet may be lost or something like that.
-Some missions may have a time limit. Others can be any time.
-There should be some sort of Home Command, Headquarters.
-Certain planets contain different kinds of minerals, materials, resources.
-Some planets can only be colonized by certain races as their body-makeup allows them to live on such planets.
-You can train scientists. You can force the scientists of other races to work for you or pay them, or they do it willingly.
-There should be stations you can dock with.
-Allow customization option that some races can only be in hyperspace for a certain amount of time or their ship starts to degrade in hyperspace.
-Rewards for missions can be coordinates for planet(s) that have possible artifacts.
-Starbases can become middle points between star systems.
-There should be races that are on the side and are only in contact with you a few times in the story
-you should be able to hire pirates or local militia
-you can cloak ships and they will be invisible
-you can hide in asteroid fields as sensors will not work as well
-pirates should be able to have massive armies as bounty will allow them to purchase better ships and research stuff as well
-if you arent prepared to fight and you begin battling, it takes twice as long to equip all of squadrons and repair shields
-if shields drop the damage sustained will only be repaired to be able to jump away and get lifesupport working
the rest will have to be at a station or after landing on a planet
-you can choose what lvl skill to use and set certain restrictions even if they are not on the skill to fit your playing standard
-or for example if you have 750/1000 antimatter/energy/power whatever you use a skill that gives 300 shield to an ally for 100 antimatter if the only need 20 it doesnt use up 100 antimatter to do that small amount but less
-while in battle some weapons and communication systems may go offline after the shield was depleted and the enemy struck the hull
-pirates can go from a few ships to a massive solar system as their home base
-when things like missiles and phase missiles are launched the other ship should not recieve damage until the missile actually reaches the ship
-missles can also be blown up if enough damage is caused in time by the devices
-cool thing for promo video: The game starts off where the first started. The TEC is formed because the Advent are taking out their planets, allies, mining operations from one side and the Vasari are fleeing from whetever they are fleeing from and that is what consumes the TEC from the other side. So we have a 2 front war. The next thing is showing what the video already showed, they took all resources and defended their home planet building a fortress of a few flagships, capital ships, frigates, cruisers, battlecruisers (warships), starbases, and stations. The next scene would show 3 lvl 20 Kol version flagships entering hyperspace away from the home base. They exit hyperspace at the new location of a Vasari mining operation and wipe them out. They immediately jump away and exit near the Vasari ship factory which is defended by a few battlecruisers which they take care of very easily. They jump away and something disrupts their hyperdrive momentarily. During that time they get some intel that some of the Vasari and Advent factions have agreed on a treaty and are now sharing information and they are insttructed to return to headquarters and they need to recall all other forces to reorganize and destroy the alliance between the Advent and Vasari. Moments later as the captain of the strike force of the 3 Kol's is about to give command to jump home, they sense hyperspace windows opening and need to cloak. They then realize that they are facing a new kind of ship they have never seen before but recognize different aspects of the Advent and Vasari technologies and realize they were set up. Because of the hyperdrive distruption (include the advent and vasari sharing info on the spot) they can not jump away cloaked and need to decloak and then jump away. They realize that they must all fight for a moment before they can jump away. They decloak and the new ship(s) fire on them as they have been expecting them. One of the flagships is destroyed and the other 2 make it in time. Your story continues from there.\
-when ships blow up the effects should be different, they can create secondary explosions
-when ships blow up the debris doesnt dissapear to create a graveyard effect for a certain mission
-when ships need to be repaired they need to dock with the repair yard
-when fighters attack, they need to continue attacking all enemies they come against rather than attack one enemy at a time while flying by other ships they can possible attack
Last thing I would want to ask is if some of these ideas are incorporated into the game or not it would be nice to have a complete list of constraints and things from the devs. I already know there is another, but I would like a complete up-to-date one.
