Major edit/addition, so posts up to the "shameless bump" that I made are out of date.
By the current definition of MMO in the industry sins is already a MMO, that is why I chose a more gamer-centric approach to the definition(as opposed to industry-centric). Also, MMO does not mean "wow clone" sins. No No NO! You are not a rat, you don't deserve to be in skinner's box.
I thougth of a gametype with two modes. the tactical and the strategical mode.
I completely agree with your basic concept, the execution details would be different.
Group interaction:
Capital ships would become a multi crew ship that required certian "specialists". A specialist would be a sub game similar to a class where the player would do a few things. Players can improve their characters in certain categories(stronger, smarter, more perceptive...other things like this). The categories themselves would only affect combat by the amount of experience/achievements/currency invested in that area of the character "tree". I am thinking of this "tree" a complex tree something along the lines of the sphere grid in FFX, with large general zones representing the main character attributes, with the possibility of a long term strategy of character progression that could be changed at any time by adding more spheres to overwrite the other ones). A game withing a game, perhaps ignorance could be the enemy in this game...The more negative posts you get from people the more the ignorance monster eats your spheres! muhauhuahua!
Trading in these acquired spheres would be important, and this would add to the game's economy quite nicely. Specialists would want to sell spheres that are outside of their planned strategy, while generalists would be trying to acquire as many of these as possible. Incentives in game need to be managed to carefully ensure a balanced population of specialists and generalists.
An example of a specialist would be a "team" player would be an officer on the capital ship. The capital ship itself would be an instance unto itself that is designed to receive outside information directed to its group ID number. If there is a more efficient better way to approach this please feel free to elaborate on this. Each capital ship and Titan from each of the races would be their own Instance. Say a capital ship would be controlled by a good sized group, 3-10 players, with enough design depth to allow for every player to have an important job. The instances would be"fighting against the ship" with one instance for every type of capital ship, and every capital ship having a very different feel of play. Damage control crews running around inside the cap ship dealing with fires and other "status" effects.
Each of the races would have different bridge configurations and setups. Here are the 5 basic ship crew compliment for a capital ship, the bread and butter of teamwork in the SOASE MMORTS:
One of the jobs of these officers would be to navigate/drive the ship. They would have a few abilities such as steering the ship, plotting jumps and navigating hazards, and work closely with the sensors officer. Naturally a very important job, especially if collisions cause damage (recommend a small amount of damage tops). I always say there should be a kamikaze ability for ships in the game, because I think it would be fun as hell.
The Sensors officer would be playing the game of "find the badguy" in a very tough to analyze universe. there would be distortion areas, areas in the gravwell playing haywire with sensors and interpretation of data and enemy fleet maneuvers that would screw with tracking systems all would have to be managed and sent to the tactical officer a List of sorted targets, and to the captain for fleet coordination. If the sensors officer fails at their job and cannot find the enemy the ship wont see any enemies and be vulnerable to a well conceived first strike. Sensor officers would have their personal progression improve target finding and increase the quality of the data presented to the captain's screen.
The Tactical officer would Fight (for advent you would have two positions, one for shields and one for attack). They would control the type of ammunition fired, how much and where, and manage the shields. The advent would have a separate officer for shields, and they would have way more defensive shielding options. The Vasari would have an extra officer spot for managing armor repair nanites that would patch the ship back together mid combat and have other ways of improving their armor defenses(the high armor stats the vasari currently have would instead be based upon player skill.) The TEC gain the advantage of not needing an extra person to control the combat ship at maximum potential. The tactical officer would have their abilities affect accuracy, reload times, Target acquisition, armor rotation
The Commanding officer would be coordinating the fleet and high strategy issuing orders and targets of importance. The sensors officer would provide the commanding officer an improved/degraded(based upon their ability)display of the battlefield. If say the sensor module external to the instance gets blown up the commander wouldn't be able to see the fleet from his tactical screen anymore. The tactical officer provides updates on how the ship is holding and how the attack is going on their specific target via verbal communication. The captain works closest with the navigator and the science officer, as the capital ship can never be in a position to receive intense fleet wide fire (balanced just like the sins game is currently). this means camping at the edge of the gravity well and waiting to jump. The commanding officer would affect all attributes of the ship in small ways that add up to a decent sized improvement/buff on the ship (up to 10%, or more!). The commanders would be the epitome of the "generalist" and would be most rewarded in gaining experience in everything. Eventually the commander will max out every specialty in the game (your more hardcore player, naturally!). This person would be the most effective captain of the ship by providing the ship with the best buffs possible.
The Science officer would coordinate the special capabilities of the Capital ship. This would be a demanding job, and the captain and the science officer would have to work closely to improve the timing of any fleet wide abilities (also no more passive abilities, something that would have to be maintained with minimal effort by the science officer). The capital ship would have all the abilities, but the science officer's specialization would determine the effectiveness of each ability. Eventually you would have science officers who can maximize their effectiveness with all abilities, and this would be considered a "maximum level" character.
Communications officer would also be a swing spot to assist the captain with fleet wide comms when operations become so overwhelming for one individual. The communications officer would likely be the person with the second most ability at combat to help coordinate effectively with the commanding officer.
Engineer/damage control, This person would be far from the action, acting sort of like a "healer" in a traditional MMO. They would fight status effects with damage control teams that they would coordinate (AI units) to put out fires, and repair important infrastructure. This would be a very destructible instance that would explode based upon how things from outside the instance are affecting the ship. I don't know how possible this would be from a hardware standpoint. But it sounds cool as hell and code can be simplified down to improve performance i'm sure. The engineer could be made into one heck of a cool job though, to make up for their distance from the action. They would yell to the captain "I'm giving it all shes got!", perhaps this can be a special ability...hehe
Fleet battles would largely play out like a battle in Sins of a solar empire, controlled by the commander in the capital ship. They would coordinate all the single player ships to maintain good fleet cohesion. The single players would trust the capital ship because the capital ship would have the best sensors, this would by default make people reliant on the capital. The effectiveness of sensors could be a fleet wide calculation where you add up the capability and possible synergy between ships to determine how capable as a whole the entire fleet is able to detect certain things.
The single player experience would reside in cruisers, frigates, fighters, corvettes and bombers. The fleet size would be something limited by lag, naturally.
These smaller ships would be the bread and butter of the single player experience(Heavy cruisers being the largest ship a single person can command), and an area where sins can be greatly diversified in ship types. Since SO many battles are determined by how well these smaller craft are manipulated. Medium sized ships, like Heavy Cruiser's, Support ships, carriers, and anti structure ships would be specialized single player ships that allow for a very diverse amount of combat. Break out them joystick boys! Time to kill us a womp rat.
Ships would have definite roles, the exact same roles they fill in sins today, except perfect fleet movement would be far more difficult because you are now dealing with people, not mindless ships. There would be no more auto cast or passive abilities like we have in traditional sins.
I will add more later, I want to know what people think about these ideas.
