Appreciation

i still hope for uber starbases around the sun.....

Expansions...expansions.

For countering stealth there should be some kind of module you would have to build like the repair station that would take up a tactical slot and detect stealthed ships around a certain area.

Even if it won't be in the initial release, I really LOVE your answer Yarlen

dunno... I just hear developer greed talking. half a year left until release and they can't add another building? Is this still our beloved Stardock, the same company that releases GalCivII 2.0?

Of course it will be nice to have the game kept alive and expanded, but shouldn't you work on the actual game first and think about expansions later? No, I don't like this answer.

AntiBody, adding starbases is much more than just adding a new building. It's an entire concept to add in. There is nothing like it in the game, which means it has to be coded in from scratch, and balanced from scratch, something that was supposed to be done during beta 2.

Devs have explained it elsewhere, but what it boils down to is that any large changed require a very large lead time for the various creation stages ranging from design to programming to testing. They just don't have time to do much more than work on the game "as presented" at this point -- minor tweaks and gameplay enhancements are quite doable, but brand new things are a lot more difficult. Sure, they take a lot of ideas right off the board, but they're mostly in the form of tweaks and enhancements of existing systems.

I probably got that half-wrong, but you get the idea.

dthif1980,

Thanks for the kind words. Great to read this kind of thing at the end of the day

I thought dev's days never ended?   

more money , more money =p

ah well, you do a good job, you deserve it!

You are not wrong. I'm a computer engineer myself and I write a lot of code in some huge applications (not games). You are right, when you are this close to a release date and are still in the BETA testing, the last thing you want to do is try adding some new big features unplanned. The main reason is not only that it takes time to develop (textures, model, behavior, etc...), but it takes a lot of time in the testing phase to provide a bug free balanced game. In games or applications, a single change can have huge consequences of places you didn't suspect.

Plus, I'm pretty sure the current list of things that remains to be done before the release is quite long. In fact, no matter how long is this list of remaining items to be implemented/corrected, the Devs will have a huge rush before the release, because software projects are always like this, no matter how good you are at planning.

And the difference between a game that releases finished, stable, bug free (or close) and a game that looks "not finished", that crashes and requires a patch the day after is often dependant on the project manager. If the project manager is good enough to know when to say no to requests/features, the chances that the product will be one of quality increases at high rate.

Those are my two cents (based on my experience of course).

@Craig Frazer
Your welcome. Please continue your good work

True, they turn into nights.

Well, in that case there are a few things I've been saving up...

This game is incredible. Even in its beta state, its a match for many final, released games (complete with patches). The first build I tried had an incredible stability, easily a match for a released Blizzard product. The only crash I have been able to produce (much less re-produce) is the save game issue, which in the grand scheme of things is not only minor, but fixed. The game is an excellent piece of work, a solid bit of coding, and extremely fun and addicting to play.

I'm really looking forward to cutting my teeth in multiplayer come Thursday or Friday.

There's not half a year left in development. In fact, there's only about 60-days of time left to finish adding the planned features, which isn't a lot.

I thought about it and I want to add to my idea. I thought of two techs (stealth and counter-stealth) of the same high level (maybe counter-stealth one level higher). When researched, counter-stealth would be passive for all your planets/capital ships with an area of effet (easier to detect near the planet than far from it in the gravity well). So, ships getting really close could be more easily detectable. Also, as you suggested, a counter-stealth module (like repair station) could be built as a "detection amplifier" which would reduce the time of detection and expand the area of effect of the planet. As I said, there would be a detection delay... not just pure instant detection (which would be boring I think). So, even in stealth mode, no camping in an enemy system.

Of course, in my idea, the stealth technology would only unlock a small fragile expansive stealth scout ship and would not apply to other ships.

Presently, that "spy system" would add absolutly nothing to the game hehhehe, I just proposed it One thing that could be tweaked is the current scouting detection that ships have. Instead of getting an instant reading at a planet, structure, ships in a gravity well, that reading could be dependant on the time taken to scout and the closeness of the targets. If you enter a gravity well and leave it right away, you won't get that much info (like planet population, ships shield/hull/antimatter report, structure health report...), just a feeling (number of ships and types, etc.). But if you take some time to get close to the ships, the planet, the structures, then you could have a complete reading of their current statuses. This is where the stealth tech (stealth scout ship) could be usefull

Anyway, just an idea I developped in my mind. I like to do that and share with people. I think that this idea can add some to the strategic factor of this game (like for an offensive preparation or fleet regrouping detection before strike), expecially in multiplayer (fun to spy your human friend:) ) And it could implement a simple Spy System without any dialog or menus, etc.

So Devs, take note of my idea if you like it and talk about it If not, well I like Sins a lot even without it hehehe.

Thanks for reading till here!

Can we have a sneak preview at what's left to be developped for those 60 days?

Of course not, thats what they have beta 4 for.

They have to torture us, aside from Yarlen(who has eets), its the only way the devs get any pleasure and happiness in their lifes anymore.

actually they are saving half the crap for release

(thats right, they are only flinging half of their poo at us)

Just about everything will be in Beta 4 (all the major gameplay elements at least).

so... the other two races arent major gameplay elements?

The other 2 races are "surprise" elements. (which means they are saving 2/3rds of the crap for release )

I agree with having a deployable/upgradeable starbase (limited to maybe 2, or 3 at most depending on map size). Nothing uber. It dont even have to be armed. Thats what they make guns and hangers for. Just something to make some use of the dead worlds other than a glorified choke point.

okay, perhaps i should read the forums more. i was just a little disappointed because i felt there just wasn't that much in the game to justify denying adding in one more feature. Of course I realize that these things are MUCH easier said than done, and I am all for a polished and balanced product. We haven't seen the other races yet, but excuse my hopefully unfounded suspicions, they usually are little more than new models for the same units. This is a disadvantage of being so tight-lipped: you won't get credit for what you don't show!

eh, SD has been pretty good about that kind of stuff, and i dont think yarlen would trick me like that. You maybe, but not me

Talk about teasing.

I hear what your saying BUT... the rude fact is these guys aren't working for free, they have families + dreams an aspirations, and just because they may LOVE what they do and it keeps them going sometimes into the night thats the trade off for them, because they are all slaves to the almighty "currency/denomination" of your chosen economic system.

It should actually be a GOOD sign that they are thinking about Expansions. To me it means they KNOW they have something GOOD but just can't afford the time or labor at the moment or risk an implementation that might not turn out right at the last moments.

Expansions are good because they keep the 'dialogs' going... pun intended... anyways, to say any more on this is just rehashing what others have said.