What we want in the Expansion Pack

Great Game but can be Extraordinary with a few additions

Ok now first off i just want to say that Sins is already the best 4x RTS of all time. That said, there are a few additions I beg the developers to put into the expansion pack. Im sure you guys will have tons of posts to add but this is basically what im asking for:

1) single player campaign

One thing that really bugs me is that there is no drawn out story line to follow along map after map. I realize it saved money by not releasing anything but individual scenarios, but now that the game is making millions of dollars it only makes sense to add this much needed aspect to the game. This also gives the creators a chance to really show the players how to use every tech and unit to its fullest ability. their is so much more strategy in this game beyond economics and fleet sizes, but it is lost on the majority of players since we cant see those strategies play out in a single player environment.

2) battle stations and capital siege engines

a logical unit that races would want to construct to defend themselves from hordes of enemy ships while their fleets are light years away would be an extremely powerful battle station. like a castle in space, it would be designed to be nearly impenetrable to smaller units (strike craft, frigates, and crusiers). the enemy fleet would want to have in tow some sort of asteroid sized siege engine that could house a seige engine. perhaps a dead asteroid would have to be used as a resource to build such a weapon.

3) planet based defenses

with so much space on a planet, we should be able to construct some planet-to-space weapons that would be effective against large capital ships in orbit. the smaller ships would be too hard to hit with a weapon like this but huge battleships should be a welcome target. imagine building a mountain sized canon that could fire huge payloads into space to devastate a battleship. i can see the logistical problems of integrating this into the games graphics but it would be very cool.

4) moons and bigger gravity wells

hopefully we will see colonizable moons floating around our planets, with much more space to work with. too often an enemy fleet can phase jump within 5 seconds of hitting a fortified planet and begin bombarding it before the attacked player even know its there. it would be much better to have a few moons defending your planet so that you have time to mount a defense or recall your fleet from distant stars. the gas giant planets especially could have moon based societies, look at jupiter and saturn - they both have dozens of moons and smaller colonizable sattelites floating around them even thought the planets themselves arent hospitable for life.

5) more artifacts and anomalies

it would add a another dynamic to the game to make exploration more beneficial to your strategy. space junk should be able to explore and find something useful. there should be more artifacts to find, and not all of them should be helpful. imagine exploring your planet and loosing some sort of micro organism that is infecting your people and turning them against you. or finding a primitive culture on a planet that is hiding an ancient secret that they once ruled the galaxy. also, some artifacts should benefit one race over another, for example the advent would benefit from finding an ancient psi-amplifier on a distant world more then the other races. perhaps the humans would benefit more from finding an abandoned genetic research lab that can enhance their labor output. anomalies in space are also important to consider when moving your fleets around. radiation and cosmic ray belts around stars, blackholes that can suck in your whole armada, anti-matter draining clouds of dust. asteroid belts should also be possible places of hiding small ships off of the radar. The asteroid belts should be in motion around the gravity well so that they could damage a large ship that doesnt get out tof the way.

6) diplomacy with NPCs

almost every gravity well has some sort of NPCs defending them, it only makes sense that they could be bribed and manipulated just like the pirates can. they may not be much help but we shouldnt have to exterminate everyone just to get access to their resources. Rise of Legends has a similar feature where you can choose to kill the NPCs or to purchase their allegiance and build more of their units to fight for you. Its a nice feature this game could integrate somehow.

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Reply #1 Top
Not sure if this would be possible. But I would really like to see a custom ship editor like in Galactic civ. It would be great to design your own ships and put them in game with minimal fuss. Might be a bit to much to ask tho. I loved that about Gal Civ, i spent as much time designing ships as playing the game. I always wanted to attempt to mod but never really knew where to get the tools to do so.
Reply #2 Top
I'd like to see more techs added to all Research Trees. I'd also like to see espionage and stealth ships added to the game.
Reply #3 Top
Its been said but I'd like to see diffrent Fleet Adrmirals or commanders that have their own Flagship. You can only have 1 and they each have diffrent abilities (One is good at combat, one is good at econ, one is good at culture) And have these grand hero units be really customizabl so that when they reach the highest level they can only pick about 1/4 of their possible abilities (Thus your level 10 hero could be totally diffrent from my level 10 hero of the same race and type) Kind of like the presidents and what not in the expansion pack for Rise of Nations or the Generals on C&C generals (Though these weren't in game as such)

Also adding galatic abilities that have a cool down would be cool like in C&C Generals and World in Conflict or whatever its called where you can call in air strikes (Maybe call for back up from the Dark Fleet or call all Advent to focus their minds on one massive blast in space or use the Nova cannon to fire at something in space instead of a planet?)
Reply #4 Top
I agree about a single player campaign, it would be a nice touch, especially if it were somewhat open-ended.
I'd like to see movement of ships (and formations) added during battle. Yes, they do respond to a direct command to move, but it is toe to toe slugging for the most part. Some preprogrammed maneuvers would add a nice touch. A few formation choices would also add that, "I'm an admiral" feel to the game. Only fools rush to battle, I've heard it said, and a disciplined force would be a joy to command, and a trial to oppose.
I've only had the game a few days, but it puzzles me why cruisers are so much harder to acquire than capital ships. a lot of research goes into any cruiser, yet battleships are a mere matter of enough money and open slots. If it is due to more than a personal setting in my games to date, I think it makes more sense to develop at least simple cruisers before the more complex battleships. A bit more variety in weapons choice (in cruisers) would seem a good thing too.
Overall, a very good and challenging game, with a lot of potential. Far better than GC1 and GC2.
Reply #5 Top


Top of my list would be a Single player campaign with a good storyline. I love the style that the intro was done in with all the artwork and moving stills and would love to see more cut scenes like that telling a rich tale.

Then I would say a bit more depth, at the moment the game is pretty simple in both single and multi. This could obviously be achieved in many ways, but I think a more complex/strategic diplomacy and economy system with tech trading etc would be pretty cool.
Reply #6 Top
I also would like to see Moons in the game. But it should be very rare and not all planets have moons. But you could built a moonbase or something like that

Come on everybody post all your ideas in this thread !!!
Reply #7 Top
I'll just combine everything and anything else.

Expansion Pack:
-Single Player Campaign with directed FMVs and actors.
-Colonizable orbiting moons.
-Bigger gravity wells.
-Planetary defense stations.
-Planetary siege machines.
-On planet defenses. (Nuclear Missle System)
-Full blown diplomacy options. (Civilization-esque)
-Hero/Admiral Flagships.
-Galactic Powers. (Advent Mind Focus Cannon, Turn sun into a Black Hole for X ammount of time (Defensive power), etc, whatever)
Reply #8 Top
Moons would be sweet. I'm not sure how they could be worked into the game play but I'd love to see moons. As an idea - make it so that super weapons can only be built on moons but in return - make them that much more powerful??

I'd also like more ship types to give both a broader tactical spectrum of play and help differenciate the races a bit more. The differences in the capital ships and research trees are excellent but the rest of the ships feel a bit samey.

Altogether though, love the game and play it as much as I possibly can.
Reply #9 Top
I forgot

- creaters on planets
- graphical updates (DX10 and such)
- Supernova of red giant stars lol
- different sizes of planets
- more ship classes
- improved planet development, such as buildings and defences
- destroyable planets
- campaign
- space stations ( can be built for inceased tax income and faster research)
- improved and more deatiled explsosions of ships
Reply #10 Top
My wishlist :) :
-Single player campaign with co-op and nice cinematics
-improvement in graphics(even if it's not necessary it's always nice)
-new factions
-new units and capital ships for the actual factions
-more upgrades for capital ships(maybe with visual results) and levels to experiment
-improved diplomacy
-more variety in defenses : can be built on planets, another "ultimate" weapon for each faction.
-More technologies : add some abilities for existing units and new "civil" technologies
-galactic powers and a hero (the ship I 'd really enjoy to customize, even if it's not ingame)
Reply #11 Top
I forgot- creaters on planets- graphical updates (DX10 and such)- Supernova of red giant stars lol- different sizes of planets- more ship classes- improved planet development, such as buildings and defences- destroyable planets- campaign- space stations ( can be built for inceased tax income and faster research)- improved and more deatiled explsosions of ships


Yeah, a lot of these are good. I noticed when a capital ship explodes, it's just a drawing that will flip to whicher ever way you look, kind of cheap.

I think that planets should be a lot more self sufficent and dangerous. To protect, while your out killing, like was said earlier. Bigger planets as well, they still look small compared to some structures and capital ships. I'd like the ability to put money per second into researches, culture, population growth speed, production, etc.

Destroying planets is a great idea. All of them should be destroyable, but the following explosion will kill almost all units in the gravity field, to deter you from doing it unless you have to. Planetary cannons would be there for the finishing job.
Reply #12 Top
Planetary cannons would be there for the finishing job.


Ya, thats what I had in mind, too. Dont forget moons! They are also destroyed by the planets force. ( If developers choose to include moons).

Destroying a planet can be useful, if the hostiles culture is just too strong. When the planet is destroyed, it leaves a astroid belt behind, which can then be mined.
They can only be destroyed by very expensive super weapons and capital ships.
Reply #13 Top
NO MORE MINI DUMPS!NO MORE MINI DUMPS!NO MORE MINI DUMPS!NO MORE MINI DUMPS!NO MORE MINI DUMPS!NO MORE MINI DUMPS!NO MORE MINI DUMPS!NO MORE MINI DUMPS!NO MORE MINI DUMPS!NO MORE MINI DUMPS!NO MORE MINI DUMPS!NO MORE MINI DUMPS!NO MORE MINI DUMPS!


Please.  X-(  :SNIFF!: 
Reply #14 Top
boarding and capturing of enemy ships would be nice, just assign random success or failures to it. Maybe make it a researchable tech, and let the computer automate it. And do it only if ships are with in certain distances of each other. Also, planetary invasions are nice. It doesn't have to be fancy, the computer can just state whether the attempt was success or a failure and decide it based on probabilities.
Reply #15 Top
So summed up:

1) Moon bases
2) bigger grav wells
3) anomailies actually doing things (psi storms damaging ships, astroids hiding small ships and damaging large ones, etc)
4) Large defense stations/space castles (maybe as a special ability for a hero ship or built by capital ships after certain reserach built[and with the ability to actually survive and do some damage to large fleets])
5) Hero ships with lots of abilities for high customiation (with my little input of adding customizing the looks of the ship)
6) Weapons on planets
7) better artifacts
8)boarding
9)some more ships (some cap ships that have to be end-game researched maybe?)
10) CAMPAIGN!!!!
11)Vasari nemisis (the inevitable care bears :D)
12) civic options like the civilization franchise(increased tax rate with a decrease to culture spread for example)
13)Galactic powers
14) Better diplomacy options such as asking AI for money, metal or crystals for planets or other such things.(civilization style yet again)
15) the ability to have ships that are mobile planets (makes it harder to kill an enemy off and thus makes game more complex for those elite few)
16) super capital ships?
17) destroyable planets
18) Galactic size maps (like 20 stars and 1000 of planets for those of us that want games to not be quick deathmatches)
19) more fleet tactical options/ more fleet formation options (like having cap ships attacking first and frigates gaurding siege frigates for example)
20) different sub factions in the current factions ( vasari general - military strength, vasari elder - diplomacy bonus, etc lol just examples btw)
21) all those graphics and technical improvements
22) to be called 'Forgiveness of a Solar Empire' lol jkjk

Thats all for now lol

Some things such as galactic sized maps and technical improvements dont have to wait for an expanison :D
Reply #16 Top
feel free to critisize or add to my list lol

ironclad feel free to inform us and me on if any of these are being considered!!!!
Reply #17 Top
btw for the mobile planet ships
- end-end-game research
- lots of money and supply like 100!!
- slow but can move !!!
- lots of health antimatter shield and lots of weapon slots
- upgradeable logistics since its basically a moving planet (this including more life support[more population], more defense[health shields], weapon systems[more weapon slots], and faster movement , etc)
- customizable looks
- customization such as choosing to upgrade for culture spread, ship building functions, repair station ability, etc
-the ability to bring in credits due to population, and the ability to mine crystal and metal

so pretty much a planet on wheels or i guess thrusters


[B]
and plz plz add the ability to name fleets!!!! i want to be able to call my attacking fllet something and my defending fleets something!!!![/B]
Reply #18 Top
PSPCD - Pink Space Pony Calvary Division!
Reply #20 Top
this is great you guys are coming up with great ideas.

i had a few more -

Nebulas - a gravity well (or a group of gravity wells) would be encompassed by a nebula where sensors dont work (no empire tree shown) so you have to zoom in and look around in there with limited distance of visibilty. If you zoom out more than a few thousand feet from your ship you cant see anything but explosions and weapons fire going on in there

Artifacts can be sold! You can sell to the highest bidder through the diplomacy screen. computer controlled races can ask for an artifact to gain your allegiance and form a peace or trade treaty

Credit/Resource Stashes - Certain NPC Races gaurding planets have stashes of credits and/or resources and killing them all off gives you their riches.

Crewed Ships and Location Damage - As large ship crews are depleted, so is their ability to fight and move. engines or weapons can be targeted specifically to disable those systems.

Electronic Virus Weapons - When a ship is infected it slowly infects all other ships of the same race in the same gravity well and needs to be scuttled to save the fleet.

Customizable race/ship logos and hull numbers

Reply #21 Top
For me is important

1) destroyable Planets ---- look at star wars empire at war
2) Planets with different sizes (diameter) IMPORTANT not all Planets are the same size in the universe
3) MOONS !!! with bases and research centers
Reply #22 Top
ya these all great ideas

just hope ironclad/stardock is taking notice of these

idk if they are so..... maybe a useless thread
Reply #23 Top
no no continue.. ironclad and stardock listen to feedback and ideas. Thats why they are a good company and the best. When we have a thread with lots of ideas, it will be easier for them, when they make a Exspansion

MORE IDEAS !!
Reply #24 Top
I think that quite a few of the suggestions posted match up with what we've already planned ourselves. ;)
Reply #25 Top
which ones ?? I hope moons and different planet sizes   :D