I'm curious tho, why all this new stuff doesn;t have to be tested as well...

there is as of yet no "winning formula" although certain strategies can well dominate others (being too reliant on focused fleets on a small map will have you chasing your tail)

with its own logistics structures, or still tied to planetary developments?

Or even independent of both, where cash = higher fleet cap w/ no limits tied to planets?

It's still under negotiation, so we likely can't disclose anything until (hopefully) a deal is reached.

You are correct in your conclusion

The lines are called phase lanes, and they link all the planets/anomalies on the map. Stars are unlinked, so you can travel from a star to any other star (if on a multi-star map).

In a way this could be seen as a limit, but in practice it's rarely the case that there's only *one* way to go. It depends on the map - a lot of the premade scenarios have some very devious layouts that allow some great sneak attack possibilities, but the random maps sometimes funnel you into attacking from only 1-2 possible directions (such is the curse with anything random ).

Of course, after phase travel there's the planetary grav well, where you're free to move around however you like! There are also some interesting mechanics with phase lanes - they determine which planets you can travel to, but the more experienced people will quickly get quite good at controlling where they come out of phase space!

Is there anything more specific about phase lanes you're curious about? Since this is sort of pretty general

Edit: In Sins terms, there's a pretty nice break between strategy and tactics. Generally, when Sins players talk about strategy we mean moving around the galaxy/star system map (planet hopping, attack directions, splitting fleets, etc). Basically, strategic positioning of forces and choosing planets to attack. When we talk about tactics, that's the nitty gritty grav well combat, where you see all the flashy pew pew Micromanaging fleets is mostly talked about in relation to tactical combat. So, phase lanes influence your strategic planning (both offensive and defensive), while not touching your tactical combat

You must use phase lanes, unless your Vasari -- the Vasari can create phase gates, which allow their ships to travel from any system with a phase gate, to any other system with a phase gate. (Oh, and one of their capships can work as a phase gate once you get it to higher levels).

Yep. It's technology that's specific to the Vasari race, and as you can imagine quite powerful since it can save great amounts of travel time

Well, how and with what units you can decide.. just the "where to" is predetermined. Hopefully once I'm done with the colony management answer below you'll understand better why phase lanes are good Without them, expansion and territory become a lot less important, as your first target would pretty much always be the homeworld so that becomes meh



Colony management isn't quite that delicate. Planets have infrastructure (what's bombarded to destroy the enemy colony on a planet so you can re-colonize), population (what pays taxes and gives you $$$), and "allegiance".

Infrastructure is pretty straight forward. Destroy it and wipe out the enemy colony and you can (usually) put your own. Same thing for your opponent! The TEC have a planetary shield generator that reduces bombardment damage while the shield is working, making their planets with the shield generator tougher to take down - if you don't destroy the generator, of course.

Population/planet roles - different planet types offer different max population numbers, which is pretty standard. Terran-class planets of course have the highest, while Asteroids, Volcanic, and Ice have some of the lowest. The higher the population, the more money the planet generates for your glorious empire. Of course, there are technologies you can research to increase the maximum populations allowed on some planet types. Each planet type generally plays a role, too. Terran planets are going to be your main money makers because they support huge populations, and are generally well rounded. Volcanics currently give you a lot of extra fleet points to work with (though it was mentioned that the fleet point system is changed so I don't know what they will do in release). Ice planets are primary crystal resource generators (needed mainly for research and specialized higher end units). Desert planets offer you lots and lots of logistics slots to work with (explained later). Asteroids are your basic outposts, can't do too much with them but they are useful to expand and cheap to manage, and can still support a decent amount of orbital construction/defenses. Dead asteroids are your military choke points - nothing civic can be built around them, only military defenses.

Allegiance - Generally, the farther away a planet is from your homeworld (counted by the number of phase jumps) the less loyal it is, so the less resources it produces (and the fewer fleet points it grants, but as I mentioned that's changing per dev posts, so I'll omit fleet point related stuff from here on out). You can research/build culture centers around your planets to spread your influence to beef up your planets' allegiance for some extra resources out of them, but it's still going to decrease the farther away they are from the homeworld (making good placement of your homeworld - as you can designate which planet you want to be the capital of your empire - an advanced strategy in bigger maps to maximise your resource income). The homeworld/capital itself gets a massive loyalty/allegiance bonus. At the start of the game, it makes something like 10/11 credits/s, compared to planets you colonize making a measly 1-2. Now imagine small maps without phase lanes, and you can see why everyone would just attack the homeworld and cripple the opponent

Orbital building/upgrades - each planet colony generally has some upgrades available: population, logistics, military, exploration, and "make capital" type. All pretty straight forward. Logistics allows you to place more civvy buildings in orbit - things like research labs, shipyards, trade stations, culture centers, etc. Military allows you to place more defenses - fightercraft hangars, cannons/launchers, phase jump inhibitors, planetary shields, repair stations, etc. Some of the specialty military buildings are race specific. The TEC get the planetary shield, while the Vasari get phase gates, building that messes with enemy weapons, etc

Well, that was a long enough essay! I might've missed something, but probably not

So far as we know, true.

I don't mind Got time at work to do this kind of stuff!



More or less. There are other things to the research trees, of course, but economic upgrades are definitely there, and unit/structure unlocks are too, along with weapons upgrades and such.



Ron's Manual Thread

Ron wrote this a while back and it hasn't been updated for a while, but as far as ship/building lists it's pretty accurate I think, so read through to your heart's content

(As of another direction we may move: a lot of people expressed more interest in something like a meta galaxy conquering online mode instead)


That just made me a most happy camper I hope we see this someday!

More or less, yeah MP matches fought for territory gains/losses, etc

if it was done by empire instead of race? Like you start as one player but you can gain AI allies and human allies. Clans would gain an advantage but if the galaxy was big enough their would be areas were one particular Clan or Empire dominated but it would be impossible to dominate the entire galaxy. Also maybe like random events? Say like the invasion of whatever attacked the Vasari that forces empires to band to gether or be destroyed?their would be AI worlds and empires that would attack each other along with real players. Their would need to be some sort of tribute system and the AI characters would need some sort relations tiers. The AI would buffer empires from one another so that powerful empires could not just destroy new players because it would not be worth it with the AI. Also there would need to be some sort of honor/prestige benefits; i.e. Massive Mullti-World Empire attacks Migitworld Inc. Massive Mullti-World Empire would of course destroy Migitworld Inc. If there was, however,a system were the Massive Multi-World Empire took relations penalties with their AI allies for annihilating a Empire that was far beneath their beneath their martial and economic level. New, weak, empires would be placed in one area were they were about the same level as their opponents, both AI and players. They would grow in power and expand out into the galaxy at large. When players were off line their planets would disappear and would show up as blank Phase Lane locations.
Perhaps an Emipire's home world could never be destroyed but pillaged. Also a espionage system would be cool, being able to sabotage an enemies production or steel the locations of all of his units. Perhaps you could implement a Declaration of War macanic. You take reputation penalties with the AI Empires if you attack without a Declaration of War, but of course then your enemy knows that you are coming. If you snuck ships into an the territory of an Empire that you were opposed to, not necessarily at war with, but opposed to, it would result in an auto Declaration of War unless the Empire that owned the territory in question said no to the Declaration, however if you persistently refused this Declaration then planets near then incursion would lose Allegiance, possibly prompting them to switch sides.