Got some great ideas here. I don't make policy but some really caught my eye.
Can I make some other suggestions? (I'm going to without waiting for your answer).

First let's cover the (IMHO) flaws.
What is the logic that explains researching a tech that is only applicable to ships built BEFORE the research? Seems bassackwards to me.
Ship designs are highly unimaginative. Shoebox, pencilbox, Crayola Box (8 pack). I realise that aerodynamics are moot but geez peeps, make them LOOK better.
On the subject of looks, the ships colors are horrid. How about makeing your ships color selectable, or maybe the same color as your in-game icon.
And make the icons and circles marking the selected ships disappear when in cinematic mode.
Whoopsie, I went ahead to suggestions.
Cutting it short because this is Zillosophy's thread.
Sorry for the intrusion.

you can already do this.

well my personal opinion is id like to see grav wells 5-10 times bigger so you have a actual area to combat in, not just BAM, combat right away. if like to have it where you can actually sneak or move around a particular planets defense. it adds strategy, as well as makes defending allot harder. but i guess strategy is a bit useless in a game like this where everyone wants to spam different ship combinations to win without no real micromanagement, personally id like to see an ability to switch or choose the weapons on a given class of ship. im more of a person who enjoys hardcore battles over taking out key planets.

I'd like to see some customization of capitols once they are built. That would be awesome. They way it is right now some caps have a preferred weapon style. So to keep from deviating from that too much you would have classes of weapon slots and you pick which specific type of that weapon you would like. Say some missiles have longer range and fire much faster but have poor damage. Or some missiles do tons of damage but cant track faster vessels very well. Those types would fit into a general "missile slot" but a gauss or ion weapon would not. Just my 2 cents.

@StCobalt

I almost cried from joy when I read that. I need to look at that, must have missed the binding and changed it like a dope.


@streakingsnake

Humanized Commander - Under the fleet research panel, look at the names for the command slots. They are all engineered super race commanders, I want a normal Joe

Special Ops - Commandeer a vessel, take it behind enemy lines, plant a spy, saboteur, thieve some resources, blow up stuff... you know... let the good Lord see you're true nature. (muahahaha)

As for the upSized Sin - You said it yourself...

"in real life, no one will find a terran/desert planet in a 5+ star map"

Thats because it is too small. Just think about having 3 planets a moon and some asteroids in one gravity well with a central star. Then you fill a lot more "space junk", nebula, star clusters, dead stars, stars in formation.. tons of stuff that would then be realistic (and more easily achievable). Plus if we're still limited to only building (key structure) in habitable wells then you would only have to actually defend fewer locations. But like in C&C you're resource collectors are able to go get the stuff where it's not habitable.

Fleet size - I wanted it mainly for the computer AI and so that people would have to coordinate their attacks into waves which would make the strategic planning of the attack that much more demanding. Specifically on targeting and hopefully giving a more raid like approach (which the AI does well now). But you could also add in as a research item that allows you to store a massive fleet in the gravity well but only late in the game.

[edit] Also it only really occurs for the defending fleet. The attacking fleet can bring as much as they can support. My other ideas try to balance for this.


@Flexomatic

You're right, if we built ships they would be modular and box-like, but you'd have to imagine that there are influences in the phase lanes that act like water (occurs friction) so it must maintain a level of aerodynamics.


@Dunroth

That's what they had in Galactic Civilization II, a nice and easy way to customize ships (all ships) and if you wanted to upgrade one you could do it (from anywhere). But that's neither here nor there. The creators will probably give us a hint or two of the same or similar features (already made it once, second time should be easier especially if you planned for it from the start.

I like the weak-tracking missiles idea. That sounds good a for missile battery and on ships.

Mod it is then. (hopefully)

Any thoughts on the difficulty (relative to a good modder) of modding that fine capability of GCII or similar into Sins?

[edit ahh..can't fix grammatical errors in previous post...so nub]

I like the sound-proofed room bit, most usually neglect such specificity.

This site's not bad, not great, but not bad, defiantly better than average. DNA based beings, much like websites, share 98% of the same stuff. Downside is that websites also share those 98% of similarities with that of the massive turd I left in the john earlier today.