Shadowhal

I would say it goes a little beyond that and I'd advocate for some additional map settings for the random map generator. In your typical 4X game, you'd have random map settings for eg number of continents, sea level, hot vs cold climate, mountain prevalence etc., to either tailor the randomness to your preference or enforce different kinds of maps. What I wrote was obviously for terrestrial strategy games but some of that could translate into Sins 2 as well. Eg settings for</p

I'm going to cheat a little and give 3 x 3 things. 3 big things, 3 small things/tweaks, and 3 things to avoid. Just, I don't have all three yet. I'll update with further reflections. 3 big things: 1. I'd like the transition between the strategic layer and the tactical layer to be more dynamic. Sounds vague, I know. The prime example here was Humankind where any army in the wider vicinity could participate in the battle and you could even move armies into the combat zone to par

[quote who="vad64" reply="2" id="3974662"] ... To me it feels like calling a remaster "Reforged" is now a bad omen. The last team that did this, started working under the wing of a similarly "old blood" manager, who valued the game he had worked on back in the day. Once that manager has gone out of the picture, the team lost managerial backing. Previously grand plans and bottom-up approach to polishing the 20-year-old code base had to come to a halt, to rush a

So when you say that some of the DLC's features will find their way into "normal" games, what should we expect there? The interview mentions new ships, so obviously those will be available in normal games. And it strongly sounds like the new culture mechanic in combination with population. But what about the rest, eg the ancient starbases or different victory conditions? To the extent that they can work in a normal game.

This form of complaint seems fairly common in strategy and 4X games to me. Certainly in single-player with the human playing against AI, the AI starts at an advantage but loses that over time as the human player catches up, equalises, and eventually dominates. And in some ways, that may even be by design and the problem is more that the session takes too long to end. Imagine a PvP situation where both sides are similarly matched and one player's fleet/army gets (almost) completely wip

[quote who="Admiral_Moon" reply="1" id="3953077"] Are these features currently working with the AI? I have found that not a single AI player has accepted any cease fires or agreements, regardless of race/ethos and the fact i have offered ridiculous amounts of resources to get even a basic ceasefire. [/quote] What diplomacy? On a slightly less cynical note, I think the issues you encountered aren't unique to you. I have seen several complaints about exactly that behav

Thanks for your reply. Good to know that I understood the rationale correctly. And it makes sense and I can see the issues if there was no cap. Are there any plans on what happens with influence generated beyond the cap? Would be nice if it weren't completely "lost" and there should be some ways to soften that without undermining the cap. Like it generating some very small resources indirectly. Or maybe an automation that some minor item will be automatically purchases if influence hi

I was wondering about the design intent behind the influence cap and whether small modifications could make it less micro-demanding but still keep with the intent. I suppose the cap is to stop people from being able to stockpile too much influence and release too many abilities in one go, which could pose balancing issues. And I suppose it increases the value if you can only ever have so much of it at any given time. If that's correct, I wonder whether a small other bonus once

Another idea for a victory condition: A starbase module that can only be built at a starbase orbiting a star. It uses more multiple slots (maybe 4, to still leave room for some upgrades), and prevents other own starbases from built in that sector. Activating the module disables its offensive capabilities but accumulates victory points. At the set number of victory points, the player wins. The attraction is that it must be built at a star and the star is typically at the centre

[quote who="Blair Fraser" reply="14" id="3931668"] Read the bottom two lines of this tool tip. (I am hovering over a stack of skirmishers). [/quote] Thanks for your reply and showing the concrete example. Looks good to have that choice. A few suggestions: 1. Maybe the two commands could be phrased more accurately/clearly? For instance: Spread

I seem to recall, from one of the dev posts maybe or a detailed user report, that there is now a command on how much ships (fleets?) should focus fire on enemies. If so, that sounds like a good addition. When fleets get big enough, full focus fire could be overkill for even meaty targets, while early on or for smaller fleets, it seems crucial to make progress on whittling down incoming firepower. Also sounds very useful for certain abilities, e.g. buffs and debuffs from frigates and cruisers

Great news that a) Advent is coming, b) game is coming to Steam soon and c) full release in summer. The April update post mentioned that the next update would be in Aug and would include Advent. That would imply that the next update will also already be the full release. While good, I was wondering whether it would be helpful to have that faction and all the gameplay systems that come with it also play tested for a few weeks, just to iron out any kinks and/or make final adjustments. I

[quote who="wbino3556" reply="16" id="3929301"] I think a Sins 2 that focused on small scale battles with more depth per ship should of been the way to go to differentiate from Sins 1. Crews,Captains,Admirals. etc Really deep into the tech of each ship. Maybe at max 100 ships per race but tactical and deep in the Sins world. It's probably not too late. [/quote] Sounds more like the Homewold series. A perfectly legitim

Let's face it: only us old farts use forums anymore. The future is elsewhere. I bit the bullet and tried discord (again). I guess I can live with it but it feels like a step down. Lower information density and less pleasant to digest if you don't keep on top of it constantly. It's just nice to see clearly when and how a topic started instead if tracing it back up am ongoing chat that talks about other things too. Ironically, it's not even that modern and kinda feels like irc and simil

Sounds like exciting changes. I look forward to seeing them in action and how it will be expanded. There is a hint that culture might play more into this and I imagine that concept will be fleshed out once Advent is added. It was one of their things previously. Also looking forward to seeing main faction diplomacy fleshed out again when the time comes. I suppose some of the elements from Sins 1 - relationship modifiers and "standing", treaties, pacts, (more) envoy abilities, quests/co

Thank you for your considered and detailed response, Blair, and for the others' further contributions. I generally accept those points and it's reassuring to know that most of them have been considered already. On the auto-retreat toggle, maybe this could be part of more comprehensive options for fleet-level control, e.g. how far ships veer off their positions to pursue targets, more general "retreat when damaged" settings, level of focus fire and targetting priorities. There was an i

[quote who="Erebus6937" reply="6" id="3923208"] Per my own tastes I'm not inclined to dive to a subsystems level of detail (for targeting). I'd prefer to have the systems get randomly disabled as the HP drops. The final 500HP would see the ship alive but derelict/adrift; it's salvageable if an external source repairs it - but its own passive regeneration is disabled alongside the rest of its weapons/abilities/engines/phase drive. Of course, I'd also prefer this apply to all ships/structu

A few quick thoughts: In sins 1 you could give a general attack order by selecting your full fleet and right-clicking on the enemy fleet in the empire tree. Not necessarily efficient if damage is spread out but good if, for whatever reason, you don't want to focus-fire too much. The original homeworld allowed targeting specific enemies through holding control and draging a targeting box. Fire would be spread across those targets. Or: the simplest solution fr

[quote who="Shadowhal" reply="142" id="3869716"] <span sty

[quote who="Heretic9591" reply="7" id="3894865"] [...] I would love to see Pirates and even Minor Factions that aren't traders become a more "living" part of the game systems as you play. Like say its ~45 minutes into a game and you show up to an uncontrolled system to conquer and there is a minor faction there that has built up some defenses, maybe even has a Starbase out encouraging you to rush some long range heavy torpedo ships to take it down. All while the faction itself is slow

I think one thing that would help, compared to Sins 1 minor faction diplomacy, is that the relationship with minor factions builds up and decays gradually. So, even if your envoy or other relationship-builder device gets destroyed or reallocated, your status may not change immediately. There is also potential for multiple relationship levels as per the above screenshot from Northgard. At it's fairly simplest: hostile (will attack on sight), neutral (will leave you alone/not attack; so

I like the OP's idea and it's good to see some level of interest from the devs on it. Maybe a few reflections how that idea could be further fleshed out and refined. At a basic level, a scenario typically involves: A custom, potentially asymmetric map and player positions. Scripted events. After x time, y happens. If player does (or does not do) x, y happens. Some lore or background and conclusion around the scenario. Some custom restrictio

The way I'd envisage ship type target priorities would be a ranking order. I could set that any light frigates will attack the following ship types in descending order of priority: Light carriers. Capital ships Support ships Any other military ships Military structures Anything else That way, if I tell my whole fleet to attack the enemy's whole fleet, each ship would tend to attack those targets that it's

There were two quick thoughts from the Sins 1 diplomacy model that came to me earlier and that I wanted to post now while the Sins 2 diplomacy is still in its early days. I kept the post title generic in case others want to come in with their ideas but I suppose the inevitable specialist threads will appear once it is time. 1. Sins 1 had a very binary check for whether there were border tensions or not and it was a pretty steep malus iirc. For Sins 2 it would be nice if that were more

I would like that. (Essentially) nuclear bombardment and starting from scratch each time has always seemed odd as the only way to conquer. I would be wary of introducing intricate ground combat though. If done right, it would be pretty complex and time-consuming (both to play but even more to develop). If done half-baked, e.g. because one choice is always superior, it will just be a series of mandatory clicks and waiting. I don't have a great solution. I would envisage abstrac