on repulse:

what if the channeling came first and then the effect took place. sort of like activate it for a cost, then the thing charges it up for 10 secs or so and then the repulse wave starts coming. 1) that gives enemies a warning, though with guardians in the fleet they'd expect it anyway. 2) it might give some time to interrupt it before the effect takes place. probably not if the player cycles through various guardians, but just psychologically it would be easier. 3) if it is interrupted during charing, the player would lose both the am and the effect.

it should be possible with the engine, iirc the egg's planet eat also has a build-up with a graphic before the dmg actually starts. in beta, colonisation abilities had a fairly long delay. not sure about CB, but could have one too. anyway, just  thought I'd throw a llightly different idea out there.

Back with a bang, this thread.

Jam Weapons: I already had stuck massive range on it in response to buffs to everything else. So I'll let y'all discuss.

New Homeworlds: Not hard at all, but which HW you get is defined by map. You'd need a map where TEC = Slot 1, Advent = Slot 2, etc. The other thing is balance. As noted pop upgrades, and research bonuses as well. You really need both metal and crystal at the start, so either you'd have to mess with the starting amounts or add mines. (I'd like the former, though that's also per map.)

Phase Stabilizer Node on Vas HW:

I'd actually support switching Guidance and Repulse. Down that path, though, madness lies. Not sticking it in the OP, as that's affecting so many things at once.

Speaking of which, I made a new version of that a while ago and forgot to update it online. Whoops. Anyways, I'm away from home for now.

Jam weapons is only a stalling tactic if you don't bring flak and/or fighters with you.

The ability that is really a stalling tactic is Phase Out Hull. You can't kill the targeted ship so basically it gives you a little bit of time and thats it.

Also, Phase Out Hull is pointless when targeting friendly ships. Why save your cap ship from FF and disable it with a Marauder when you can use Overseers to save your cap ship and not disable? Its incredibly stupid.

In that same thread i mentioned switching the places of guidance and repulse, repulse is made an ability on an underused cap and the guardian can help caps with abilities, seems to work.

Those HW changes are going to be hell to balance, but why shouldn't the TEC start on a Terran? And it makes more sense for the Advent to start on an Ice since they value crystal so much and were kicked off their desert HW... but that's just lore... Advent on desert would give them a boat load of logistics slots pretty easily though

I think for most people, guidance jumps out as the obvious top candidate for swapping with repulse.  Guidance is weak enough to be a cruiser ability, while the Revelation is in need of a buff to add more utility. 

Personally I dislike the whole idea of racial homeworlds.  It doesn't seem worth the headache of balancing it out when nothing is broken.  The races have exactly the same economic needs, their ideal resource balances are roughly the same, even the specifics don't vary that much.  Advent have a different refinery, and Vasari capture neutrals differently; those are the only functional differences.

Maybe it really isn't all that important, even though I ill forever wonder why advent has to upgrade desert planets before they upgrade their homeworld. I didn't ask for that.
I wanted the Vasari homeworld to have a phase stabilizer node by default (as a green tag, not a structure).

Care to post an opinion on my suggestion?

i think it sounds like a good idea. it would give the marauder slightly more usefulness, and it doesnt seem to give any advantage early game, so its pretty balanced in and of itself. it only saves some money for the vasari late game

I came to realize that the biggest screwup about the capital ships is that the devs

• wanted some caps to be specialized
• didn't want all caps to have straight combat purpose, and at the same time
• made all caps available at start

This makes for a very unpleasant situation - you are given the option but it's useless until some distant future.

Compare this to other RTS games. In most strategy games you get one/two units to start with. Both have their use and are good options, just different. As the game progresses, more specialized units are unlocked when you need them. The same in sins among frigates/cruisers.
Cap ships are, however, all available at the start, but are not all a viable choice at the start, while all requiring a healthy amount of experience to be of some use.

I believe cap ships should EITHER:

• be like frigates - unlockable with research when they are needed and as strong (leveled?) from the start as the research tier would suggest
• be all viable from the start - which leads to massive buffs throughout the boards.

One of the two.

Nay. if any, it has to be the second one.

The possibility to choose right from the beginning adds much variety to this game (or at least it should do so, but the choice is not a real choice now) and influences the way you will go in the game (e.g. sova = rush).

There are of course typical "starting caps" (mothership, egg, marza ...) because they are the most useful at the beginning. Thats okay but in general you should have the choice at least for the next caps without the research tree forcing you to take caps in a specific order.

So balancing these "loser caps" (marauder, sova ...) is the only option in my eyes.

And: Comparing to other RTS games... Take Warcraft 3 for instance: You can choose your hero from all available heroes right at the beginning, all other units need special "research" or buildings. Just like Sins...

I agree with this assessment and I would prefer option 1, if it is executed well. but I do not see any significant chance of this ever coming true, so option 2 is probably more sensible now and more or less what is done or at least tried here.

to elaborate on the first one though: I thought it was always a bit strange to have to supposedly top-of-the-line warship kol available right off the start, even before lrms let alone heavy cruisers. of course, whatever you do, some choice needs to remain, so you'd need at least 2 - 3 capital ships to start off to make for some kind of choice, otherwise it's kind of stale and does take away choices. coloniser cap would be an obvious example for one of them. so what should the alternative be, a warship or one of the support capships. well, I'd go more for the warship, since support caps usually get more useful in slightly larger fleets when their buffs affect more ships. likewise, the would in this situation just be a good alternative to the vast bonuses of coloniser caps. so I'd put the siege caps in at the start also, most of which have relatively good fighting capabilities and abilities. maybe the carrier, but I'd tend to make those available at a low tech level. primary battleships and support capships should be a bit higher up then.

of course, this could also mean a difference in cost and capabilities. ie. if the kol comes late and requires research, it should be more powerful than the others, but in turn require more resources.

and really, just because wc III made it that way doesn't mean it should be the same in sins. it is a great game and sins took a few of their concepts, but they are different games and I don't want fancy heroes in space, I want hulking warships that I need to develop over time.

alternatively, there could be different iterations for capships, like Mk I, Mk II etc, that could be researched. but that's too far off and complicated.

WC3 heroes were balanced. One was a melee badass, second was a ranged killah, third was a buff caster (more or less). They were different but all worked fine.

In sins we got two caps that make sense at the start, one that hardly does and two that just do not make any sense to start with. Vasari have EGG, Vulk and crap.
I say that these ships should either ALL be usable from the start (hence mad buffing required) or should be available later in a more specialized form. For example, marauder could be available after researching phase gates and would be massively oriented on moving the fleet around fast fast FAST. Nobody would care that he doesn't pack any punch or combat viability - it would come when necessary and would do what it's supposed to.

The problem with the first is that it'd ruin diversity even more. For example, let's say the Sova Carrier is available after researching Percheron Prototype, then Sova Carrier research. That's already costing quite a sum. Adding with the expensive capital ship fleet upgrades and its high price, and the Sova Carrier will become even more useless. Also, the earlier-available capitals will more quickly dominate the later ships, even with buffs.

With the Advent, the Progen will usually be first choice, but Advent fleets make excellent use of all their caps and a player will likely build more than just the starting. Their only weaker ship is the Revelation, and even that's still great.

TEC can use virtually all their ships as starters. The Akkan, Marza, Kol, and Dunov are all equally viable as a starter, because they bring good abilities to a fleet. The Sova does need heavy reworking before it's viable again, however.

It's really only the Vasari with the big capital ship problems. I think it'd be far easier and better to just buff the weaker ships (Marauder, Kortul, Skirantra, and Sova) instead of adding more research.

I was only trying to point out that not all other RTS use "researchable units only" and that this concept of available hero units (=cap ships) is neither new nor senseless.

agreed! Besides the whole cost factor (additional research costs for cap ship availability): Who decides when which ship is usable? I think that should be my (the player's) choice. I do not need a planet bomber the first 30 minutes in the game but if I want to start with a planet bomber, let me do it. And think about how boring short agressive games would become if each player uses the same cap ship (because others are not yet researched).

Buffing or even re-designing the weaker cap ships so that each cap ship has its own use right from the start would be adequate and probably even add more strategic depth to the game. Making cap ships available step by step would flatten the game even more.

Sins of a Solar Empire capital ships very obviously take their inspiration from Warcraft III heroes.  Drawing broad comparisons here is quite valid.

Of course, WC3 has its own problem heroes.  Need I mention the death knight?  The crutch of the undead faction?  In fact, in many ways he reminds me of the Progen due to his massive synergies with his own faction and the fact that the other heroes available to undead are actually quite good, just overshadowed by a superpower.  On the other hand, his synergies are so pervasive that if you nerfed him his entire faction would be unplayable.

I think Sins can go far, perhaps even breaking Vasari of their addiction to the egg, but I don't think the Progen will ever be fixed.  I strongly suspect till the dying days of Sins that the Progenitor will remain Advent's choice for first capital ship 99% of the time.  At least it's living up to its moniker.