9. Saving over your game causes the game recording to break up into parts (I think) instead of being one continuous file.

10. At the end of the video recording, the game locks up.

But if you look at the first image in fullscreen, you can see what i mean. Its like (if any of you ever tryed it) when windows is set to 16 or 256 colers.

I didn't play much of it because, at least for me, the patch broke certain things, and irritated me enough (well, actually, just the fighters, and I'm tired) I just flat out hit exit....

1. Groups. Let us group them, too, with a different keybind, so I can order a fleet to go somewhere, and when it gets there, order some parts of it to do some things, others to do others, and so on. Possibly even make it so that selecting different top-level groups gives you a new set of bottom-level groups.

2. More varied AI stances, and the ability to fully automate certain click-intensive behaviors. For example, say I built a carrier and a handful of frigates, put them in a group, and set their AI to 'raid commerce' or something similar.....and better stances, like 'defend resources', 'defend planet', 'defend modules', and 'attack' stances

have differing degrees of "hostility" in diplomacy; outright agression, moderate agression, passivity, friends, and bedfellows. for instance OA would mean attacking any and all ships (civilian to), moderate would ignore civilians but would attack any military in a grav well, passive would only move to guard things in a grav well, but not attack w/out provocation (or if they stay a bit too long/get too close), friends would mean trade rights, military access and choice relic sharing. and bedfellows would be military aid (help me damn you), intelligence pacts and full relic sharing

I dont think a cease fire should automatically make you allies or grant them military access. I think it should go 1)cease fire. basically you dont shoot me an i will do the same for you. 2) military access where you can move thru there planets. then 3) allience where you agree to help each other.

3) this doesnt quite fit here, but I like the idea that if you're zoomed out far enough you can see the boundaries in your empire, almost like a big amorphous blob of your color surrounding your empire, contested zones would be red/black/flashing etc. I think it would just look cool

I know next to nothing about photography but I thought that pictures of space tend to appear overly dark b/c the exposure time isn't long enough to capture the dim light from stars. That being said, I also find that some of the backdrops are a bit too colourful.

I'm in the muted camp as well. How does that old saying go... "black is beautiful baby!" Touches of color make the view far more majestic and lots of color make it look literally like sky to me.

I'd love to have a screen that easily shows every race and their current treaties/wars going on as I found it difficult to tell who was fighting who while allied with every race.

I agree with that you would not want to go to the war without looking at who they were allied with.

Positioning of orbitals doesn't really matter, to the point where there's an option to remove placing things yourself, and then when you build these orbitals, it feels like you just keep building the same thing around every planet.
It's cool how you can see a planet develop... but the space part just doesn't feel like there's enough life to it.

Feels like there isn't enough empire/governing aspects to the game "Sins of a Solar Empire." I was playing a game today where I just kept coming up short on credits, and I realized why don't I just turn up the taxes to get more money and I realized there was no way to turn up the taxes. I know that there are other ways to get credits but I don't often feel like I'm governing a wide sweeping Empire.

Dito - its nothing like a 4x/rts hybrid game right now... Its like a RTS with a limited map right now that makes you hop over from one planet to another. The patch notes at this stage show they are also concentrating on the RTS part more then ever, nothing about new research, development of the empire (planets)...

So there is no time and no point to think at all... No real strategy. Clicking faster means a lot in these circumstances and that was exactly what Sins "promised" not to happen. It feels like Warcraft and I know I can never beat anybody online at Warcraft. Thankfully.

Also, while I'm thinking about it. Does anyone think that the Dreadnough looks a little boxy? It looks great, but perhaps the edges could be rounded off a bit. I know the TEC are supposed to be using the most basic designs and technology, though. Any thoughts?

I currently like the marza, my only demand would be that the barrel rotate after every round fired (come on, it would be an amazing aesthetic touch, and its one ship so it cant be that taxing )

This is just an idea that might appear inappropiate, but I believe a concept similar to the government-sliders from Europa Universalis 2 would do very well in Sins and would immensly improve the governing-element of the game.

I'll sum the concept up in a few sentences:
Your style of government is broken down into a couple of attributes. Socialistic versus capitalistic. Liberal versus conservative. Religious versus humanistic. Militaristic versus pacifistic. etc.....
That means you choose a style of government that supports you in your strategy, but also limits you since you can't just pull of a complete 180. It gives your faction a face.

the AI never seems to understand when to stop sending in reinforcements to a long dead battle, once I've crushed their fleet, enemy units continue to trickle in at one ship every minute, minute and a half. its not exactly... smart, in my opinion.

also; AI likes to attack unimportant, easily replaced items (like a mine) over harder, dug in, military targets (like a fighter bay). I think AI priority needs to be slightly adjusted.

finally; a focus-fire toggle, ships of similar attack strength should have a toggleable setting to have them focus on one target after finishing off another.

I encountered this problem to it is because you have to many ships ether on the map or in the system I had a 300 ship fleet and at times I couldent see 3/4 of it and it wouldent even show the icons for half the fleet even when I was zoomed out

I adress an issue that is of most importance.Some of my capitals are coliding with others!!!!I was very surprised ideed!!
When i give a move order to the oposite direction in witch the fleet is moving, allmost every time 2-3 ships colide with others.That's just wrong!!
I suggest that the 3D space must be used more often.I mean, if the ships doesn't have any room between others in 2D, it colides with them sometimes!?!Use the 3D space pls, it is a space rts.

Fighters are pretty much obsolete because they follow their targets but do not atack.
I am refering only to bombers and other fighters.Fighters don't atack other fighters.
I played another 3 games just to be sure.So...
Fighters atack only frigs and capitals.

I though a saw a post on this topic a while ago but a search has turned up empty. If I recall correctly, when 2 research stations were built you were able to research two items at once. Since the 1st patch I have not been able to do this. I build a research station at two of my planets but do not get the parallel research. Am I missing something?

This may be the 90 degree thing that Blair mentioned but the ships shouldn't have to move to the phase lane to jump. They should be able to jump from any point on the half-sphere facing the destination gravity well.

I think the current approach is better than the first. The 90 degree method might be even better.

The 90 degree method is only logical. The whole objection to the old system was because it seemed dumb and counterintuitive for ships to jump through a grav well.

90 degree method sounds good and logical.

I think that the +/- 90 should be reduced though, half of all phase lines would be within the range to jump almost instantly again. something far smaller seems in order, like +/- 45.

Physics is subordinate to gameplay. I'd prefer +/-45.

If it's an issue of engineering than perhaps there could be techs increasing the angle from the pathway you can jump at. Start with 45+/- and improve it up to 90+/-? Would add a few more techs and might add another interesting tactical element. Different races might be better at it too.

Also in agreement. It's really a valid option for any gametype, as long as there are no benefits to pausing (command queuing, or even moving about the map). If it is paused, the game freezes essentially without any clickable features except unpause. It'd be a nice thing to have.

Yeah! More people agree with me. There should always be a pause option for any game IMO. Let the players decide if they want it enabled or not but to not add one as a design principle because something is "online" is just bad reasoning.

I dont know if anyone else has this issue, but when i try to play a recorded game it crashes within the 1st 10 seconds of the replay for each game that got recorded.

I have to agree with your assessment of the current situation with stars. Currently we are sort of addressing the "dead zone" issue in another thread.

In my opinion there should be something built in at a fundamental level that facilitates or even creates situations where inevitably major fleet engagements will occur around stars.

EDIT: It turns out that using modded skybox textures messed up the replays. You wouldnt think the textures would have anything to do with it, but after a fresh default install the problem went away.

From Multianna's magnificent ingame videos (thanks!) I know that I don't like the relation of development speeds in SoaSE much.
Thus I'd like to ask: Can the player can adjust this at game-start?
I would e.g. keep the movement speed but multiply research time by 2 or 3 and production time by something of a similar magnitude.

In Multianna's video I can't see such an option so I'd like to suggest it. The setting is reasonably intuitive for almost all users and could perhaps be added to 'custom galaxy' window or something similar so it doesn't bother users who don't want to bother with it.
Besides lacking a down-side the proposal has the up-side that players can adjust the game to their style.

When playing on hard ai (all map sizes) I have found that I am always rushed by a flagship and frigate fleet from 2 or 3 opponents which head straight for my homeworld ignoring anything in the way. This means I can always whittle down the numbers with base defenses en route and take out their flagship before it reaches its destination. The remains of the enemy fleets then carry on, reach their destination and turn around as they have no hope of winning even though I can always finish them off on their way back. They then do this again and again.

here is a screen shot of two ai cruisers who are running from a fight but not phasing

the planet with the highlight is where the fight is taking place

Has it been mentioned already that the T3 Empire tech "Advanced Civic Design" doesn't raise the population cap anymore?

After developing Terran-type planets to maximum (level 3) and researching T1 Empire tech "Improved Civic Design", the planets hit a cap... 345 for Capital planet, and I seem to recall that used to go to 380 when Advanced Civic was researched.

ships that have been ordered to go to another ship upon building will tend to continiue to keep phase jumping to the next system even if the escorted ship has already phased jumped back to the first system.

even if both ships enter the same system at the same time

Is there a way to set in game gamma or brightness levels? Bit of a tangent, but recently it seems that games have stopped including an easy (e.g. gui) way to adjust gamma levels...wasn't this a fairly standard option in older games?

This is for anyone who gets AI whispers that seem misplaced so the devs can look into them (after all, no one wants the AI telling them evacuate a planet that noone owns).

I am still having mouse issues. I select a ship to go to a destination. While in transit I focus on teh ship and rotate around the ship and look at the area around the ship. When I release the RMB it changes my movement location to teh point were I released the mouse button.

when i order the construction of the refinery base the construct frigates just sit there

the refinery shows up ready to be built but the construct frigates just sit there

I am currently playing a 4 system map and have well over 300 ships, possibly over 400, and I've noticed that ship icons are disappearing when I zoom out, I can still see the models when zoomed in, but most of my arcovas don't show up when zoomed out, and although I'm not going to count them, I would imagine other frigate types share this problem. I have also noticed that a few enemy trade ships are not showing up.

I am really hoping this can be changed to just join the group as long as it exists, so that if that first ship gets blown up, your rally point to a ctrl group isn't nullified. In a big game you may have many star systems rallying to a ctrl group (at least I do).

I guess I have posted my thoughts on the parallel research in another thread. I wouldn't mind the parallel research, as long as the cumulative time for all the parallel research is almost the same as the time needed to research all of them one after another. Meaning that if you distribute the research capabilities of your empire each research is proportionally slower.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I don't particularly like parallel research. I kind of like the idea that researching new techs now takes more time. It means that you really have to make hard choices on what order you want to do your research and how it will effect your particular strategy.

The tech tree needs to be enhanced, that much is obvious. and luckily the devs have devoted themselves to said venture

but the question of the day is 'how'? I've seen some pretty good tech trees slapped on otherwise crappy games, making them fun. I've also seen 'feces'-ish tech trees that have ruined otherwise good games.

Hello. On a whim, I decided to spend a few TG tokens yesterday on Sins. I knew nothing about the game prior to this, except some very generic stuff from Stardock emails and stuff. Since I didn't manage to stop playing until my wife became angry at 5 in the morning, I decided to post my feedback here the same way I played the game: with no reading of old threads, no knowledge of the history of prior patches, etc. That way the devs can get an accurate picture of what I thought about the experience.

When setting up a multiplayer game, will there be a provision to adjust the relative difficulties for the various players - Set a base difficulty, (which will guide any AI players and general game conditions) and then allow either harder or easier offsets (or settings) for the individual human players. This would open up a particular game to more folks without either boring experienced players &/or discouraging new ones (particularly local LAN games, I would expect).

We are talking about solar systems being rather flat but that we do have non-conformity in nature which would fit nicely in the game... Especially their placement relative to other systems. Who says a plane of one system can't be orthogonal to the plane of another.

I noticed on planetary bombardment if an asteroid is between the planet and your ship the missiles will go through the asteroid. The ship needs to move to an unobstructed view of the planet.

know one of the key issues with the game currently is that it moves too slow. to remedy this, and to increase the viability of blitzkreig and divisionary strike forces, I propose a certain class of ship beyond the capital ship and the frigate, a mothership by no doubt.

one of the mothership's most important roles should be as a mobile frigate factory. frigate factories would help sustain any incursions into enemy territory that might otherwise be easily bogged down and unrealistically halted by a few turrets and a few inhibitors on a few planets... a mothership would catalyze the creation of more large-scale battles and increase the importance of any military-strategic manuver.

Can you add another auto-stop for the Cap-Lock zoom control to show just the current solar system when there is more than 1 star? Or maybe    allow us to pre-set/configure the zoom jumps?

As it stands, if there is only the 1 system (small galaxy) the lowest zoom level is the entire solar system. If you use a larger galaxy, the lowest zoom shows all of the stars but it jumps there straight from the individual grav well. When I use the larger galaxies I spend an inordinate time wheeling in & out to see the local neighborhood rather than being able to jump out and wheel in a little to get the zoom level I want.

One example of a great tech tree I like to use is Warzone 2100, an older RTS title that most people missed. The tech tree is very deep, and composed of small logical upgrade steps.

A way to capture the WZ2100 style of tech advancement is to have some techs with many levels with a small effect with others with large effect, but only 1 level and high research costs and times.

Ironclad/Stardock, a great game you guys have here. Overall, it's so far been a very cool experience. Here are my comments & suggestions based on my first-time play-through:

1) Click dragging to select multiple units does not work if I start dragging from within an object's boundary box (be it a planet, factory, or ship).

Looking at Sins as a strategy/4x game, the pace isn't too much of a problem. Looking at it as an RTS, it is exceedingly slow. A game on a small map shouldn't take me 5-6 hours to finish, which it has. Hopefully there are plans to make the ships speeds (or even general game speed) adjustable in later versions.

I have to say that I'm generally in the opposite camp. In most RTS's, units move so quickly across the map that unit positioning becomes much less important. In other words, if you keep a blob of forces near the middle of the map, you can usually respond to any threat with little trouble.

I would like to see the battles conducted from further apart (ie more range so also make the planets and grav wells bigger). Have the UI also show incoming projectiles somehow. I would also like to see the relative power of caps and frigates increase, and I would like to see them become more expensive to reduce the sheer number problem. Make it HARD to destroy one with fighters and frigates. They currently go down far far too easily. Less ships would also make it more strategic IMO. It would also alleviate the packs of AI ships that occurs (they have a 2D mind).
I'd like to be able to jump into a system and then be able to take the time to plan a strategy.
Also, I would like to see manuevering and speed quicker on the outer edges of a gravwell than the inner. That should allow decent transit times and give attacking and defending a planet a better intellectual challenge.
I'd also like asteroids and planets to be able to be used as cover.

fighter: classic, good at killing fighters and bombers
bombers: also classic, good at killing larger ships, but has to get in close
torpedo bombers: can attack from greater range and thus does not go so much into risk. torpedos highly damaging, if they hit, but can be intercepted.
interceptors: good at intercepting bombs, torpedos, missiles (even from cap ships, provided there are cap ships using missiles)
scouts maybe, they could be cloaked or something.
defenders: less range, bit slower, thus rather good at staying near the fleet and protecting large ships

i mean that 300 Spartans with stood an attack of 40,000? for three days because they were better organized than the enemy

so if you have a bunch of heavy frigates and cruisers attack a small but better positioned of scouts and cruisers and the small fleet stick together instead of attack separately the fleet may not win the fight but it should do more damage.

I forgot to add something. Please make it so that you can disable the begining "movie" and instead of that it just starts with the view of the whole gravity well. It slows down alot with the begining movie.