SitReps - Invaders From The Dark
Published on Tuesday, January 16, 2024 By
Everything I write here is intended to be a suggestion/idea – please don’t read this as if it’s a list of demands. My aim is to provide feedback in a constructive tone, which can be difficult via text.
1) Gameplay
1.1) Gameplay Options: I noticed that a number of the gameplay options had been disabled for “balance feedback”. I enjoy having those options for tuning my games. My favorites are [Orbiting Planet Speed] & [Hull Points]; sometimes [Research Rates] too.
I’d prefer to not lose the others & have been hoping to see the addition of more options such as:
- [Shield points]
- [Antimatter points]
- [Planet Bonus Chance] - 0% up to 100%, where 50% would ensure every planet has a single bonus & 100% ensures every planet has a 2nd planet bonus. I’m not sure if planets are allowed to go above 2 planet bonuses, but if so then values over 100% would grant those
- [Moon Density] – I’m not as sure how to implement this one as a single slider, and I don’t know that having three sub-sliders would be appreciated
- [Shield Phasing] – basically allows a % chance for all weapons to bypass shields, in addition to w/e other abilities are in place.
- Phase Lane length (allow phase lanes to stretch far vs limit them to closest options)
- Phase Lane Frequency (excessive phase lanes per gravity well vs sparse phase lanes per gravity well)
- Ship movement speed (within a gravity well)
- [ability cooldown]
To facilitate balancing, would it make sense to have a master settings toggle “Competitive – Fair” that locks out customization? Doing so would allow you to balance for that mode specifically while still permitting others to goof around with non-standard set-ups. I always found it odd in Sins Rebellion that every map had a “Fair” map version that was devoid of planet bonuses/artifacts - it felt like it was extra stuff to scroll though.
Back to gameplay options for Sins2, the “competitive - fair” setting could:
- lock out gameplay option customization
- set artifact/planet bonus/derelict loot spawn rates to 0%
- disable orbiting (as memory serves, the competitive crowd was quite unhappy without the ability to camp static phase lanes a while ago)
Doing this would allow for a standard gameplay experience for those who want it while letting others play with gameplay options in non-competitive settings. I really don’t want to see any gameplay settings removed and would love to see more added.
I’m hoping that there aren’t any issues on the development side that would force the non-competitive crowd to have to mod in things like min/max shields, hull, & various rates. As a single-player only, I don’t see how removing the gameplay options would improve things aside from making balancing easier.
Implementing a master “competitive - fair" gameplay option should take care of the competitive needs while still permitting players like me to alter game settings to change the game experience.
1.2) The wreckage of Starbases & capital ships/titans, I really like this new addition and hope it's here to stay.
1.3) still not happy that I can’t try to sick pirates on the minor factions via bounty
1.4) The change to civilian structure costs, namely that orbital extractors, was a surprise (I only just noticed it if it was implemented earlier). As much as I had a habit of spamming those, I like the concept of this new restriction.
This can add to the “exploitation” aspect; if planet bonuses are added that impact orbital extraction. A concept would be modifying [Intense_Gravity_Field] to also improve orbital extraction (because additional asteroids/meteorites would be captured by the larger gravity field?) meanwhile [Low_Gravity_Planet] would see a reduced orbital extraction rate as the planet does not capture as many asteroids/meteorites.
1.5) I really like the “Asset Events” that the Vasari have. Part of me wishes that the tally would remain for the entire game as an invoice of sorts for all resources collected, although it does only track the latest 5 instances rather than by category. I know that there is an after-game chart for this, but it’s kinda of fun to keep track of the various sources I’ve harvested.
1.6) The Overseer’s new intimidation ability is neat. Is it possible to tweak it’s autocast a little bit? As is, it goes off once a single enemy unit is in range. My concept is that it activates if the single target is a capital/titan or if there are 3+ of a non-strikecraft ship. Setting this behavior to require research wouldn’t be an issue either if needed.
1.7) Destroying planets is still fun (strip to the core). I miss the ability to reduce them to asteroid belts though.
1.8) The shield-burst restore thing as a new addition is something I’m liking too. I hope this stays
2) Balance
(Preface: I’m not a min/max player nor do I play Sins2 in the competitive sense – which means I don’t just mass 1-2 units to spam/exploit the game’s math. My feedback is based on ~10hrs as Vasari Exodus on the newest map as a FFA. I play V-E. Medium AI has Vasari-A, three TEC-L & three TEC-R & the AI types were left as “random” for most of it before I set some defensive & a pair of economic TEC to see what happens)
2.1) For me, it doesn’t feel worthwhile to research ship durability/weapon upgrades. Quantity appears to be significantly more important than quality at this point. The upgrades I guess are intended to serve as resources sinks in the mid-late game once your supply has maxed out?
My playstyle is usually to turtle a bit with moderate static defenses and a smaller fleet before I attack, so I don’t typically favor rushing enemy planets. I’ve also only been playing on the 8-player map “Annulus”, but with the player spawns being on top of each other this map plays more like a tiny map as homeworlds are only 2-3 jumps away from one other – which in fairness does make my playstyle impossible.
After a game where AI was set as defensive, the aggression was tempered a bit. In all games though the Vasari-Alliance AI was always the first to be defeated. I’ll be playing as the alliance moving forward so we’ll see if the exodus AI fares better.
Also, as Vasari I have historically relied on using phase gates to jump around my borders (and to link my factory planets to the front lines) and that doesn’t seem to be the intended way to play now – the phase gates come fairly late and are expensive. I’m guessing that, as the Exodus anyway, I’m not intended to use the gates to maintain a core-worlds area while eating enemy planets and should instead just eat out my empire first & then move out? I haven’t lasted long enough to get to that point as I’m still relearning how to play Vasari.
2.2) Sniping enemy capital ships doesn’t seem to be as viable as it has been (without overwhelming numbers), which is a neat twist. Forces you to deal with the enemy fleet instead of knocking out the centerpieces. 2.3) The work on the AI definitely shows! I typically leave things at the default medium while I explore the new game mechanics and the AI is much pickier on when/where it engages.
3) Artwork/Visuals
3.1) The phase resonator is gorgeous. I’m guessing that it’s an effect though and not a standing animation of the model?
3.2) The wreckage of Starbases & capital ships/titans, what are the chances of having new art made for these wrecks? Something akin to the derelict art?
3.3) I was wondering if for locked/premade teams, the color scheme could be modified so that all members could share either the primary or the secondary color as the “team” color?
3.4) Will TEC-L become the “Isolationists” whereas TEC-R will become the “Mutineers”?
3.5) Will Advent-L become the “Crusaders” whereas Advent-R will become the “Reverent”?
4) Bugs, Typos, Goofs
4.1) [Xeno Corruption] shows as a positive buff (green highlight) instead of a negative buff (red highlight) in the research menu. (fixed in the 1.18.14 update)
5) Questions
5.1) Are there any plans on having a roaming minor faction? One that randomly travels throughout the system as a flotilla, or even one that just sits at the center star? The minor faction’s titan could function as the “planet” interface for players.
5.2) What are the thoughts/musings on bringing the diplomacy tech tree back at some point? Rather than having it depend on military/civilian labs have it use a combination of envoy’s/reputation instead.
I guess my imagination is currently that research menu would be broken down by other factions present in the game. Using perspective as a V-A player for an example:
- TEC “research category”
- Advent “research category”
- Minor Faction 1 “research category”
- Minor Faction 2 “research category”
- etc..
Using the V-A again for an example for specific topics:
- [Armor Restoration] would either require a Synergy Pact with a TEC player, or instead [Armor Restoration] would be further enhanced (stacking, but with diminishing returns) by a Synergy PACT with a TEC player (assuming that the idea is for the Vasari Alliance to inherently be allied with off-map TEC/Advent factions rather than the ones in the current map)
- [Reverse Engineered Shields] would function like [Armor Restoration], but depends on having a Synergy Pact with an Advent player instead
- Weapon type upgrades could be more unique to the rebel/loyalist subfactions
- TEC could offer planet garrisons, ability to build trade port components for starbases (giving a resource income to the upgraded Starbase)
- Vasari could offer improved resource extraction, access to phase gates
- Research for minor factions could increase their survivability (permanently gifting them bonus planet health, bonus planet garrison supply, or by granting them bonus fleet supply so they can perform their own raids on factions hostile to them.
5.3) Will string concatenation be available in some circumstances? The applications I was thinking of are:
~Capital Ship names between subfactions. TEC Loyalists would use the “TDN” (Trader Defense Navy) prefix that would then be added to the standard list of ship names for TEC-L; meanwhile something like “TSF” (Trader Strike Fleet) would be used for TEC-R. This would allow the same set of common names to be used by both subfactions but still offer a flavor difference between them without forcing you guys to have to nearly duplicate the listings in the text file.
~Allow for more variation in the names of the militia ships. They’ve always spawned as a generic named militia that covers the entire system (probably b/c they’re a single player?)
Would it be possible to have the militia player’s name pulled from the planet/asteroid/star they’re stationed at? Or if possible have militias “claim” 3-5 gravity wells that start out near each other that then share the same militia name?
5.4) I was sad to discover I could no longer set minor factions to spawn in with planet components or certain structures. Is there any chance of allowing minor factions to have components viewable in the advanced planet menu (so that the new abilities remain easy to access)
5.5) Is it possible to modify the [Space Ponies] bonus to grant it’s home planet the following: [+3 export points for TEC, +3 Phase Resonance for Vasari]? I’m not sure what the Advent mechanic will be yet, but I’d hope they aren’t abandoned by the space ponies.
If it’s not desired for space ponies to impact gameplay, is it possible for them to impact the game’s art? Such as owning the bonus results in your ships “seeing” space ponies while jumping between planets? As a little easter egg..
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6) Requests: (for modding capabilities):
6.1) Neutral planets have components that are capturable (if planet is colonized without being bombed to 0HP). Purpose is to have a parallel to the derelict loot that can be found. Note that the idea for these isn’t to be particularly powerful. Some ideas include:
- Black Market (+1 credit/sec)
- Mercenary Base (can summon mercenary ships. +15 supply)
- Derelict Archive ()
- Derelict Temple ()
- Derelict Arsenal ()
- Derelict Factory ()
- Derelict Throne ()
If development time permits, could have some fun by unlocking a hidden research tree once enough derelict planet components are owned and after capturing at least 1 derelict loot. This isn’t something critical, just something goofy to add near the conclusion if able/applicable
6.2) [modding] Is it possible to have ship appearance to be a function of ship level? As-is, ship components can modify appearances – it’d be neat if an additional option was available for ships to “grow” as they level.