1 I absolutely HATE missions. Thus, I only play against locked teams. This feature should be toggable, like the Pirates option is, yet still provide players with other ways of using Diplomacy with the Factions.

2. If i want to gain peaceful relations with a faction, I want the option to do so with the gift of Credits, Resources, Trade Treaties, Threats etc.

3 Have named Planet Administrators, Ambassadors and Cap ship Captains that would add bonuses when acquired.

4. Espionage, Sabatoge and Spies! This is huge. One of the 3 Races is freaking psychic! The Advent is just crying out for telepathic spy networks that could work in unison with thier spread of Culture or something.

5. Espionage and Diplomacy should consitute new Brances on the Tech Trees (the way Defense was for Entrenchment) that Players could choose to pursue.

-The missions system needs a complete overhaul. Implement a new system where the AI requests reasonable things from the player that are both (a) feasible for the player to actually perform and (b) and are relevant to the AI's goals.

- Improve the diplomacy system in general. Basically I'm thinking GalCivII's excellent diplomacy model, but in a way that suits Sins.

- Expand on neutral systems. Make them more than just trash that slighty hinder's expansion and is easy levels for your capital ship. Make them their own independent entities that are actually established on that planet, and aren't just a collection of ships. The neutral systems should be able to be traded with and the players should be able to make use of their resources (economic, military or scientific) through various deals (such as protection or financial provisions).

- Some sort of espionage system would be ok I guess, but that sort of thing is harder to implement in a reasonably fast-paced RTS 4X game (compared to a slower pace grand-strategy RTS game like Hearts of Iron or a TBS like GalCivII).

@phazon88: ever tried Rise of Legends? that game has neutral locations and cities that could either be conquered, bought or acquired by trade. basically you build trade convoys that would visit those locations and every visit lowered the amount they demand for joining your empire. if it reaches zero, they automatically join you. a pretty nice system I think.

how about they just get a huge malus in planet health compared to regular players. like only 500 hp and then with suceessive upgrades 1.000 and so on.

also, I'd like culture to play a bigger role. like to take over planets completely as in beta (though it should be more difficult to do it than now). or to introduce some kind of culture victory goal.

lastly, I don't actually think the missions are such a bad idea. some modified and two-way version of them wouldn't be half-bad.

Hmm, for 10.00$ huh.  Well, for ten bucks I love the main two additions of Entrenchment......Starbases and mines.  I know there was much more added than that, but those two additions are why I felt it was worth the money.

So what would I like to see for another 10 spot?  1) additional VICTORY CONDITIONS: cultural/alliance/ascension, whatever.  2) campaigne editor: by campaigne, I mean you could link 2-3 or more maps together that have certain victory conditions that must be achieved in order to move to the next map,,,could add story line and such to enhance the experience.  You would choose the campaigne name in the maps list which would contain the 2-3 or more maps.

Now, this would be dependent upon the obvious overhaul/re-working of the non-existent diplomacy feature of the game because with diplomacy improvements, I am hoping that victory conditions beyond simple "kill everything" will come into existence. Therefore.......

1) Improve diplomacy to reflect greater depth and more victory conditions.  i.e. Economic Victory/Military Victory/ Cultural Victory/....2/3rds alliance Victory/ Controll # of Planets Victory, etc.

2) Campaigne Editor: As I mentioned in a different post a campaigne would be nice but I'd prefer to have an editor to be able to link maps together.  Players could then make campaignes and trade and share them just as we "wish" we could with maps. (Or at least, wish we could have a place that was conveient to trade maps/campaignes)

3) This has been said but bears the need to be stated once again:  More Planet types please!!!!!!!  How can this possibly get over looked again?  I hope it does not.  There should be more planet types.  It is after all an infinite universe, game wise anyway.  I love the extra planet types from Solar mod,,, or Sins +  ...and to be clear.....I only play mods that have the extra planets.  I no longer play Vanila sins or Entrenchment without them.  Especially since some mods have working pulsars and black holes, it is easy to see how much more fun these additions would be.  Or for that matter just look at the moons that orbit the gas giant in ,,,I think it is solar mod..... awesom MOON addition there.

4)Another playable race would be an awesom addition particularly if they were brought in through a diplomatic method...perhaps story wise as some opposite of the Vasari that now wishes to make itself known and ally against their evil enemy.

5)Last but not least, PIRATES......just makem a worthy oppponent that "also" can build and take over planets if the option is checked for them to do so.

But, as I stated previously: For 10 bucks, I would just love to see #1 and #2 on my list in the next expansion. 

Thanks for asking,

                                Valkajin

ok i know its my second post here... but i HAVE to say it..... i jsut finish played the campaign-like Maps from  the Celestial bodies mod ( a TohKlidan' mods) wich is pretty much a campaign if they are played all together.... LOTS of fun, adding depth to an Already rich background story. so for 10$... if we can linked some maps 2gether while keeping our reasearchs it would be greath... ok... now i'll let other ppls post their ideas... (i read the whole thing and it seems that the same request come back over and over...  Hope u guys will pick the best of it.

Individual unit promotions, a simple 4 rank system would work; I just think it’s a little weird for my light frigate that has been in every single battle to not have some veteran abilities as he makes his towards the final battle. Just a simple base stat increase would work, yes it has been done by other games, but it’s a very simple and effective way to make your armies who survive battles stronger.

I would suggest :

1) Random Events (market crashes, planetary disasters, bug-eyed monster attacks, plagues, etc)

2) Designate systems to avoid (I send ships from planet A to planet B and tell them not to go thru the pirate base)

3) Have some of the non-habitable planet types damage ships.  (radiation damage, gravitational stress, meteor damage, etc)

4) Star sizes (Red Giants, white dwarfs, red dwarfs).  Currently, all are same size, but different colors (and add orange to possible colors)  I would love to see black holes in the game, but there would have to be a reason to go there.  Maybe have very rich asteroid around them.  You might lose several ships trying to find them, but they are worth the boost in resources.

5) Add brown dwarfs to planets.

6) Add atmosphere types to planets.  (would need to research tech to colonize)  (This might work with minor races.  Do you take the planet from the methane breathing bug-eyed monsters or try make friends)

7)  Implement binary stars in the in-game map generator.

8) I like the diplomacy style in M002, Gal Civ2, and CIV4.  So I am hoping for something like that.

Here is a good list of possible planet types

http://www.onewest.net/~dollan/ARCpclindex.html

I think in a game like sins, where we have so many ships and individual units, even capships, dying to focus fire in mere seconds, this would not be too prudent. also, experience is implemented in the form of capital ships and that is fine. if you use it for all types of units, it would probably be even harder for someone to recover from a loss, because he not only has less units, but also less experienced ones. lastly, this - and some other ideas in the thread - don't really fit much with a diplomacy type expansion pack. those things can be discussed, but I think for the devs it would be much easier to stick to the thread title.

Well, the new militias would already slow the game down, i am affraid add hp to planets would make it unbearably slow for MP and kill rush.

By the way, i love what you said about Rise Of legends. I am a great fan of Rise Of Nations and i think SOASE should steal a few ideas from the Rise Of brand. They are the only successful attempt to mix RST and 4x i ever know with SOASE.

i know it's already been posted but i feel it that if it's posted by enough different people then HOPEFULLY it will be adopted into the game...

missions/quests/(whatever you choose to call them) NEED TO WORK BOTH WAYS!!!!

seriously the current system with the AI able to make demands of you but not you of them is simplely retarted and shoulda been left out of the game IMO

and several of the ideas being thrown around about pirates sound good

same with neutral worlds....i'm certain if some aliens showed up here at earth we would at least attempt to talk to them not just start throwing nukes at them(or at least i hope we wouldn't)

absolutely. two quite fine games, different in their ways, but very cool blands of rts and tbs.sins could borrow some of their stuff or sure. I hope they make some type of sequel some day. with big huge not sold the chances are still alive.

A lot of this has already been mentioned, but I figured that I would put in my thoughts, anyway.

A diplomacy system more like GalCivII would be good. Alliances should be harder/easier to make depending on factions, etc.

Assuming the missions system is kept, I want to be able to make demands of others.

I think that culture should be a little more useful. If you overthrow a planet with culture, I think that you should capture the planet with some infastructure intact, so you don't have to completely rebuild from scratch.

Others have mentioned it, and it isn't exactly diplomacy, but some more planet types would be really, really nice. Please?

Well I wanted some sort of frigate that helps look for artifacts and is not attacked by militia.  Like a diplomatic misison

I have other ideas about pirates, is that for this expansion?  I would love for pirates to have cap ships.  And abiltiy for us to purchase a cap ship, liek a neutral hero in WC3.  Also ability to purchase some limited amount of pirate frigates from new locatiosn which would be mini pirate bases?  Or just regular roids with a pirate frigate factory.

Maybe you can buy a location of artifacts from pirates.  But it would be any location, so it's not guranteed to be in your territory. This would give you valuable targets to aim and secure.  Planets that you know are worth taking.

Maybe add neutral buildigns around planets that would either have to be purchased.  Like a frigate factory that would cost money in order to get to your side, but it wouldn't take up your logistics, so it would be sorta like free +4 logistics special, but wiht a twist.  Same thing for defense structures.  Maybe you need the diplomatic frigate to be able to activate these.

Diplomatic tree? It woudl be like defense tree but uses civic labs isntead of military labs.  Youc an move some of the civic stuff there and add few more things.  Like new pirate related techs. 

A tech that makes the militia surrender when they are overwhelmed? Like if they take X% losses, the remaining ships surrender.  It woudl seem a worthwhile tech to get if you plan on expendign early, or if your surrounding planets have A LOT of militia.  Like at 2 techs addign up to 15% at tier 1 or 2. 2 more techs for 30% total at tier 3 or 4.

Maybe another tech that spawns militia if you abandon colony?  That way you can really stick it to someone  if you know you can't hold the planet, spawn a fleet of militia at it.  Soemthing hefty like 20 frigates on a terran planet.

ANyway these are my ideas.

the only thing I'm concerned about with new trees is that they get too overwhelming.  We have 3 trees at the moment (not counting artifacts and fleet), I just don't the interface to become too bogged down.

For diplomacy, there should be a way of increasing allegiance on conquered planets, maybe by implementing structures like orbital prisons, which give allegiance bonuses due to order, and you can also "hire" from there mercenary fleets. 

Also, for diplomacy, there should be a way of lowering bounty on your race, as well as setting up special bounty missions for pirates that specifiy the amount of destruction you want, what planet, so players wanting more strategy other than overwhelming numbers might call in a precursor pirate strike on a planet prior to invasion.

Also, culture should actually do something other than allow you to see planets and start small rebellions that are easily handled.  There should be a culture meter, that when high enough, the entire planet can join your side, while lower tiers could create havoc by destroying key orbital structures or impeding economic flow from resource asteroids surrounding that planet.

And there should be a way to raise allegiance bu "transplanting" a chunk of a very loyal planets populace, say a 100% planet to a 35%, to permanantly raise allegiance there.

Pirates should start weaker, and progressively get stronger as they collect bounty, with maybe a limited tech tree that gives them acess to some capital ships and maybe even unique units, provided that their growth won't be impeded.

There should also be greater penalties for breaking treaties/alliances, with maybe some unrest happening due to a portion of the populace being of that culture. 

There should be many planet types, but there should be limits to which ones can be colonized by a specific race, say nitrogen planets are inherently toxic to versari so no colonization is possible, or a vulcanic planet may not be colonizable by advent because of their beliefs.

Missions should be more branched out, with maybe a tree that allows you to gain more access to advanced diplomatic options like creating missions or a greater selection of penalties and bonuses that can be selected from.

I'm a man with very simple requests: Maybe a couple more star/nebula backgrounds when you zoom into a star? Some more artifacts would be nice too.

one more thing:

There should be options for covert action, like spreading disease to lower population, spreading propoganda for a temporary alliegience boost if on own planets, or causes unrest if used on an enemies, also obvious sabotage.  There could also be ship sabotage which could be anywhere from dealing damage physically to lowering the total experience that the ship has earned.

Culture should have an effect on diplomacy. A BIG effect. It should be as big as ships in terms of the game.

Think about it:

Planets should have multiple sets of alliegiances. If a player has allegiance>than owning player on another planet, he should be able 'force' consessions and gain bonuses based on a number of factors, such as number of planets, total amount of galaxy controlled, etc. 

From time to time, the player could make demands like, "Give X crystal/credit/metal" there could be tech trading. The number of "concessions" or demands you get to make is proportional to the amount of culture you control.

Neutral planets should join planets that acquire them via culture. The militia should join you. Neutral planets should have 'weak' culture and be acquired quickly. Culture should spread through neutral territory VERY quickly.

Actually make it VIABLE to have a cultural build rather than just a military attack strategy. Investing all your resources into culture (and security/starbases) should just be as effective game wise as throwing all that money into buying assailants and a colonizer. Right now, a full fleet of combat ships is the most profitable investment one can make, since one can take neutral planets quickly, as well as harass the enemy.

Well, you know what? An advent player that rushes up the tech tree and spams culture stations should be able to grab 2-3 worlds in the first half hour, just as easily as the vasari player- this would actually be very interesting: a rush military player would be racing against time to prevent a quickly spreading culture web from acquiring lots of militia units, or eventually spidering out and eating his own planets. And enemy with 10,000 credits and resources invested in culture stations should be just as dangerous (Or admittedly, slightly less) then one with that much invested in ships.

Granted, this would be a really radical departure from the core gameplay, but it would make Sins of a Solar Empire more of an EMPIRE building game with multiple choices to victory, rather than just building the best and biggest fleets.

Economics:

Borrowing from Rise of Legends sounds like a great idea. An economic build would actually be viable if you could buy a neutral planet and the accompanying militia. 

Make attacking trade ships a bigger deal. Cutting off a line of enemy trade should significantly kill their economy, maybe inflicting like a 50% penalty on ALL trade, and improving yours slightly.

"Ruthlessness"

There should be consequences to fighting. Destroying civilian structures, ships, and bombarding planets should increase "ruthlessness" a similiar mechanic to BadBoy in Europa Universalis 3. Players with a high ruthlessness score have less loyal planets and are more vulnerable to cultural attacks. In all honesty, someone who plays as a 'ruthless' ruler should just be playing vanilla sins.

Players trying to 'play nice' should gain massive bonuses to culture and allegiance (Or start with them, which decrease as they fight) that allow them to pull off the economic and cultural strategies above (Neutral worlds are cheaper to buy if your ruthless score is low). Hiring pirates wouldn't affect your ruthlessness score at all!

Missions!

Improve AI responsiveness to orders. Give them missions. If I ask them to goto a system and lets say, "Destroy all ships/structures" I should be able to pay them X amount based on the number of enemies in that system and watch them go. These missions could also be given to players, with the sum payed contingent based on custom set timers.

Tech Trading!

This is a big one. All 4x games have tech trading, except sins! There are many ways to do this:

Allow trading of ships, planets,structures

"Loan" the use of research facilities to an ally (If you have 8 labs, and give him 3 for 15 minutes, you are left with 5 labs)

Finally, trading of techs (Perhaps limited to the numberof structures owned, based on fleet cap, based on time, etc.)

Espionage!

By spending money on spies perhaps you could:

Steal an enemy tech (from a similiar race)

Take over a number of enemy ships (Restricted by type/model) at an inoppurtune time

Cause pirates or 'revolutionaries' to attack

Takeover/Blow up troublesome structures (Superweapons, Starbases)

Freeze planetary income/production

Disable enemy abilities in a gravwell.

It could work like galciv. You have a pool of spies, and devote them to certain gravwells. Overtime, random happy things would occur or you might gain a pool of 'powers' to use. Not sure if the engine supports that though..

All these changes are probably fundamental core gameplay changes...for a micro expansion, maybe too big of a change. It'd be nice though, and certainly worth my 10$.

i know it's not diplomacy related but it would be nice if pirates could jump from star system to star system...as it is now if their base is in a different system and their raid target is in a different system no raid occurs which seems to remove the whole point of having pirates...also pirates should evolve as the game progress's as it is now once you get to about mid-game pirates a just a joke and no threat to anyone at all i for one would like to see that fixed

pirates should be reworked some. I think a big point is for them to get out when they are faced with overwhelming odds or at least jump to a less defended system. they are greedy pirates, not soldiers that fight to death.

Sorry if this has already been posted.

I would like to see the option of being able to control more then 1 race (or two fo the same race) in the same game

Control directly a disconnected player (able to give money to yourself would be disabled. No robbing/stealing disconnected players resource

Disable such things like ability to "feed allies", superweapons, mines...etc

1.) An ability to buy a little bit of foreign technologies & researchment results.

2.) Weaken a hostile empire with something like an underground government or a secret society.

3.) A temporarily government on a conquered planet, so that you have contact to your lost planet for some time and to weaken the hostile empire within. There should also be a counter attack to reveal the hostile temporarily government on a planet.

4.) Research diplomacy: Two factions or a union of factions could research on high technologies together.

5.) The ability to create real pacts, unions and treaties and to give them names.

6.) Scorched earth tactics: Once you know that you can't hold your planet, you can destroy all structures on the planet so that only a scanty rock is left. The enemy couldn't get the ressources/not so much ressources out of your former colony. There should be the restriction, that this tactic decreases the friendlyness of other empires very much.

I whole-heartedly agree with the desired mission re-work. I like the idea of offering missions to the computer, and i likethe idea of conditional demands. By this I mean the situation wherein I offer 1,000 crystal in exchange for a peace treaty, or similar.

I like the idea of being able to give ships. I would like to see mostly unfettered ship transfers; ie, vasari able to give ships to the TEC. The limits I would like to see on this are a percentage cap (based on fleet points) of 'forign' ships allowed; say no more than 10% of your fleet points on forign ships. No cap ships can be given, that is a HUGE investment, and probrably contains clasified technology. Last limit I would implement is this: no repairs on forign ships. neither repair bays, not self-regeneration. After all, how should the Vasari know how to fix an Advent cruser? The tech is all wrong! In-game, this wil cause given ships to slowly be phased out, and replaced by omegrown ships.

I also like the idea of voluntarily evacuating a planet. Of course, in the Charlie Foxtrot involved in this I would expect the various upgrades to be demolished.

A few posts earlier, somone mentioned com-sats. I like this idea, that empires must maintain comunicaton lines with eachother, and that those communication lines should be vulnerable to attack. I would slightly refine his idea, however. In a'safe' gravity well, they might take five minutes to build. With enemy ships in the area, I would say 20 minutes, or even simply make them unbuildable. I would have them deployed by any capship, or colony frigate, take up no slots, and be buildable in any gravity well. Possibly have an upgraded version for between-star transmssions.

One mjor thing I would change from the com-sat idea would be to only require my com-sat to reach his com-sat. Possibly require both empires to have one in ajacent gravity wells in order for communications, same gravity wells to share visions. One major poblem with this would be the inability to communicat untill mid-game, at earliest.

Last, I would like an option to simply refuse a mission for a minimal loss of frendlyness. I can't tell you how often i've been ordered to kill ships of a race I haven't even seen yet, or have seen only by scoutship several stars way from my fleet.

I am sure that a lot of ideas that I have had have already been mentioned, but here's one that I am sure that hasn't:

Allow you to build cardboard fleets.  That's right, I want the option to spend 1/10 the resources of real ships on fake ships.  These ships would not count against fleet supply, and would be limited to say 3 or 4 jumps, but could be used both offensively and defensively to make it appear you have a larger force, but have about 10 hp and no weapons.  Only an upgraded scout close range could tell the difference.