A few suggestions for Rebellion

from Sins Forums

Here are some suggestions for Rebellion that I'd love to see make it into the game. I'll start with the simplest ideas first, and then head into the more offbeat ones.

 

1) Force limits for stations:

-Stations would have a hard limit (tech expandable) so as to reduce the overwhelming might of defensive installations. Constructors would take up a slot in the station force limit rather than the ship one

 

2) Local defenders repop if a gravity well is cleared but no colony/extractor/station is established

-Makes space travel a little more dangerous for trade ships, keeps things interesting

-Local defenders could become more potent over time by tracking changes in the pirate faction, making them more and more of a hindrance to movement and expansion if not checked and eliminated early

 

3) Soft force limits for colonies

-Colonies have a fixed soft force limit based on map size; exceeding it causes the player to incur administrative costs that increase exponentially with each additional planet (from a low base)

-Expanded via administrative hub upgrade to station rather than tech increases

-Makes REX less effective, ensures that empty wilderness regions can exist

 

4) Pirates moved from a single fixed installation to spawning in unoccupied grav wells

-No more pirates being irrelevant if they're in an unoccupied system

-Able to spawn closer to prey, making surprises more likely

-Less likely to end up fighting against a single well protected bottleneck

-Still able to be eliminated if players occupy every grav well

 

5) New gravwell types with additional abilities

-Ancient Graveyard, can be extracted from to reduce tech costs

-Gas Giant, can be extracted from to increase force limits for ships and envoys

 

6) Ability for incursions to occur

-Strange and powerful ships from unknown area appear in grav wells, causing havoc

-Also inflicts a random environmental effect on grav well

-Eliminating an incursion gives the player a random reward

 

7) Espionage system based around envoy ships, with improvements mutually exclusive with diplomatic improvements

-New separate and tech expanded force limit for envoy ships; no more than 1 spy ring for each envoy ship

-Ability to set up spy rings or CI rings on allied, neutral, enemy and owned planets.

-Spy actions and costs are fixed and appear as buttons on infiltrated planet or orbiting facilities

-Spies last for a fixed duration

-Spies grant LOS in grav well

-No more than one spy action can be in effect in a grav well at a time, and no new action can be taken until the old one expires. Actions can be cancelled by paying half of the original cost of the action

-Research lowers costs and raises duration of ring and actions

-CI rings have no abilities; they double costs of spy actions, and halve the duration and effect. Whenever an action is taken when a CI ring is there, it has a chance of cancelling the action and removing the ring. Must be placed by envoy ship, no more than one CI ring per envoy ship

-Factions would share a number of espionage abilities, with each one also having an ability specific to their faction (eg Advent special reduces resistance of culture to pushback)

-Generic abilities would include the following

::Reduce allegiance

:: Disable orbital facility

::Sabotage constructors (no construction for duration in grav well)

::Sabotage extractors (no output for duration in grav well)

::Terror Campaign (reduce pop)

::Incite Uprising (can only be enacted when allegiance <40%, causes the planet to spawn a pirate group and bombard the planet, making it go neutral and spawn defenders if successful)

 

13,783 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I don't think any of that going to happen. No offense. Some interesting ideas though. Good creativity. :)

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

1) Force limits for stations:

-Stations would have a hard limit (tech expandable) so as to reduce the overwhelming might of defensive installations. Constructors would take up a slot in the station force limit rather than the ship one

What do you mean by "station"?

2) Local defenders repop if a gravity well is cleared but no colony/extractor/station is established

-Makes space travel a little more dangerous for trade ships, keeps things interesting

-Local defenders could become more potent over time by tracking changes in the pirate faction, making them more and more of a hindrance to movement and expansion if not checked and eliminated early

I've never heard of anyone leaving a planet uncolonized after clearing the militia.  Most people get in there, kill the Krosovs, and then colonize it while finishing off the other militia.  Militia are mostly gone after 30 minutes anyways, this seems to be a lot of effort into a feature that's supposed to spice up the first 10 minutes of the game.

3) Soft force limits for colonies

-Colonies have a fixed soft force limit based on map size; exceeding it causes the player to incur administrative costs that increase exponentially with each additional planet (from a low base)

Already exists, it's called loyalty.  The bigger your empire, the lower the rate of return from colonies further away from the homeworld.

4) Pirates moved from a single fixed installation to spawning in unoccupied grav wells

Honestly, the pirate feature needs more serious reworking than this.  We need to get rid of the EBAY bidding system first and foremost.

5) New gravwell types with additional abilities

I could go for this; more variety with gas giants would be nice, because right now it seems woefully underused for such a magnificent and iconic planetary archtype.

6) Ability for incursions to occur

-Strange and powerful ships from unknown area appear in grav wells, causing havoc

Seems like this would be more of an annoyance than anything.

7) Espionage system based around envoy ships, with improvements mutually exclusive with diplomatic improvements

Envoys could certainly use a larger role, and espionage would work wonders.

 

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

You don't think they'll be implemented because why?

I was careful to stick within the limitations of the game engine as I see them, and to minimize the need for major interface or art additions. Much of these suggestions are reuse of demonstrated existing functionality, to keep the need for new code to a minimum. 

As far as suggestions go, they're a lot more conservative than the usual add twenty factions and also land battles and Mr Potato Head kind of thing. 

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

They are interesting ideas to be sure, but to me most of them seem a bit far fected. And it is true, as far as suggestions go they are more conservative than what others around here post, but you gotta look at the games and how they progressed. IronClad and Stardock have a plan for this game and they've stuck with it from Vanillia Sins to Trinity, and the content they've added with each new expainsion follows very strict rules.

I'm sorry to say, that most of your suggestions don't really seem they follow those rules or, like what the guy said above me, already in the game.. The only idea's that could work are the envoys playing a larger play in the game, and new gravity wells.

Personally what I would like to see is the Gas Giants being colonizable with floating stations within the atmosphere or large civilian centers buildable in the gravity wells of Giant's. But following the rules, it most likely will seem that it won't happen.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

1. Meh, only AIs have issues with Starbases.

2. Agree with Darvin3, a neat idea but useless as Militia are gone within the first 10 to 30 minutes depending on map size.

3. Again agree with Darvin3, already implemented with the culture.

4. Love this idea, can work but would need dev support.

5. Can be done, may be done with Rebellion (no promises from devs on it though), many mods (Distant Stars, and others) do this already.

6. If done right this can be fun but is difficult to do right and takes a lot of time to balance. Maybe

7. Agree with Darvin3, some neat concepts. May see if they can be used in Distant Stars.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

I wouldn't like those thing's being implemented nor do I think there going to make that much change to thing's already working.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Maybe this thread should be titled, "Even More Suggestions for Rebellion".

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

And an official one!

 

:fox:

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Yeah, I completely fumbled on allegiance. Advent much? Even funnier that I remembered it by the end of the post, but didn't tie it together. The system I suggest is clunkier, so I withdraw it in favor of the current one. Maybe with a slight decrease in the number of colonies you can maintain before it gets to be pointless but, still, it's a better system. 

A harder soft limit on colonies would mean at least some neutral planets remain, because they're not worth the effort of grabbing. Using them as spawn monkies would be a little more interesting.

Mostly I'd just like for there to be more areas where players do not directly bump into one another. That gray area offers a lot of opportunities for maneuvering, fighting (without the influence of either side's defensive installations) and interesting pve encounter opportunities. Space Jellies etc!

A tighter colony cap would be a great way to reduce the variance between the top player and the bottom player; keeping the difference in production capability relatively low guarantees more fights that are fights, and fewer fights that are one sided routs. That's a good thing, both for the MP community and for general entertainment.

 

Espionage is, in my view, the least likely and most kinky option. Tried to concept it as micro-free as possible for both sides. Key element here is creating a fifth column that can break up defensive networks and provide a counterbalancing force for the underdog. Would especially like costs (including those for a CI ring) to track fleet consumption, so that a weaker player will find them more useful than a stronger one. Makes for a good rubber band mechanism.

Defense is pretty strong at the moment, and I disagree with the statement that only the AI has trouble with stations. Unless you outgun or out-meta the enemy, a station with a defending fleet is a tough nut to crack. And if you're not able to go around the kink, or get ahead of the defender in terms of production capability, you're not going to be able to tweak the odds into your favor. 

If they're roughly equal in productive capabilities, it's pretty inevitable that the player with the fewer entrances to his or her territory will win in the end; after all, they can spend less cash on their defensive network, and have more opportunities to get in a good hit before the defending fleet arrives. 

 

Incursions are mostly a pve idea I'm stealing from eve. Cool little artifact things from weird alien spaceships that provide you with a minor bonus. And the fleet disrupts space in a weird and wonderful way. Basically, yes, an annoyance like the pirates, but one with a payout. 

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

Perhaps there should be a defensive star-building enabler after enough tech tree research is accomplished.  Like the ones in Rebellion-Land Based Combat? page three? :drool:

Maybe even call it a defense platform for a group of planets.  Not for remotely destroying planets, but for taking out big ships or even severely damaging invading armadas to a nearby planet- friendly planet of course...

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

I like idea 4,5 and 6 a lot!

But idea 1 is just rediculous I think. They are making Titan class ships to deal with those annoying overdefended gravity wells remember? No need to nerve the amount of available tactical slots when you are going to need them more than ever in the next expansion.