Suggestions for Rebellion
Sins Forums
Every Sins player + dog might have ideas on how to improve Sins, and I am no different. 
Here are my 0.05 cents:
Make siege ships useful:
I never invest in siege ships, they are paper planes, I don't the=ink they are useful enough.
I want to suggest two skills, perhaps one could be for loyalist siege ships and the other for rebels.
Occupation Forces
Instead of bombing to wipe out population entirely, Occupation Forces descend and take effective control of the planet surface. This has the advantage of keeping the population alive, thus making the planet profitable sooner. A penalty for culture spread in the planet should stay in place for a limited time though, to reflect resistance against the occupation forces, but the population would eventually be subdued by the new government.
Boarding Parties
Siege ships would also have marines ready to board and take over enemy ships permanently. It would be a chanelled, short range skill, so that the siege ship would have to get very close to the enemy ship. While boarding, the ship wouldn't be able to engage in combat. Capital ships shouldn't be boardable.
Siege tech tree
I think siege ships should have a tech tree for their armor to improve, which would branch for these skills to be unlocked. The primary path would concern mainly their armor/hull increase.
According to the Rebellion theme, I think that it would fit to have Occupation Forces belong in the Loyalists tree, since it is likely that they would have more resources available, and Boarding Parties would be the Rebels' way to get their hands on more ships and technology. Or both skills could be made available to both parties, if it is deeemed appropriate.
Piratitude!
I still think pirates too much like armies-for-hire, and not enough like pirates.
I would like to see them have their mechanics changed from 'fight till you die' to more hit-and-run tactics. Pirates should scavenge resources from destroyed ships and structures, in a skill much like the Orkulus debris 'Omnomnom' skill (but gathers resources).
Pirates should flee to another gravwell when a strong fleet jumps in, and would jumps around the target's gravwells until a set of resources is gathered. The 'Pirate AI' should pick the targets according to its 'mission'.
The player should be able to set missions to the pirates, unlockable on tiered skills:
Tier 1:
1) kill ships
2) kill tactical structures
3) kill civilian structures
Tier 2:
4) disrupt economy (targets trade ships, refineries and trade ports)
5) disrupt technology (targets science labs, constructors and shipyards)
Tier 3:
6) terrify populace - attacks anything in the gravity well and the planet, damages culture and culture propagation
7) head bounty - sets a specific ship or structure as a target to be destroyed.
Tier 4
8) negotiate - when pirates arrive on a target faction gravwell, the player/faction will be able to bribe them to avoid the confrontation. There will still be some economical "damage", but not structural. selecting a pirate ship would display a button to bribethe pirate fleet away.
9) disrupt diplomatic relations - attempts to disrupt relations between faction A and B by:
a) attacking all diplomatic ships of both factions
b) when inside a gravity well belonging to A, pirate ships look as if they belonged to faction B and attack using the 'terrify populace' methods, but giving the negative war penalties to diplomatic relations. When in gravwell belonging to B, pirates decoy as belonging to faction A.
And pirates should have Boarding Parties too, arr!
Again, I know there may be some problems when trying to combine fleets when they have levels, but I'm sure a clever fellow could figure that out.
