Yeah... there should be other ways of conquering planets, or losing them. But it all goes back to the engine limitations...

Easy.  make bombing an ability, like the klingon cloaking device one in SOA2. 

We're making progress JA to a beautiful relationship!

And with that I have to say I pretty much agree with everything you just said.

Edit: And I think since we've slightly found a common ground perhaps we could also discuss on ways of making culture have more impaction towards the game and making it more interesting(perhaps making the Deliverance Engine at least slightly useful.)

I have to say I disagree not entirely, but a majority. The russian revolution took a few years sure but thats a country. What do we really know about the planets we colonize/take over. Are they farming planets, industrial, military. Whats there population I dont think it would take a billion soldiers to take over a planet with around 1,000,000 civilians(and others).

Sins was always about imagination, and I think even if it doesent describe HOW we take over the planet, if we were to say have shock troopers it would up to us generally how that planet was seized. See what im saying, if culture can lead to revolution of a planet I think taking over military complex's and annexing the local government coulden't be much harder.

Just imagine what kind of land-based warfare products could come out of the advents weaponry(sorry for the bias towards the advent im just a space commie). Culture tanks!

How to make culture more useful? That should be easy. Make friendly planets under occupation of your culture have an increase in not just Allegiance, Credit, and Resource incom, but perhaps a slight increase to trade, damage deatl, population growth, etc, and a slight reduction in build time, (Workers would be happier working for your faction, so they'd work harder, right?) cost, perhaps. and damage recieved.

That in of itself would make the Deliverance Engine practical, and might just balance the Advent out a bit.

And at hostile planets under the influence of your culture, take what I said and reverse it.

Thoughts?

Thats a good idea for sure but maybe not all at once. Then again culture should be powerful as it is a whole aspect in itself.

Most of that should be able to be modded in, I think, but I'm not sure.

I agree it shouldn't be brought in all at once. Bring it in one step at a time, playtest in thoroughly, so we don't break the game.

Actually probably not, abilities really can't do much with culture and the only effects culture can have through research are already in game. I suppose you could give a base antimatter, shield mitigation and damage bonus to all the races to give it more kick but you can't add any other effects that aren't already there.

Further, I advise that the Devs add custom map sharing to Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

Well I don't see why not a buff to culture is a buff to the near useless Deliverance engine.

But as regarding to game balance I can see why you would be against such a drastic  buff as changing mechanics on something that hasn't been touched since release/vanilla isn't always the best balancing choice.

I'll probably type more on the subject tomorrow because currently im exhausted!

I was just talking about it strictly from a modding perspective. I'm not saying culture shouldn't do more things, its just that the Devs have to be the ones to do it, us modders can't add any other effects besides those already used. We can change the magnitude, give all races all the effects and even change the max culture rate (I think the easiest substantial change to make culture more serious would be to make the maximum culture lose rate 0.1 per second instead of 0.07, which would make it far easier to take over planets) and things, but trade, build time reductions etc. are beyond the means of modding (at least directly with the culture mechanic).

Further, I advise that the Devs add custom map sharing to Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

And look how long it kept.  The USSR was on the brink of collapse in the earliest days of WW2.  And look at how the Reich failed at ensuring that collapse to happen.  Even after renewed growth and explosive advancement, it lasted for about 40 years.  Look at Russia now.  Every republic that makes up the Russian Federation sees bloodshed and insurgency.  There are daily terrorists attacks, and the country almost completely collapsed in the 1990's.

But a single example of how fast conquest can be on a country scale doesn't negate the almost impossibility of planetwide conflict yielding victory for one side.  No more than me listing the several contradictions such as the Hundred Years War, the on-again-off-again Crusades, the on-again-off-again wars for the Americas and Orient.  The continent of Europe engulfed in constant bitter struggle since the collapse of the Roman Empire- which still is a hair away from major conflict (look at the Balkan Powder Keg and the worsening situations between Turkey and Greece).

Look at the very planet itself.  It's been thousands of years, and there are over 300 countries of which at any one time half of them are involved in some kind of conflict.

Yet the UN can barely root out 10,000 insurgents in Afghanistan, even with a vast superiority in both technology, numbers, cultural significance, and economic relevance.  Poppy farmers are scaring away a superpower that landed on the moon.

Those farmers on that planet you're trying to conquer will also now have access to whatever technology you bring to fight against them, and that's not even counting the TEC or Vasari stepping in just to spite you.

And the technological gap between the three factions is not wide enough to render a shock trooper deployment successful just on those standards.  Heck, it might in fact be worse for the invading army to win quickly, as now it has to fight insurgency and not an identifiable foe on identifiable fronts.

That's not considering a cold hard truth that the Sins universe is locked in the current type of fighting out of necessity- that fighting being almost purely naval.  Again, raw materials and numbers are so spread out towards the already established doctrines that diverting even a single percent away from that would drastically weaken whatever faction tried, and that single percent would not make enough of a difference in invading a portion of a planet, much less the whole system.

The weapons don't make much of a difference for the Advent enough to break a galaxy-wide stalemate, what makes you think conventional means will make it easier for them to conquer a planet?  Even the TEC has an easy enough time fighting them off through tactics and numbers.  On a planet they don't have a vast universe of space to hide across, especially if they're occupying forces.  They just painted themselves the biggest target in the universe, and should the TEC or Vasari break their fleet in orbit, you can kiss that invasion force goodbye.

And the very relevance of cultural insurrection and unhappy workers rebelling is one of the exact obstacles that would need to be hurdled for ground invasion.  Especially if the planet your troops are invading are happy with their current faction.  Eventually they will turn on you and reverse engineer your carefully plotted invasion, and now your faction is vulnerable to the opposing forces.

Remember that in the Sins universe, planetary conquest is purely about gaining resources and taking resources away from your adversaries.  Even for the Advent, focusing on a war for hearts and minds is considered old-school warfare, as the rest of the galaxy is locked into bitter struggle of less humane proportions.

Mayall i like some of ur ideas, i have some changes to make from your original for TEC if u wouldn't mind. Just gonna put here so you can list off what u think.

Naeve Class Battlecruiser - TEC

Hostile Takeover - Sends a capsule of infiltrators to takeover the local government and causes resource collection rates to drop. (-25% -50% -75%)

Emergence - Increases shield regeneration of the ships around the Naeve Battlecruiser at a cost for slower movement. (Regen: 5% 10% 15% Speed: -10% -20% -30%)

Assault Programming - *Passive* Ships get a bonus to fire rate at a cost of lower accuracy. (Fire rate: 10% 20% 30% Accuracy: -5% -15% -25%)

Emergency Tactics - Shield strength is transfered to the weapons for greater strength, depending on the percentage of shields left (0%-100% (also shield regeneration is off for the ability))

as you can see its a complete overhaul of the original yet it still maintains one ability of your, albeit nerfed a little. Also this is not a cap that one would set the abilities to autocast, as it is it would work best if paired with the Akkan BC to somewhat negate the accuracy cost. And the final ability is one that was made for a final strike/ desperation. thus somewhat fitting into the lore of the TEC currently as they are fighting a 2 front war with powerful opponents.

Please don't get me wrong im not saying you don't bring up good points and I do agree that nuking a planet is far more practical then a land insurgency. But im just saying consider the idea and what it could do for the game. YES taking over a planet would take years this is of no dought. All im asking for is a more peaceful addition to the game. Now lore wise I can see where you're coming from. But also look at what you gain from taking over a planet with minimal civilian casualties.

-The hearts of those that were not nuked, I don't know about you but that goes a long way. It could easily break the stalemate situation of the galaxy by having revolts(Much akin to the Communist revolutions that took the world by storm).

-All the research that wasn't destroyed, would lead to breakthroughs for whatever faction held the planet.

Yes nuking is more practical and easier, but actually taking over a planet has far more long term gains. Also I think you're taking this a tad bit to seriously, I think the math awhile ago predicted the actualy Novalith cannon would shatter a planet and not do what it did in game. Not everything in game should be taken seriously.

good brainstorm, I like some of the ideas, and I personally would think that a disabled Phase Jump Iinhibitors would be a great way for the revelations sight ability to be used tactically. This would give the advent a window into the vasari defense.  Vasari players need not worry, they will still be able to warp their fleet to defend from wherever in the map they are and beat the advent fleet.  Just give the advent the ability to get that first surprise attack without fear of being stuck in the enemy grav well.

remember scouts are always useful, if only to kill the inhibitors

...only if you're TEC and if there's no defending fleet/SB/multiple turrets...

well im always TEC so yea... ive only needed to use em once and that was to save my fleet from total anihilation, they spammed the inhibitors

Try using Ogrovs or bombers, they're much more reliable in combat!

ogrovs are heavier in costs tho also takes up more supply, so if sent on a suicide run id have wa weaker force to enter the area.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but can we get back to the original topic, please?

Mayall, you got anything else? Last thing I can think of, Advent-wise, is something I saw in another thread and remove the side beams on the Illuminators and strengthen the front beam.

Well as for the illuminator I think thats what make them unique. But I think it should be tier 2 but maybe require an upgrade before it, to get the illuminator.

More things would be switch the positions of the Crystal Upgrades with the Ore Upgrades.

But as for the mothership idea's I still think having an allegiance negation auto-attack would be viable. Or some way to speed up culture rates and add some new return to them.

Agreed completely. Advent are certainly the underdog race in competitive games, and making Illuminators easier to get would help significantly. I don't know if the devs would go for it, but it would certainly help balance some IMO.

I'm not that sure about adding a prerequisite for it though, I don't think any other ship requires prerequisite research.

That sounds good as well.

One way to make culture more useful would be to raise the max allegiance cap (from 10% above default to something like 30% above default). The Advent already have a few upgrades that can do something similar to this.

Maybe one way to buff the Deliverance Engine would be for it to raise the max allegiance of a planet by some large number (like 50%) for a long period of time, like 15 minutes. Maybe it could also reduce the max allegiance of an enemy planet by 20% or so, which (combined with a longer culture-spread rate and time) would have a decent chance of overthrowing an outlying enemy planet unless the enemy has 2 or more culture stations on the planet already. The problem is that currently, the Deliverance Engine is close to useless, even in noncompetitive games against the AI.

A slight increase "to trade, damage deatl, population growth, etc, and a slight reduction in build time" would be one way to help culture but it's a bit overly broad and general IMO. I think it would make sense if all factions received some part of their cultural advantages by default, without special research: so, TEC ships would gain .8 AM/sec or something before having to carry out the expensive cultural upgrades.

I also don't like the all-or-nothing aspect of culture wars - currently, either one empire controls a gravity well with culture and receives all of its advantages, or doesn't. Most people just deal with culture by building maybe one culture station near the center of their empire and one near or on their front lines, and then forget about it - if we want culture to be more significant, maybe it could be changed to be a gradual advantage for one faction. For instance, if there are two phase lanes from a gravity well and empire A has culture controlling the entirety of one lane and half of the other lane, ships in the gravity well would receive a combat bonus of 75% of the maximum. And if empire B has culture controlling the other half of that lane, their ships in that gravity well would receive a bonus of 25% or something. This would provide a much greater incentive for a player to build multiple culture stations for the purposes of affecting gameplay effectiveness. Combined with cultural-advantages-by-default, building culture stations could become more significant than an afterthought to be dealt with once and forgotten about.

In competitive games players rarely have the time or funds to research cultural upgrades. Often they're lucky to even have access to the logistics slots necessary to research cultural upgrades.

If there is interest, I would be willing to make a mod that incorporates as many of these features as possible, just to test if it really would make culture more viable. So far I think it would include...

• Giving 1% shield mitigation, 0.375 antimatter regen/sec and 3.75% damage increase bonuses to ships in friendly culture without research (equivalent to the bonus of the first level of each race's culture bonus)
• Increase the max culture decay and increase rates.
• Increase the max culture bonus (is 30% a good number?)
• Do something to the deliverance engine (changing the max allegiance should be possible, but if not I'll find something else).

These are everything I saw that is moddable, but if someone ones to make a list of all the culture suggestions it would be helpful.

The support cruisers do (guardians, robotics cruisers etc.), so it would just be unique for a LRF.

Further, I advise that the Devs add custom map sharing to Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

This.

/offtopic

I'm just surprised that no one's gotten too mad that I've pointed out the sad fact that 16 advent capitals can steamroll TEC.

I think you only missed one other... CultureEnemyBuildRateAdjustment