Once again, great mod guys! I like it!

This moon thing gave me an Idea however.

Would this be possible, under certain conditions, to replace a resource asteroid skin by a "moon" skin?

For example, the larger the planet is, the greater are the chance for it to spawn a "moon", which would work like an asteroid but would yield more resources, or even both resources at once? And maybe also giving the current planetary bonus for having a moon if it's not too broken.

Also, I've got 2 concerns regarding planetary balance. I think Urban planet should the basic home planet for every faction. My point is, to an RP point of you, those planet are a great idea, but it doesn't make sense to colonize a fully functional urban planet. Its like saying that Manhattan was already built when the first explorer found it but it was empty for some reason. Such a planet should only exist within a very powerful space-faring empire IMO. Right now, the players who get one get incredibly more powerful then the others on the economic level, and this is especially worst on randomly generated maps. I think the only way to get one of these planet beside the one you started with should be to conquer the capital of an other empire. Also, right now, the bonus the Advent are getting from this planet once made the empire's capital is really really unbalancing with a star base and allure of the unity. Having a 250% allegiance with a 40% bonus to trade income ans a population of 900/900 is very powerful.

Also, regarding to colonization of gas giant. I think they should be treated like "dead asteroid" in terms of population. Dead asteroid are usually military outpost for a player. I think gas giant should be a mining outpost. Maintaining a colony there should be expensive, so it should not give positive tax income (or no tax at all) but, the amount of raw material you should be able to get from one should compensate for this if your empire is strong enough to economically and technological support such an endeavour.

Finally, I've got a broken texture problem with Urban planet and T.E.C. capital ship factory. I reported that a while ago and tried a lot of things to fix this, but never succeeded so I might be the only one with this problem.

Capital ship factory with mod

Capital ship factory w/o mod

Urban planet

Cheers! and keep up the good work!

With the Capital Ship Factory we are actually using an older texture model for our mod, there may have been some corruption involved. As for the Urban planet goof, actually all the planets have it to some degree. We are working on it.

As for the other suggestions, personally I love the idea of using Urban as a homeworld concept, even recommended it to Nacey a while back. May have to code it out myself then turn it in. The Gas Giants are something to think about, though that is the reason why they have so little population (max out at 90 without upgrades).

The moon idea currently is a no go. It is possible but current issues with the 2 gig limit makes it unworkable from that angle. Hopefully the next patch up by the devs plus the TSOP integration will help make this workable again.

And yes, the huge Urban planets are very very powerful. I think the weakest is the Vasari version, but TEC and Advent are very close to be honest. The TEC get a lot of economical upgrades that the Advent don't to pull real close to one another. Don't have hard numbers but I did attempt to watch that closely to makes sure of the balance. And given the fact that the Advent don't have that powerful of an economy overall (especially with this mod) getting something like that is not bad for them.

The problem with skinning asteroids would probably be that all asteroids in the game show up like that. Even then, it would make more sense than mining asteroids that close to a planet, but it also gets rid of the use of moons in GF. I would say either tend toward GF maps that make use of moons or hope for the moons trait.

I have some files I need to shoot in someone's direction. All just incomplete visual stuff.

Sorry, I like overly complicated game with a lot of realism and obstacles

I think sins is a great game but my only problem with it is how easy the colonization and management part is

I'm a big fan of small fleet but long battles where you actually and to make tactical decision instead of just a giant fight where you don't see anything else then drifting debris and lasers.

But back to the colonization and management part. Your mod made the game so much more cooler with the variety it brought at the aesthetic and balance level. I like how every faction get to really stand out at what they are good at. But (there is always a but) I don't like how it's easy to colonize everything. A colony ship is dirty cheap and the actual ability to colonize doesn't cost anything but antimatter.

To my point on view, colonization should be a strategic decision and an actual empire could exist by controlling only a few planet. Starting a colony should take time, be very expensive and making profit out of it should not be that fast. Since some type of planet are harder to colonize, it be logic to wait before your empire is stronger before colonizing it.

So basically, anything that is not a solid planet should not be likely to have a population, and you should actually loose money from maintaining anything far from an actual colony. Cost for production should also be increase since you would have to import everything. However, it should still be possible to build civilian orbital structure since it make sense to have labs and refineries.

Also, reason for gas giant not being directly colonization are, really high escape velocity would make freight transport very expensive. Its much more cheaper to stay in orbit, where it would be easier to draw solar energy.

I know, I really like complicated stuff ^^ and that just me talking. I know I'm probably just talking about impossible stuff and a totally different game to make but I wanted to share

Two points and a comment of praise.

1) Patch has been pushed back to January? This is the first I have heard of a date spoken outside of e-mails with Blair Fraser some months back. What's the news concerning this?

2) Will DS encorporate the fixes that TSOP has implemented?

Praise) This mod in many ways has brought a significant balance and even more joy to us casual LAN party gamers who routinely have 8 person bouts in their living rooms every now and then. Thank you!!!

P.S. If anyone has some truly interesting maps that are just out there, pass them around or get the DS team to spiff them up. They are part of the reason this mod is truly unique!

Yarlen made it pretty clear. Outside of your emails with Blair, no one has heard from him on these forums in quite a while.

thx ZombiesRus5, I was going to pull up that same comment for boshimi336

@Sicarii - Understandable about the realism factor. Much of Sins is unrealistic, like no planetary orbits around the stars (the devs did initially put that in but it caused too many issues) and population that skyrockets extremely fast. As such we mostly focus on the enjoyment of massive fleets smashing into each other rather than the whole empire build.

hmm is there any reason to use normal ships besides capital ships and support ships in this mod?

I understand the reason to strengthen capital ships is to make them more viable in huge battles but I feel that the current stats seems overkill.

Crew supply should go back to 16 max on the multiplayer patch. You can actually have 32 capital ships even without supply pacts.

Sure, LRFs and HCs are great for increasing the amount of firepower you have. HCs especially are good because they are tough enough to survive in such an environment where our leviathans exist and rule. LFs are about the only losers in the mod but considering that they are already having issue in normal game that's not to surprising. Best to put them in their own fleet and pull some flanking maneuvers on the other fleets support ships. But then again that is what they were designed to do.

News from the big boss.

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/400364

Sure is. If your not then your losing alot of firepower. Even though Caps are stronger, you have to put their new strength with in the context of the mod. Everything is amplifed. Everything. LRF hit over 2x as hard, HC are 2x as tough, SC are twice as evil, etc etc.

I guarantee you if you had played some of the MP games we had going a while back you see Caps die just as fast as they do in the un modded game.The only Cap that stands out to me as almost OP'ed is the Kol. It doesnt die late game, but Im bias and think that totally acceptable.

Not to mention that the cost of the caps was ramped up as well to make it harder to buy them en masse.  I've not broke down the numbers, but I'm pretty sure you get more firepower and flexibility out of the frigates for the cost compared to a Cap.

However, depending on your play style, tactics, and beginning 'planetoid' setup near your home planet AND where you're opponents are, the Capital ships are setup and priced in a way that really does make the game a LOT of fun to play. Thumb sup!

Looking forward to the new update from Ironclad/Stardock. Should be very promising.

The game still consistantly appears in the Impulse top 5 sellers list, so I think they must feel bad for having neglected it for so long despite Sins probably making up a significant % of their profits.  Still, this is great news.  If they're considering a major engine overhaul, It's a very safe bet they're planning a full expansion in the near-future as well.  Sins is still a cool game, just kind of stale and neglected.  This could give the game a rebirth.