Things I do miss from Sins 1 or expected to be grander in Sins 2...

[Frostiken]

1) The "lite 4X" aspect kind of just stopped being a thing. While there is "more" planetary development by way of the slots, the lack of population growth and development levels as well as the empire sprawl feels a little missing, as well as the part where undeveloped, underpopulated colonies would cost you money and wouldn't produce resources until the population grew.. The original sprawl system kind of meant you would focus on a core group of planets, and everything outside that wasn't to be relied upon, as a way of keeping your economy in check. While the economy could STILL get out of control, in Sins 2 it's pretty crazy how rich you can get without even noticing. Fleets not having upkeep costs associated also contribute to this. The planetary sprawl system also meant your fringe planets were much more vulnerable to culture shifts as well.

2) Diplomacy is very much not what it once was. I liked the Envoy cruisers, it slowed things down a bit, it meant you had to reach the enemy physically, as well as the entire mission system. The mission system wasn't great, but it was definitely better than what Sins 2 has which is just "pay money, receive loyalty". To be fair, I'm 87% certain the diplomacy system in Sins 1 was about as simple when it shipped too and was expanded later.

3) UI Feedback. Sins 1 was a lot better about showing you what was going on via the tooltips. If I blasted some ships with a radiation bomb in Sins 1 (Marza special) it would show on the tooltip the damage they were receiving. Now I can't see that. Sometimes enemy ships do weird things to my own craft and I don't remember what the effect was that happened but I can't get any feedback as to why everything is exploding and weird rays are flying around.

4) Culture doesn't really have the same feel it did in Sins 1, Advent aside who basically thrive on it.

5) Shield Mitigation. If you don't remember, Sins 1 had a pretty powerful buff to a unit taking a ton of firepower all at once. It might have been a little silly, but it was basically to kind of make focus-firing a little less impactful. I can see what it's gone, but at the same time, deathballs focus-firing things and one-shotting a capital ship is and will always be a problem.

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I will say with regards to the deathball problem, I thought an interesting solution would be "hyperlane exhaustion". Like "moving too much mass at one time through a hyperlane causes disruptions" which makes everything in the hyperlane slow down the larger the fleet moving through it, or could even damage them en route, etc. encouraging smaller deathballs instead of one bigass stompfest.

I was also kind of hoping the game would take a step towards 'grander' and look to stealing some ideas from Stellaris, something like the survey ship system, anomalies, and receiving "mini-missions" that could reward you for completing them, or the minor factions giving you tasks or something.

Things I do not miss: PIRATE RAIDS.

Oh my god the pirates were so annoying. I hated turning them off because pirates had their own uses but the raid and bounty system was asinine.

[Commisar Jon Fuklaw]

1.) Population is already stated to be under construction.

2.) Diplomacy is still a work in progress.

3.) To each their own. There's very little I don't like about the new UI, and what I don't like has new, equally useful ways of being handled.

4.) Culture in Sins 1 was a horrifically boring slog that ground the game to a halt the instant broadcast centers started going up. Ironclad knew what they did with culture and had the audacity to give the AI a crapton of bonus culture rate to further guarantee the game ground to a halt.

5.) Shield mitigation was extremely OP in Sins 1 and will not be missed. Armor Strength is much more reasonable, even though it has its flaws.

As a specific addendum to your first two points: Remember that you are remembering Sins 1 as it was after nearly a decade of expansions and DLC's. Things like culture and diplomacy in the current build of Sins 1 are significantly more developed (one for the better, the other for the worse) than in the 2007 retail release.

[Pimpin Pippin]

The UI & alerts need a lot of work.

For example i often miss my planet being under siege or an enemy fleet (not scout) moving toward my planets because there is no permanent UI warning indicating that such a catastrophic event is actively taking place.
There is so much audio noise that a single mention of "planet under attack" just gets missed.

I do not see any way to permanently show a detailed fleet unit composition on the left side, like it was doable in Sins 1.
There is some option to show partial stacking but its only when looking at the fleet and its not as informative as in Sins 1.

There is no description of a units role when selecting a units model in 3D space, even with expanded tooltips.
I have no clue what an enemy "advent illuminator" or a "vasari violator" does, what is its purpose and role - and i dont want to play detective with its shown weapon systems in an attempt to figure it out every time i see that unit.
Even a very short simple "Damage dealer" or "support cruiser" or "planet killer" would be a huge QOL improvement to learning the game.

Culture feels rather "toothless" in current Sins 2, especially since you can no longer lose a planet via overwhelming enemy culture.
Personally i really liked that culture in Sins1 was actually a weapon & a tool, instead of just being +10% mining speed.

And defensive towers (not starbases) feel so weak that i never notice them when attacking, nor have i ever seen them achieve anything when defending.
The only useful ones seem to be the repairing-themed towers.

Diplomacy i am in general not a fan of, especially when dealing with AI.
If there is to be any kind of diplomacy then it should be about directly affecting gameplay/combat via new buffs or new units or additional mechanics.

[Frostiken]

Originally posted by Pimpin Pippin:

The UI & alerts need a lot of work.

For example i often miss my planet being under siege or an enemy fleet (not scout) moving toward my planets because there is no permanent UI warning indicating that such a catastrophic event is actively taking place.
There is so much audio noise that a single mention of "planet under attack" just gets missed.

That actually reminds me of a BIG ONE that I miss from Sins 1 - THE ALERT LOG.

If something pops up and you miss it it's freaking gone. Sins 1 had the cool log of alerts that popped you could reference and cycle back to to see exactly what you missed.

And defensive towers (not starbases) feel so weak that i never notice them when attacking, nor have i ever seen them achieve anything when defending.
The only useful ones seem to be the repairing-themed towers.

I've seen the AI shatter itself against even basic defenses but that's because the AI isn't very smart. Realistically you can just drive right through them. They don't put out enough damage, and they're comically expensive.

Originally posted by Commisar Jon Fuklaw:

4.) Culture in Sins 1 was a horrifically boring slog that ground the game to a halt the instant broadcast centers started going up. Ironclad knew what they did with culture and had the audacity to give the AI a crapton of bonus culture rate to further guarantee the game ground to a halt.

Culture was also the only way to make a "Civil Only" research run viable, because culture was basically a weapon. And in Sins 2 that's no longer an option. I literally cannot even imagine attempting a Civil Research Only run in Sins 2. TEC Rebels in Rebellion, if I remember right, with enough Civil investment could just have enormous fleets of AIs show up to fight the enemy.

Even if you're right and culture was 'too slow' that doesn't mean the only option is to just make it a little buff and "the enemy factories might build a little slower". Which if you're playing against AI practically doesn't matter because the AI loves building like 30 frigate factories.

[Frostiken]

Originally posted by Commisar Jon Fuklaw:

5.) Shield mitigation was extremely OP in Sins 1 and will not be missed. Armor Strength is much more reasonable, even though it has its flaws.

One thing I was hoping to see Sins 2 tackle was disincentivizing "deathballs" and Shield Mitigation was part of that.

Personally I'd have liked to see something like 'hyperlane exhaustion'. Make up some mumbo-jumbo where sending too much 'mass' through an FTL hyperlane causes the lane to destabilize, so as more ships begin to jump through the hyperlane, the entire hyperlane slows down considerably, and maybe even have a condition where the hyperlane itself could be temporarily cut off until it restabilizes, potentially trapping your fleet on the other side for a few moments.

The AI would need major investment to not ruin itself with that feature though.

[AlganonAU30]

I'd like to see a planned structure look different to a completed structure.

When placing a structure, the icon is the same whether built or planned. There could be prerequisites and the planned structure could take 10 mins or more to build, but zooming out it looks built. .... until i see enemy fleets fly by and my turret is not shooting because its planned and not built yet.

[Fendelphi]

Originally posted by Frostiken:

Originally posted by Commisar Jon Fuklaw:

5.) Shield mitigation was extremely OP in Sins 1 and will not be missed. Armor Strength is much more reasonable, even though it has its flaws.

One thing I was hoping to see Sins 2 tackle was disincentivizing "deathballs" and Shield Mitigation was part of that.

Personally I'd have liked to see something like 'hyperlane exhaustion'. Make up some mumbo-jumbo where sending too much 'mass' through an FTL hyperlane causes the lane to destabilize, so as more ships begin to jump through the hyperlane, the entire hyperlane slows down considerably, and maybe even have a condition where the hyperlane itself could be temporarily cut off until it restabilizes, potentially trapping your fleet on the other side for a few moments.

The AI would need major investment to not ruin itself with that feature though.

Playing with Orbits makes "Deathballs" more difficult to use, since they risk getting stranded if you(or the enemy) plan the offense poorly.
So play with that, if you want to make deathballs more risky.

[Nongenti]

4) Population is beign teased for this quarter and
2) diplomacy was mentioned to hopefully get improved later this year.

1) yea more stuff in that regard would be cool
5) shield burst didnt really prevent focus fire, just made subsequent AoE notable weaker. look into the new shield burst that one is also pretty cool

3) if you have specific ideas consider submitting them with a mock-up to the devs via offical discord so they can get attention and consideration.

[Carmarkcaine]

There need to be room, for improvement (cough DLC). ;)

[Shadowhal]

Well, a common counter to death balls/stacks/carpets in strategy games have been area of effect abilities. For instance siege weapons in Civ IV or psi storms in StarCraft. There are some such abilities in Sins 2, eg the Maw, the big red button and others. They tend to be pretty high-end stuff and don't seem a panacea to counter high fleet concentration. Maybe a lesser but more mass-producible version of that could be an interesting counter? Star Trek Armada had Klingon and Romulan suicide ships. Expensive end-game tech level but basically a mobile version of the Argonev's big red button.

It's probably hard to balance but some downside or disincentive to concentrate forces too much could help if that is a big problem. The other big strategic consideration is if you can even afford to leave all other fronts exposed by concentrating so much of your total military in just one fleet and one location.

Otherwise, I'm glad to hear the dev team is looking at surviveability. Seeing mighty capships and upgraded starbases quickly crumble to intense focus fire seems anti-climactic and wrong. I was at times hoping the shield mitigation from Sins 1 would be made much more extreme to really discourage the practice properly, like to 80%+, though I probably don't know nearly enough about balance to see all the implications it would have.

And yes to Diplomacy re-work. I look forward to that and what the team has in mind for it. I actually thought the final Sins 1 version was pretty good, even if it could maybe be streamlined in presentation without losing much of the depth and functionality. Some interactions with the new mechanics like minor factions and reworked culture seem also obvious routes.