That was the whole point I was trying to get across some pages back.... but figured they might as well through the whole navy in there and do the same thing, each ship has bonuses and penalties. You can select No Class if you wish when designing a ship. This would introduce actual tactics into the game, which I think Stardock DOES NOT want to do, from various interviews/articles I've read. Quite Utterly Unfortunate!

Classes (from smallest to largest)
Interceptor Craft
Multirole Craft
Fighter Craft
Light Bomber Craft
Strike Craft
Medium Bomber Craft
Defense Craft
Cloaked Ship
Heavy Bomber Craft
Corvettes
Frigates
Destroyer Escorts
Light Cruiser
Cruiser
Destroyer
Heavy Cruiser
Battlecruiser
Dreadnought Cruiser
Battleship
Dreadnought

Interceptor Craft are specially designed to intercept and destroy enemy bombers, and rely on their great speed.
Multirole Craft can equally perform both fighter combat and bomber attacks, although less effective than their fighter or bomber counterparts.
Fighter Craft are designed primarly for space combat with other fighters.
Strike Craft are capable Fighters but with emphasis on heavier weaponry against larger ships.
Bomber Craft are small craft with main role of employing heavy weaponry against larger ships.
Defense Craft are small craft designed for star system defense duties.

Cloaked Ships would be as Submarines are, and only available on small/tiny hulls. Only ships of class Frigate, Destroyer Escort, and Destroyer have Anti-Cloak Warfare abilities (and in that order, they have more advanced ACW abilities).

Corvettes and Frigates are used for various patrol duties, escort, and to protect smaller ships, Corvettes are also fast attack craft, and Frigates engage in Anti-Cloak Warfare (ACW).

Destroyer Escorts and Destroyers are long-endurance ships designed to escort any type of vessels of a fleet, convoy, or battle group and defend them. They are the 'Jack of all Trades'.

Cruisers and Light Cruisers are designed to operate independent of the fleet, and are used for long-range force projection.
Heavy Cruisers, Battlecruisers, and Dreadnought Cruisers are fleet ships, designed with large amount of firepower but traded defense for speed. Thus ships of this type could inflict much more punishment than they could absorb.

Battleships and Dreadnoughts are the 'All Big-Gun' boys. Both are crucial symbols of galactic power, and are designed to take out larger-hulled ships with ease. Both are vulnerable to smaller ships.

Well I guess similar to the Coast Guard for Patrol, you could throw a ship in there like that, although you would probably most likely use fighters, corvettes or frigates (and whatever else) for peace-time patrols. Time Ships would be unlikely for Stardock to do since there is not much of a good way to incorporate time-travel into a turn-based game. Base Ships? not sure what those are. Stardock said Carriers will never be in the game (i think), along with planetary bombardment.

I see patyrol ships as small, exceedingly cheap craft that cannot leave orbit. You can put as many of them as you can manufacture into a fleet, but they are for defense only.

In case I haven't said this yet:

I, personally, do not want GC3 to be like Sins.

I love Sins.  I love GC2.  I'll love GC3.  But they're completely different games and I would prefer that they not bleed into each other.

If you can figure out how to implement your idea in such a way that it doesn't require 10-15 different variants of rock/paper/scissors (like say if you could keep it to 3, which incidentally is exactly how many types of weapons GC2 has), I'd be interested.  But GC2 has enough to keep my mind occupied without figuring out optimal fleet composition with as many variables as the ship designer introduces.

Has anyone mentioned Habitation modules for starbases yet?

A Space Motel 6?

"Dammit Honey, our Tiny-hull got robbed again! That's why I keep telling you we need to go to that Millennium Plaza in the next parsec over!"

Exceedingly good idea. I second that! As for SoleSoul: The sins system of combat works perfectly (or so close to it I cannot tell the difference). The GC2 system of combat does not. It would make sense that to create a fully balenced, decisive combat system for GC2, I would have to borrow a little from sins to make the thing work. Of course, it is not just the sins sytem: it is sins, plus the current GC2 system, plus some other factors that I have not seen in a game before. Also, I want to see some emphasis taken away from combat, and spread around to the other aspects of the game, like culture and diplo, as these are woefully simple in comparison.

I beg to differ... we're simply not talking about the same concept here.

1 Troop cannot invade an entire heavily guarded (by Defensive Bonuses & Populations, btw) planet alone. But, let's take the AdvModule (or a NEW type of module created for this only, btw) for a spin, shall we?

- Out of the 1000 Troopers aboard you now can assign *Tactical Missions* to weaken, sabotage, destroy, damage any specific PI as you wish;

- Dispatch 250 To the Capital.

- Take 100 and send them to that annoying Manufacturing capital.

- Pick a squad of 350 and order them to the Hyperion Defense System over there.

- Assign the rest to decimate population until, by luck of the draw or not, THAT lowers to the actual figure of Zero to become a true but definitive Invasion.

- Any of the above fails, by crunching some numbers as usual, You've still been twarted --but-- you left some scars since Squad #2 **did** manage to destroy their MfgCapital, etc.

- Total Defeat? Lucky you, you brought some Engineers (another tricky Module also!) along... as a bonus, all of their Industrial sectors are now looped back (downgraded might be a better word) to simple factories and shown or reset as such in the PIs list - backlogged into primitive status until rebuilt or RE-paired!

The Transport (after Victory) loads some of the survivors back in (while keeping some ON your newly acquired planet as regular Colonists) - next!

That's what real Invasion tactics would alter into the 'current principles'. While i maintain that plenty more features can be added in rather easily once you have the proper code for it.

Exactly!

Well in Sole Soul's defense of his views, Stardock did do something with combat that hardly any other game offers, the ability to have 3 different types of attacks and 3 different types of defenses. I'm sure there are a few other games that do this, but it was a new approach, and would work astonishly well if the AI knew how to actually 'cope' by changing their ships up better. Since they do a not-so-great job with this, it makes the game much easier than it should be, since you end up fighting against minimal defenses (or defenses that are square-rooted).

I can't wait for the dev's to start pouring out glimpses and sneak-previews of what they intend to add to GC3.

It's hard to visualize it since Elemental looks so much different, and it's basic gameplay is even fundamentally on a different level. Although unit creation is quite fascinating being able to create knights based on needing to have a source of horses, trained men, leather for saddles, iron for swords shields and armor... Stardock is really on to something with some great ideas there.

Taking that Elemental engine will be used for GC3, it's likely to assume that those aspects may make it into GC3. To build a certain ship, you may need Tritanium (found in certain locations, planets, asteroids), need to train pilots, commanders, captains, admirals to pilot ships, need Dilithium for engines... they may bring those aspects in.

And I would not complain, have the fun of these types of games is resources, because it creates a crucial point that you need to defend, or attack. Resources can often make weaker empires much more powerful if they are the Sole owner.

Speaking of Sole's, you don't have an Avatar Sole Soul... I came up with one for you....

From....                to..........     

And waaa laaa!!!

Yea, I'm sure your right... It's not a word I use to often.. haha