In the March update for Sins of a Solar Empire 2, several significant changes have been made to enhance gameplay, particularly focusing on Minor Factions and Influence, research, and balancing adjustments. Minor Factions and the new Influence mechanic now play an integral role by providing access to new capabilities such as the Pirate's “Looting Crew” and the Viturak's “Construct Phase Gate” and introducing new behaviors such the “Aluxian Resurgence” attempting to reestablish their dynastic rights by conquering neighboring planets. Research is now split into military and civilian tracks; and balance changes range from light frigate effectiveness to the range of the Novalith cannon. Additional content includes optimizations, new player portraits, new modding capabilities, bug fixes, and more. Players can expect a more polished and immersive gaming experience in this month’s update. New Minor Faction SystemThe interaction between players and Minor Factions is now controlled by a new resource called Influence. Influence is spent in various ways to gain advantages from each Minor Faction. Your ability to project your Influence is limited so you have to be strategic in its application. Your empire begins the game with 0 Influence, a nominal rate of Influence growth, and a maximum amount of Influence you can project. Various actions in the game can modify these attributes and we will be adding more in the future. For example the TEC's “Media Conglomerate” and the Vasari Alliance's “Xeno Settlement” planet items can both increase maximum Influence through propaganda and social integration respectively. All races can increase their Influence growth rate by gaining dominant culture on planets. Once you've acquired Influence, there are many ways to project it. Here are some examples: At the beginning of the game all Minor Factions are hidden (except for Vasari Alliance players). As an alternative to scouting, players can use Influence to acquire intelligence from various sources in order 'reveal' the location of a Minor Faction. This becomes progressively more expensive. After you've discovered a Minor Faction, you can choose to use Influence to increase your Reputation with that Minor Faction. Each Minor Faction has 4 levels of Reputation but each Reputation level you purchase from any Minor Faction increases the Influence cost of the next. Players must decide if they want to invest heavily in a few, or lightly with multiple, Minor Factions. Each Reputation level unlocks a benefit which is relative its Reputation level. These benefits may take various forms such as a global ability or a consumable item. You can spend your Influence to receive that benefit after which time it goes on cooldown. Here are three examples: Viturak Transport Cabal: At Reputation Level 3 you can spend 4 Influence on "Construct Phase Gate" at a target planet (even as TEC or Advent). Jiskun Expeditionary Force: At Reputation Level 2 you can spend 2 Influence to use "Remote Tachyon Boost" which boosts the speed of all friendly ships in the target gravity well. Pirates: At Reputation Level 2 you can spend 2 Influence to acquire the ship component "Looting Crew" that generates credits on damage dealt.
Influence is also now the only way to bid on Minor Faction auctions - you can’t use credits, metal, crystal, or exotics. The player who spent the most Influence receives the reward. As there are now a number of different sinks for Influence, it's important to manage how its spent in the present and how much is kept in reserve to react to future needs and events. You don't want to be left without Influence to bid on a key auction reward.
Moving on from Influence, Minor Factions are also changing in other ways. Most prominently are their underlying behaviors. For example, in this update we are introducing the "Aluxian Resurgence" minor faction which has deep ties to the core Sins lore and their Reputation rewards reflect this. However, they are also a hostile faction that seeks to reestablish their multi-world dynasty by building up forces, conquering adjacent planets, and establishing defenses to protect them. They differ from full AI players in a number of ways but the most prominent is they won't expand their fiefdom past one jump from their home planet (although they may end up further from their home planet due to planet orbits). In the future we'll introduce additional unique Minor Factions. New Research SystemThe community has rightfully pointed out that there are some problems with the existing research design which we are now starting to address. The key changes are as follows: Research point investment is now split between military and civilian. Investing in research will no longer improve both domains simultaneously. There are now two new planet tracks: military research and civilian research. This is now the primary way to acquire research points. Orbital research stations no longer provide research points but are now the primary way to increase the rate of research progress.
Of course, there will be various exceptions to these rules as we flush out the race and sub-faction content. It's worth pointing out a few more details: It is possible to max out both military and civilian points on a planet. At first glance it would appear there is no tough choice between the two. However, as there are now two new tracks and the costs per track upgrade have changed, the order in which you spend your resources to upgrade that planet is much more important. In this sense they are competing in time and resources between military and civilian research and every other track that planet offers. For example, the time and resource cost to fully max out a Terran planet is now very significant. So, if you decide early on to specialize in military research it will be relatively cheap and fast to acquire. If you then decide to upgrade logistics, mining, commerce or whatever and then decide to come back later and do some civilian research it will be quite prohibitive. The time it takes to unlock specific research subjects is now very significant, especially as you move up tiers. While you have a default nominal rate, it will quickly become very obvious that orbital research stations are needed to accelerate your progress. This rewards a research focused strategy while also maintaining slot competition with other civilian orbit structures.
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