Hi all, I've been having a blast with Sins since launch day, and while trying to force myself to sleep for an early workday, found myself half-dreaming about possible features for a future patch, expansion, sequel, or mod.  I'm not making any claims as to balance, so numbers can vary, but these are just food for thought, do with it as you will.  Here they are, in no particularly organized fashion. (If this should be in some preexisting thread, apologies, I didn't spot one with a casual search.)

1.  Planetary defense centers:  for those who think defense needs a boost, or think planets should have some ability to "fight back," how about an additional upgrade option for planets (I'll leave the cost for others to ponder).  Planets might have a tiered upgrade which would allow them to fire on ships in proximity with race appropriate weapons: Advent beams, Vasari missiles, TEC kinetic weps.  Each tier might give for example the equivalent of 2 turrets.  Make your capital upgradeable say 4 times, regular planets 3 times, and asteroids 2 times.  Perhaps have the firepower decrease proportionatley with damage to the planet.  Consider reducing TEC planet damage if firing through their planetary shield as it affects incoming fire.  Up for grabs if it should take up tactical slots, etc.

2.  New turret types:

  A. Grav amplifier---slows enemy movement in its effect radius (5%, 10%?, stackable effect?)

  B. Armor booster--- raises friendly armor in radius by certain percentage

  C. Tractor beam---Immobilizes a single target while antimatter supply lasts

  D. Antimatter suppressor---slows enemy antimatter regen rates in radius

  E.  Electronic warfare sat---confuses sensor readings of enemy (various possiblilities...could switch icons or actual images in its radius).

  F. Shield sat---gives modest shield hitpoints to everything in radius

3. New ships: 

  A. Planetary defense boats:  Non-jump capable ships, one for each class, use slightly reduced pop cap and resources

4. New mechanics:  consider Pirate "bias bounties."  Instead of automagically going after the highest bounty, perhaps the bounties could be used to "weight" a random selection.  I'm not prepared to go into higher math, but one example might be  if bounties on 3 players were 1000, 1000, and 2000, the pirates might have  a 25%, 25%, 50% chance of hitting those respective players on that launch.

5.  Fleet cap/huge map tax stuff......yeah right, I'm not touching this with  10 parsec pole.

So there we have it, maybe this might inspire something, or at the least let my Sins mania die down enough to let me get some good sleep tonight.

Stay Groovy