Community Ideas?

Actually, I've been thinking of something similar recently, I'm glad someone who (by the looks of it) actually knows how to do it!   

Regarding the TEC's special supercap, I'm not quite sure, but i think that a supercoloniser would require some serious benefits over the Akkan to be a viable option for players. This could be implemented by giving some additional boosts to population growth/extraction/income etc, or by combining it with the remote construction ability you were planning for the carrier. 

I have some ideas for Advent support ship abilites too, some might be a little OP, but hey, these are SUPERcaps, not puny little vanilla caps...  

#Antimatter Drain

A passive ability that drains 2/3/5 AM/sec. from ALL enemy ships in the gravwell and boosts friendly recharge rate with 1/1.5/2.5 AM/sec.   

#Fleet Synergy

Another passive ability that adds stackable bonuses to all friendly ships for EACH ship present within range; continuing on the Advent's "the whole of the unity is greater than the sum of it's parts"    

#Unity's Presence

 Yet another passive ability (I really like those!  )

that gives friendlys in the gravwell a passive buff to shield restore/migration/rate of fire/damage as well as giving the enemies a decrease in said factors. 

//Qwerty

You can't hope to balance sins, though the DS team are trying their best to balance their mod. The current consensus is, afaik, "(s)he who has the most SC, wins", and Phase Missiles provide a rediculous damage boost against Advent, though they aren't necessarily OP.

Are you thinking of the Battleships as sturdy behemoths (in which case they all need auto-Animosity) or as powerful gunboats (they clash with LRFs and Bombers for the role of massive dps dealers, though that might be a good thing)

I like the idea of the Advent fleet support/synergy monger, but the Vasari should rather get something to hinder their enemies. More Gravity Warheads, AoE Phase Out and Weapon Jammers. Something cunning, tricky and nasty. No race truly is a siege master, though the Vulkoras is the most one-track-minded planetary wrecking ball anyway.

If you drop it from the Carriers, the on-field manufacturing would fit the TEC, and you can add a buffed Colonise too.

On the Carriers, increasing the Squadron count is the most effective straight buff (or Rapid Manufacturing), as this also increases the SC replacement rate. You could also add random, non-SC-based abilities to them. Either ones that work from afar, as Carriers generally sit outside the battle peacefully building SC, or you could deliberately turn against this and give 1 of them a melee ability of sorts (Distortion Field, Ram)

You could also make Qwerty's ability ideas actively cast and channeled, so they would be counterable and not just a permanent buff.

Generally I would suggest you make all Super Caps equally hard/easy to reach (read: most likely make the Advent ones less expensive as they have the worst economy)

The System Buffer would be nice, but simply buffing Refineries and Resource Focus should be better, as in the end all three would be spammed just like Tradeports are now.

Do you want to integrate your ships into the balance of sins, or do you want them to dominate gameplay? Integrating them would most likely mean make them fairly weak (i.e. not epic) or very expensive (i.e. never used), while making them outgun most stock units will obviously lead to a techrace to get them first/get their counters quickly, which many people will find boring.

After intense discussion, I beleive I may have an idea. Again, feedback is preferential. We resigned to just one SuperCap a piece, to facilitate a rapid integration into the community. As such, we decided that the Vasari will get the Super Combat capital, but their cap will use up a significant amount of Fleet Supply. The Advent will continue their love of Anima with a Super Carrier, but it may be the hardest to get, because of the extreme Research it will take. The TEC's Super Support Cap will take time and rediculous ammount of money to build. Each Capital and way to build it reflects how I feel each race operates... As for the abilities, Qwerty, I think those ideas are brilliant, and are the first I've thought about on how to make the Caps really stand out. Thank you, keep 'em coming.

As for the importance of these Super Caps? These are game enders. Too many games end using the same strategy. These ships are providing just one more option for solar domination. Each ship will not be over powered, but will be a deciding factor as to the victor. Hopefully.

Why give the Vasari the Combat Cap? The TEC rely on sheer numbers and firepower to win, the Vasari use crafty, unorthodox means like Subverters+Mines or Kostura an enemy HW. They should get the support ship, loaded with nasty phase tech and evil nanites. The TEC can get a useful Kol/on-site shipyard which bolsters their forces and just plows through enemies (maybe with added economy buffs).

The TEC ship could deploy Mini-SBs with whatever abilities you see fit (construction, eco buffs, repair, just leave the Red Button Argonev-exclusive)

It could also use powerful explosive missiles (beefed up AoE Incendiaries), "auto-salvaging" (not the research, an ability that gives you resources whenever the ship fires/something dies), and possibly an anti-planet ability (or add anti-planet functionality to whatever offensive ability you give it)

The Advent Carrier should definitely get stronger SC (you could also give it more, which would look better but creates lag), 1 fleet synergy type ability, and probably an anti-SC or anti-PM ability (or both, PMs are Advent's greatest weakness, and SC superiority decides battles)

The Vasari ship could get: another Nanite Weapon Jammer, AoE Reactive Armor, Phase Jump+Module+SB-disabling Phasic Shockwave, anti-formation nanites (similar to Volatile Nanites in that it kills/cripples clumped enemy ships) or a Gravity Vortex (would be a lot of work, and needs some way of letting ships escape, but would be a very cool ultimate to use alongside Subverters+Mines+Charged Missiles+Volatile Nanites )

Thank you!   

I also agree that a support ship would fit the Vasari better than TEC, and you can beef it up with many abilites, I've thought about a channeled gravity generator/PJI ability that would decrease phase jump speed for all enemies heading for the planet, trap the enemy in the gravwell by increasing phase jump chargeup as well as applying a buff every (10?) seconds that disables phase drives?

This would cause enemy ships to get stuck in a series of chargeups, and make an exellent ambush tool!  

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Regarding the Advent, the AM drain could be made an active ability with limited range and/or targets; and anti-PM buffs could be applied with the Fleet synergy / Unity's presence. (like the TEC's KOL shields.)

Also, you could make an active ability that works like the Iconus Repulse, but only affects SC as well as lowering the damage taken by PMs, reflecting the fact that these would be pushed away from the ship along with the SC.

Cause you wanted the supercaps to be OP, right? 

//Qwerty

If you include it, I suggest you add the PJI effect to the Vortex. Disable jump drives of affected ships (more than 10k AoE range might be too strong, but 8-10k will usually cover most of the enemy fleet)

They are already drawn to the center of the vortex anyway, so it's only logical if they can't jump away. Would also require more skill for ambushes, and you could make the vortex emit shockwaves whenever a ship is destroyed, allowing the others to escape (have you seen "Treasure Planet"?) Of course a single frigate loss shouldn't blast everyone out, but maybe 10-20 deaths within a short timespan would really allow everyone to escape. Unless they arch turn back into the vortex.

GOD NO!!! Anything but limited targets! You'd end up hitting a few Disciples or a Rapture while the Progen+Radiance keeps going. The ability does need some limit unless it's the ultimate, but I'd rather have a 3k AoE than a target limit.

Generally passives on ships like this should either be weapon effects, a more complex mechanism (do x whenever a ship dies/after taking damage...), or an "ultimate buff", though there are much better ultimates available. Random self-buffing abilities are a waste of slots if you want to make epic ships, and the really nasty stuff (drain AM, repulsion, vortex...) should be channeled or at least have a time limit, meaning there is some way of countering them. Simply draining AM from all ships in the gravwell is powerful, but it becomes more of an "environmental condition" than an ultimate ability if you can neither evade nor stop it. Like fighting in a Plasma Storm when you have an LRF fleet and the enemy has Carriers.

Glad to hear that I'm not alone...  

But if it is too OP compared to the rest, there might not be a choice if gameplay and "balance", should be preserved...   

Belive me, I would love to see these things in game without any Target limit/range limits, I like rendering entire fleets useless!    

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Regarding the channeling/passive abilites, I think you have a very valid point, making the AM drain channeling could be a wise move, enabling counters/interruptions. After all, we don't want an unbeatable superweapon, more like a superweapon that in the right fleets and strategy can become (almost) unbeatable.  

As for the anti SC & PM Repulse, it should definatively be channeling, while the fleet synergy/unity's presence would be best as passives. Alternatively, depending on buff size, the fleet synergy could be made active, but i'm not sure about that one...  

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The gravity vortex also seems like an awesome ability if made correctly, but I don't know about combining it with the mobile PJI, I don't think it would be good to put too many things in a single ability, but again, I'm not sure...  

By making it a Radiation Bomb type ability you get enough parameters to change around without a target limit: casting range, initial casting cost, cooldown, channeled or not, AoE around target, drain rate, duration. The latter 3 should suffice to make a powerful but not OP ability.

Phase Missile Swarm wouldn't be OP even if it hit unlimited targets. 300 damage is nothing after mitigation. Same goes for Cleansing Brilliance without unlimited Malice, and that's an ultimate.

Your "Unity's Presence" is a massive aura, coupled with a debuff aura. Could be used as a non-ultimate with more subtle buffs (movespeed, small repair), but I find the other possibilities and fleet synergy more interesting.

It already sucks stuff in, so only the ships that started charging before getting hit would even have a chance to flee. I'm only talking about a localised, albeit fairly large, vortex, it shouldn't be able to cover an entire asteroid gravwell. It would have no effect on ships outside the AoE, while those within get sucked in, possibly damaged/debuffed and can't jump. The shockwave mechanic would ensure you can't trap a 2000 supply fleet for the full duration while peppering it with mines and splash damage.

The "mobile PJI" effect would be like a large, semi-permanent Gravity Warhead, not an Embargo-style shutdown. That would just be an I Win button.

Wow, so many ideas and so few ability slots.  Your ideas are great, and are definitely up for consideration. I do want to make more than one Super Cap for each race, but for now, I'll stick with one, and try to fit in the best abilities to match the ship style. The only thing I'm missing are Ship Models, but whatever. What about my other questions? Is a second economy based starbase a feasible idea?

Not really. Whatever you do, the most effective eco booster will simply be spammed, followed by anything else that's worth its cost. At the moment this is the Trade Port, and Refineries are placed if there's more than 10 asteroids to be affected.

Besides that the existing SBs already have economy buffs. The Argonev not so much, as while Docking Booms and the factory improve your economy, they do so by reducing losses taken in actual battles and not as a straight buff. It also gets another Trade Port level though.

The Transcensia has what can very easily become the greatest economy buff available: Induced Reverence. While I don't know about its effectiveness in regular sins, in mods with many +popcap techs and planets with 5-6 asteroids the boost is huge. The Culture Nodes would be hideously strong too if culture didn't suck, and could be used to outproduce any enemy planet of equal logistics space.

The Orkulus Colony Pods are very weak, though you could always increase the income rate or decrease their cost. The Phase Stailiser can get nasty, but it's more of a military tech.

Just change the existing SB upgrades, decrease their cost, maybe add more levels. Refineries could be buffed too, as Tradeports will generally outperform them. Resource Focus is a complete waste atm, it should imo surpass normal Tradeports if 3 or more asteroids are affected. Or make it a passive that applies to all Advent Trade Ports.

That's the thing about the SB, it cannot be spammed. You only get one per solar system, and if you choose the resource SB then you don't get the defense that's might be needed by the Argonev...  And with a second option, that would allow us to focus the Abilities in the Argonev, and other combat SBs...

So you spam one on every planet then fill up with Tradeports. You only need 1 combat SB at the frontline, which actually merits the eco upgrades as you can use them on an older frontline SB that's now deep in your territory instead of scuttling it for resources.

The only time you'd want (though you can't afford it) a combat SB on every planet is when your enemy has a Novalith, so their blockcolonise upgrade saves your planets.

The most effective eco boost will be spammed up to whatever limit there is, then the next runner-up that's still placeable gets used instead. You can spam SBs up to 1 (or more for mods) per planet, you can spam Tradeports up to your logistics space. It's a larger number, but still a finite limit based on your planet count.