Easy.  make bombing an ability, like the klingon cloaking device one in SOA2. 

How to make culture more useful? That should be easy. Make friendly planets under occupation of your culture have an increase in not just Allegiance, Credit, and Resource incom, but perhaps a slight increase to trade, damage deatl, population growth, etc, and a slight reduction in build time, (Workers would be happier working for your faction, so they'd work harder, right?) cost, perhaps. and damage recieved.

That in of itself would make the Deliverance Engine practical, and might just balance the Advent out a bit.

And at hostile planets under the influence of your culture, take what I said and reverse it.

Thoughts?

Most of that should be able to be modded in, I think, but I'm not sure.

I agree it shouldn't be brought in all at once. Bring it in one step at a time, playtest in thoroughly, so we don't break the game.

Well I don't see why not a buff to culture is a buff to the near useless Deliverance engine.

But as regarding to game balance I can see why you would be against such a drastic  buff as changing mechanics on something that hasn't been touched since release/vanilla isn't always the best balancing choice.

I'll probably type more on the subject tomorrow because currently im exhausted!

And look how long it kept.  The USSR was on the brink of collapse in the earliest days of WW2.  And look at how the Reich failed at ensuring that collapse to happen.  Even after renewed growth and explosive advancement, it lasted for about 40 years.  Look at Russia now.  Every republic that makes up the Russian Federation sees bloodshed and insurgency.  There are daily terrorists attacks, and the country almost completely collapsed in the 1990's.

But a single example of how fast conquest can be on a country scale doesn't negate the almost impossibility of planetwide conflict yielding victory for one side.  No more than me listing the several contradictions such as the Hundred Years War, the on-again-off-again Crusades, the on-again-off-again wars for the Americas and Orient.  The continent of Europe engulfed in constant bitter struggle since the collapse of the Roman Empire- which still is a hair away from major conflict (look at the Balkan Powder Keg and the worsening situations between Turkey and Greece).

Look at the very planet itself.  It's been thousands of years, and there are over 300 countries of which at any one time half of them are involved in some kind of conflict.

Yet the UN can barely root out 10,000 insurgents in Afghanistan, even with a vast superiority in both technology, numbers, cultural significance, and economic relevance.  Poppy farmers are scaring away a superpower that landed on the moon.

Those farmers on that planet you're trying to conquer will also now have access to whatever technology you bring to fight against them, and that's not even counting the TEC or Vasari stepping in just to spite you.

And the technological gap between the three factions is not wide enough to render a shock trooper deployment successful just on those standards.  Heck, it might in fact be worse for the invading army to win quickly, as now it has to fight insurgency and not an identifiable foe on identifiable fronts.

That's not considering a cold hard truth that the Sins universe is locked in the current type of fighting out of necessity- that fighting being almost purely naval.  Again, raw materials and numbers are so spread out towards the already established doctrines that diverting even a single percent away from that would drastically weaken whatever faction tried, and that single percent would not make enough of a difference in invading a portion of a planet, much less the whole system.

The weapons don't make much of a difference for the Advent enough to break a galaxy-wide stalemate, what makes you think conventional means will make it easier for them to conquer a planet?  Even the TEC has an easy enough time fighting them off through tactics and numbers.  On a planet they don't have a vast universe of space to hide across, especially if they're occupying forces.  They just painted themselves the biggest target in the universe, and should the TEC or Vasari break their fleet in orbit, you can kiss that invasion force goodbye.

And the very relevance of cultural insurrection and unhappy workers rebelling is one of the exact obstacles that would need to be hurdled for ground invasion.  Especially if the planet your troops are invading are happy with their current faction.  Eventually they will turn on you and reverse engineer your carefully plotted invasion, and now your faction is vulnerable to the opposing forces.

Remember that in the Sins universe, planetary conquest is purely about gaining resources and taking resources away from your adversaries.  Even for the Advent, focusing on a war for hearts and minds is considered old-school warfare, as the rest of the galaxy is locked into bitter struggle of less humane proportions.

Please don't get me wrong im not saying you don't bring up good points and I do agree that nuking a planet is far more practical then a land insurgency. But im just saying consider the idea and what it could do for the game. YES taking over a planet would take years this is of no dought. All im asking for is a more peaceful addition to the game. Now lore wise I can see where you're coming from. But also look at what you gain from taking over a planet with minimal civilian casualties.

-The hearts of those that were not nuked, I don't know about you but that goes a long way. It could easily break the stalemate situation of the galaxy by having revolts(Much akin to the Communist revolutions that took the world by storm).

-All the research that wasn't destroyed, would lead to breakthroughs for whatever faction held the planet.

Yes nuking is more practical and easier, but actually taking over a planet has far more long term gains. Also I think you're taking this a tad bit to seriously, I think the math awhile ago predicted the actualy Novalith cannon would shatter a planet and not do what it did in game. Not everything in game should be taken seriously.

remember scouts are always useful, if only to kill the inhibitors

well im always TEC so yea... ive only needed to use em once and that was to save my fleet from total anihilation, they spammed the inhibitors

ogrovs are heavier in costs tho also takes up more supply, so if sent on a suicide run id have wa weaker force to enter the area.

Well as for the illuminator I think thats what make them unique. But I think it should be tier 2 but maybe require an upgrade before it, to get the illuminator.

More things would be switch the positions of the Crystal Upgrades with the Ore Upgrades.

But as for the mothership idea's I still think having an allegiance negation auto-attack would be viable. Or some way to speed up culture rates and add some new return to them.

If there is interest, I would be willing to make a mod that incorporates as many of these features as possible, just to test if it really would make culture more viable. So far I think it would include...

• Giving 1% shield mitigation, 0.375 antimatter regen/sec and 3.75% damage increase bonuses to ships in friendly culture without research (equivalent to the bonus of the first level of each race's culture bonus)
• Increase the max culture decay and increase rates.
• Increase the max culture bonus (is 30% a good number?)
• Do something to the deliverance engine (changing the max allegiance should be possible, but if not I'll find something else).

These are everything I saw that is moddable, but if someone ones to make a list of all the culture suggestions it would be helpful.

The support cruisers do (guardians, robotics cruisers etc.), so it would just be unique for a LRF.

Further, I advise that the Devs add custom map sharing to Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

I'm just surprised that no one's gotten too mad that I've pointed out the sad fact that 16 advent capitals can steamroll TEC.