Wouldn't work for all the same reasons people listed above. Your flagship at the beginning of the game is your most important ship. If you start with a "far superior" ship at the start, you can destroy the enemy flagship without breaking a sweat. So, no balance, whoever plays most wins.

I wouldn't expect any 'awards' in MP myself. Maybe something on a small scale, like slightly faster build times/research times or very slightly decreases costs. Universe at War is doing this, it has unlockable medals that provide little generic bonuses, and you can select which medals to take into a mission. One I think is something like -5% off research costs or the like. Something like that is the only type I can see in Sins, and even that is highly unlikely.

In a single player campaign, though, it would be fun if at least your capital ships were persistant, but we'll have to wait and see on that since all the betas are just skirmish maps, not campaigns

They do have -- to paraphrase a dev -- a scenario feature of some sort planned. Whether that means a campaign in the sense of a progression of differing maps, or some other approach, is unclear.

I'm not sure that anything like what the original posted mentioned is planned. Capital ships go up levels (obviously), but I don't think any medal system is in the works. Sounds like something that would be better suited to ICO where it keeps tracks of your wins and losses with ranked promotions and what not.

Sins won't have a campaign in the traditional sense.

Hmmmm...if its not in the traditional sense then I'm curious as to what sense in will have a campaign. Perhaps a non-linear campaign/risk type map a la Rise of Nations or a bunch of scenarios of big battles in the Vasari/TEC/Advent war somewhat more like Battlefield 1942? Either will work for me (or something completely different/new/cool). However, I suppose this is one of those things you're keeping under wraps until much closer to the release date...

It looks like it will be more like some custom scenarios.

But it would be nice to add a function for modders to create a campaign. *wink*

It looks like the tutorials (and possible scenarios that use similar functions) are hard coded into the .exe. Would it be possible to make them available for modders? So we could make much better single player scenarios.

Its not balancing, its the technical issues that are the issue. Plus, no one really cares about that kind of purely cosmetic system, not really.

Customizing the ship past name does present balance issues. Not necessarily insurmountable ones, but ones that the devs really don't need to deal with as of yet. (Maybe for an expansion they'll have the time, at the moment they need every precious second of time to try and get this game finished right)!)

As to why it presents balance issues, its because with a game as complex as this one the instant you touch anything, you effect a dozen other objects in a ripple effect. You have to make small, careful adjustments or it all comes tumbling down.

Edit:

As to why other games, like Battle for Middle Earth II, might have done it... well, lets just say that the lack of time spent polishing gameplay mechanics like balance (and genuine, long term "fun"!) was clearly spent on graphics and "cool ideas".

But was it fun for anything past that?

Do you still play it?

That is what Stardock, and Ironclad Games, and Blizzard Entertainment (and who knows who else!), aim for (unlike Infogrames, AKA Atari since they bought them out, unlike EA who just sells mountains of sheer exrement, unlike a dozen other companies). To have people play these games for years. They still sell Warcraft III and the original Starcraft in stores (and I believe I was the War2 BNET edition in there recently), and will probably due so right up to -- if not past! -- the day they release Warcraft IV / Starcraft II. Those are quality games, and like Galciv I and II people still go back and play them, enjoying the heck out of them. That creates its own word of mouth, and sheer advertising force.

Sorry, some people take a little convincing to give up even the slightest part of their desires (*cough* meP5Yandwhoknowswhoelse *cough*). And the point needed to be made if one of those people dropped by.

Not necessarily. That said, a few of the capitol ships (AKA, the Marza) are clearly going to get overhauled sometime, as their abilities don't match up to their descriptions. The marza is a heavy hitting behemoth, not a long range specialist.

Im not so certain the Dreadnought will become a heavy hitter... its description might be changed instead Ron    though surely they will be balancing/fixing its abilities a bit more, as some of them just don't seem to cut mustard.

Thats true for several ships ATM.

Kol's Flak cannon is worthless at the moment, while the Dunov's magnetic trick is, arguably, more trouble than its worth to any carrier heavy player, the Akkan's Armistice is annoying, but the Marza does have it worst. Radiation bomb is really sub-part, and the raze planet ability needs more oomph to be really useful.