If they do have that same type of "level 6 equals BOOM!!" system that the other capitals have, then I can't wait to see what the Athena and Zeus (until I here otherwise for the other TEC titan) can pump out late-game.  I get the feeling the Zeus is going to be a mobile Novalith.  As for what the other four titans will do..  I have know idea, but I can't wait 

This is sort of what I thought would happen, but it won't exactly be the 3-3-3-1 system Ja. In several interviews (mostly around Entrenchment) Craig Fraser said one thing he regretted about the original Sins leveling system was that you could "max out" all of a capital ship's abilities. Thus the choice of which abilities to acquire wasn't as big of a deal as you will unlock all of them eventually. With starbases they instead made it that there were far more upgrade options than upgrade slots, forcing you to strategically decide what you wanted that starbase to do. Titans will almost certainly be the same way, with whatever leveling system they may use.

One way or another it will be moddable I'm sure. Personally I agree with Ironclad that preventing maxing out improves the strategy of the game, but that's exactly what mods are there for if you don't agree.

Actually Goa, now that I think about it, I vaguely remember hearing something about allowing for four levels for abilities...  That would make a lot of sense and would certainly support what you said.  I wish I knew where I'd heard it lol

I also hope that there is some bonus gleaned by sinking that fourth ability point into an ability.  Perhaps instead of just getting a set amount more powerful... well.. It's hard to explain...  Let's try GRG as an example on a 4 point system according to how I want it...

Level 1: 500 damage -3% mitigation

Level 2: 800 damage -6% mitigation

Level 3: 1100 damage -9% mitigation

Level 4: 1500 damage -12% mitigation -2 Armor

That way you get more of a reward for sinking that last point as it reduces the flexibility of the craft as a whole.  And, since they are not going to be appearing in great numbers, you can't just make another one with a different configuration...

HOLY SH!T!

That would be a lot of textures and meshes...  Probably never going to be like that since we just barely got past having a terrible time with memory issues.

Would be cool as hell to see the outer plates of the ships change when you do armor upgrades and not see hangers until you make those upgrades, but the way Sins works, it'd just be too hard to do and not slam up against the memory limits.  Especially considering it's not just one texture and mesh for each upgrade it's one for each, plus one for every conceivable combination of upgrades.

They said that they could have released it independently as a sequel but decided against it.  Though honestly, they know we'll buy it and that we definitely want more than 2G of RAM to be used by it which would require going from scratch.  If that is actually a good chunk of the goal (to get capital for Sins II), then that would be an interesting development.