As far as I'm aware you can't disable it from the factory, however auto-fleet doesn't work that way. If they're warping away on their own it sounds like you've set the rally point in another system.
Not had much chance to play this online lately, currently doing a 2v2v2v2v2 on a 5 star map against hard AI. Going well so far got 2-3 nova cannons up firing between stars is fun.
Yeah, I often rally them to another planet, but that's not what I mean. I mean that if there's a fleet that happens to be in orbit on a planet that my freshly produced ships pass through to their destination, they just join up automatically because auto-join is on. This makes the ships join the fleet, hence making them warp with the fleet, which I don't want. I wanted to know if there was a way to disable auto-join by default. It kinda sucks that you can't.
Hey, how do you pause the single player campaign in Homeworld 2? The tutorial doesn't say how and I don't see it in the manual but several FAQs mention you can do it.
Hey, how do you pause the single player campaign in Homeworld 2? The tutorial doesn't say how and I don't see it in the manual but several FAQs mention you can do it.
I'm fairly certain it's the pause/break key. Why are we talking about Homeworld?
* Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista
* 1.8 GHz Single-Core Processor
* 512 MB RAM (1 GB for Windows Vista)
* 128 MB DirectX 9 3D Video Card (Radeon 9600 / GeForce FX 6600 and above)
* DirectX 9.0c Compatible Sound Card
* DVD-ROM Drive
* 3 GB Hard Drive Space
* Keyboard and Mouse
* DirectX 9.0c
Recommended Requirements:
* 2.2 GHz Dual- or Quad-Core Processor
* 1 GB RAM (2 GB for Windows Vista)
* 256 MB DirectX 9 3D Video Card (Radeon X1600 / GeForce 7600 and above)
I can't tell you personally how well it will run on your hardware but anecdotal evidence from around here suggests it runs really well on older hardware.
Man, I still haven't received my collector's edition..it's been like 3 weeks.
On that front, they put this up in the forum a couple of weeks ago:
Waiting for your game to arrive? Info about our shipping process here! We're working as fast as we can, we promise!
By MeliBee Posted February 12, 2008 10:33:24
Hey everyone out there!
Just wanted to pass on some info about our shipping process that may help.
We use a software packing company to ship our games for us. They are working as hard as they can to ship out quite a large number (thousands) of games. The packages are being shipped out of their warehouse near Cincinnati, Ohio. They use USPS Priority Mail which takes 2-3 business days to most US locations. International packages are being sent via International First Class mail, which can take 1-2 weeks to arrive.
We are asking for your patience. We cannot pinpoint when packages are shipping for pending orders, but rest assured that we are sending your information to our partner on a daily basis as orders come in. The date your orders leave the warehouse becomes available to us after shipment is completed.
As you can imagine, we have been flooded with emails asking "where's my game". If you have sent an email to sales@stardock.com, we are working through them as fast as we can. Sometimes we have to give a generic response because our shipping company has your information and is processing the order, but cannot provide a specific date when your game will be shipped. We do know that games have begun to arrive on doorsteps on Friday and Monday.
I wish we had the manpower and resources to ship as quickly as larger entities like Amazon. Believe me, I love it when they ship out my stuff before it actually comes out so I get it on the release date! This is definitely a learning experience for us and we are watching how this pans out very carefully.
I hope most of you have downloaded the game and are already enjoying it. If you haven't received any registration information and believe this is in error, you can always pop your email address into the form at http://www.stardock.com/support/ to get it straightaway.
Again, please be patient with us, we are doing the best we can! Back to email I go...
It turns out that the studio's debut 4X game, Sins of a Solar Empire, has sold more than 100,000 units since its release on February 4, making it the top selling PC game in North America for the week based on sales data compiled by Gamasutra.
Nice to see a game like this have such a great start after being second in sales the previous two weeks.
It turns out that the studio's debut 4X game, Sins of a Solar Empire, has sold more than 100,000 units since its release on February 4, making it the top selling PC game in North America for the week based on sales data compiled by Gamasutra.
Nice to see a game like this have such a great start after being second in sales the previous two weeks.
I was thinking of posting that but then I thought "somebody's going to come in here and compare those sales to Halo 3 or something and say "olol, PC games sells like CRAP, no wonder it are dying." "
And then you'd probably be reading about that poster in the following days newspaper along with a title of game related violence.
But yeah, 100,000 in less than a month is pretty good so far. I'm hoping word of mouth will spread from there. I have to wonder whether that's just store sales though or whether it includes digital downloads as well.
It turns out that the studio's debut 4X game, Sins of a Solar Empire, has sold more than 100,000 units since its release on February 4, making it the top selling PC game in North America for the week based on sales data compiled by Gamasutra.
Nice to see a game like this have such a great start after being second in sales the previous two weeks.
That's good to hear. This is a great game and seeing these guys do well makes me feel good, it'd be a shame if nobody had bought it.
I was thinking of posting that but then I thought "somebody's going to come in here and compare those sales to Halo 3 or something and say "olol, PC games sells like CRAP, no wonder it are dying." "
And then you'd probably be reading about that poster in the following days newspaper along with a title of game related violence.
But yeah, 100,000 in less than a month is pretty good so far. I'm hoping word of mouth will spread from there. I have to wonder whether that's just store sales though or whether it includes digital downloads as well.
I almost made a joke about the PC being supposedly dead but I thought nah save that for the console fanboys.
I plan on buying the game in a week or two so got a question, does the CE version have anything really worthy in it?
I was thinking of posting that but then I thought "somebody's going to come in here and compare those sales to Halo 3 or something and say "olol, PC games sells like CRAP, no wonder it are dying." "
And then you'd probably be reading about that poster in the following days newspaper along with a title of game related violence.
But yeah, 100,000 in less than a month is pretty good so far. I'm hoping word of mouth will spread from there. I have to wonder whether that's just store sales though or whether it includes digital downloads as well.
I almost made a joke about the PC being supposedly dead but I thought nah save that for the console fanboys.
I plan on buying the game in a week or two so got a question, does the CE version have anything really worthy in it?
Depends on what you define as 'worth it'
Certainly there's nothing gameplay enhancing or anything like that, what you get it the special edition is a couple of small posters, the tech-tree wallscroll, the key-reference card and the soundtrack. They're nice to have, but I wouldn't really consider them essential or anything. Whether it's worth the extra $5-$10 or whatever it is you're paying is up to you. (Slightly) More details here:
Incidentally, all the music tracks are stored as .ogg format, so it's not as if you can't listen to / convert the soundtrack anyway without having to buy the soundtrack CD. Only difference is that the Soundtrack CD tracks have the proper song names on them, instead of just "battle 1", "battle 2" etc. That and it's probably higher quality audio (I haven't listened to it on proper speakers or anything, but I would guess that the CD format tracks are of a higher quality).
I was thinking of posting that but then I thought "somebody's going to come in here and compare those sales to Halo 3 or something and say "olol, PC games sells like CRAP, no wonder it are dying." "
And then you'd probably be reading about that poster in the following days newspaper along with a title of game related violence.
But yeah, 100,000 in less than a month is pretty good so far. I'm hoping word of mouth will spread from there. I have to wonder whether that's just store sales though or whether it includes digital downloads as well.
I almost made a joke about the PC being supposedly dead but I thought nah save that for the console fanboys.
I plan on buying the game in a week or two so got a question, does the CE version have anything really worthy in it?
The contents of the CE version has already been listed, it's just a couple of posters, a double sided tech tree thingie, and a soundtrack. But since their website only offers the digital download for like $40 and a boxed copy for like $44 I went ahead and got the box. Lo and behold it's the CE version which surprised me, even if I did get it like 3 weeks later. I'll have to say the soundtrack alone is worth it (but I'm a whore for CE's and soundtracks anyways). YMMV.
I was thinking of posting that but then I thought "somebody's going to come in here and compare those sales to Halo 3 or something and say "olol, PC games sells like CRAP, no wonder it are dying." "
And then you'd probably be reading about that poster in the following days newspaper along with a title of game related violence.
But yeah, 100,000 in less than a month is pretty good so far. I'm hoping word of mouth will spread from there. I have to wonder whether that's just store sales though or whether it includes digital downloads as well.
I almost made a joke about the PC being supposedly dead but I thought nah save that for the console fanboys.
I plan on buying the game in a week or two so got a question, does the CE version have anything really worthy in it?
The contents of the CE version has already been listed, it's just a couple of posters, a double sided tech tree thingie, and a soundtrack. But since their website only offers the digital download for like $40 and a boxed copy for like $44 I went ahead and got the box. Lo and behold it's the CE version which surprised me, even if I did get it like 3 weeks later. I'll have to say the soundtrack alone is worth it (but I'm a whore for CE's and soundtracks anyways). YMMV.
Yeah, if you order it directly from them it's the CE you're getting. From that link I posted above:
If you buy the game directly from us, you are getting the Collector's Edition (pre-order, beta tester, etc.). It is the only version of the game we sell digitally or box.
I basically did the same thing, bought it online from them and payed the little extra to get a physical copy. Well, I say a little extra, for the US it's about $5 more, but to have it shipped to the UK pumped it up to more like $20 more. Still, I can't say I'm dissatisfied with my purchase, I really did want a physical copy to go with my downloadable version (and that's permantely downloadable and tied to your account with them, like with Steam, so you don't need to worry about any limitations in that regard).
I just got the game and played a few multiplayer games with friends and I have to say that they have done a *lot* of things rigth with this one.
There are however quite a few things that weren't done so well. I'm wondering if you agree with me on these ones.
It tries it best to be a combination between a 4x4 and an RTS but misses out on the oportunities on both ends. The tech tree, ship building and planetary developments are not deep enough, cannot be deep enough because it's an RTS. At the same time the 4x4 roots really drag down the options (and to some extent the pace) in the RTS parts of the game.
I particularly miss the harass of either techbuildings or economy that you can usually pull of in good RTS games, I've only seen incredibly cheesy siege frigate rusches (and it's hilarious that your entire fleet and defenses are coded to attack them first). Why not just make ships weaker and not autotarget the siege frigates so you had to sneak them by. SotS, despite the weakness of the planet assults had this part rigth with it's assult frigates and bioweapons.
Some more specific gripes about the game.
* Why does my ships get stuck on eachoter or enemy ships at times? I realise my capital ship has to accelerate to turn (this is insanely stupid by the way since the game is in space) but theoretically the sucker is moving in three dimensonal space. It's hard to micro your stuff as it is, loosing your level 4 cap ship because it decides to get stuck is just sooooooooo infuriating.
* Abilities, while powerfull, are to non specific and to many small units have them. If your going to make something only usuable with autocast since it's on so many small vessels then just include it in the unit either way. Similarly, it's insanely hard to keep track on what your cap vessels are doing and if they are wasting their antimatter on the correct things.
* Units can take far, far to much damage. Ships just takes volley after volley for several minutes.
* The game is to indecisive. I'd argue that it's mostly because of the old problem with defense being far to powerfull but striking that final blow just takes to much time since fleets gain incredible ammounts of protection from warping back to their own system and defenses and with their high HP there's really not that much you can do.
* To powerfull defenses and to much HP on the buildings severly limits the ammount of harass you can do (except the fact that 10 siege frigates can just warp in to a system and take punishment while nuking the planet). Hits and runs with smaller groups doesn't really work because defense is so cheap and/or durable that a small strike force can't do damage and if you warp in a big one you leave your own system undefended.
* Instead of tech buildings that can be destroyed or resource collectors that can be disturbed you have no real way of harassing stuff.
* Things cost to much, you generally need to sit back and just wait for resources. Should really at an opinion for having more cash in quick games.
Yes and I did but fast is still quite slow and it doesn't really help the other issues.
In the early game you can harass really well since building structures have low hit points but after that it often degrades down to stalemates with one side warping in to pick off one or two things in a system and then warping out untill you get the massive advantage you need to win.
Even at the fastest speed it takes ages to win.
Even worse from an RTS standpoint, there's really nothing you can do to recover. At all. Battles are like 70 % unit composition, 20 % cap ship levels, 10 % positioning of your units.
Once your in a bad spot you can't harass yourself out of it, or micro your way out of it, or take risks.
But neither can you really do anything that's risky enough to loose the game quickly either.
Edit: IMHO there's a few things they could take to heart from regular old strategy games and change to make the game much better.
1) Cut resource collectors and tradeports HP by half. Reason: Incourages players to harass these structures in creative ways.
2) Cut tower HP but increase damage outputs. Reason: either go around, cut a path or lure them to fire on some heavy ship but don't just go in there and slug it out with the planet).
3) Have a downtime for phasejumps for say, the time it takes to go from one jump node in a system to another one. Reason: Forces a bit more commitment which increases the importance of scouting but don't make movement between systems take more time than necessary.
4) Unlimited research in different areas at the same time. In every other succesfull RTS you can climb the tech tree as quickly as you have resources and if you get a better position quickly out tech the enemy. Reason: Helps the player with the resource advantage, shortens game length, makes balance between ships and tech more important. (IE: I want to outtech him but he can go all in on ships and try to take me out if I balance it poorly).
5) Completly redo logistics. Current system penalizes the player who is ahead in *tech*. While good in theory (people can hopefully catch up, overextension, quicker expansion if you take risks) in practice you want games to end if the other player has more tech and more units than you have.
Sliding scale with increased cost based on number of ships a la WCIII with techs that reduce the cost accomplishes the same thing but if the player also gets the tech lead your pretty much screwed.
in practice you want games to end if the other player has more tech and more units than you have.
Are you familiar with 4x games at all?
A major point of the genre is that you can do quite a bit damage by out-economy'ing, out-logistics'ing, or out-diplomacy'ing the enemy.
I'm very familiar with 4x4 games but this is not a 4x4 game. This is an RTS game with a very different scale. In 4x4 you win because of your minute attention to details which gives you an advantage in some way (this goes for all turn based games really) and then you press that advantage untill you win.
An RTS game is not deep enough for that so your objective is to kill the other guy. Typically by getting more resources than him which you then translate into either more troops or better tech or both.
A good RTS has some kind of balance here. If the loosing player knows that your trying to outtech him he can focus on trying to overwhelm you with cheaper ships, if he knows your trying to outmass him he can try to get a tech advantage over your ships and counter them. If he plays this better than you he may even things out.
Regradless, if he fails to negate the advantage you have more tech AND more ships which should lead to his relativly quick demise.
in practice you want games to end if the other player has more tech and more units than you have.
Are you familiar with 4x games at all?
A major point of the genre is that you can do quite a bit damage by out-economy'ing, out-logistics'ing, or out-diplomacy'ing the enemy.
I'm very familiar with 4x4 games but this is not a 4x4 game. This is an RTS game with a very different scale. In 4x4 you win because of your minute attention to details which gives you an advantage in some way (this goes for all turn based games really) and then you press that advantage untill you win.
An RTS game is not deep enough for that so your objective is to kill the other guy. Typically by getting more resources than him which you then translate into either more troops or better tech or both.
A good RTS has some kind of balance here. If the loosing player knows that your trying to outtech him he can focus on trying to overwhelm you with cheaper ships, if he knows your trying to outmass him he can try to get a tech advantage over your ships and counter them. If he plays this better than you he may even things out.
Regradless, if he fails to negate the advantage you have more tech AND more ships which should lead to his relativly quick demise.
Nah, that's not what this game is about. I've kept away AI factions with larger armies by having a better mobility system and keeping them distracted with pirates. I've caught up in tech by having a better economy and depleting theirs with trick bids for pirate raids, forcing them to go to the black market to the point where they could no longer afford research or fleet buildup. Diplomacy against the AIs is utterly broken, but there are very 4x ways to win this game. Granted, you eventually need at least one solid fleet, but it's not a RTS where you're rushing to get to that critical mass where your army can just wipe out the map.
* Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista
* 1.8 GHz Single-Core Processor
* 512 MB RAM (1 GB for Windows Vista)
* 128 MB DirectX 9 3D Video Card (Radeon 9600 / GeForce FX 6600 and above)
* DirectX 9.0c Compatible Sound Card
* DVD-ROM Drive
* 3 GB Hard Drive Space
* Keyboard and Mouse
* DirectX 9.0c
Recommended Requirements:
* 2.2 GHz Dual- or Quad-Core Processor
* 1 GB RAM (2 GB for Windows Vista)
* 256 MB DirectX 9 3D Video Card (Radeon X1600 / GeForce 7600 and above)
I can't tell you personally how well it will run on your hardware but anecdotal evidence from around here suggests it runs really well on older hardware.
If only you would post your system specs and ask how well other people managed to play it.
Don't worry, they're working on a demo. Their first priority was just to get the game out the door though, and the extra month of polish is alway important.
So apparently the 100,000 figure is actually for just the first 2 weeks at retail, pretty good. You can read more gushing by the devs on the site, frogboy at least seems to be just a little 'high' on the success the game's had so far.
Sins of a Solar Empire has sold over 100,000 units in its first 2 weeks since launch! And as happy as we are about its great sales, the number of sales could have been even higher if we had had the stocking levels of say, a console game.
By this weekend, Sins of a Solar Empire should complete its retail availability in North America with Canadian stores picking up the title in considerable quantity (imagine the sales figures if its retail availability had started at this level). Sales this past week were actually higher than the week before (again, mainly because of increased availability).
The game has hit a perfect storm of good fortune. First, if we may be so bold, it's a really good game. Secondly, it merges two popular but underserved PC markets: PC strategy. Third, it's literally the only major new PC strategy game to come out recently or to be coming out for awhile. And most importantly, the game was designed so that it runs with great graphics quality on most existing PC systems without any upgrades needed.
We're (Ironclad/Stardock) currently doing QA on the Sins 1.03 update which has a significantly enhanced computer AI (it's giving me a challenge at the highest level), computer replacement of dropped players online, and AI surrendering to reduce "mop up". No ETA on release other than "soon". Once that's done, we'll have a demo version.
Thanks for all your support! We hope you're having as good a time playing the game as we are providing it!
If only you would post your system specs and ask how well other people managed to play it.
Don't worry, they're working on a demo. Their first priority was just to get the game out the door though, and the extra month of polish is alway important.
Hopefully the demo shouldn't take too long.
AMD 64 4000+ 2.42 ghz
2 gigs of ram
Nvidia Geforce 8500 GT
Windows Vista
If only you would post your system specs and ask how well other people managed to play it.
Don't worry, they're working on a demo. Their first priority was just to get the game out the door though, and the extra month of polish is alway important.
Hopefully the demo shouldn't take too long.
AMD 64 4000+ 2.42 ghz
2 gigs of ram
Nvidia Geforce 8500 GT
Windows Vista
Man, I'd be incredibly surprised if the game couldn't run on that. It was pretty much the devs stated aim to get it to run on as many machines as possible, and yours is beyond even the recommended spec. You could comfortably play most modern FPS's on that system, Sins ought to be a breeze.
So I absolutely love this game, despite getting trashed every time I step into a game with even Easy CPU. The Pirates are particularly brutal too!
I get to the point where I have 2 planets and an Asteroid, and my growth slows down tremendously due to lack of Crystal, "Insufficient Fleet Capacity", and my dilemma of trying to cram so many logistic structures onto only 3 planets. Superior forces usually meet me with hostility any time I go beyond my own local space.
So I absolutely love this game, despite getting trashed every time I step into a game with even Easy CPU. The Pirates are particularly brutal too!
I get to the point where I have 2 planets and an Asteroid, and my growth slows down tremendously due to lack of Crystal, "Insufficient Fleet Capacity", and my dilemma of trying to cram so many logistic structures onto only 3 planets. Superior forces usually meet me with hostility any time I go beyond my own local space.
Where am I going wrong here?
When you start the game off, get a cap ship going with a few frigs and roam around exploring with them, picking up XP for the cap ship by killing of neutral ships.
Take over a few planets to start off at the same time, and just build up your research and mineral/money reserves until you're at the point where you can start expanding without getting shafted, and with that same little fleet you had just use it to defend what you are already holding.
Posts
Yeah, I often rally them to another planet, but that's not what I mean. I mean that if there's a fleet that happens to be in orbit on a planet that my freshly produced ships pass through to their destination, they just join up automatically because auto-join is on. This makes the ships join the fleet, hence making them warp with the fleet, which I don't want. I wanted to know if there was a way to disable auto-join by default. It kinda sucks that you can't.
I'm fairly certain it's the pause/break key. Why are we talking about Homeworld?
Nope.
I can't tell you personally how well it will run on your hardware but anecdotal evidence from around here suggests it runs really well on older hardware.
On that front, they put this up in the forum a couple of weeks ago:
Nice to see a game like this have such a great start after being second in sales the previous two weeks.
I was thinking of posting that but then I thought "somebody's going to come in here and compare those sales to Halo 3 or something and say "olol, PC games sells like CRAP, no wonder it are dying." "
And then you'd probably be reading about that poster in the following days newspaper along with a title of game related violence.
But yeah, 100,000 in less than a month is pretty good so far. I'm hoping word of mouth will spread from there. I have to wonder whether that's just store sales though or whether it includes digital downloads as well.
That's good to hear. This is a great game and seeing these guys do well makes me feel good, it'd be a shame if nobody had bought it.
I almost made a joke about the PC being supposedly dead but I thought nah save that for the console fanboys.
I plan on buying the game in a week or two so got a question, does the CE version have anything really worthy in it?
Depends on what you define as 'worth it'
Certainly there's nothing gameplay enhancing or anything like that, what you get it the special edition is a couple of small posters, the tech-tree wallscroll, the key-reference card and the soundtrack. They're nice to have, but I wouldn't really consider them essential or anything. Whether it's worth the extra $5-$10 or whatever it is you're paying is up to you. (Slightly) More details here:
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?forumid=402&aid=174282
Incidentally, all the music tracks are stored as .ogg format, so it's not as if you can't listen to / convert the soundtrack anyway without having to buy the soundtrack CD. Only difference is that the Soundtrack CD tracks have the proper song names on them, instead of just "battle 1", "battle 2" etc. That and it's probably higher quality audio (I haven't listened to it on proper speakers or anything, but I would guess that the CD format tracks are of a higher quality).
The contents of the CE version has already been listed, it's just a couple of posters, a double sided tech tree thingie, and a soundtrack. But since their website only offers the digital download for like $40 and a boxed copy for like $44 I went ahead and got the box. Lo and behold it's the CE version which surprised me, even if I did get it like 3 weeks later. I'll have to say the soundtrack alone is worth it (but I'm a whore for CE's and soundtracks anyways). YMMV.
Yeah, if you order it directly from them it's the CE you're getting. From that link I posted above:
I basically did the same thing, bought it online from them and payed the little extra to get a physical copy. Well, I say a little extra, for the US it's about $5 more, but to have it shipped to the UK pumped it up to more like $20 more. Still, I can't say I'm dissatisfied with my purchase, I really did want a physical copy to go with my downloadable version (and that's permantely downloadable and tied to your account with them, like with Steam, so you don't need to worry about any limitations in that regard).
Fight fighter with fighter?
Flak frigates are effective. The TEC battleship has an AOE attack that damages all fighters around it, which is pretty damn strong.
There are however quite a few things that weren't done so well. I'm wondering if you agree with me on these ones.
It tries it best to be a combination between a 4x4 and an RTS but misses out on the oportunities on both ends. The tech tree, ship building and planetary developments are not deep enough, cannot be deep enough because it's an RTS. At the same time the 4x4 roots really drag down the options (and to some extent the pace) in the RTS parts of the game.
I particularly miss the harass of either techbuildings or economy that you can usually pull of in good RTS games, I've only seen incredibly cheesy siege frigate rusches (and it's hilarious that your entire fleet and defenses are coded to attack them first). Why not just make ships weaker and not autotarget the siege frigates so you had to sneak them by. SotS, despite the weakness of the planet assults had this part rigth with it's assult frigates and bioweapons.
Some more specific gripes about the game.
* Why does my ships get stuck on eachoter or enemy ships at times? I realise my capital ship has to accelerate to turn (this is insanely stupid by the way since the game is in space) but theoretically the sucker is moving in three dimensonal space. It's hard to micro your stuff as it is, loosing your level 4 cap ship because it decides to get stuck is just sooooooooo infuriating.
* Abilities, while powerfull, are to non specific and to many small units have them. If your going to make something only usuable with autocast since it's on so many small vessels then just include it in the unit either way. Similarly, it's insanely hard to keep track on what your cap vessels are doing and if they are wasting their antimatter on the correct things.
* Units can take far, far to much damage. Ships just takes volley after volley for several minutes.
* The game is to indecisive. I'd argue that it's mostly because of the old problem with defense being far to powerfull but striking that final blow just takes to much time since fleets gain incredible ammounts of protection from warping back to their own system and defenses and with their high HP there's really not that much you can do.
* To powerfull defenses and to much HP on the buildings severly limits the ammount of harass you can do (except the fact that 10 siege frigates can just warp in to a system and take punishment while nuking the planet). Hits and runs with smaller groups doesn't really work because defense is so cheap and/or durable that a small strike force can't do damage and if you warp in a big one you leave your own system undefended.
* Instead of tech buildings that can be destroyed or resource collectors that can be disturbed you have no real way of harassing stuff.
* Things cost to much, you generally need to sit back and just wait for resources. Should really at an opinion for having more cash in quick games.
Still going to play the hell out of this.
In the early game you can harass really well since building structures have low hit points but after that it often degrades down to stalemates with one side warping in to pick off one or two things in a system and then warping out untill you get the massive advantage you need to win.
Even at the fastest speed it takes ages to win.
Even worse from an RTS standpoint, there's really nothing you can do to recover. At all. Battles are like 70 % unit composition, 20 % cap ship levels, 10 % positioning of your units.
Once your in a bad spot you can't harass yourself out of it, or micro your way out of it, or take risks.
But neither can you really do anything that's risky enough to loose the game quickly either.
Edit: IMHO there's a few things they could take to heart from regular old strategy games and change to make the game much better.
1) Cut resource collectors and tradeports HP by half. Reason: Incourages players to harass these structures in creative ways.
2) Cut tower HP but increase damage outputs. Reason: either go around, cut a path or lure them to fire on some heavy ship but don't just go in there and slug it out with the planet).
3) Have a downtime for phasejumps for say, the time it takes to go from one jump node in a system to another one. Reason: Forces a bit more commitment which increases the importance of scouting but don't make movement between systems take more time than necessary.
4) Unlimited research in different areas at the same time. In every other succesfull RTS you can climb the tech tree as quickly as you have resources and if you get a better position quickly out tech the enemy. Reason: Helps the player with the resource advantage, shortens game length, makes balance between ships and tech more important. (IE: I want to outtech him but he can go all in on ships and try to take me out if I balance it poorly).
5) Completly redo logistics. Current system penalizes the player who is ahead in *tech*. While good in theory (people can hopefully catch up, overextension, quicker expansion if you take risks) in practice you want games to end if the other player has more tech and more units than you have.
Sliding scale with increased cost based on number of ships a la WCIII with techs that reduce the cost accomplishes the same thing but if the player also gets the tech lead your pretty much screwed.
Are you familiar with 4x games at all?
A major point of the genre is that you can do quite a bit damage by out-economy'ing, out-logistics'ing, or out-diplomacy'ing the enemy.
You are so utterly wrong I don't even know where to begin.
I'm very familiar with 4x4 games but this is not a 4x4 game. This is an RTS game with a very different scale. In 4x4 you win because of your minute attention to details which gives you an advantage in some way (this goes for all turn based games really) and then you press that advantage untill you win.
An RTS game is not deep enough for that so your objective is to kill the other guy. Typically by getting more resources than him which you then translate into either more troops or better tech or both.
A good RTS has some kind of balance here. If the loosing player knows that your trying to outtech him he can focus on trying to overwhelm you with cheaper ships, if he knows your trying to outmass him he can try to get a tech advantage over your ships and counter them. If he plays this better than you he may even things out.
Regradless, if he fails to negate the advantage you have more tech AND more ships which should lead to his relativly quick demise.
Nah, that's not what this game is about. I've kept away AI factions with larger armies by having a better mobility system and keeping them distracted with pirates. I've caught up in tech by having a better economy and depleting theirs with trick bids for pirate raids, forcing them to go to the black market to the point where they could no longer afford research or fleet buildup. Diplomacy against the AIs is utterly broken, but there are very 4x ways to win this game. Granted, you eventually need at least one solid fleet, but it's not a RTS where you're rushing to get to that critical mass where your army can just wipe out the map.
If only they released a demo...
If only you would post your system specs and ask how well other people managed to play it.
Don't worry, they're working on a demo. Their first priority was just to get the game out the door though, and the extra month of polish is alway important.
Hopefully the demo shouldn't take too long.
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?aid=302051
You see, this is why I presume he's high on game sales. I'd hate to think whatever other stuff it might be.
But if I were to guess, I think he meant that it combined RTS and 4X genres, and that they're both strategy. Or something along those lines.
Yeah! Watchu gonna do 'bout it sucka? You think you bad? HUH?!
AMD 64 4000+ 2.42 ghz
2 gigs of ram
Nvidia Geforce 8500 GT
Windows Vista
Man, I'd be incredibly surprised if the game couldn't run on that. It was pretty much the devs stated aim to get it to run on as many machines as possible, and yours is beyond even the recommended spec. You could comfortably play most modern FPS's on that system, Sins ought to be a breeze.
I get to the point where I have 2 planets and an Asteroid, and my growth slows down tremendously due to lack of Crystal, "Insufficient Fleet Capacity", and my dilemma of trying to cram so many logistic structures onto only 3 planets. Superior forces usually meet me with hostility any time I go beyond my own local space.
Where am I going wrong here?
When you start the game off, get a cap ship going with a few frigs and roam around exploring with them, picking up XP for the cap ship by killing of neutral ships.
Take over a few planets to start off at the same time, and just build up your research and mineral/money reserves until you're at the point where you can start expanding without getting shafted, and with that same little fleet you had just use it to defend what you are already holding.