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[PC] Shattered Suns. True 3d RTS and an Open Beta!
Arrath
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
What is Shattered Suns?
Shattered Suns is a space based RTS by Clear Crown Studios with what sound like some 4X elements worked in along with true 3d battlefields ala Homeworld and a ship creator so you can customize ships to your hearts content. It doesn't have a wiki page (nor does the developer) so lets go to the offical game site instead.
Story:
As the second Imperial War comes to a close, the known universe is carved up between two great empires. As the last free sector falls to the overwhelming might of the allied empires, a rebellion is born. Fleeing from the conquering occupation forces, one brave captain finds the means to hide and survive until the time is right to fight again. With the help of the underground resistance, the black market, and countless brave citizens longing for the return of their freedoms, Captain Max begins to build a new fleet of guerilla freedom fighters. He hopes that his minor rebellion will grow into a massive uprising. What he doesn't know is that he will discover new technology that will decide the final outcome of the uprising and change the known universe forever. And that he will learn the true meaning of betrayal.
Experience the epic fight for freedom as Captain Max. Through the fully interactive campaign, you will meet many brave citizens, recruit your fleet, enlist support, and choose your battles against the allied empires. Instead of simply watching the story unfold, you will be a part of it, deciding where to travel, who to speak with, what to say, and which battle to fight next.
Gameplay:
Think you're an expert in real-time strategy? Think again. Shattered Suns redefines the RTS genre with unique strategic challenges such as battles in 3-dimensional space, an ever-changing map, fully customizable units, and distributed economies. Wheter you're new to real-time strategy or an ld pro, you'll discover a whole new universe of strategic power in Shattered Suns.
Command battles in 3-dimensional space. Hover above your enemy's base before launching your assault. Retreat to a position well below the enemy's heavily armed space sation when the battle gets too hot. There's no limit to where you can go in 3-dimensional space.
Choose carefully where you build your space stations, since the orbits of planets and moons continually change the strategic map. Orbiting planets and moons can bring your enemy too close when you're not ready to defend your position, strtch your supply lines when you're building a new colony or delay reinforcements to a pivotal battle. Use the different orbits to your advantage in planning your strategy, and you will prevail.
Design your own space stations and ships. Create a class of ships with long-range blasters with extra fast-flying charges for accuracy. Create another class of ships with shorter-rage, slower blasters that pack a bigger punch. Or, design a class of ships with a strong ramdrill to punch through the enemy's hull in short order. You can customize weapons, engines, shields, armor, cargo storage and even the number of mines and builders onboard.
Ready for the same, old, tired strategy of defensive wealth-gathering followed by offensive expansion? Not so fast! Each station has its own economy with its own wealth and its own cost-cutting technology research. Taking over a new planet involves more than just building a new station there. You'll need to send mining ships built by wealthier stations to help the new stations build their own wealth before they can defend themselves. And, focusing your technology research wisely will help you crease specialized space stations. Once station might specialize in building short-range fighter ships, while another station might specialize in building mining ships.
Screens:
I have to say, between this and Sins of a Solar Empire it looks to be a good year for space rts/4x. I can't wait to get my hands on this, though like Tycho with GalCiv2 I will probably spend more time in the ship creator than actually playing. Customizable ships are like legos to me, I can't stop.
Active orbits sound quite interesting, I'll enjoy seeing how they effect the gameplay. Must be a bitch to realize a moon's orbit just took your primary station into the enemy's fleet. Seperated station economies seems like a good idea, no absurd empire wide resource pool, though I imagine it may get to be a good bit of micro in large/late games.
Beta
Want in on the open beta? All you have to do is check http://www.shatteredsuns.com/beta2/ and sign up for their newsletter (which also automatically enters you in a drawing for one of five copies of Shattered Suns on release day.)
Beta Impressions:
I like it so far. The 3rd tutorial hung early on so I was kind of on my own figuring out damage and shield types, but the interface is easy to grasp, if a bit simplistic. My only complaint so far is the camera, there were some odd design decisions made with that thing, but its a beta, maybe it'll change. I'm still figuring out true 3d movement though basic 2d movement has served me fine so far.
Shattered Suns is a space based RTS by Clear Crown Studios with what sound like some 4X elements worked in along with true 3d battlefields ala Homeworld and a ship creator so you can customize ships to your hearts content. It doesn't have a wiki page (nor does the developer) so lets go to the offical game site instead.
Story:
As the second Imperial War comes to a close, the known universe is carved up between two great empires. As the last free sector falls to the overwhelming might of the allied empires, a rebellion is born. Fleeing from the conquering occupation forces, one brave captain finds the means to hide and survive until the time is right to fight again. With the help of the underground resistance, the black market, and countless brave citizens longing for the return of their freedoms, Captain Max begins to build a new fleet of guerilla freedom fighters. He hopes that his minor rebellion will grow into a massive uprising. What he doesn't know is that he will discover new technology that will decide the final outcome of the uprising and change the known universe forever. And that he will learn the true meaning of betrayal.
Experience the epic fight for freedom as Captain Max. Through the fully interactive campaign, you will meet many brave citizens, recruit your fleet, enlist support, and choose your battles against the allied empires. Instead of simply watching the story unfold, you will be a part of it, deciding where to travel, who to speak with, what to say, and which battle to fight next.
Gameplay:
Think you're an expert in real-time strategy? Think again. Shattered Suns redefines the RTS genre with unique strategic challenges such as battles in 3-dimensional space, an ever-changing map, fully customizable units, and distributed economies. Wheter you're new to real-time strategy or an ld pro, you'll discover a whole new universe of strategic power in Shattered Suns.
Command battles in 3-dimensional space. Hover above your enemy's base before launching your assault. Retreat to a position well below the enemy's heavily armed space sation when the battle gets too hot. There's no limit to where you can go in 3-dimensional space.
Choose carefully where you build your space stations, since the orbits of planets and moons continually change the strategic map. Orbiting planets and moons can bring your enemy too close when you're not ready to defend your position, strtch your supply lines when you're building a new colony or delay reinforcements to a pivotal battle. Use the different orbits to your advantage in planning your strategy, and you will prevail.
Design your own space stations and ships. Create a class of ships with long-range blasters with extra fast-flying charges for accuracy. Create another class of ships with shorter-rage, slower blasters that pack a bigger punch. Or, design a class of ships with a strong ramdrill to punch through the enemy's hull in short order. You can customize weapons, engines, shields, armor, cargo storage and even the number of mines and builders onboard.
Ready for the same, old, tired strategy of defensive wealth-gathering followed by offensive expansion? Not so fast! Each station has its own economy with its own wealth and its own cost-cutting technology research. Taking over a new planet involves more than just building a new station there. You'll need to send mining ships built by wealthier stations to help the new stations build their own wealth before they can defend themselves. And, focusing your technology research wisely will help you crease specialized space stations. Once station might specialize in building short-range fighter ships, while another station might specialize in building mining ships.
Screens:
I have to say, between this and Sins of a Solar Empire it looks to be a good year for space rts/4x. I can't wait to get my hands on this, though like Tycho with GalCiv2 I will probably spend more time in the ship creator than actually playing. Customizable ships are like legos to me, I can't stop.
Active orbits sound quite interesting, I'll enjoy seeing how they effect the gameplay. Must be a bitch to realize a moon's orbit just took your primary station into the enemy's fleet. Seperated station economies seems like a good idea, no absurd empire wide resource pool, though I imagine it may get to be a good bit of micro in large/late games.
Beta
Want in on the open beta? All you have to do is check http://www.shatteredsuns.com/beta2/ and sign up for their newsletter (which also automatically enters you in a drawing for one of five copies of Shattered Suns on release day.)
Beta Impressions:
I like it so far. The 3rd tutorial hung early on so I was kind of on my own figuring out damage and shield types, but the interface is easy to grasp, if a bit simplistic. My only complaint so far is the camera, there were some odd design decisions made with that thing, but its a beta, maybe it'll change. I'm still figuring out true 3d movement though basic 2d movement has served me fine so far.
Arrath on
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I also love customizable stuff in games, I wish more games had it. (Warzone 2100 is probably my favorite example of this)
"Explore, expand, exploit, exterminate." Civilization, Master of Orion, Alpha Centauri, etc.
Really should be "4E", but that wouldn't be extreme enough.
Wait. That's like every strategy game ever.
Uhh... Not much exploring in say, Starcraft, because you already have the minimap image.
Expanding, okay. You got me there.
In Starcraft, exploiting is basically "right click harvest". In Master of Orion, you need to build up stuff to exploit the natural bonuses of a planet, like artifacts or mineral rich.
Exterminate, you win.
And it's 4X because eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate.
Cause Xes are Xtreme.
Thanks!
Not like it really matters, in games like this you're usually zoomed pretty far out for the vast majority of the time. I am, at any rate.
Trying the beta so far, I like it. Aspects of it feel a bit low budget I guess you could say, texture work of the interface and such. Not that the interface is poorly designed, I grasped it pretty quickly. I also have everything set on low to run at an acceptable fps (I am just about even with the minimum reqs).
The camera is a bit whacky though (move mouse to the upper screen edge and it zooms in on the focus, really?), thats my only complaint so far.
Just a little beef with space games in general, though - why do they have to make space look like a bowl of fruit loops? I hate that. I have yet to play a space game where it feels like space. The backgrounds are always bright green or red or blue or something.
Because if it was just black with a couple of dots of light then it'd look boring as fuck, and they want it to look all majestic and awesome and shit. I sort of agree with you in that they over-do it a bit but I still enjoy all the colors.