diamonds??? really?

are not, I call it 2.9 D because this:

is a more than legit concern.


...
can I say that was a particularly bad move? well guess what. its a particularly bad move. there, the cats out of the box. I think its a nice diversion, and call it trolling but I dont see how it can be justified as an alternative to a better, more flush system.

I'm fine with planetary and system alignment (cool, although not nescessarily nescessary) but to have structures be more or less "around" a plane is barely even a farce of "3D" control. randomizing relationship to a plane (I assume you mean by a few points up or down, nothing severe) is goofy, also if its severe enough (because it seems to be something you are trumpeting a fair bit) then it can end up skewing things terribly, protection becomes limited as ships can fire from out of gauss range.

this assumption is again on shaky, thin and warming ice. 1) to say a person would never use the gauss to defend their planets is wrong, I do it all the time, even for large planets (its not perfect but its not MEANT to be, its supposed to stop siege ships) and 2) the strategy of defending a planet with gauss is widespread, if not THE thing to do. I do it all the time because its the best goddamn move.

I honestly hope you guys are right on this point, but I just dont see it happening. when it comes around that this becomes an exploit I seriously believe you will end up rueing this decision. nonetheless its rather goofy, I call sins "2.9 D" because you lose points for not making the players movements 3-D. its honestly the only thing about sins that bugs me. seriously there has to be a better justification for it than "because it was simpler than tweaking it a bit"! what it comes down to is we'll see, because this can cause a break in game balance for what would have been minimal effort.

alas, its a pie that was stepped in long ago, I'm not going to push this.

in any case, what is the tilde's replacement? this I'm interested to hear about.

if the ship movement was 2-D ron then I would call the game 2.2 D, or maybe just 2D. no I'm just talking about the placement of structures. no, the option isnt there for anyone, at all.
hrm, maybe I should remove another point for the lunacy of the placement of the 3-D button (and the fact you have to use the MOVE key to use it! *shivers*) but I'll wait until final release to judge that.

although saying that the game comes in full and complete 3-D I find... distasteful, its "shiny" 3-D, just like super smash brothers... but its more or less 2-D in function.

What about 4D ?

Actually, he does have a (limited) point. Given that no one ever bothers using 3-D, why would I use 3-D?

Plus, 3-D would be a huge headache when it came time to start placing structures. It'd be almost impossible to deal with it!

Ok, yes, that first sentence didn't make much sence. The rest of it, however, is (I think) logically sound.
You build a turret at each pole, since this won't take too much away from your equator defences. Any decent fleet, however, won't notice a single turret and will sinply blitz through it and blow up your planet. So you build a couple of turrets at each pole. This, however, will critically weaken your equator defences and you'll still lose the planet. To adress this, Ironclad and Stardock will need to give turrets a lower logistics cost, enabling you to build more. Then, in all probability, someone will come up with the bright tactic to put all their turrets in one area and absolutely anihilate anything that comes near. You could surround your hangars and ship building plants, for example, enabling those buildings to create fleets behind enemy lines long after the planet has fallen, since the enemy can't get close enough to take them out without massive casualties. Large scale balancing would need to be performed to stop this stalling the game almost entirely.

If this isn't logically correct, then please explain to me, a poor, Beta-less hu-man how it is not.

Gauss cannons are fairly cheap in tactical point cost and you can place loads of them around a planet if you so choose (though such a tactic can be overcome if you put all your points into only one type of defense structure). Their range is such that you cannot fly above or below them and be out of their range to cheese things. The best way to deal with turrets is to use bombers or long-range assault frigates.

But there could be a serious tactical advantage to place orbitals OVER or UNDEr the planet as it would take longer for enemies to reach them and you could deal with more of them before they even reach it.

...
can there really be more said?

I mean its not a huge deal, the game is more or less 2-D. but there really is no use for the *option* to move in 3-D now. whatsoever.