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Palamedes
Palamedes
Join Date 05/2006
0

Initial Impressions

March 27, 2007 8:17:11 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Well sir... I like it.

The game installs easily and quickly. The download wasn't bad either, I maintained between 500 and 800 per second the whole time.

It installed very quickly and worked the first time without a hitch.

It's wide screen compliant and my monitor thanks you. The game itself task switches very nicely and seems to work seemlessly with Multiplicity (which is something Vanguard can't claim..*sigh*)

The game itself is very cool and I enjoy it. I think it has a lot of promise, but reminds me of Time of Defiance in its style of game play. Infact, it's extremely like ToD in game play.. The only thing you have over ToD is the Tech Tree - so really not ground breaking, but still damn good.

The tutorials worked great, and went a long way to explain the controls etc.. The menus are nice, clean and easy to understand.

I find myself fighting the controls a bit, but I will get used to that as I play.. this can be said of any game..

I really found nothing "wrong".. The game ran at a solid 60fps the whole time, and due to my computer I'm assuming you guys locked it at that.. otherwise it would have been a lot higher..

Computer:
Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad CPU @ 2.66ghz
eVGA nVidia nForce680i SLI with 2x PC2-6400 1024MB
nVidia geForce 8800GTX w/768mb at 1680x1050


At this early stage the only "bugs" I found really aren't part of beta 1. So having
said that I realize these bugs need to wait until beta 2, I'll mention them anyway.

1. Right Click mouse looking works perfectly, however seems backwards to me. A way to invert that would be nice.
2. Enemy ships can warp into your planets sphere of influence and them immediately warp to another planet THROUGH the first one. hehe.

Again I realize these aren't important at this stage.. But the computer cheats! heh

Good stuff guys.. I think this is a pretty good product and you're much farther along than I would have thought at this point.

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Palamedes
Blair Fraser
Join Date 10/2006
+292 moderator
Reply #1 March 27, 2007 8:40:23 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

1. Right Click mouse looking works perfectly, however seems backwards to me. A way to invert that would be nice.
2. Enemy ships can warp into your planets sphere of influence and them immediately warp to another planet THROUGH the first one. hehe.

Thanks for the comments and glad you are enjoying it thus far despite the rule you aren't allowed to  have fun!

1. We will be providing speed and inversion options for the camera. We just haven't got around to it yet.
2. The AI can't cheat, he runs through the exact same code paths you do If you want to prevent him from jumping past your planet, build inhibitors. He has the same limitations you have.

B

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Palamedes
lordkosc
Join Date 12/2006
+6
Reply #2 March 27, 2007 8:43:16 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Nice write up! Damn I can't wait to get home and play in the morning...
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ThorXENO
Join Date 03/2007
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Reply #3 March 27, 2007 11:01:15 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums


I really found nothing "wrong".. The game ran at a solid 60fps the whole time, and due to my computer I'm assuming you guys locked it at that.. otherwise it would have been a lot higher..



Its Vsynced thats why turn up your refresh rate.

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Palamedes
Palamedes
Join Date 05/2006
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Reply #4 March 27, 2007 11:18:12 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Blair: AH HA! Warp Inhibitors! No wonder.. heh Okay very important for bottle necks..

Lordkosc: It's fun..heh Dispite the "no fun" rule as Blair said..

ThorXENO: Oh okay.. I'll test that.. thanks..
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Palamedes
Servius
Join Date 07/2006
+6
Reply #5 March 27, 2007 11:44:09 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Yeah, but you can research immunity to the warp inhib. ;(
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nukeofwf
Join Date 03/2007
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Reply #6 March 28, 2007 1:47:19 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
ah, yes you can research immunity, BUT only for the scout ships. it really limits your ability to fight past a bottleneck then.

One suggestion from me: Is is possible to expand the manouver room to BEYOND the gravity well of a planet? I understand how this might look like a way to avoid inhibitors, but my suggestion is that the inhibitor work well in the planet's area, but allow ships to move in sub-light around 'turtle' defenses from only one side and hit the blind side of a planet.

your thoughts?
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Palamedes
Palamedes
Join Date 05/2006
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Reply #7 March 28, 2007 2:13:36 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
I think being able to seriously bottle neck a system is key to good empire defense. If you can't do that, or there is some way around it then I think there is an issue.

You need to be able to setup a frontline or line of defense. If a player can bypass your front line and dive directly into the middle of your empire, then there is no real point in having those planet to planet lines in the firs tplace.. just let people jump from any point to any point.

By having the travel lanes it implies that you MUST travel a certain way, which implies that a savvy defender can block that.

Being able to bypass kinda removes that.

Only scouts can get around the inhibitor at this point, but there is nothing to stop a player from shooting a lot of scouts into the backfield of someones empire.. (which would suck..heh)

A lot of scouts are pretty powerful really (assuming that their current power is what it will actually be..)

Just my observations..
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Blair Fraser
Join Date 10/2006
+292 moderator
Reply #8 March 28, 2007 2:22:04 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Good observations. The scout bypassing issue is handled by additional elements not in the beta and used to be a serious problem, especially in multiplayer testing.
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MichalRhys
Join Date 08/2003
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Reply #9 March 28, 2007 2:31:00 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Fleet control is the only concern I have at this point. I would like to see some way of creating a fleet that will stick together and be easily selectable. The click-drag doesn't quite get it.

Also, it would be nice to be able to select ships on the left drop-down via a cntl-click to join together for one command.
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Awac A
Join Date 03/2003
+2
Reply #10 March 28, 2007 2:51:53 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Fleet control is the only concern I have at this point. I would like to see some way of creating a fleet that will stick together and be easily selectable. The click-drag doesn't quite get it.

Also, it would be nice to be able to select ships on the left drop-down via a cntl-click to join together for one command.


/signed

Ive also thought about the fleet idea. Make it so you can make fleets, not simply a ctrl-# group. But a fleet that makes it a single selectable unit. Ofc the single units and ctrl-groups are still valid since haveing a few scouts etc or defernders here and there is handy.

But fleets that maybe give some kind of bonus, and stand out when your zoomed out so you can see em easy would be nice.

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Revan67
Join Date 01/2007
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Reply #11 March 28, 2007 3:08:36 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
I had an intense moment last night, I had a empire wide defensive force of 2 battleships and one of the 10 AI's was coming at me with a huge fleet of like 70 ships. I ordered my battleships away from my core planet and yes sadly it fell but my defenses ripped them apart. But I rebuilt quickly and eventually they came again to my homeworld but this time I had 4 battleships 2 dreadnaughts and 2 carriers as well as 4 hangar facilities and about 8 gauss defense platforms. That battle was a sight to behold everything I had was higher rank so I tore through thier lines and had a phase jump inhibitor so nothing got away.

Once I repaired my fleet I began assaulting thier main mining and trade facilities took over half worlds in my area inside of half an hour. It was great Kudos on a great game guys, Beta is this fun i mean.. much work? Can't wait for retail.
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Palamedes
Palamedes
Join Date 05/2006
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Reply #12 March 28, 2007 3:49:04 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Fleet control ... I would like to see some way of creating a fleet that will stick together and be easily selectable. The click-drag doesn't quite get it.




You can click the little icons on the the left top next to the system they were in to get "ALL ships" but that's about it.

I agree that it would be nice to be able to say "These ships are in fleet 1" and then get a perm "Fleet 1" selector in the list as well.

It can work just as planets do now but this one would be user created.
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nukeofwf
Join Date 03/2007
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Reply #13 March 28, 2007 4:37:34 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
My idea was not to allow ships to get around an inhibition, but instead to increase the manouver room to larger than the grav well of the planet, thereby allowing you to move around a defensive wall and hit the planet from behind, by moving in sub-light, out of range of defenses.
oh, and also i would like to see fleets too. especially ones where you can choose formation to have pickets, cap ship walls and things like that. (class placement priority)
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kryo
Join Date 05/2003
+458 sdemployee
Reply #14 March 28, 2007 5:13:49 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
I agree that it would be nice to be able to say "These ships are in fleet 1" and then get a perm "Fleet 1" selector in the list as well.


As with most other RTS games, you can just press Ctrl+Number once you have a group selected. Then press the number alone to recall that selection.
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lordkosc
Join Date 12/2006
+6
Reply #15 March 28, 2007 7:38:12 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Blair Fraser
March 28, 2007 14:22:04
Reply #8
Good observations. The scout bypassing issue is handled by additional elements not in the beta and used to be a serious problem, especially in multiplayer testing.


And what would these additional elements be.... TELL US!!!! *pulls out the sharpened spoon of destiny*
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Frost
Join Date 04/2006
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Reply #16 March 28, 2007 8:32:57 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

I agree that it would be nice to be able to say "These ships are in fleet 1" and then get a perm "Fleet 1" selector in the list as well.


As with most other RTS games, you can just press Ctrl+Number once you have a group selected. Then press the number alone to recall that selection.




When you do create a grouping by ctrl+# it isn't easy to see which units are in the grouping or to cycle through them. At lest not for me, maybe I need to get used to the units being on the left. Also at the lower resolution (1024*768) its hard to see the whole list of the planets (though I don't see a way around this).
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ThorXENO
Join Date 03/2007
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Reply #17 March 28, 2007 9:24:17 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
One thing i see that would really help is when jumping said fleet it happens all to gether most of the time a few ships jump then a few more. If your fleet end spread out too much the ememy could really do some damage to u.
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lordkosc
Join Date 12/2006
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Reply #18 March 28, 2007 9:28:13 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
I agree on that also, more than once my scout has arrived before the rest of my fleet and he is all but gone...
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