First 4 hours

from Sins Forums
My First Fours Hours of SOSE

What I liked:

Large zoom range gave a real feeling of being in control of a huge solar empire!
Exploration is well done - ships charging before jump, gravity wells, asteroids and planets, relics to be found.
The interface is very intuitive. Mainly mouse driven and very simple to understand.
The trade system is great, i especially liked the little freighters moving around of their own accord.
Marauders ensured that the game did not get dull without becoming repetitive and annoying.
The graphics really are top.

What I didn't like:

Combat is not nearly as visceral as it should be. There is no need to zoom into see any of the ship models at all. Even then, The icons come in too soon after zooming out slighty and quite often obscure the action. And I would have liked to see some scope for manuvering and targeting, especially with the larger ships and structures.
The research tree contained alot of un-nessasary items which I played the whole game without researching. Additionally, the research screen could use some improvement as i often couldn't find what I needed, even if I had found it once before! The icons are too small and the layout is cramped.
Yes, marauders make sure game ain't dull, but where are they coming from?? Endless streams of them seemingly from nowhere...

Flame on. =P

2,596 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
These vile pirate groups assemble near each system's star. Once they are assembled, they go on their pillaging spree.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I agree with the OP about not needing / not being able to zoom-in on battles. I have the same gripe with GalCiv2 and Supreme Commander. These games have great graphics, but I typically end up playing a game of watching 2D icons. I play at 1680x1050.

Additionally, I agree with the OP that the 2D icons come in too soon, and that there is a large jump in the one zoom level that differentiates 2D icons and 3d Models. The amount of zoom required to see the models is such that it is difficult to get a strategic view of battles.

Not really a detriment to game play, but its a little upsetting knowing that a lot of people put a lot of hard work making a fabulous looking game, and all I tend to see if is small icons.

A few thing that may (or may not) help:
a) smaller amounts of zoom per mouse-wheel roll -- a user defined option -- allow for an in between zoom state, that has a happy medium between seeing the whole battle and seeing the great graphics?
b) a setting, similar to the one in GalCiv2, that allows for user defined threshold where models become icons
c) change the behavior of the white circular highlights surrounding ships. As zoom increases, transition to models more quickly, and slowly fade out the white circular highlights. This will retain the contrast needed to see the models against the dark backgrounds as well as enable the models to be shown at greater zoom levels
CursorFX - Customize your Windows cursor
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
I had considered that perhaps the ships could be at a larger scale? or maybe just smaller icons or something.

As far as the research tree goes, perhaps if there where some way of higlighting different paths. Like "view trade" or "view armour/shield"?

The combat issues aren't just the logos obscuring the awesome models and effects, i'd like to see tactics involved in the battles. Manuevers like bracketing and reverse movement - like ships at sea, also better control over fighters and bombers, and more researchs available for them.

Boarding pods anyone?

Planetary invasion for dessert?

=P

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
No ground combat in this game, already stated by the devs. And I like the level of control over strikecraft, you can order them around when you need to, but otherwise they prioritize (usually correctly, although there are still some issues with this) their own targets.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
a) smaller amounts of zoom per mouse-wheel roll -- a user defined option -- allow for an in between zoom state, that has a happy medium between seeing the whole battle and seeing the great graphics?


Hold down shift whilst scrolling. It scrolls in much smaller steps that way . . . found that one out by accident.