Considering the game?

Lots of opinions will come in  While you wait check out this gameplay example:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?g=editpost&aid=174432

Aw, POTBS was awful. I played the beta and was totally dissatisfied after about a month's worth of playtime.

I wouldn't say this is the most action packed rts you'll ever run across, and I didn't play homeworld so I wouldn't know whether you can compare the two. What I do know, is that if you have patience and time and are willing to spend more time macromanaging your empire than fighting lightning quick engagements, then the game is for you.

That's not to say Sins can't get lightning quick, especially when there are large fleets battling in a small grav well - that's a mess and proper micro can turn the tide of battle against an opponent who uses none. So you get both elements, the lightning pace and the slow and focused empire building dynamic.

I love the game, and if you're a fan of RTS it should be a no brainer to buy this.

Having played a little Homeworld 2 (not alot mind you) and a good amount of SoSE (that's one hard to remember acronym) the two are pretty similar in their battles. What they differ completely in is scope, Homeworld takes place on a fairly small battlefield, SoSE takes place in a huge area with a large number of worlds to capture, things to research, and diplomatic opportunities.

There's more movement in Homeworld 2's combat. Sins' is less... fluid.

Less fluid? How so?

@OP - do yourself a flavor and get this title. You can't go wrong with it if you are even remotely interested in strategy games and space based ones at that!

Ships will get into range of one another... and sit there, unless you tell them otherwise, and even then they're not terribly clever at bringing their powerful weapons to bear while moving. Homeworld 2 actually has motion during combat, and ships are mildly clever about orienting themselves to attack while moving; not to mention ramming, short range point defense guns, and other things that encourage movement.

Yeah, overall the combat movement is one of the few things I'm disappointed about with this game.

Most of the ships simply get into range, then sit perfectly still and just fire away at each other until one is dead.

The only ships to seem to move around during combat are your fighters and such that are based from your capital ships.

In homeworld you had ships constantly moving and it looked awesome. You had ships sweeping in and out for attack runs and overall the fights in it looked more cinematic/fluid compared to the stillness aspect of Sins so far, for me at least.

I haven't got intoa truly huge battle yet, most just small fights here and there, so it might change later on I'm not sure.

As I said, this is just a SMALL disappointment, overall I love the game so far, seems like it will be a game you can replay over and over and have fun even a year from now.

This may sound kind of dumb, but that's a huge turn off for me. It may be just me, but I loved sitting back every now and then in the homeworld games and just following a ship as it went through combat. Even though the graphics are now dated from a technical perspective, it still is breathtaking to look at. I had kind of been hoping that this game would be similar in that regard.

I am guessing that multiple battles on multiple fronts with these minimum system requirements demands a certain attention to a.i. allocation with respect to the vernier movements and actions of every single unit within the simulated galaxy, though, this is just a guess.

Also, considering the system requirements that would present themselves if such unit specific a.i.(with regards to constant motion through all axes, while fighting) within all simulated solar systems, was present, and in real-time... I am very happy they made the trade-off.

i.e. I would like to play the game tomorrow, rather than two years from now...

Perhaps, two years from now, we will see Sins "FarCry to Crysis" transition...

Homeworld ran on a Pentium II. It's not enough to completely ruin the game, but it is distracting. Most RTSs (including land-based ones like C&C3, AOE3, RoN, etc.) have more movement than this. And there's a point to it in those as well; in C&C3, for instance, your tanks will continue to fire their main guns whilst moving, allowing you to circle the enemy or otherwise move to a more favourable position.

Also, considering the system requirements that would present themselves if such unit specific a.i.(with regards to constant motion through all axes, while fighting) within all simulated solar systems, was present, and in real-time... I am very happy they made the trade-off.

i.e. I would like to play the game tomorrow, rather than two years from now...

Perhaps, two years from now, we will see Sins "FarCry to Crysis" transition...

To the double post: Homeworld ran on a Pentium II.

Massive unit counts? Do you want me to go back to, oh, Total Annihilation? The Command and Conquer games may even come somewhat close for sheer army size, depending on how ridiculous the match got or the map/mod being played was, and they handle it fine.

I'm simply making an observation about what I view to be a negative point about the game. No need to get all weird and defensive.

I loved the battles in HW and HW2. It was one of the few games that I played the single player game a second time round just to see how many more capital ships I could build a second time round.

As a fan of huge space battles I hope I won't be disappointed by the battles in SoaSE.

Most of the ships in HW 2, particularly the capital ships, sit there and do nothing until ordered to attack; they do fire of course. The only ships that actually move around frequently are fighters and corvettes. Capital ships only move to realign themselves when firing their weapons, since they have to track targets. I don't recall HW 2 having ramming...I suppose you mean avoiding ramming each other. In terms of bringing weapons to bear, I assume you mean they are missing?



The only craft you really followed in HW 2 were fighters, and you can do the same in this game, the it's the larger vessels, similiar to HW 2, that don't move around much.

I will probably end up getting it anyways, assuming good reviews (which I doubt will be a problem given the comments on these boards). I just hope that this is something that gets addressed in a future patch (or at least expansion) because it is a big deal for me. I know that it's silly to get so preoccupied by what is really a graphical detail in a game that reputedly has excellent gameplay, but it is something that really matters to me.

Edit:


I'm pretty sure I remember them moving somewhat. It wasn't nearly at the level of the fighters, of course, but it was noticeable.

I'm pretty sure I remember them moving somewhat. It wasn't nearly at the level of the fighters, of course, but it was noticeable

They only moved when pursuing multiple targets, realigning themselves, or when pursuing faster targets (usually fighters or corvettes).

Stop waiting and asking questions on a forum and press the "Buy Now" button.

You won't be sorry.

Just to point out, in HW2 with a strike group, the cap ships and I think the frigates as well would merely get into range and fire. One distinct difference was the Hiigaran destroyer, which would rotate broadside to fire main cannons as well as torpedoes. Maybe the sight of those destroyers rotating would create the illusion of constant movement?
Perhaps another exception is that since the AI tended to move their frigates, destroyers etc. constantly, the player's frigates would move forward and around to keep up; similar things would happen in multiplayer games.
Perhaps IC could invent a broadsiding cap ship? Have they already?

Well, I don't know exactly what resources or such it would take for this, but if the fighters/bombers from the capital ships can do it and the game runs smooth for me @ high settings (granted, I haven't got into the later huge battles yet) I don't think it would have dramitically killed the game as you suggest to have the other ships (frigates, etc) have some movement tactical AI of their own to try to dodge certain attacks with evasive flight patterns, as well as attack formations, etc.

One other factor that is a bit disappointing when it comes to combat is the 3d plane. This is a little pet peeve of mine when it comes to space RTS games, but space is not a 2d plane. You should be able to move up/down. in HW it was great to be able to attack from different directions and added a lot to the combat in terms of tactics, flanking from the bottom and top, etc.

Ships don't move on a 3d plain in the retail? I thought they were supposed too. They removed (or didn't include) x-axis management in combat, since they believed it resulted in too much micro. In some instances, it could be rather difficult to deal with, particularly when charging straight ahead usually sufficed.

They can use the z axis, you just hold down a hot key.

No z-axis? That's odd. Have you tried the tilde (~) key? Apparently that activates it.

Well, that settles that.