My Impressions

from Sins Forums
Sup - I'm a newbie to this Forum, but I've been reading and watching this site for some time now, waiting for Sins of a Solar Empire to release.

I'm a die-hard Homeworld 2 Fan - and so I was very very excited about this project.

Anyways - to make a long story short - I bought the game and got to play it!

First impression: Very well done! Innovative gameplay, from the way I see it - BUT - and I must be fair on this - there are a few things which could have been better and a few things I wanted to point out.

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Firstly - most of the Interface text (for example in the Info bubbles) - is WAY TOO bold.
There are certain text passages you can't read - because the font and the bold letters are barely readable. It hurt my eyes!

The other thing which has been discussed many times already, and which I just wanted to point out again - Non-moving ships during battle...and Non-moving guns for that matter.

Yes, the fighters move, but the frigates and the other larger ships - it really robs some of the game experience - seeing your ships so static. I think this was a big plus in Homeworld - everything moved, everything dodged, it was more of a dogfight.

So I urge developers or modders, to change something!
While I understand some of the "excuses" for not having moving ships, gaming nowadays is becoming more and more about realism and fun!

I can tell you as a die-hard gamer -

"Its the little things, the little details that can bug a gamer the most about gameplay, immersion, etc."

Next up - Sound -

while I do appreciate the voices (I know some other people didn't like 'em) - the laser and general sound effects are very - almost "comic-like".

There's no real depth to it - and I know thats nothing the developers can probably change right now, but again - if we can change the sound effects for some of the weapons and explosions - I'm all in favour of that.

The other things - Gameplay, AI - all top notch from my point of view.
Some bugs which have already been pointed out - and I can't wait for the first patch to be released, but I really enjoy the game :)

A word on graphics - I was a little disappointed (having a GTX 8800) that the graphics have fallen a bit on average. The texture quality is pretty lame. Again - I hope some of the die-hard modders out there will come up with a "High-Quality Mod" for this game, and make my graphic card burn!

Speaking of graphics - I saw some people experiencing some weird stuttering.
Now I have a top-notch system but I'm actually experiencing the same when zoom onto warping ships and in the Game-Menu when the view changes from one Planet to another - it actually stutters a few seconds. Very strange.

That's it for now - I can't think of more and I don't want to waste more time on the board, when I could be playing Sins! :)

Let me know what you think :)


BTW: One crucial Question - Why is the "Auto-attack" feature turned off by default on some of the ships? is there a way to change it so that they are ON by default?

I find myself attacked in many situations, wondering why my ships don't attack back :S
Very annoying!

Cheers
14,692 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Some good points. I would also like to see the ships maneuver when doing combat even if it is just a little. The head-to-head fire gets stale fast. I was under the impression that the combat system was changed for the gamma build but it appears this was not the case.

Anyway, you should know that we will more then likely get a high res graphics pack in the near future from IC for those of us with ultra high-end systems.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
BTW: One crucial Question - Why is the "Auto-attack" feature turned off by default on some of the ships? is there a way to change it so that they are ON by default?
End of quote


It's only for ships that really have no business attacking. Like scouts, colony ships. Their weapons are so sucky, that you almost always want them doing something else ;)
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Just a small point, most ships in Homeworld didn't move either, they did however place themselves in the optimal firing position. What made the game seem like they was moving is that the enemies dies faster, and that you targetted hard-points on the ships making your own ships move to optimal firing position all the time.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I agree battles look more like slideshows than videos no animations is frustrating (I like the total war series for the animations). But ships can fire while moving it's a start...

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I agree with OP just finished playing a session and look the game is good but the lack of ship movement during battle is a little annoying. Having said that I could see that getting out of hand/debacle if you had huge fleets fighting, they would ram into each other and it would just be a mess. The one REAL issue I have with this game is the sub-sub par SOUND! The music is great but the effects especially of the weapons is pretty rubbish to be honest. I am predicting and IGN review score of high 7's to low 8's. The graphics and unit detail could've been much better in my opinion, most medium to top end graphic cards are going to be very under utilised.

Anyway that's my two cents worth, maybe I need more time with the game, but I am not getting the same warm and fuzzy feelings that everyone else is. This game is just......................OK........ :(

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
just what I said - awesome game play, OK Sound, OK Graphics.

Developers: It was wise to make the game playable for everyone (those who don't have such a powerful machine) - but don't forget about the die-hard gamers out there!

I'm not gonna say - DirectX10 Support - but if this would've been in the looks of Eve-Online :SURPRISED:

Edit: BTW! Please change something about that map editor - something along the lines of WYSIWYG! Yes, I know I can preview, but I find myself (and yes I've read the manual) playing around with a lot of the configuration bars, and I seem to grasp what they do, but I'm not quite sure just how exactly they change things.

I find myself creating maps with huuuuuuuge warp-lines, and yes I've put the warp-distance setting all the way down, but something about that editor seems to create huge warp-lines non-theless.