3D, do I use it?

from Sins Forums
I have a question... I've played several games and gotten some great strategy and help from the boards and while playing with the camera I had a thought...

Does the map/game really work in 3 dimensions? If it does, is there a point to taking my ships and structures out of the plane of the ecliptic? I typically play from a 90 degree directly above view, playing with the camera from time to time during battles just to make it look pretty.

Am I missing an entire other aspect of the game?

Mick
6,193 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Although the ships are spaced out with some above and below others, the gameplay is on a linear plane. You're not missing anything other than different views of things.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
You can manually send ships far above or below the plane, but there's not much strategic advantage to be had from doing so. Just press then press and hold D for a Homeworld-like Z adjustment for your move orders.
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Learn something new every day here :) Thanks kyro - didnt know about that one!
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Also you can't control building placement on the Z-axis. It has built in height variation which you can't control. But yeah, generally speaking it's not needed much. If you absolutely have to fly through a large concentration of buildings or ships, for whatever reason, it's normally faster to fly over/under than through, but I've never actually had a game where I wanted to do that. :P
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Well it only applies to multiple star maps but I have a couple uses for z-axis.
First one is I like to place scouts at stars to keep an eye out, to avoid them being attacked I place them high above the star.
Second I have a defense fleet that I keep at a star so it can quickly get to where its needed, I place that fleet hi\low on the z-axis and it jumps to any star almost without moving thus getting where its needed much faster.
Third though I have heard its a bug, sometimes in multistar systems you will find that you cannot jump from one star to another, change your z-axis and you will jump no problem.