Was talking to some of the guys on TS about a game called Sins of a solar empire to which they said "WTF is that?"

 

In answer, it is a pretty cool space RTS where you battle in space over plantets, asteroids and even entire star systems, the game is quite epic in scope with literally thousands of ships on screen at once from tiny fighters to huge starbases of doom, and customisable maps that can be practically unlimited in size comprising of hundreds or even thousands of planets spread over multiple star systems).

 

And I know how you all love sexy screenies so... (these are from pretty early in a new game I was playing so my fleets are still actually pretty small and I don't have any epic starbases yet and I haven't been in many epic battles yet, I might post some better ones later).

 

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg55/WC_Captain_Wolf/SinsofaSolarEmpireEntrench2009-0-7.png?t=1253715556

My carrier fleet orbiting one of my worlds, the bubble looking things in the foreground are small cruiser class carriers with a capital class carrier in the middle and lots of fighters and bombers as escorts. (BTW the names you can see are the names of other planets behind the one you can see in the same system).

 

 

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg55/WC_Captain_Wolf/SinsofaSolarEmpireEntrench2009-0-6.png?t=1253715604

My beam defence platforms defending one of my worlds from a pirate raid.

 

 

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg55/WC_Captain_Wolf/SinsofaSolarEmpireEntrench2009-0-3.png?t=1253715606

An enemy capital class carrier sitting at a safe distance from my homeworld.

 

 

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg55/WC_Captain_Wolf/SinsofaSolarEmpireEntrench2009-0-2.png?t=1253715607

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg55/WC_Captain_Wolf/SinsofaSolarEmpireEntrench2009-0-1.png?t=1253715607

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg55/WC_Captain_Wolf/SinsofaSolarEmpireEntrench2009-09-2.png?t=1253715609

Just to show the scale, a zoomed out shot of my homeworld, a zoomed out shot of my home star system, and a zoomed out shot of the galaxy in a 170 planet map spread over 3 systems.

I have this game and can only play it over hamachi, cough. but there is one thing you didin't mention, well i only read the title But...

 

some battles go for overs 12 hours....but luckily there is a multiplayer save. Unfortunatley i have experienced one of these "epic battles"

The races are almost like Starcraft, Theres the humans, aliens and some protoss like space dudes. Yeah, it's pretty epic

 

One thing about this game which pisses me off, is that the combat is not that entertaining. I remember when i played HOMEWORLD 2 and when the ships battled, you could actually do a chase cam and they actually flew around really fast, evasive action , etc etc... in this it's like SPACE TANKS! They just float and shoot.

Edited September 23, 200915 yr by ferris747

Very good game. I can play this till 6 in the morning without realising it. Gives me that "just one more turn" type of scenario (not that this is turn based). Can't wait for more of the micro-expansions to see what they add.

@Daffan,

 

Some games can go for 12 hours yes, but some can go for less than an hour. that is the great thing about the game. You can decide how big the map is from 2 planets to thousands. The biggest MP map I have ever played so far was about 100 worlds which took quite a long while, but like you said you can save the game at any time and come back to it later.

 

The three races are the TEC (humans), Advent (Cybernetic/telekenetic/telepathic humans), and the Vasari (Alien dudes that cruise around in big bad back ships). Not really anything to do with starcraft, there is definitely no Zerg.

 

The combat is exactly like Homeworld, in homeworld the larger ships (anything bigger than a fighter, bomber or corvette) will just fly into weapons range and then stop and fire until it or its target is dead, they don't manoeuvre at all unless they need to to get back into weapons range. It is exactly the same in this game.

Edited September 24, 200915 yr by mrchickenfool

Have you tried playing online at all Wolf?

LOL your about a year behind me Wolf. Once again Bulletmagnet and myself played this to death a while ago over Hamachi. Its a nice game but very linear each battle follows a very similar sequence of events. Establish an economic base around material rich worlds, turtle till you have a few capital ships with figther/bombers, build a reasonable fleet of destroyer types to protect from enemy fighter/bombers and then spam out some world destroys. Now with your hoard of ships bomb/shoot your enemy into submission.

Did you play with the entrenchment expansion Vis? It adds a whole slew of new defence type units and better AI and giant star bases that can destroy multiple capital ships single handedly. It makes the game a much more well rounded and enjoyable experience.

 

With the AI on the hardest setting it is very very hard to turtle with only a few worlds as the AI quickly captures the rest of the worlds and with their huge economic superiority it pounds you into submission with huge fleets that attack over and over until you have nothing left. This is even more true against human players.

 

In fact I have yet to win against the hardest AIs, if you can't establish an alliance or at least a ceasefire with some of them in the early game they can quickly band together and smash you with coordinated attacks from multiple players.

 

BTW Vis, of course it follows a very similar sequence of events. It is a 4x game, explore, expand, exploit, exterminate. Like almost every other RTS game in existence.

 

 

@Sauce, I've played it a lot in SP and LAN MP games. But I've never played it in the wilds of the internets, I hate playing strats with random internoobs online it makes me want to eat kittens.

 

BTW did you get that name from Star Control 2? If so it's pure epic.

Edited September 24, 200915 yr by mrchickenfool

I got this game and i liked it. But the endless spam from AI does get annoying.

Still a good romp tho

SoASE isn't bad but i HATE the expansion and those stupid star bases.

 

2 of those with full upgrades can take out a whole fleet out with too much trouble.

 

Personally i prefer Homeworld 2 + Warlords mod.

I did indeed Wolf. You're are the 2nd person in about 5 years to know where I got my handle

 

Edit: Lol it apppears i have 2 accounts. One the Uni comps remember and I didnt realise I had, I thought I signed up to Bigd awhile ago.

Edited September 24, 200915 yr by Chris

whats it like compared to homeworld2 if anyone has played both hw2 and soas

:shower:

whats it like compared to homeworld2 if anyone has played both hw2 and soas

 

What wolf said the combat is NOT what he meant and is in no way like homeworld. In homeworld the ships actually MOVE!

This is like buying turrets that move , hulk down and fight.

 

But the game in it self has a lot more content and other features.

Edited September 24, 200915 yr by ferris747

What wolf said the combat is NOT what he meant and is in no way like homeworld. In homeworld the ships actually MOVE!

No they don't, show me a video of homeworld where the ships randomly fly around doing evasive manoeuvres. If the ship is in weapons range with the maximum amount of guns facing the enemy it will sit completely still and just fire until it or its enemy is destroyed. THEN it will move, but only because it is moving to fire on another ship and once in position it will completely stop again.

 

Which as I said is exactly the same as what happens in SoaSE.

 

Example: 3:00 to 3:40 you will see 3 Veygr Destroyers move into range to engage some enemy ships. As soon as they are in range they turn sideways to orient the max amount of guns on the enemy and they completely stop until the targets are destroyed.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4w50Gs5jZ0]YouTube - Homeworld 2 Gameplay[/ame]

 

 

Many of the ships might look like they are flying around evasively or whatever but they are simply moving to engage other ships that are moving away and hence the attacking ships need to keep moving in order to stay in weapons range.

 

The only time the ships move in a battle in HW or SoaSE is if they are out of weapons range and they see enemies OR if they are ordered to MOVE to a new position in which case they will move and fire on the way.

Edited September 24, 200915 yr by mrchickenfool

No they don't, show me a video of homeworld where the ships randomly fly around doing evasive manoeuvres. If the ship is in weapons range with the maximum amount of guns facing the enemy it will sit completely still and just fire until it or its enemy is destroyed. THEN it will move, but only because it is moving to fire on another ship and once in position it will completely stop again.

 

Which as I said is exactly the same as what happens in SoaSE.

 

Example: 3:00 to 3:40 you will see 3 Veygr Destroyers move into range to engage some enemy ships. As soon as they are in range they turn sideways to orient the max amount of guns on the enemy and they completely stop until the targets are destroyed.

 

Many of the ships might look like they are flying around evasively or whatever but they are simply moving to engage other ships that are moving away and hence the attacking ships need to keep moving in order to stay in weapons range.

 

The only time the ships move in a battle in HW or SoaSE is if they are out of weapons range and they see enemies OR if they are ordered to MOVE to a new position in which case they will move and fire on the way.

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpcfbRXjrhk&feature=fvw]YouTube - Homeworld 2 Insane Battle Footage[/ame]

 

yeah mate watever

 

pretty sure enemy is stationary and the crap is hitting the fan as they fly around their " target " . Not chasing, or following, but manouvering around.

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjo_qFjU2eo&feature=related]YouTube - Homeworld 2 Rebalance Dogfight[/ame]

 

Anyways, SoaSe is probally better anyways, but it can be more boring at times. If they would ever release a homeworld 3, it will be epic. Since Homeworld 2 is like 2003 or something whereas Soase is 2008. A five year gap, you'd probally want to latter to better.

 

Apparently THQ got the rights to the homeworld franchise again and they been peppering around a sequel, yo.

Edited September 24, 200915 yr by ferris747

I'd love to try some mods for this game...

 

One thing that kind of sucks is that rarely is it ever beneficial to zoom in and actually observe the battle from up close. Which is such a shame because the game is gorgeous... yet using the macro view is so much more useful when fighting At least from my experience...

 

I do think the modding communityfor this game is quite active