I also really like how your capital ships earn experience points that let you upgrade them with new abilities. It’s a strong incentive to keep them alive.
Sounds promising. I’m looking forward even more to trying this out when I get home.
Well I had an almost true QT3 moment with this game. I installed it after I got home from work at 4:00. My wife was going out for a meeting and dinner and my daughter has school until 9:00 ish. I stopped playing at 9:30 (without having eaten anything since lunch) when my daughter got home.
I don’t particularly like RTS’s but this one has a nice pace to it, not too frenetic and with nice strategic options. It doesn’t feel much like a beta either, very polished. The camera takes some getting used too and sometimes screws me up. AI seems reasonable as well both for your fleet and the enemy.
All in all I like it.
From the bits of play I’ve had so far, I’m pretty pleased. For an early beta, it certainly seems pretty solid; the camera control is one of the larger rough spots, and from skimming the official boards, it looks like that’s receiving extra polish in the next couple beta updates whenever they hit–sensitivity and axis-reversal options, etc.
The combat sound effects seem a bit weak (less subdued pew-pew, more BLOM BLOM! please), but then again I’ve only played around with the base level of ships in the tutorials.
Really looking forward to seeing it evolve as beta moves closer to done.
Zoom in close enough and you’ll hear BLOM! BLOM!
Unless you mean that some of the weaker rounds should sound like BLOM! BLOM! too, in which case I’d just point out that they’re weaker rounds. In real life, a .22 doesn’t have the BLOM! BLOM! of a 50-cal. either.
On a separate note, can anyone tell me why I can’t purchase heavy frigates? I’ve researched most of the combat tree and the button for them is still blacked out. Are they not available to my race or something?
Not all of the ships/improvements are in the game yet–there’s a splash screen when you start the game that explains that. More stuff will be added in future versions.
Yeah, I read the screen. I guess it just seemed weird to me that only one of the frigates would be excluded.
Hmm, you should be able to build heavy frigates. You unlock them late into the Combat research tree. The infocard that pops up when hovering over the button to build the frigate should have red text saying why the button is disabled.
Ok, I see the problem now. I thought Kodiak, Arcova, Korsov, etc. were race names, and for some reason I thought I was the Protev race, so I was looking for a Protev Heavy Frigate. Now I see where the heavy frigates are activated.
I wonder how come you can build Dreadnoughts so long before you can build Heavy Frigates?
Already a new version out. A nice list of fixes too.
March 29 - v0.60.004
- Numerous reported crash bugs fixed.
- Fixed cargo ship research.
- Added the option to invert both horizontal and vertical camera rotation.
- Changed the art of the main view pip groups to be less prominent (metal casing removed).
- Default camera mode is now the attached camera mode.
- Changed tutorial message window position to be less obtrusive.
- Fixed a number of sound bugs.
- Fixed a number of video problems related to alt-tabbing, resolution changes and loading intro movies.
- Fixed queued up capital ship levels resetting.
- NOTE: Existing save games will be broken (expect this to happen frequently with updates).
How are you guys playing this already, do you get beta if you preorder?
Yes … damn limit.
Cool, what’s this limit you’re talking about though?
Character limit that wouldn’t let me just type yes.
Oh ok… well looks like I will need to preorder this when I have some free time, I’m a sucker for real time grand strategy games.
I wouldn’t call it a grand strategy game. Still, it’s surprisingly good for a game with such a stupid title. I’m not an RTS guy, but I’m having a lot of fun with this one.
Anyone know what the colors of the lines connecting the planets signify?
This from a person who goes by muttbunch. What’s the problem with the title? It’s not Blasty Blasters over Blastopolis, but I think it’s intriguing similar to the way Empire of the Fading Suns is.
The color represents the extent of the influence of that empire’s culture. Currently, culture from your own and allied empires grants a slight tax income bonus while culture from hostile empires causes a steep tax income penalty.
Well, let’s see. First off, empires don’t sin. People do. Second, solar empire as opposed to what? A non-solar empire? What does that even mean? Third, what in the hell does the title have to do with the game? Are we sinning by expanding our empires? If so, shouldn’t we be avoiding doing that?
It’s a stupid fucking name, Raife.
It’s not Blasty Blasters over Blastopolis, but I think it’s intriguing similar to the way Empire of the Fading Suns is.
With only this one small difference: Empire of the Fading Suns makes sense.
By that logic, no government should be held accountable for anything, ever.
Does it work better for you if you substitute Star for Solar? That’s how they seem to be using it. How about Sins of a Space Empire? What if we remove Solar altogether: Sins of an Empire. Hey, now the game could be ancient China. You know, they should have just cut out everything and called it Empire. Perfect!
Beats me, but I haven’t read much of the backstory. I’d guess that they intended it to be past tense, but who cares?