It’s the slow type of RTS. Just read this
Also, you can choose the game speed.
Excellent. Thanks for the link. I mean I like the Battlecry series, but that’s about as clicky as I can stand. I prefer the more Kohan-like approach of making big decisions. This looks ideal, plus it incoporates 4X elements? This could be a perfect game if it continues to develop properly.
It’s nowhere near as clicky as Battlecry or a normal RTS. The ships can mostly pick their own targets, you just tell them where to go. The default setting is for them to engage any enemy who enters the gravity well.
Since gravity wells are natural choke points, you’re usually only focusing on a small number of areas at any given time.
Are those really smokestacks in orbit?!?
The benifit from buying with tokens is that I can play the demo right now, and still download the full game on the 4th.
If I buy the special edition, I don’t get into the beta now. However, on the 4th I get to download the game and they ship a box copy of the game, with some extras and whatnot.
Yesterday it was a decision of whether or not to be download only for the sake to play it immediatly, or get a physical copy that I would like to have but have to wait.
I decided to order the special edition and buy Supreme Commander: FA to cover my RTS impulse untill then.
wtf is with the smokestacks. they need gravity to function. immersion killers imo. dislike the blue backdrop too. looks like something out of nintendo or disney.
love the idea of this game tho, will get it when store-released here in euroland
Woot, I’m getting a decent download speed again! Now let’s see about this beta…
edit: Where is that beta? The SDC list won’t let me download anything when I select Sins of a Solar Empire.
That’s nothing, dude. These ships make noises in space. Fakey!
BTW, if the variously colored nebulae and whatnot bother you, I’m pretty sure you can toggle the various space skyboxes.
-Tom
Actually, any physicists here? A smokestack does not take gravity to work. The fact that the smoke is lighter (due to temperature difference) is what makes it rise. In a vacuum, it should be sucked out even faster and expand more rapidly than in air (till it condenses due to the temperature being cold in the vacuum of space). So physicist, what would it do?
The real problem would be that inertia would probably make it fly off behind the craft directly, rather than “rising”. Of course, the pressure would still be there. In fact, the use of pressure should be BETTER in space because the differential would be higher (between your heated element and the vacuum). You could then use that pressure to fire up some turbines and generate energy.
I’ve never heard of gravity being a factor in a smoke stack in any way.
But I’m not a physicist. I’m a philosopher. YMMV.
Tom is right, we put in skybox settings because it seems 50% like brightly colored ones and 50% prefer deep space ones. Everyone wins.
How long do games normally last for? Also I’ve been somewhat following this game, is there a single player mode ?
It looks pretty, but the video kind of chugged on my computer, so color me worried. But the more I read about this game, the faster it turns into a must have. Definitely beats the pants off of that lame piece of crap Homeworld.
You lazy Canadian, write your damn words out!
Yeah, but no single player campaigns. They’re hoping that modders will fill the void or some such. As long as the game is fun, I’m willing to cut them some slack. Or slacks. Hey Brad, need some pants?
Heads up for impulsive impatient people (me): - Preordering does not allow access till the Feb 2008 release:
According to their FAQ you must purchase using Totalgaming tokens if you want in the Beta4.
game shure looks droolworthy, but i still dislike the smokestacks. In zero grav, there would be no pressure differential to make the smoke rise in a neat little column. If one were to release gas in space, it’d look like a jet, ending in something like a contrail of icicles (sp?).
Schurem, dude, you’re picking the wrong abstraction to attack. You should totally be going off on the lack of a z-axis instead.
As for pfreak’s question about the length of time a game takes, there is no single answer for that. I tried a game on slow with a customized map I rolled up. It had distant planet clusters in a couple of separate star systems, with four players working their way across the map. It turned out to be a six-hour affair. When they say ‘slow’, they mean ‘slow’!
On the other hand, you can easily set up a quick two-player lunch-hour game. For instance, there’s a map called Pandemonium that has everyone fighting over a choke point out into a wider galaxy. That one can be decided pretty quickly.
-TomThat’s what the “smoke” looks like to me when animated – a series of rings emanating out. It doesn’t look exactly like ordinary smoke, more like gas emissions. Totally not an immersion-breaker.
Also it’s got a save anywhere and restart in multiplayer so epic games can be played across multiple days.
Without gravity, smoke won’t rise. If you lit a candle on the Space Shuttle, the exhaust would end up smothering the flame.
In a vacuum, gases will expand, but not “pointing up” as in the video. They would basically create a little cloud around the refinery, sort of like the Pig-Pen character in Peanuts.
If the exhaust gases were highly energetic, they might create an exhaust jet from the spacecraft. This is exactly the definition of a reaction thruster. In other words, if the refinery were really launching smoke straight up at high speed, it should be impelled downwards.
Personally, I think there is a detrimental effect on immersion. I know we’re used to breaking some rules of physics, like hearing explosions, but IMHO smokestacks in space are on the same level as the floating Spanish galleons seen in Baron Munchausen or The Mummy Returns.