I’ve given that one a lot of thought actually, and my theory is, at least in my case, it’s more of a UI issue. On the basic map view they don’t do a good job of showing the depth of the planets, so you have to constantly realign your view to get a sense of the space. You can get around that somewhat by going to the political view which does a better job of showing which stars are closest to the camera, but it’s an odd oversight.
For me that just makes the 3d maps more of a hassle than they are worth as I don’t think they add much to the strategy over one of the flatter map types.
Ah, ok. I guess I tend to play smaller maps so things end pretty quickly (one way or another :) ).
I disagree that the 3d maps don’t add much strategy. In general you have more fronts in the 3d maps compared to the 2d ones, so you potentially have more conflicts to deal with at once. The 3d maps also have interesting implications for the different drive types that don’t come into play in the 2d maps. But I acknowledge that many people find the 3d maps a pain to navigate around. Video of an early build of SotS2 looks to me like the nearer and farther stars are distinguished better, so hopefully it will be easier to process.
Yeah, I like a lot of what SoTS did, but some of the novelty gameplay items didn’t seem to work as well as planned. I hope they’re better implemented in the sequel.
Yeah, I agree that it does add to the strategy, just not enough in my opinion to make the extra hassle worthwhile. Doesn’t bother me a bit though since there are enough map types to keep everyone happy (although it’d be nice for there to have been a few more flat map layouts).
I actually think the hollow sphere map is a nice compromise between 2d and 3d. The thin sphere around the outside is more or less just a curved flat map, while the solid core isn’t so large that it’s hard to navigate.
There’s a theme of less with more detail in SotS 2. Less stars but multiple planets and moons. Less ships per fleet but greater survivability with systems like ablative armor and critical hits. Swarm tactics from the original game are evolving to more of a WWII carrier doctrine.
So instead of riders, destroyers, cruisers, dreadnoughts, and leviathans they demoted destroyers to the rider role along with drones and fighters. Cruisers are the bulk of the fleets with dreads anchoring. Leviathans are the rare super-flagships that bring the big guns like Vader’s SSD.
All speculation and IMO based solely in my observations if what’s out there.
In SotS 1 the Tarka had a carrier that brought three cruiser sized battle riders to a fight.
That’s what I think is the definition of a battle rider. No interstellar drive so they are brought to a battle by carriers or are intra-system defense boats.
So I’ve been putting time into SOTS and have a pretty basic grasp of the game. But one thing I don’t quite get and can’t find any detailed explanation of is the whole command system. I get that if I put a C&C ship with other ships it gives me a number of advantages, but what I don’t get is how to figure out how many ships a C&C ship can control. In other words, how do I determine what a good fleet size actually would be?
