Gamespot's write up bothered me...

yeah, that bugged me to

I think what they *meant* to say was that you can control them tactically, and it will be important to do so, but your tactical movements in one battle will not decide the war.

*puppy eyes towards blair*

schem leave blair alone...
in the previous forum it was said that we would be able to have control of each individual battle *IF* we choosed to... if we did not the computer would step in and take control of it for us and choose best targets ect ect.... As schem said in the last forum it was said that you would be able to control the battles but it is much more important to control the bigger things instead of small tiny battles...
as the saying goes
"You may have won the battle but you have not won the war"

speaking of ship control, can you guys remind me if SoSE will allow movement in 3D (like in HW)? I don't remember reading it on the old forum.

thanks

there is 3d movement
Was changed from no to yes, some time ago, think it was because some fans wanted it

I'm not sure what the comment is in reference to but for the most part I think we have even more tactical control than Homeworld with options to automate things so it doesn't have to be as micromanaged. Yes, there is still 3d movement for advanced users.

There is also a number of comments in the Gamespot "Comment" section just below the preview that are misinformed. There is ship customization, just not to the extent of a turned-based game like GalCiv2 as that isn't feasible for a real-time game.

B

Thanks Lionheart and Blair!

My recent Beta testing for a space RTS that doesn't have 3D movement left some really bad tastes in my mouth

@Blair: your comments here I think deserves to be stickied somewhere. Availability of advance tactical control such as moving ships in 3D, and the presence of limited customization of ships are points that I am sure any fan would want to know, and any non-fans would be attracted to.

My recent Beta testing for a space RTS that doesn't have 3D movement left some really bad tastes in my mouth

hmm... SotS?

There is ship customization

Really?
Is it just cosmetic adjustments like logos, or things like upgraded engines/weapons?

there is 3d movement
Was changed from no to yes, some time ago, think it was because some fans wanted it

LoL umm really ? And I think Blair's comment is a little misleading.

I'm not sure which comment is in question. If there anything anyone feels is misleading, I'd be happy to clarify for everyone

Well for the 3d movement, i recall that Blair said (on the old fan forum) that there would not be any 3d movement.
But was changed, since alot of the members wanted it.

Thats what i recall
If im wrong please correct me

You are correct. I originally said there would be no 3d movement, however, after everyone made good arguements why 3d movement would be cool, we added it. It has been in for several months now.

Is it just cosmetic adjustments like logos, or things like upgraded engines/weapons?

From what I recall, it would basicly be improvements you would expect from a seasoned ship. Better aiming, better targetting choices, better maneuvering. Stuff like that I believe will be types of customisations I think the game is going to have... (I know this type of stuff is going to be in the game..I just cant remember if this falls under Blair's customisation category)

After everyone made good arguements why 3d movement would be cool, we added it. It has been in for several months now.

There was a lot of this kind of interplay on the old boards. We'd come up with wild ideas and you could never be sure they wouldn't be looked at seriously. We were essentially allowed in on a "beta" style process at the design phase... that was pretty cool.

Based on that experience, I think the actual beta for Sins is going to be awesome.

As for customization... IIRC the way it works is you can chose new options for your capital ships as they gain experience, so you can make them specialize in different things. I don't think the way this progressive specialization interacts with the global tech tree has really been talked about much though. If it has, I've forgotten how it works!

You are correct. I originally said there would be no 3d movement, however, after everyone made good arguements why 3d movement would be cool, we added it. It has been in for several months now.

after SotS flunked I wouldnt be surprised if you halted everything just to make 3-D available.

after SotS flunked I wouldnt be surprised if you halted everything just to make 3-D available.

flunked? in what way? seems to me it's doing ok...

Sots is a decent game... kinda...

The random, huge tech tree/random events/alien encounters are all great.

Empire management, building, combat... Not so good.

well, all I heard was wave after wave of criticism about the battle setup... I didnt exactly track their sales

either way, I haven't seen a single post (other than the dev post) defending he 2-D setup.

The 2d setup was one of the worst features of SOTS. And the combat was nice, but very slow....

SotS is a great game, but as every existing game it has it's downsides. 2D and oversimplified planetary management being two.

I agree

although tracking the missles was fun

I know that thorugh experiance you can upgrade your ships but can you still buy upgrades

How 3D is the movement? Last I checked Sins plantary systems will have floors and ceilings. That is the battle space will be a cylinder instead of a sphere.


This could just all be my misunderstanding. I also think ships auto level to some predetermined plane. Both of those aspects are somewhat limiting in what you can do because the ship's weapons are directional. And if the ship auto levels to a specific plane then you might have a hard time angling your weapons properly.

I know some people would be confused by extra controls, but other gamers like myself would really appreciate as much freedom of movement as possible.

Not to mention the multiplayer of Sots pretty much sucked. Combat was slow but was quite normal for a space RTS. I found managing the game pretty hard too.

Well, SotS suffered from a lot of problems in the real time portion.

1. Unit cap was way too low.

2. unit movement and control was too limited.

3. It was often hard to see what was going on unless you put the game into sensor mode.

4. It was hard to see what the actual weapons statistics were... I was never able to figure out damage per second on any weapon.

5. And of course there was no 3D movement of any kind... well... sometimes units would go 'over' or 'under' each other if they got bunched up... but that doesn't really count.




My tactic in the game was to figure out a cheap unit that the turn based system recognized as being good... even though it frankly sucked. And then spam them. I could win most battles without leaving turn based mode that way.