Intitial Response: Meh...

Mostly my fault. Should have done more homework on this game. Didn't know it was so slanted toward multiplayer.

Here are my problems with the game:

--Single player skirmish vs comp wasn't enough for me. Where's my campaign or story? Why bother with a long intro movie if there's no follow up? Most RTS games have both so why can't Sins of a Solar Empire?

--UI doesn't work for me. Design makes it easy to miss stuff. And you have to micromanage research and production too much. Sure you can queue stuff but that's impractical given the steep resource drain and the competition for resources between research and production. Mostly you build a tech...then you wait....then you build a ship...then you wait...then you build a civic research station...then you wait some more...whoops you just got invaded so all the stuff you had in the queue you've got to ditch cus now you need ships.

So queueing isnt really as useful as it could be. And yes I've cranked up the game/research speed to help with this.

--Like Eve Online you can zoom in and see your ships but you never really do because youre managing so much other stuff. Plus the ships basically fight for themselves so you barely even need to watch them. So basically your working with tiny blips on your screen all the time. Really kills the immersion imo. In the RTS games Command and Conquer or Dawn of War you feel much closer to the action and that really adds to the fun of the experience and hides the pain of all the waiting for research or production to finish. Turn based production/research with RTS battles can help solve this problem.

--Should consider an option in the future that allows Sins of a Solar Empire to be played as a turn based game with RTS battles...like the great Masters of Orion. This would allow players to zip through the production and research phases without the long wait times, and then focus in on the battles. They only strength the real time aspect to production and research brings is it keeps multiplayer games moving along. Now that's important and definitely should be kept for multiplayer games. For a single player it's just a pain waiting for everything to finish being built or researched. I just want to hit the next turn key...but I can't.

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Guess you'll have to wait for StarCraft II then

Sorry it wasn’t to your liking. I personally love the interface. I only tend to look at my ships during a battle or creating control groups / fleets. I find research easy to manage, just click and forget. Sure, you can’t manage EVERYTHING at the same time, who can? Perhaps it will grow on you if you give it another chance.

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how intitial is this intital response?

I downloaded this game about 2 / 3 days ago. Went through the tuts, they didn't teach me much. Tried a single player game, got raped by pirates. I kept trying, and now I just destroyed an easy computer (and the pirate home world).

Give it 2 or 3 days. It takes a while to learn how to establish, and when to expand to, planets. I'd also recommend reading some tips that are around on these forums.

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A very reasonible post indeed. I too would have liked the 4X elements more developed but the devs have maintained all along the multiplayer aspect was the focus of this title - for now at least.

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Well on the single player...I actually have been enjoying it. Yeah I wish there was a campaign type setup but the devs have said there will be one. They intend to do many content releases and expansions etc.

On the UI...I actually like it. Sounds like you probably only played it for a day. I was the same way as I was just a bit overwhelmed to a degree with it some. But after like 2 or 3 days when you finally sorta have things in order the UI makes perfect sense.

I think overall its a great game...but you made a comparison to C&C....thats probably your biggest mistake thinking this game should be like C&C. Thank goodness its not at all like that. Ive had enough uber tank build speed contests for a while on my rts games.

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If you're into multiplayer I can definitely see how you might enjoy this game. Just hope they flesh out the single player element at some point. I see alot of untapped potential.

Right now though I find myself falling asleep as I play. That's a bad sign. If a game doesn't grab you in the first day...then something is wrong. Feel like I'm just pushing around uninspiring blips. Planets seem all the same. No personality. Barely feels like you interact with them or your units. Just build and wait.

This is the kinda game that makes me wish they had a gameflix equivalent for PC games. Would have saved me some cash.

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Short answer because sins is not a RTS, it's a hybrid RTS and 4x (RT4X).
Long Answer is the game is designed as a 4x game but with the RTS feel, this is what tends to mislead people. Most 4x games are just the sandbox type game, which sins is the same in this regard. Although Ironclad/Stardock has said they may do a campaign in a future expansion.

--UI doesn't work for me. Design makes it easy to miss stuff. And you have to micromanage research and production too much. Sure you can queue stuff but that's impractical given the steep resource drain and the competition for resources between research and production. Mostly you build a tech...then you wait....then you build a ship...then you wait...then you build a civic research station...then you wait some more...whoops you just got invaded so all the stuff you had in the queue you've got to ditch cus now you need ships.

Nothing you listed above is a bad thing IMO, All those reasons you stated as a fault is what makes this game good. You have to pick and choose and there's more than one way to go about winning a game, in other words its called STRATEGY, look it up at dictionary.com if you don't know the meaning of the word.

--Like Eve Online you can zoom in and see your ships but you never really do because youre managing so much other stuff. Plus the ships basically fight for themselves so you barely even need to watch them. So basically your working with tiny blips on your screen all the time. Really kills the immersion imo. In the RTS games Command and Conquer or Dawn of War you feel much closer to the action and that really adds to the fun of the experience and hides the pain of all the waiting for research or production to finish. Turn based production/research with RTS battles can help solve this problem.

Again you are comparing this to an RTS game when it's not. 4x games or in the case of sins and RT4x are designed to be played around the bigger picture such as running an empire, exploring, exploiting etc, etc.

--Should consider an option in the future that allows Sins of a Solar Empire to be played as a turn based game with RTS battles...like the great Masters of Orion. This would allow players to zip through the production and research phases without the long wait times, and then focus in on the battles. They only strength the real time aspect to production and research brings is it keeps multiplayer games moving along. Now that's important and definitely should be kept for multiplayer games. For a single player it's just a pain waiting for everything to finish being built or researched. I just want to hit the next turn key...but I can't.

This idea would entirely change the make up and the features the majority likes about the game, not only that this would more than likely take a complete rewrite of the code base to implement.

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Yes and some people really enjoy Eve Online. They don't mind the long waiting or that it feels more like they are managing a spreadsheet than playing a game. I dont. Game feels soulless. And I would argue thats the people who do are a smaller niche than say the consumer base looking for the next Masters of Orion type game - turn based production and research with RTS/homeworld style space battles. Homeworld battles were awesome and actually required a bit of tactics. In Sins...not so much.

But "STRATEGY" you say. An ineffecient interface does not equal strategy.

And now you've got me started.

This games balance is off. Crystal resource comes in too slowly. Battles take too long, and ships and other structures can be built too quickly. Example - A bunch of pirates attacked my planet. They outnumbered my forces 2 to 1, but I immediately began pumping out frigates and built 3 weapons platforms during the course of the fight. So because the battle took forever I won. I shouldn't have. The cost in crystal for initial low end research and structures should be lowered dramatically. That would eliminate alot of the waiting in the early stages.

Battles are slugfest. Just another form of zergfest or tank rush, and lack the beauty or depth of battles in Homeworld.

A RTS/4x game based strictly on Homeworld substiting planets for Motherships with Homeworlds method of research and resource collection would have been more visceral, engaging, and fun.

Semantics. It is an RTS with some 4x qualities. In all RTS games you explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. My point is the real time element hurts it in single player, but make more sense for multiplayer games. However they still need balancing to minimize the downtime.

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