ok, well, sounds like your looking for a z-axis, that would be incredibly difficult.

That would be awesome, but a bit hard for the player considering the RTS style of this particular game. Almost all TBS games are 2d. And since this games is succeding at conveying the TBS atmosphere to a rts, I like it as it is. But that would still be awesome.

JPhamel

You have to assign a key in key layout option that makes your ships move in Z-axis. 

It's been there since the beginning. It was removed for a time, but now it does work and it's a tactic some people use.

Click move, move the mouse to where you want them to go, hold your Z-axis key, and move the mouse up and down.

The thing you have to realize, is that if they did make it "true" 3D, who would play that? 

I mean sure, it's realistic (and i'd love to see it).  But now, rather than rotating your map around to get a better viewing angle, etc....anything can go anywhere.  As it stands now (if you had 3D available), you could hide an entire fleet underneath a star and nobody would know a thing....well, other than the player-icons that show through objects).

All i'm saying, is that sure it's a cool thing we'd like to see, but i don't think it would be very good to put it in, as it were.  It would just make things more complicated, regardless of how frigging awesome it would be.  I'll just stick to using my "`" key for the Z-axis, as it suits it's purpose

Or four vasari starbases.....

EVE Online is an MMORPG, not an RTS. Not familiar with SW Supremecy though.

The trouble with three-dimensional movement is it's difficult to map smoothly onto a two-dimensional instruments like a mouse and monitor. Homeworld manages, but Homeworld is a game of micromanagement and tactics. Sins on the other hand is a game of overarching strategy and empire management, More to the point, if you had z-axis movement what exactly would you do with it? How would the fundamental gameplay be altered?

Meh, the advantages of strategically positioning units on the Z-axis would be outweighed by the additional micromanagement/control issues.

If you want a more 3D RTS then try out the "Homeworld" games. They did a pretty good job implementing the game in 3D, and while the controls were pretty well done it was somtimes a royal PITA to get the camera to do what you wanted it to quickly.

I prefer the simplicity of the camera/movement controls with the option to move in the Z should I feel some kind of strange urge to do so. Having to deal with "hidden" fleets/SB's that are lurking about and build defenses spherically around the planets? Pass.

Homeworld did it just fine, so there's your proof that it's not "hard" or would make things "difficult".

The biggest problem is that the game would look really stupid. Almost all the ships in SOASE are designed with fixed weapons that point straight forward. Meaning battles fought in the Z-Axis would look amazingly bad as everything had to stop and rotate to bring weapons to bear.

Take Star Wars, for example - the Star Destroyer's top and bottom surfaces are bristling with weapons, so that it can attack things going over or under it, and it's designed 'fat' so that you can't just attack it from the side to avoid the guns. Game-wise, with independent targetting of all weapon batteries, it would be extremely effective in three dimensions.

Now, how many naval ships can you think of require it to rotate and point straight at the enemy to bring its weapons to bear?