Sins of a Solar Empire

[Capt_Striker]

Hey all,

Been really excited about a little game called Sins of a Solar Empire or SOASE. There is a beta out for it now (second of four) that is just kick butt. Its signle player, but the devs have promised a multiplayer beta. Here is the article of an interview http://pc.ign.com/articles/807/807956p1.html. The portion about the beta is at the bottom of page six. Well to the point and relivance. Warlords would look awesome in the game. The vid SOASE on IGN.com is a little out of date based on the beta updates, but for real Warlods would like this new home IMO.

 

Edit: Ok so after I did a little searching I found that the game has been mentioned here before, but nothing on the Beta (lol).

Edited July 30, 2007 by MenaceOfCommunists

[Evaders99]

Gotta pre-order for the beta? Yes I agree the game looks good, but I don't want to suck my money into it before testing it myself.

[EvilleJedi]

I am evaluating it, I was in the first beta and talked to the devs a bit about what capabilities would be exposed through modding.

[Komo val]

It looks good and has an interesting idea. Still don't know how the empire management works in real time, the closes thing I played to that was Imperium Galactica II which also didn't have turns. The only bad thing I can think of is the lack of movement in 3D, hope the complete  game will have it.

[OOM-911]

the mods going to play a LOT different if and when you move over to sins. i hope you guys will get a better graphics and game engine.

 

and hopefully you guys go with direct x 10

[EvilleJedi]

Sins has 3d movment, it isn't as obivous how to do it and its not required.

 

unless DX10 comes to XP don't count on it for a couple years, I have no intention of moving to vista any time soon.

[OOM-911]

from what i have heard there will be a direct x 10 emulator for xp thought it wont be as fast

[Evaders99]

There are projects started that are supposed to bring DX10 to XP. Sadly I don't think it would happen.

It would be stupid for Microsoft to do so, given much of the code is to support Vista's new GUI and user-mode drivers.

[EvilleJedi]

the gui support is not relevant to XP and the user mode driver support is available for XP as a hotfix, it is simply a matter of the graphics pipeline (instead of GDI+ etc) afaik being backported

[Nath]

Hey EvilleJedi, I suspected that you were in on the Sins beta testing as well.  I did notice that you didn't post anything since that one joke message in the Star Wars topic...at least not under your 'EvilleJedi' name/title.  So what do you think about the beta so far?

 

I share the same opinion on Windows Vista.  I plan on staying with XP for the next 2 years or so.

 

For the most part, I think SoaSE will be be perfect for Warlords.

 

There are of course some concerns such as strike craft being closely tied to their carrier 'motherships'.  This would mean that there would be no hyper drive capable strike craft.  While perfectly fine for most Imperial Tie type craft, it will seriously reduce the value of fighters that are supposed to be able to jump to hyperspace.

 

Hmmm, I suppose you could make the hyper drive capable strike craft like regular ships (just very small, cheap and weak).  They would be constructed at shipyards like the other regular ships.  You just won't be able to dock them with other ships.

 

Another concern will be whether or not we will be able to make more than one functional planet within a gravity well.  If we can do this, we will be able to make custom maps where each star will have a massive gravity well that encompasses several planets.  This will make for some pretty epic battles over who ends up owning the entire star system.

 

Finally, I really hope we will be able to mod in some type of fog of war within gravity wells.  At this point, SoaSE allows full sight of all ships/structures to any other presence in the same gravity well.  Last I heard, Ironclad will put such a function in IF they have time prior to the official game release.

 

Has anybody gotten any recent info on these issues from the game developers?

Edited August 21, 2007 by Nath

[Nath]

Okay, so we know that SoaSE can make Star Wars hyperdrive equipped strike craft by producing them like regular ships at a shipyard.  They can then be grouped into squads however we see fit.

 

Something to consider will be by how much to adjust the fleet points these regular ship strike craft consume (as well as all the other ships in the mod).

 

Of course, these hyperdrive equipped ships will also have shields and higher armor when compared to the standard Tie models (in/bomber/interceptor).

 

Tie squadron sizes might need to be reduced in number as well.

 

*For those of you who don't know, carriers/hangars produce and carry strike craft that have no hyperspace ability (at this time in the beta testing).  These carrier/hangar based strike craft don't consume any fleet points either...but that actually works well in simulating the extra cost in maintaining/using strike craft that do have shields and a hyperdrive.

Edited August 22, 2007 by Nath

[Komo val]

Very interesting. What are the approximate system requirements for the game? i heard somewhere they would try to make it available for older computers also (like mine, but that will change I promise you).

[Nath]

There are some beta testers with crap systems (ie, 2.0 Gig, 512 Meg, 6800 video type systems).  Sins actually runs well even on older systems.  Still, I suspect you'll be losing out on some of the eye candy with these older computers for the games final release.

[Nath]

Okay, I am here to help with the SoaSE Warlords mod.

 

Unfortunately, I can't model at all.  I can play with script and run balance tests gallore.  However, I would imagine that it would more sense to use official (and guestimated) values for ships/structures/abilities/weapons/armor/shields/and so on.

 

Maybe I can help work on the Star Wars Galactic Map.  Unlike the Sins of a Solar Empire stock game, we shouldn't have any use for stars that have a dozens of habital planets.

 

Instead, we should maybe concentrate on only using star systems that have noteworthy locations within them. Including planets, remote asteroid bases, mining facilities and so on, does anybody know how many areas would be included in the map?

Edited January 29, 2008 by Nath

[EvilleJedi]

I had the idea of taking a few of the planets and creating custom models, specifically systems like corellia, kuat, nar shadda/nal hutta and coruscant, granted they wouldn't be the most optimal arrangements. I would suggest going to these sites as they have done a fantastic job of reconciling the various official maps and placing planets that are mentioned

 

http://starwarsatlas.uw.hu/

 

http://www.xs4all.nl/~wrvh/galaxymap/

 

I would personally like to see some other custom maps like a deep core map where only a few named systems exist and everything else is just lifeless boulders, or unknown regions etc....

[Nath]

Happily, it should be possible to make thick asteroid belts that interfere with large ship pathfinding within gravity wells.  This will add a nice tactical touch around systems like Hoth.

 

Hmmm, looking at the sector maps at http://www.xs4all.nl/~wrvh/galaxymap/ , I think we could actually make a campaign that is divided into sectors as well.  Of course, Sins can apparently handle all those sectors at once...however, not everyones computer can handle it.

 

It there were a way to allow more than 10 players, that would be great.  I'll go ask the devs if it will be possible.

Edited January 30, 2008 by Nath

[captshetz]

As a huge fan of both the original Warlords mod and SOASE, I eagerly anticipate another EvilleJedi production.

 

I find it pretty cool that SOASE could potentially have a custom map where each star is a sector and the map could end up being the entire Star Wars galaxy.  Take THAT, Empire at War!

 

God speed on the mod!