One thing I found unique is the emmersion factor and the game isnt even complete yet.

The music fits, the graphics are buetiful, the battles amazing. Even watching a ship phase space draws into the game more and more.

I want to add one thing (I concurr with everything else) :

SoSE achieved a huge victory in enabling the player not to feel lost in the universe, I mean great job with the map ! Wen zomming into a planet, very easy to get infos and contstruction, just have to click on the planet. In maximum zoom out, which permit quick view from planet to planet, very good idea vwith the three bars around the planet icon, very pratical.

I played twice Haegemonia, a realtime space conquering game, but quickly abandonned, maps was not readable, I lost fleets from view, menus were unreadable ... SoSE avoids all this and puts on a great show ! Nice job !

PS : It was wise to stay on 2D for the Universe map, 3D maps are such a mess !

lol, you can edit your posts

#1) Mod Friendly. It's a huge thing. It means years later we'll still be playing this game (and/or its expansions) in some form or another.

#2) Scaling graphics. Going from zoom up on a ship to the universe was just WHOA!

#3) Graphics. To avoid being repetitive, I'll just not add comment.

#4) Special Effects. Maybe tied for 3rd   

#5) Music is actually pretty good.

#6) Pirates being threatening and menacing instead of space pansies. I'd also like to see them have non-combat or maybe weakly armed/armored cargo type ships that in essence "steal" resources while their combat ships have defensive fleets engaged.

#7) Tutorials and Easy Mode. Despite being surrounded by hardcore gamers and fans, yep here I am, a little lamb to the slaughter. I like being able to play a single player game and not get dominated completely rather quickly. Having time to learn and make mistakes (hopefully correct them) while a fleet of Cap. Ships wasn't bearing down on me was nice.

#8) I know it's I'm supposed to say what I'd like but others are going to want a computer opponent to challenge them on HARD difficulty (or insanely harder difficulty or the Uber Brad Wardell difficulty). It shouldn't be terribly hard. The AI was a good opponent for your whichever difficulty you chose in GC2 DL/DA.

01) The cap ships really feel like capital ships and they're a huge leap from the cruisers and frigates. The fact that each capital ship is named also adds to this feeling of these ships being special.
02) The phase jump graphics look great
03) Refining and Trade ships
04) The graphics for when the Javelis fires its missiles.

Edited by Blair: This was in the wrong thread so I moved this to its own constructive criticism thread.

A good thing is that the AI appears to be thinking. If you take locked teams and have allies, they'll try to help you as long as they're strong. In fact, if your teammates stay alive because the other AIs in your system are busy with you, your ally will eventually have several battlegroups going around - a bunch of cruisers and maybe a capship each.

One time the pirates made it all the way to my homeworld with minimal damage (didn't build Phase Disruptors this game), and I totally forgot to build much defense on my homeworld, or even develop the Tactical, since I'd been conquering AIs for a few hours.

I started cranking out Kodiaks as fast as I could, and got a planetary shield up (the pirates had 7 Pillagers among others), and then my ally comes rushing in with about a dozen cruisers - Hoshiko, Perchirien, Cielo, and Kodiak, and a few Cobalts. I met their fleet halfway by nailing the pirates from the opposite part of the gravity well, since my light factory was on the other side, and some of my Kodiaks started to hammer their pillagers.

But the AI really helped save my homeworld. This shows that the AI is thinking about important things to do... and if it happens to have a well-developed position, with a lot of resources and fleet capacity, it will be able to do some of those important things. Like defending its allies' homeworlds.

The AI isn't always the most intelligent, but sometimes it surprises you. Just don't make it any dumber. They even seem to be capable of anticipating an attack; on more than a few occasions when invading an enemy AI with many planets, they'll have a huge fleet, with frigates and capships, ambushing my forces as soon as I jump in.

Another thing you shouldn't change is the laptop-friendly controls. Keep those zoom in/out and rotating functions nice and convenient for those who don't have access to a scroll wheel!

Edited by Blair: wrong thread, it's been moved to a more appropriate one.

The opening music kicks a#$#$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will start up SOSE and crank up the music just to listen to the music and not even play the game.

I prefer low resources because then I feel like I actually have time to think. With high resources, I get into situations where I can hardly spend my money fast enough, and I am spending the whole game just clicking on stuff to "buy" once I get just a few planets up and running. If I sit back and watch a few battles up close for fun, I feel like I am wasting all that money I am getting, so I definetely prefer low resources.

I like the graphics and how scalable the game is. Just like Supreme Commander, being able to zoom out and zoom in quickly is very efficient. I also like how easy it is to change your viewing angle.

I have some gripes like everyone does. Will post in a different thread.

This list is in the order that I came to appreciate them.

1. Music, when I turned it on the first time my first thought was, wow, the music is nice!

2. Graphics, then I opened up the tutorial, there was a pretty planet and I rotated around it, it had a dark side and a light side. "Hmm, I wonder if the sun is on the light side, sweet! it is."
The ships look great, the missiles look fantastic, I really like the space elevators.

3. Stability and performace! This is probably the item on the list which I am most impressed with. My computer is mediocre (below recommended CPU, above recommended RAM, at recommended video card) and I am able to run it very very well. I started running it by itself, found that I could alt tab out ok, so I started adding in a couple programs. Now I run it windowed, with AIM, an incoming and outgoing webcam feed, and have several tabs open on firefox, everything works fine. In the end game it starts slowing up a bit and I kill the webcams, but I have somehow found it in my heart to forgive SOASE for forcing me to do this.

Sins I likey list

1) Scale and Graphics are great
2) Seamless zoom
3) The idea of a massive empire and epics size universe to conquer
4) I like the starting options, being able to choose your opponents as well as color and symbols. (Do different player slot translate to different starting positions?) (another win option could be; destroy or timed blockade of enemy capital planet with locked capitals)
5) Stability, I have the graphics options maxed with very little lag even with large fleets. And the game only crash once, when Norton started a scheduled scan.
6) I like to a lesser degree the loyalty factor; however, I think it’s too severe. Or perhaps should be a morale issue with different things to increase morale like developing their colony infrastructure, planetary defenses, etc.
7) I like the ship experience as well and I thing it should apply to frigates and cruisers as well. If not for upgrades then just fighting performance bonus.

I really enjoy the game.

"Sins of a Solar Empire is a "RT4X" game, blending the epic strategy and empire management of the 4x genre with the fast-paced and tactical elements of a real-time strategy title."

When I was looking into the game, I initially had my doubts about the above statement. I was concerned that ship battles were going to be over too quickly. Well I'm pleasantly surprised how well it works in this game. The speed at which the game is played and more importantly, the battles are fought, is perfect for me.

Another thing I really like is the "feel" of the capital ships. They're not just another large ship one throws into meat grinder. They're important assets that when managed properly have devastating effects on your enemy. Aside from that, the visuals are amazing with these ships. I love watching these ships in action.

wow, people actually seem to like the game... whodathunk?

The backrounds of space literally leave my mouth hanging open. I have a customized dell computer that in my opinion is extremely powerful (medeival total war 2 never lags   ) and having this game on maximum graphics (and loading a large galaxy in 15 seconds) makes every detail stunning. Please expand on the types of backrounds (as in the orange hue galaxy or the blue mist with a white rift) because you've officially ousted freelancer, and that game (in my opinion) did amazing jobs on space in general.

Managing an empire has NEVER been so easy. And i can't wait for you to add more AI's. In your interview it seemed a little complicated when you were talking about the new automated systems but now that i look back on Sins, the game is so easy to play adding layers of new systems will only make it more fun.

I love the mystery shrouding each galaxy as you aproach a new sector of space with a large fleet. Sure, you can send scout ships, but the feeling of just scratching the surface of another galactic empire exites the hell out of me.

Fighter coordination and laser blasts are my favorites in battles. To watch an enemy ship getting peppered in auto cannon blasts from fighters and then receive a direct blast from your Marza Battleship gets my blood pumping.

I can definatly see the similarity with level advancement in this game and Warcraft 3 (at level 6 you get a new powerful attack... yeah i've seen that before) but I think Blizzard would be proud. You should really expand on leveling up maybe.... cruisers? Just shields getting stronger and stronger weapons. Having a veteran army feels sooo good.

Scale is one of the most important thing in these space games and Ironclad perfected it. Every orbital platform looks totally normal next to a giant planet or surrounded by a large fleet. The meter scale you described sounded really neat.

Please keep this thread on topic. We rarely ask for it and you have free reign in every other thread. Thanks for your cooperation The miscellaneous posts that were just above this have been moved to their own thread. Don't worry, they aren't lost

you know.....sometimes you can be really......mean.      

...i thought i was staying on topic... *sniffle*

hes really not all that mean (and ur going off topic again which really isnt all that nice (you should wait a little bit )) he just wants to know that people actually like this game he's trying to hard to come up with catchy forum titles for. I mean, it must have taken hours to come up with that great one liner at the top: "So we don't accidently remove it" even if he forgot the period . Anyways, great work, the only major complaint I have is that the betas and patches arent out sooner.

NOOOOO!!! the edit button went away! anyways, what i MEANT to say was: "Anyways, great work, the only major complaint I have is Kryo and Yarlen's constant telling us what they have disabled in the game just to torture us. "

What I LOVE about this game:

1: Being able to set the number of planets and stars up high and get myself into a nice, isolated, self-feeding loop of techno-industrial development, making a mad dash up the tech tree before I unleash my power upon the rest of the galaxy.

2: The music. It gives a good, proper scale of the empire you're managing.

3: The way that no matter what scale you're looking at, your empire looks huge, whether it consists of one planet, or one system, or a multisolar empire.

4: The ability to rely entirely on capital fleets and good management, rather than swarms of smaller units. Pickets are pickets, but warships project my power!

5: The leveling-up of capital ships. My higher-level capital ships are dreadnoughts to be feared and loved, by enemy or ally, respectively.

6: Explosions! Oh yeah, I love explosions, especially the nukes going off on planets and the sight of the enemy's capital ship buckling and breaking under the onslaught of my firepower.

Played 2 games so far, and have to say,

1. The battles a what I realy like about this game.

2. Puting a bounty on you opponets and hope the pirats make life more hard for them, thats one excelent game feature, would love to have a pirat base that could be taken down

3. Trade ships, nice way to hurt you enemy, when you take them down and you get money for them too with bounty in place

4. Experince for you capital ships, nice move like it alot

I totally agree! If they add this ability it will really bring a new aspect to the game and really allow the individual gamers the ability to feel like they "own" part of the game. In addition it would be VERY cool to see an approaching fleet and not reallly know their capabilities just by looking at them since they would be of someones own design!

Due to balancing issues, any such designs would have to be purely aesthetic.

But you could maintain balance by allowing the hardpoint/cost system like in Gal Civ 2

Exactly, else you'd be facing off uber missile ships with spork cannons, with 1000000 shield points... Not that I would build them...