First impressions

from Sins Forums

Sup guys, after listening to Blair on the Gamers with Jobs podcast I decided to pony up 10 bucks (that was $12.34CAN, no joke!) and get back into Sins. I first bought Sins a little while after visiting PAX and the Stardock booth. When I heard Entrenchment was coming around I dropped the game in favour of others because I knew I would be relearning all over again with the updated mechanics.

Well about a week has gone by and I have been having a blast. The game has huge potential and there are many areas left to expand into. I figured I would drop by and share my feedback.

--- Menus:

  • - When I start up the game it normally displays the Ironclad logo, then the Stardock logo, and the Entrenchment cinematic. If you go into the options and tick the opening cinematic box then before the entrenchment cinematic it will play the original Sins one. The problem is, the next time I start entrenchment the tick box will revert back to empty. I have no idea what causes this but every time I check the box I come back and find it changed.
  • - It would be very nice if we could disable each of the opening cinematics individually. I didn't mind watching them the first time and I don't mind watching them again. But having to watch them the next 200 times I boot up Sins is a waste of my time. Yes I know you can skip them but time spent loading those movies into memory is time I could be using to load up my savegames.
  • - The game settings section (all of them even) of the Options menu where you set things like tactical grid and the like desperatly need tooltips. I STILL don't know what half of those setting do. Better yet, render the actual in game interface while you are setting the options so you can see what things look like (for example) with and without the tactical grid.
  • - The Effects tab should be moved so that it is beside the Video settings tab.
  • - When changing the visual effects we must be able to see the difference between graphical levels. If I am changing "planet quality" from high to low then zoom my view over to a planet so I can watch the difference. The same goes for ships and buildings. I want to know the difference between highest and low ship extras, so show me a Marza guns blazing and update the textures in realtime.
  • - When customizing your player portrait, empire symbol and name how come you can only pick avatars in sets of 3? It would be better if you could scroll through the selection of pictures from each empire seperately.

--- Map Selection:

  • - When picking map size it would be nice to have the game remember what page I was looking at. If I played a huge game the last time I brought up this menu, start me on the huge game page, not the small games page. Small gripe but every bit counts towards player statisfaction. Also if the custom map tab is empty then skip it.
  • - It would be nice if random maps were more customizeable. Creating your own is possible I know but why bother with the map builder when you could plug in the same numbers directly into the random map generator?
  • - When setting options like Culture rate, Locked teams and such the game usually remembers your previous settings. But for some reason whenever I set fleet sizes to Huge it always reverts to Normal when I go to start another game.
  • - When setting up teams and AI difficulties the game should remember your custom settings. If you want to set up very specific custom teams it gets tedious to do so over and over again. There are two ways you can do this, add a "remember" button that locks the current settings in place, or remember all changes and add a "default" button that reverts team settings to the original. Having both would work too. Being able to save team setting profiles globally and for specific maps would be an awesome bonus.
  • - There doesn't seem to be a way to adjust starting resources, accelerated start doesn't count as it affects other things
  • - The difference between normal and accelerated starts could be bigger. Accelerated start just does things I would have done anyway, build scouts, cap ship factory etc. It doesn't change the gameplay so much as save me some time. Instead you could add a third level called "Advanced" that starts you with multiple colonized planets.

--- Loading Screens:

  • - The concept art shown on loading screens is very cool. However I never get to enjoy any of it because my game loads in a snap unless I am starting a new one. So instead of starting the game immediatly upon complete load ask the player to click the mouse or hit a key or something. This gives us all the time in the world to enjoy the art and also lets us do something else (like get a snack) while the game is loading and not have it start without us. Now some players might find this annoying, but its easy enough to add an option to turn it on and off.
  • - I don't remember but I think vanilla Sins had different load screens than Entrenchment. Why not allow the loading screens to display all of them? You could even add custom settings like "randomize" (display a random image from the library) and "repeat" (disable this and no image will be repeated until they have all been displayed once).

--- Interface:

Construction:

  • - When placing structures the interface will tell you where you can and can't place structures. However the "footprints" of other buildings are invisible, this makes placing structures in crowded locations difficult. I sometimes resort to "sweeping" the cursor around like a minesweeper hoping for the circle to turn green. To solve this problem you could display the real "footprint" of structures instead of thier unit circle which does not match up. This would make placing structures as close as possible and in even rows much easier. It would be even better if all structures could move, but thats an essay for another thread.
  • - When a starbase is under construction you are allowed to pick its squadrons but not allowed to queue up station upgrades. That doesn't make sense at all. Currently you have to come back to the starbase later and that is a waste of time. Even better would be the ability to queue upgrades even before the ship arrives and begins construction. The resources would be reserved as normal but if you are building starbases 5 at a time just for the trade bonus that should not be a problem.
  • - When constructing fighter hangars, its a pain in the ass to manually select which squadrons they should build every time. Why not allow us to set a default squadron configuration?
  • - It is not possible to drag-select multiple units and scrap them all at once. This would be VERY helpful for getting rid of unused TEC minefields which are otherwise a pain in the ass to clean up. A simple improvement would be to add a second "scuttle" button, one scuttles the selected unit, the other scuttles all selected units. (or shift click the scuttle button to scuttle all, etc)
  • Since it takes time for defense structures like the beam turret to turn around (time that could be spent shooting), we should be able to point them in any directions. For example if I leave one gap in a minefield its logical to assume that all enemies will funnel through this bottleneck. So by selecting all of my turrets and right clicking on the gap I could get them all pointed the right way and ready to blast the enemy the moment he shows up.
  • - The AI that controls Autoplace Structures is a bit stupid. The computer tends to put everything in very random (sometimes useless) places. For example if I have a starbase and 4 gauss turrets defending one phase lane and queue up two repair bays, the computer will put both of them way on the other side of the planet. To far away to repair any of the other structures! I can think of ways to solve this but thats another essay for another day.
  • - When autoplacing mines we should be able to designate which phase lanes must be protected. The AI tends to spread mines all over the gravity well rim and not clustered around phase lanes that actually lead to enemies. This is especially apparent around stars.
  • - When you press ALT it shows among other things the firing arc of defensive structures. Mousing over one will highlight that particular structure's attack radius. However if you select one specific structure and mouse over its attack button no radius is displayed. I know you could simply press ALT to show it but that shows ALL of them at once and it can get very confusing when lots of structures are packed together.
  • - Since starbases have multiple weapons it would be nice if the interface displayed multiple attack radii for each weapon at once when the starbase is selected.

Empire tree:

  • - Ships in phase space should go in a different column altogether. When lots of ships are jumping around they make the empire tree jump up and down and even "jerk" the scroll bar out of the players hand!
  • - A better tooltip for Pinning would be nice. I still don't know or have noticed what it does.
  • - When stacking units you should be able to hit the button again and collapse them into even more condensed stacks than 10. 42 frigates take up a lot of room, but so does condesing them into 4 stacks and change. A single stack of 42 would be more practical in some situations.

Black market

  • - When buying and selling and queing up ships for construction you can shift click to queue 5 at once. For large amounts of resources this is not enough and in some situations you are still forced to clickspam. How about adding ctrl-click to queue up 10 at a time? That seems simple enough to me but you guys might think of a better solution.
  • - The AI players never seem to buy any of the resources I put up for sale. Ever.

And thats all I got for now.

14,311 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

those are some very good points, I will forward a few comments on them.

I think the point of advanced start was to only provide the no-brainer items and leave as much strategic decisions with the player. sure, an even more advanced start would get the game going faster, but would also take away decisions. in such a game, colonising would not be such an important item for capships. the early balance between eco and militiary would be different. I think it would be a loss, but there may be player who want such an option. it's worth a discussion.

yeah, the 'click to start game' option to fully enjoy the loading screens would be nice. however, I would advise against mixing entrenchement and vanilla loading screens, if the player only has vanilla ( if that was what you were suggesting). it would show players stuff that is not in the game. and in entrenchment there is a definitive mix between vanilla and addon screens.

I really like the items you mention with starbases. like pick your upgrades while its constructing. pick your squads while hangar bays are constructed, etc.

adjusting turret directionality wouldnt be bad either.

auto placing structures: how about different profiles, like with fleets, tight, normal, loose. with tight it builds a cluster, with loose it scatters them around and normal is somewhere in the middle. or sth like that to make sure structures are next to repair bays and defenses.

jumping ships upsetting the tree: definate agreement here. maybe put them at the bottom of the list, leave a permanent space for jumping ships. something. but the current jerking is quite annoying.

lastly: I in fact found that the ai does buy resources I put up for sale. I often made quite a profit and when I had surpluses, I often enough try to sell them. I'd say it depends if the ai actually needs any resources. and they don't really buy them from you, but from the blakc market, just the black market then draws from your offer, if I got the system correctly.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

The thing is, the start of every Sins game is very slow and they always take on the same pattern. What player would roll out of his home planet without first building at least one scout and his free cap ship. As well advanced start gives you more resources and prebuilds some structures. This actually gives you more strategies to use. So it seems that there is no reason whatsoever NOT to use advanced start, if I turn it off I spend the first few minutes of any game building up to that point anyway.

Wasn't the point of such an option to start the game in an advanced state? It would be nice to begin the game at the head of an empire, not just a kingdom. Sure things might be completetly random, but isn't that half the fun of random maps?

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About loading screen your concerns are easy to deal with. Consider:

  • - It should be easy enough to put in settings that control what gets shown on the loading screens as I mentioned earlier.
  • - Getting to see the awesome Entrenchment concept art while playing vanilla Sins is a huge incentive to purchase Entrentchment!
  • - It would be easy enough to add a gallery of concept art to the game that allows players to browse through concept art and any other goodies Ironclad felt like including. Most games include this sort of thing as a bonus or extra and sometimes as an unlockable. (but that would be annoying, I hate having to earn content I have paid for already)

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About starbase upgrades. I assume the reason we can't already do this is that queued upgrades reserve resources in advance. This isn't a problem with strike craft squadrons because those are free. But look at the starbase constructor, if you tell it to build a starbase and between the time you place the order and the time the constructer arrives the constructer is smart enough to wait until the resources are available before beginning construction.

I don't see any reason why starbase upgrades could not work the same way. If I queue up a planned starbase to upgrade its weapons and armour, it should not matter that I don't have the resources to pay for them now. I will by the time the starbase is actually constructed and materials are needed to begin upgrading.

That also reminds me of something else:

--- Starbase Construction

  • - When placing a starbase the game will display the outer boundary of a star system as well as its gravity well. However it does not show the radius that other structures can be placed in. The first time I constructed a starbase it was outside this radius and I ended up scuttling it because I was unable to build any more structures around it to back it up.

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About those jumping ships. I just thought of a really simple way of solving the problem. The reason the list jerks around when ships are phasing around is that they cause the entire list to become longer. This forces every other item on the list to move down, and back up again when ships leave phase. Instead of making the list longer, why not taller? If ships appearing in the phase category extend the list upwards instead of downwards they would not push the other ships around. If you are holding onto the scroll bar as far as the bar is concerned it just has more room to move upwards.

The other solutions are to place ships in phase into a parallel column and put them beside the empire tree or add an option to turn off that feature entirely. I never found it to be useful anyway.

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Sometimes I have placed 1000 metal on the market and had it untouched for an hour before I removed it. However from what you say maybe the problem is not that no one is buying. Its that everyone else is selling too!

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

as you correctly said, the current quick start only gives you things that you would have got most of the time anyway. however, there is a fine difference between quick start and normal start and that is intel. by the time you get to decide between early military and early economc, you'd have scouted a couple of planets in a normal game and have determinded whether an enemy is very close, like 2 - 3 jumps or not. this is a crucial piece of information in a game, as it determines how much time you would have, if any, to take advantage of an early economic expansion.

with the advanced start, you have a lot of resources, but no information on your surroundings. I don't have a patent recipe to deal with this, but it depends on the type of game. in team games, you could split roles and then some could go for eco and others for military, but in 1 on 1s or ffas, I'd usually opt for early military. but it is more or less a shot in the dark.

the second thing, and related to it, is the early hw upgrade. not in all games, you'd instantly do that, as the crystal drain is quite drastic early on. so, yeah, normal and quick start are not quite the same, but they are pretty close and I think it's a good compromise to shorten the early phase without taking away too many decisions.

with a real 'advanced start' option that would be different. you might have instant access to more powerful frigates if you get some labs or you could alraedy colonise everything around you. you might not even have to chose between 'will I get that ice planet or do I go for lrm's/ carriers/ illums'. and trust me, that's quite an important decision and you will see it if you try to defend that ice world with a bunch of lights against a squad of illums. I'm not saying an advanced start is a bad idea. I can well imagine myself using it as an option from time to time. I'd say we should discuss it in more detail. what exaclty do you have in mind? hw plus two asteroids? any ships? any labs? how do you determine what you want and what not? or do you get the same every time like in the quick start option? do you start with any research? I invite you to put together a good and well rounded concept for this idea in more detail and I'll gladly look at it and give you my thoughts on it. the idea has premise, but without more detail, it's hard to tell the pro's and con's.

loading screens: hm, an incentive to get entrenchment. enticing, a good idea. still, for the most part, I think people would find it confusing. they would have to manuipulate the art with something like 'check out the features of our expansion pack'. then it could work.

upgrades: well, you can queue up a lot of other stuff and it instantly deductes the resources, even though it is not yet possible to build them. ships if you don't have the research, structures if you don't have the tactical capactiy, fighters if hangars are still under construction. it would just be nice to queue an upgrade for a starbase when there is a battle going on and you want to think of other things than 'hey, I need to keep an eye on that SB and make sure it gets the upgrades asap'. the team made such great work with reducing micro, this would only be another logical step.

I'm open to any suggestions with the phase jumping in the empire tree. I would not particularly advocate a second column, since that might clutter the screen too much. have have the empire tree be in categories and inside those you can scroll, but their positions remains unchanced. for example, one category for planets, stars, etc. another for your fleets and a third for phase jumping ships. I think of something like found in some internet pages where you manipulate just the part of the site that your mouse actually hovers over and not the entire page. for example, in this forum, the quick replay field in white at the bottom of the page. if you full it up completely, there is a scroll bar. and you can scroll inside your post field independently from the whole thread page. so, maybe you could scroll the other items in the empire tree indepedently from the planet list and as such there would not be so much jirking around if items get inserted somewhere else.

yeah, have a look at the map and the empires that the ai's control. if there are many asteroids and volcanic planets, chances are it will have enough metal already.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Shadowhal, reply 3
loading screens: hm, an incentive to get entrenchment. enticing, a good idea. still, for the most part, I think people would find it confusing. they would have to manuipulate the art with something like 'check out the features of our expansion pack'. then it could work.

Well they could just add the entrenchment logo and name as a watermark in the bottom corner of those images. This would make it very clear that they come from Entrenchment but would not obscure or mark the artwork at all. Once they actually own Entrenchment you could remove the watermark and carry on as normal.

While your at it you could also add random screenshots of ships in combat to the loading screen mix. One thing that helped sell me on Entrentchment was the screenshots the have on the main page. The one with the Argonev blasting away with its beam cannons was fantastic.

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For the SB upgrading that really the basic premise of the idea. It simply takes more attention and effort that it should. Simple modifications could streamline the process greatly. There is nothing wrong with micromanaging, but repeat micromanaging is one of the worst types of grind.

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Honestly I would settle for being able to turn off display of phase jumping ships. If phase jumps took long enough that you could do actual strategic planning while ships are in phase then it might be useful. But for now it just adds to screen clutter, I have yet to find a situation where it would be useful for me.

And it doesn't help that ALL ships in phase are lumped together. It would be better if they were subdivided by fleet and also by phase lane.