Tomorrow I'll be on G4's XPlay demonstrating Sins of a Solar Empire live. It appears the show will be televised tomorrow night (8pm EST).
We also got a lot of great questions from here as well as on forums around the net. Here are some of our answers.
Q: How much like Galactic Civilizations is Sins like?
A: They're both in space and both involve building up a civilization. But Sins of a Solar Empire is a real-time strategy game with multiplayer and tactical battles. GalCiv is a single player, turn-based game. They play very differently.
Q: How much like Homeworld is Sins like?
A: It's similar to Homeworld but on a much bigger scale. It takes place amongst multiple planets and even multiple stars. The user interaction, however, is very different. While you can place things in true 3D, most of the action tends to play on a single field for ease of user control. But players can do a lot on the Z-axis as well, just not very much by default. Sins also has a lot more empire building features than Homeworld so focuses a bit more on the player's ability to put together a viable empire than tactically controlling individual units.
Q: How much like Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander is Sins like?
A: It plays in some respects much like Total Annihilation in space. It has the kind of smart unit AI and queuing and other such features that greatly reduce micro management. However, resource gathering and exploitation is much different. There are constructor frigates in the game but the number you get is based on how built up your planet is. It's not about how fast you build up your fleets as much as how you organize your fleets. Sins has a technology tree that allows players to fine tune their units strengths by the choices they make.
Q: Does the game come with a campaign?
A: NO. Instead, the game comes with a much richer single player "skirmish" experience than most RTS's. Sins supports random map generation, a powerful in-game map designer, etc. Normally, RTS's have campaigns but their skirmish-modes limit users to a handful of pre-made maps. We've banked on players preferring to create their own epics over having us provide a pre-canned one.
Q: How powerful of a machine do I need to play this game?
A: Sins users should have at least a 2Ghz single core machine with a video card with 128MB of RAM that supports DirectX 9. If you have duo-core then you're all set. The screenshots in this article are all taken at the minimum levels. The game engine is very flexible to let a much wider array of hardware to play together. we want as many people playing the game as possible.
Q: What is the difference between the standard edition and the collector's edition?
A: The collector's edition has a fold out tech tree map, some posters, a hotkey card, and a music CD. Plus we plan to provide some digital content to Collector's Edition users (themes, web features, etc.) but those won't be ready on release day.
Q: How different from the last beta is the final game?
A: Massively. The betas were critical in helping us nail down multiplayer and get the game mechanics finished. But we used the 3 months since the last beta to take feedback and incorporate it into the game. It's a very different game now. A much better one (and most people liked beta 4).
Q: Where will I be able to get Sins at?
A: It will be at Best Buy, Walmart, EB, Gamestop, Circuit City, Fry's, Target, and most other retailers in North America that sell games. It will be available in Russia from Snowball, European availability is still forthcoming and it should be available in Australia in the near future.
Q: Do you plan to do regular updates like you did with GalCiv?
A: Yes. New maps, AI updates, and a myriad of new features are all planned. We just need to wait for actual players to play the game and tell us what they'd like to see next.
Q: Is it true Sins will have no CD copy protection?
A: Correct. It will be done like GalCiv II was.
Q: How big can maps get? How long are games?
A: Sins will appeal most to strategy gamers who like to formulate strategies that take a bit of time. While it's possible to finish a game in less than 30 minutes if you have an expert versus a novice. Typically an hour is required for a small map. Larger maps, with multiple stars, hundreds of planets could take months to play.
Q: How is Sins multiplayer experience different from most RTSs?
A: The big thing is you can save your games and resume them. So you could get together with friends on weekends and play a few hours a week if you wanted a truly epic game. Plus,Sins solves the problem where if someone disconnects unexpectedly that you can simply reload the auto-save and either bring that guy back or get someone else to take his place (or just use an AI player).
Screenshots:
