Sins of a Solar Empire. Pirates on or off?

[Hardin]

So I got Sins of a Solar Empire for my birthday and it's pretty fun, but the pirates annoy me sometimes. I just think of an organized horde of pirates rampaging through your systems as silly. Do you turn them off or do you keep them on?

[Adragontattoo]

on, I just try to keep my bounty lower then my opponents

[Hardin]

Yeah it's almost like an auction. I rise the bounty on someone and then they raise the bounty on me.

[Lusankya]

The pirates are very useful.. either to harass the enemy by outbidding and sending the pirates after them.. or as free XP for your cpa ships

[reclaimer122]

Maybe if the trader ships weren't so stupid I would leave them on. :bang head One game that I played I planets around two different stars and my ally was around a third. My trade ships would go to the third star, then go straight into the Pirate Stronghold on their way to my ally. Needless to say, none of those ships EVER made it and there was no way for me to stop them from taking that route.

[UnrealAlex]

I leave them off, especially when playing vs computer.

[lordkosc]

pirates on plz, also did u hear they are coming out with an expansion which will have a campaign and a new race? =o =o =o

[reclaimer122]

Campaign might be interesting if they can concoct a good story. A new race... meh. Whatever. I'd rather have new ship types for all the races!

[Colton H]

Is SOSM like a MMO or more like a RTS game?

[reclaimer122]

It's an RTS but at the same time it's an empire-building game like Civilization. Zoomed in you have complete control over your individual units and zoomed out you control your empire (you can also control the empire zoomed in, but it's easier zoomed out :)). The zooming is perfectly seamless and beautifully implemented. Sins isn't an MMO, but you can play multiplayer games on Ironclad Online if that's what you're asking.

[Hardin]

pirates on plz, also did u hear they are coming out with an expansion which will have a campaign and a new race? =o =o =o

An expansion already? I just got the original! A campaign does sound good though. I was surprised when I saw that opening cinematic but didn't see any campaign in the game. I was more surprised than disappointed though.

[Colton H]

It's an RTS but at the same time it's an empire-building game like Civilization. Zoomed in you have complete control over your individual units and zoomed out you control your empire (you can also control the empire zoomed in, but it's easier zoomed out :)). The zooming is perfectly seamless and beautifully implemented. Sins isn't an MMO, but you can play multiplayer games on Ironclad Online if that's what you're asking.

Woah I thought it would just be another Empire Earth game. I might have to look into this haha :beer:

[reclaimer122]

Check out some reviews for it. Sins has gotten amazing reviews from all over the internet.

IGN (http://pc.ign.com/articles/852/852735p1.html)
Gamespot (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/sinsofasolarempire/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;review)
GameSpy (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/sins-of-a-solar-empire/850906p1.html)
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire), has a table of some review scores at the bottom.

[Leviathan41]

Woah I thought it would just be another Empire Earth game. I might have to look into this haha :beer:
It's WAY better than Empire Earth. It's a great mix of RTS and empire building (Civ style). It's a real-time 4X game, really kind of in a genre by itself.

I like it because you really have to think about how to spend your resources. In most RTS games are just race to the end of the tech tree and build as many of the best units as you can. Since Sins is more of a Civ like empire builder, it takes a long time to get to the end of the tech tree and you have to really think about what you want to spend your resources on next. Do you want to build more defense on one of your planets, do you want to research a new ship type, do you want to research something that will allow you to gather resources faster? Also, the games can be as huge as you want. You can play on maps with 5 solar systems and over 100 planets!


I'd also like to mention how much I like the way they are marketing and presenting the game. There is no copy protection, no DRM ("customers are not criminals" is their slogan) and if you register your copy on their website, you can download the full game any time in the future for free and it will save your CD key. The game doesn't have high system requirements and will run on basically anything, it will run on a Radeon 9600, that's like a 4-5 year old card. They update the game often and listen to the community. And for all this, the game has been on the top of the PC game sales charts recently. That's right, a game with no copy protection, not a sequel, not made by a huge EA/Ubi type company is on the top of the PC gaming sales list. It just goes to show that if you make a good game and present it correctly, people will buy it.

[reclaimer122]

Also, the games can be as huge as you want. You can play on maps with 5 solar systems and over 100 planets!

With virtually no lag :D I don't think I ever got any stuttering in that game with my system. Max settings and 4xAA at 1680x1050. The graphics are BEAUTIFUL and still manage to run amazingly. I'll see what kind of performance I can get with my 7900GS tomorrow.

PS: After EE3, I will NEVER buy an Empire Earth game again.

[Hardin]

Yeah it runs really well on my computer and the graphics are top notch.

[Colton H]

I stutter in EE2 even at lowest setting.
Although I can max out LotrO @ 1680x1050 res. Odd...

e2140 @ 3ghz
7600gt stock settings 100% fan speed.

[deathman20]

PIRATES!!!!!

Wreaks the game without them IMO. There more useful to you than not. While yes they can be annoyance, they are still nice either way.

[Shiggity]

How do you guys feel about the constant zooming in and out, I didn't really like that.

The rest of the game is 100% pro though.

[Leviathan41]

How do you guys feel about the constant zooming in and out, I didn't really like that.

The rest of the game is 100% pro though.
I haven't really noticed it. I just do a quick pull back (2 scroll downs or so) click the planet I want, hit space to lock onto the planet and do two more scroll ups to zoom into the planet.

[deathman20]

Free rolling mouse solves the scrollin issue :)

[UnrealAlex]

I haven't really noticed it. I just do a quick pull back (2 scroll downs or so) click the planet I want, hit space to lock onto the planet and do two more scroll ups to zoom into the planet.
If you press M, it changes your zooming mode so you dont have to hit space to lock onto the planet. Just move your mouse somewhere near the planet and it will automatically zoom in on it :D

[DerekDRP]

I leave them on it's a lot more fun that way.

Specially when you have horde of your own petrolling the border of your solor system.

[Adragontattoo]

With virtually no lag :D I don't think I ever got any stuttering in that game with my system. Max settings and 4xAA at 1680x1050. The graphics are BEAUTIFUL and still manage to run amazingly. I'll see what kind of performance I can get with my 7900GS tomorrow.

PS: After EE3, I will NEVER buy an Empire Earth game again.

Run it with a trainer on so you have unlimited fleets.

when my fleets jump into systems, I have to zoom all the way in to pick individual targets!

Shut the game down last night and it was at 1.1Gb of Ram used. At that point, I do get stuttering but that is just me running out of RAM.

Mind you that I am using 8+fleets with 2-300 frigs, 50-100 cruisers and 50+ Capital ships in each fleet.

I love the game but man is it fun to set my empire up, and leave for 2 days against 4-5 AI on Unfair.

[DBZ]

Pirates can be annoying but they are pretty predictable. Setup a choke point with nothing but defenses and shield and they will die in no time.

[DomoRawks]

Windows Live

Does this mean playing online involves begging MS?

Sounds like a pretty good game

[ratbuddy]

This game any fun in single player? Compared to Master of Orion 1/2 (I still play those)?

[deathman20]

This game any fun in single player? Compared to Master of Orion 1/2 (I still play those)?

I play mostly single player. I've played a few games with others online and its fun as well. Suprisingly little lag even in a 2vs2 situation for 4 hours against AI.

[Hardin]

The singleplayer is really good, but diplomacy could be a little better. Your allies don't seem to care if you don't help them out as long as you do their missions. I had someone say there captial ship wouldn't be destroyed if I wasn't so useless, but it hasn't soured our relationship.
Pirates are nothing more than a nuisance to me. I eventually just remove their presence because I get tired of having to maintain a bounty on someone.

[deathman20]

Works great in the beginning with pirates on a 10 player FFA.

[TheGreySpectre]

Pirates on for Lan/Internet Play
Pirates off for computer play

The computer is too good at upping your bounty a 1/2 sec before the priates actually leave

[deathman20]

Pirates on for Lan/Internet Play
Pirates off for computer play

The computer is too good at upping your bounty a 1/2 sec before the priates actually leave

Naa, you can get them nicely as well :)

[Leviathan41]

If you press M, it changes your zooming mode so you dont have to hit space to lock onto the planet. Just move your mouse somewhere near the planet and it will automatically zoom in on it :D
Yeah, I had that on at first, but turned it off because of the way I scroll, I tend to move my cursor away from where I want to zoom to (habit I guess). It works better if I "lock on" to what I want to zoom to and scroll in so I am free to move my cursor wherever I want while scrolling. However that is good info for others, I'm sure some people prefer that method.

[reclaimer122]

I just tried Sins with my 7900GS (overvolted, 745mhz core and 940mhz memory) and it ran smooth at max settings, 2xAA and 1680x1050 resolution. I was capping at 60FPS all the time unless I lowered the camera angle and looked towards the rest of the system. I wish other companies would at least try to get good performance and good graphics. I don't know if I've ever seen a more efficient engine. :D

[Sorin]

Pirates off. I hate them.

As for expansion and new race, it makes sense. We still need to find out who it is that's kicking the crap out of the Vasari. I wonder how they'll keep the new race awesome while still keeping it balanced. The Vasari have nice military technology, but they're getting their asses handed to them by this unknown race. So it's going to be interesting.

I'm glad they finally patched in semi-parallel researching. It was really, REALLY horrible only being able to research one thing at a time, regardless of which tech tree it was in. It made no sense to force the military guys in their military labs researching military technology to have to wait for the civilian guys in their civilian labs to get done researching civilian technology. It MIGHT have made sense if there was just one generic research lab that did all tech, but they very clearly have it set up as two seperate facilities and trees. I'm so happy they fixed it.

I mainly play as TEC and I really regret ever having played Vasari. Why? Phase Stabilizer. That thing is SO extremely bad ass. I miss it so very dearly every time I play TEC now.

Since they added the ability turn off the pirates and fixed researching, the only gripe I have left is how slow resource gathering starts out. Holy god. It seems like it takes forever to get things up to a decent pace. It's the only thing keeping me from playing this game more often because I just absolutely dread the agonizingly slow beginning-game.

[deathman20]

Hmmm Phase Stabilizer... Guess I gotta try out that race next.