Stardock Launches Early Access for Sins of a Solar Empire II Early access to be split into three phases to maximize player input with the first phase now available for those who pre-order.
Stardock and Ironclad Games began Early Access for Sins of a Solar Empire II with a playable Technical Preview today. Anyone who pre-orders Sins of a Solar Empire II will be admitted into the preview, which begins with access to single-player content using the TEC faction.
“We have a lot of ideas on the game we want to try out and give fans a way to tell us which ideas work and which don't,” said Brian Clair, Director of Publishing for Stardock. “The goal is to take the feedback we get and iterate the game with monthly public updates.”
The Technology Preview will focus on the TEC faction to get feedback from players on everything from gameplay to even trying out different UI art styles.
"This early access will be much more like an old-school style beta program," said Clair. "We really want players to be able to give feedback early enough so that we can act on it which frees us to try out ideas that may be worthy of further development or alternatively need to be scrapped."
Some of the new game elements that will be available in the Technical Preview include:
Stardock and Ironclad are excited about the roadmap from the technical preview to release that will maximize the opportunity for players to be a part of the process. Stardock and Ironclad Games recognize how eager the community has been to play Sins of a Solar Empire II since it was announced in September.
We are releasing Sins of a Solar Empire in 3 phases:
Phase 1 begins today, October 27th, 2022, and curious players can get a glimpse of what is to come via the Sins of a Solar Empire II Early Access road map. Early Access will ultimately serve as a constantly evolving sample of the things that makes Sins of a Solar Empire II special: immense scale, a careful balance between the strategic and tactical, exciting new mechanics, dynamic map strategies with planets orbiting the sun and a new level of visual fidelity — all made possible by the brand-new, game engine. More information will be revealed in the coming months.
“Early Access is an important part of our development process,” Clair said. “It lets players experience the game during its iteration, which provides us with valuable feedback on what features are enjoyed and what might need some tweaking. It’s a collaboration that we really enjoy and value within our community.”
Following in the footsteps of its critically acclaimed predecessor, this long-awaited sequel seamlessly blends real-time strategy and 4X gameplay to deliver a grand space conflict. Equal parts immersive and intense, Sins of a Solar Empire II introduces a whole new level of detail and raises the bar on what it means to become the ruler of a vast space empire.
The Sins of a Solar Empire II pre-order, which grants entry into the Early Access Technical Preview, is now available at www.sinsofasolarempire2.com.
Players can also add the game to their wishlist, follow updates, and learn more as we reveal new features.
Excited to play and give some proper feedback!
Having played it, here are my thoughts:
The moving universe is cool, but there needs to be some kind of better way to display where the lanes are going to change. We have a lot more choice about how we specialize systems, which I love, but the shifting phase lanes kind of discourage that because you could very well end up with your econ focused world getting switched with your fortress world you had loaded up with 3 garrisons that now aren't doing much.
The auction system is still a pain, but it's lessened by not having a constant stream of pirate attacks that you have to stop everything to bid on. While the auctions are more of an 'anti-fun' mechanic, they are better than sins 1.
I love the scaling of the research that gives you a boost for the easier options which incentivizes making more labs and not just based on hard requirements for the 1 tech you want. But no so much its UI. It's easier for me, having played Sins1 for far too many hours, but not having an easy graph like a tree to make it quick to see what leads to what would make the system almost unusable to a new comer or when you add the other factions.
Changes with the missiles was almost entirely positive. Flak frigates are now pretty much mandatory and the swarms of missiles are cool but the regular units need some rebalance. the regular missile unit was far too powerful.
The economy aspect was improved, but the only downside is getting the mining stations was a bit too punishing. Having to level up a planets mining development to 3 or 4 made getting them a huge investment. Bigger than what they warrant for all but the backline planets.
Good day.
I'll start with a preface. My nickname on steam is Ragnarow and I was happy when the developer answered me in the community thread "Sins of a Solar Empire 2 in my dreams...". I am a very old fan of the game and I am very pleased to see that the game, which in fact has no analogue, has a continuation. I've been waiting for the 2nd part for a long time and after playing I can't contain my delight. First of all, the new planetary system mechanics are great. The very idea of moving planets in space strategy is not new, but I can only assure you that it has been adequately implemented. The system of rotating gun turrets is also a delight. Also pleased with the new planetary improvement system and the construction of a special planetary infrastructure.
Well, now, what I want to say about what corrections or refinement are needed in my meager opinion.
1. Technology system
Its advantage is that it has become wider, but I think it is necessary to add 2 levels of improvement as in the 1st part (especially technologies for ship parameters).
Its minus is the interface - the technology tree has become much more inconvenient and if earlier the relationship between them was shown with arrows, now it has become more and more difficult and while you left the old technology icons, I was able to understand how to pump each one. My conclusion is that wood was better.
2. Planets
The pros are the infrastructure on the planet. Even in the first part, I wondered why it was impossible to build a laboratory on the planet and not expose it to the danger of Kostur's weapons.
Cons - Removed population mechanics. Excellent mechanics, firstly it influenced the earning of money from the planet, and secondly, the border planets were always more sensitive to hostilities inside the well and there was more motivation to destroy ships to bombard the planet.
3. Exotic resources instead of capital ship crews.
To be honest, I didn’t like this mechanic at all, because if the enemy can capture more planets, then he will have a large fleet. This mechanic is bad because if the enemy is stronger, then going on the defensive, you will not be able to accumulate resources to break through the enemy's resistance. If they could be spent only on improving the ship, then it’s still fine, but it’s not very pleasant to simply build it. I think it needs to be reworked and the crews of large ships should be returned. And make exotic ones themselves mined, but in very small proportions and speeds. Moreover, for the 1st vein per planet, the production rate of which is 0.001 per minute. So even going on the defensive there will be a chance to build a fleet of large ships.
This is the main reason for the discomfort during the game. But I would like to ask you something.
Change of phase corridors during the motion of planets. Vasari has a stabilization device and it creates a huge imbalance in conjunction with this mechanic, as the planet can fly out of your territory and ships can remain there or, on the contrary, it will be poorly protected. The question is, how can I help the fleet defend the planet if I literally cannot fly to it. But the Vasari can and will do it. I hope other races will also have the ability to stabilize the intrastate network of phase gates. Thank you for your attention.
Initial feedback from a couple hours in game:
The game is absolutely beautiful and runs very smoothly on my older computer. Most of my QOL wishlist from the original has been implemented.
If there's a way to create custom fleet groups I haven't found it yet, ideally in a RTS we should be able to access this with hotkeys.
Research feels a bit awkward to me right now, although I'm not sure wether I just need time to get used to it. I LOVE the ability to queue necesarry research by placing a prototype, however.
I'll send more feedback as I get deeper in the game, for now just massively excited, and congratulations to the dev team.
So, this game came out 1hr after I had to go to work for 12hrs. While I was at work, I got to watch on YouTube actual game play from people. Gotta love Technology.
iS THERe a way to kwow the version of the game and also the updates or changes in the game version?, i love the game, no crashes for me
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