Many of you have been with us for a long, long time. We have been doing “early access” since 1993 when we put out the pre-pre-alpha of Galactic Civilizations for OS/2. Back then, it was a radical idea to put something out for player feedback that was unfinished.
These days, games are frequently put out in “early access,” but they are typically very late betas or even demos, where it is far far too late for players to have any meaningful impact on the game’s direction. That isn’t the case here.
Here, we want to put something out early enough where we can make pretty dramatic changes based on player ideas and feedback. This also means we will be trying out some things that just won’t work.
We need your help communicating to others that what is in a given build may not be in the final release. We need to be able to try out ideas that may end up not working without fear that people are going to misrepresent the entire game based on this.
In this article, I'm going to give a few minor examples of things that we want to try, but may or may not work out.
For starters, we need to set some expectations for the Technology Preview series of builds we’ll be releasing this Fall (2022) and Winter (2023).
You guys probably already know this, but most people don’t: there are very, very few new video game engines being made today. Almost all games now use either Unreal or Unity. Neither of those engines would work well for this particular game. Sins of a Solar Empire II is built on a new engine. It’s a rewrite.
Because there are so few new game engines, the GPU makers (NVIDIA, AMD, Intel for instance) tend to focus their optimizations and compatibility efforts on the major engines. This means a new engine is likely to have problems that we won’t know about until it’s been out there for a while.
The first public builds of this game will be trying to answer a simple question: does it work? We don’t mean, "is it fun?" We mean, "will it load up on your PC? Do you end up with a bunch of purple graphic artifacts? Does it just randomly crash? Does it make your PC get too hot?"
So if you’re joining the Technical Preview hoping to get a “fun game” to play, we highly recommend you not do that. Go get Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion and play that. It’s going to be a while before this is anything close to a “good game."
In the original Sins of a Solar Empire, there were no “space buildings”. There were no asteroids to mine. Until late beta, when we did add asteroid mining, they eventually ran out.
The first public alpha didn’t even have phase lanes! Yea, imagine Sins where you could travel anywhere. It was whack-a-mole. Back then, there were no Streamers, YouTubers, Twitter, etc. to spread the word that our game wasn’t fun. Because of this, we were able to try out different ideas with our community until we hit on the ones that worked.
We are trying out new ideas with the technical preview - not just in terms of UI design, but also the UI visuals. Everything is on the table. Skeuomorphic UI? Monochromatic? Fly out menus? Docking based UI? We’re going to be trying a lot of things, and while almost none of these ideas will work, we need to try them to get to the ideas that do.
The first goal of Sins of a Solar Empire II is to catch up to where Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion was. We want to get to that point and then grow beyond that. This is a new, core-neutral, game engine that can handle thousands of entities simultaneously.
If you have a question regarding gameplay, our answer will probably be: “We don’t know yet.” We’re not in a hurry. It’s been 15 years since the release of Sins of a Solar Empire, and Sins of a Solar Empire II will become the basis for many years of expansions, improvements, new ideas, etc.
We are trying out different art styles. We have already tried several even before announcing the game. We want to try out more, but that only becomes possible if we are allowed to fail gracefully. That means when we release a build that uses Pink Space Pony anime ships and it turns out that was a bad idea, you guys communicate that to us, but at the same time not just assume that Sins of a Solar Empire II is going to be a doomed pink unicorn game.
Let us try things out. Let us make mistakes. Let us work together together to make the best game we can.
We are really excited to share our ideas with you, but we are also more than a little bit nervous. We know that Sins of a Solar Empire became such a classic because we were allowed by the community to try out a lot of ideas that turned out to be terrible and then fix them.
Sins of a Solar Empire was made during a time when we could attempt new things that didn't work using a public early access program and know that we could then try something else without there being a “social media narrative” because those things didn’t exist back then.
It is unavoidable that we will have some early access participants who will play a build and see bad UI, gameplay, graphics, or something else and be on the Internet in moments to spread the word that, "this is a disaster - and don’t forget to like and subscribe!”
This is the world we live in today. What we are hoping is that enough of you remember the process that made Sins of a Solar Empire a classic, and help communicate that this isn’t a demo. It’s not a late beta. This is a collaborative effort with the space strategy game community to make something truly special.
Just a question, why "rewriting" the Iron engine, when you had that Nitrous (Ashes) engine? I always thought that one would be used for Sins II and that you developed it not just for Ashes, but your other future games as well - including Sins.
Not that i care or anything, just being curious.
Regarding UI visuals - i dont think you need to reinvent to wheel there, Rebellion´s UI was just fine. You can maybe somewhat modernize it, but no need to completely change it, when it comes to aesthetics. I for one kinda liked that it was different from say Homeworld, even though i generally prefer its minimalistic design, not everything needs to be the same at all costs. I enjoyed the little art pieces used as for technology researches - having those again, but bigger and more detailed, would IMO be great - moreso than some stylized minimalistic "icon" depicting the content of the research.
On topic of visuals - just dont make it cartoonish / fortnitish. If its bit colorful, thats OK with me, but otherwise stick to reality. I am fairly content with what has been shown so far, with few little nitpicks, that other people pointed out as well. If you find yourself not knowing what to do, i suggest looking at how competing game, Falling Frontier looks, and try to get close to it in terms of visual fidelity.
That is a very good question. The short version is that Ironclad is the lead development studio on the game and they preferred to use an engine they wrote rather than learn NitrousCider.
As for UI, the UI in Sins I worked well but there were a lot of players who felt like it broke down in late game.
As for visuals, obviously, we plan to have all the ships look like cartoons from the 70s..
(that last part is a joke)
For my part i'll be in all the youtube videios' comments secction telling people about this so at least the few ones who read me gives you the deserved opportunity.
great job with the communication with us, keep it up.
That is a very good question. The short version is that Ironclad is the lead development studio on the game and they preferred to use an engine they wrote rather than learn NitrousCider.As for UI, the UI in Sins I worked well but there were a lot of players who felt like it broke down in late game.As for visuals, obviously, we plan to have all the ships look like cartoons from the 70s..(that last part is a joke)
Thank you!
I was talking mostly about UI aesthetics, if there were any functional drawbacks to it in Rebellion, i am all for those being fixed.
One more technical question: Do you know whether that new Iron Engine does benefit from larger L3 cache, or more precisely from AMD V-cache? Did you test new Sins the performance with AMD 5800X3D CPU?
I am looking to buy new computer shortly, probably built around AMD Zen4 platform, and while i dont care about gaming that much anymore, not to the extent to guide my buying decisions, if i knew now Sins significantly does benefit from it, i would probably wait with the purchase till next year, when the v-cache CPU will be released and get one of those. If not, i will just go with regular CPU that can be purchased already by now.
I have no idea. I doubt it. I personally run a 3990X with an AMD 5700 and it runs fine on that.
OK, thanks, much appreciated.
EDIT: One last thing, sorry, i hope it wont require Win10 1909 to play (like latest Call of Duty). Cause my Windows Update broke and i am stuck at 1903 version. This would be most unfortunate.
Looking forward to play testing.
Indeed, standing ready to playtest and give feedback!
I am really stoked to be a part of this during development, I didn't get that chance with Sins 1. I totally love Sins and have been playing it since it was released in 2008. Giving back feedback will be a new experience for me but I think this game is worth it.
The 70's brought us Star Blazers, I would be proud to have ships like that in this game.
Last but not least, bring on the pink ponies, we will test the " " out of them.
Mind if I try it out on Steamdeck/Proton? I also have one last windows APU system, but all of my systems at this point are very low end.
That's disturbingly honest. I'll buy tomorrow simply due to a problem I have with preordering. As long as I can play some decent TEC vs TEC action to begin with I'll be happy to help with development however I can. Best of luck.
It's brave releasing the game in a pre-alpha state given the possibility that a far from finished product could get panned on social media. I hope that whenever the game loads a big warning screen pops up announcing that it is experimental and far from a finished product, perhaps requiring players to check a checkbox that they understand it.
Hi
How to send feedback?
Is there any tool to capture all the system information, like memory, windows version, dlls, etc, etc to send with the bug report?
The bookmark button doesn't seem to work? I can't move ships/planets or anything to it like it says or I just don't know how. The new research menu takes some getting used to and is a little overwhelming but it's not too bad. Some UI elements stretch off the screen like when you hover over a capital ship build button there's so many words that it goes off the top and bottom of the screen. (i love the pink unicorn in the research menu so much please keep this as an easter egg somewhere in the game)
The exotic minerals is a little confusing especially quarnium, but I think I see what it's trying to be and I like it a lot, especially how you can craft the minerals but also get them from auctions/planet searching to speed it up a bit.
I struggled a lot with credits in my first 3 hours of my first game (still in the middle of it, had to stop because I have work tomorrow, thank god y'all put the save feature in this build) and besides me being bad at the game and RTS games in general it felt hard to find places to trade for credits instead of minerals that I had a lot of already. I'm not sure if trade in general gives money along with what is being traded but it felt difficult to progress and build up a fleet without that. Enemies had fleets of like 50 cobalts alone that destroyed my fleet and level 6 capital ship I had from the start of the game. Notifications of capital ships shields being down/low health/destroyed would be greatly appreciated, not sure why that's not in yet?
The orbiting mechanic is AMAZING and changes up so much. I colonized a planet going the opposite direction from my starting couple of planets and I realized it was leaving and had to bolster it and it essentially is touring the system right now, capturing planets that it flies past is so much fun especially with the garrison units (not sure if that's new to this game or was in a DLC for Rebellion, I never got any of the DLC). I personally would like some kind of indicator of the duration a phase lane has before it is cut off. Either a timer on the lane or like some sort of fading/fizzling/stretching animation that indicates "hey this phase lane is going to be cut off soon". Also, I wonder what happens to ships in phase space when the lane gets cut off mid jump. I haven't been looking yet but I imagine they just keep going to where they are going to.
The art is not bad. It is a little too cartoony I admit for my taste coming from Rebellion. Especially as someone pointed out the dark side of the planets being way too bright. The only reason that planets would have that irl is if the light is being reflected from a nearby celestial object like a moon etc. If that kind of light detail was in the game it would be amazing, but for now I think lowering the brightness of the dark side of planets would be a good idea.
Does your team need desing ideas from industrial to tribal shapes and or help with desning the new ui? I've been making arts all my life and am working as a software developer myself sooo i might could help aside from my obviously bad language skills. I would draw on paper but for concepts mybe? Also pls dont go away to much from the original (gameplay wise) 🙈
I think mockups iterating on the current UI are very welcome
So I have played two games, both against all 3 AI players, one on easy, one on hard. I have to say, it's a solid gameplay and I enjoyed both games that I have played so far.
The Good -
Gameplay is solid. There are no slowdowns, errors, Dumps and I can play with it at normal speed or all the way to x10 speed with no Issue. I have an 11th Gen i7 16 core processor, 64 Gigs of RAM, a GeForce 3080 and 2TB SSD that I am running it on. Even with MAX fleet, I get no issues.
I like two things about the research tree. First one is the search ability. Since everything is in a vertical list, it makes finding certain research I am looking for much faster to find. I have watched several online players completely not use this function and I can't stress how nice it is and how fast it is to use that search ability. The second one is the ability to change the order of what I am researching. It was really annoying in SINS 1 when you had to undo research in order to change the order, I would much rather start the research and then if I find something I need to get done quickly, being able to swap priorities was very nice.
I really like the planet research and components. I think you have the correct system in work for the different planet types with maybe the exception of the minerals. Have to update the mineral research all the way to the top just to be able to build mineral mines seems excessive. Too me, I would think at level one, you should be able to build one mine and then as the levels go up, the more mines you can build and the bigger percentage they would give. Just a thought.
Capital ship research is perfect as is the Component slots. I really like that some (maybe all) are consumable and have to be selected again. I also like that you have to have a retrofit bay in order to upgrade them. It gives those bays a whole new purpose other than just healing.
I like the fact that you have to start slowly and build out your economy before you can start attacking other players, that is the way it should be. Some players compliant how slow this has started but I feel that you should have to be methodical with the very low resources you start with and the high cost it is to upgrade/research and buy things. This is what strategy is all about. Once you get past a certain point, just like SINS 1, Resouces are not an issue.
I like that you have to send out scouts to find the minor factions to be able to get access to the markets. This forces players to spend some time and money on sending scouts and put's emphasis on Focused Exploration research.
The Information card that comes up when clicking on Planets and ships is Dope. I really like that you can max civ and defense slots, income rate and number of asteroids. The ships list the normal armor/shield stats along with weapons with DPS and armor penetration %
I love the planet movement. Brings a totally whole new strategy to the game. I like that you have either the yellow or red lines showing the direction of where the planet is going. When I first start a game, I only occupy those planets that are going in the same direction and leave the stray asteroids going in the opposite direction alone. Late game I use those opposing asteroids to build Garrison fleets with maxed out defense turrets on the planet to harass other players. I love it.
The Bad-
The research tree is very linear, and we can only research one at a time where in SINS 1 you could research one at a time in each section. Makes for a much slower game. For the TECH Review, not a big deal, will be interested to see how this gets fleshed out and I have to agree with the Pink Pony, need to find some way to include that in the final game as an easter egg.
Even on hard, I felt the AI was way too easy. I will of course have to play a few more games but I really didn't see much difference between easy and hard except for the fact that on hard I got more exotics. One of the biggest things I was waiting for SINS 2 was 64bit play so I hope to see smarter AI opponents. Along with the AI, I would love the AI to help or crash the market. This might already be happening, but the AI should buy or sell resources on the market just like a player.
While I could pin planets to the Bookmark, it's difficult and I can't see ship types. I assume that we will end up with something similar to SIMS 1 where we can see both Planets and have a drop down to see ship types and be able to select all the ships of one type.
Would love to see some formation buttons for ships. More than one player has noticed their Garda's are clumping together and it would be nice to have them sort of split and take on the different Javelins since they are now Point Defense. Would also be nice to have a module for Point Defense on the CAPS as well since Missiles are more realistic now.
Overall, I am really happy with what you have put out. I know there are some out there that just take one look at the unfinished UI (notice I never really mentioned the UI) and say NO WAY. There loss, the gameplay is very solid. So far, I am really enjoying this and look forward to seeing the changes as they happen.
I don't understand this topic. Demos are usually distributed to potential customers for free - try before you buy.
This is being sold as a product. If it is ready for customers to spend money on, then it is ready for those customers to talk to each other about whether in their opinion, the product is worth purchasing.
Policing customer's reviews and feedback isn't going to do anyone, or the product quality, any good.
Storming Kiwi, this studio always distributes a "pre-alpha/test" version of it's software, at a discount, to the public for testing, to see how it performs "in the wild", so to speak. When building software for public sale, you never know how a program is going to run on the COMPLETELY RANDOM hardware configurations people have. That's part of the purpose of this test. In return for you trying it (and reviewing it here), you get a discount on the product, which won't be "complete" for at least a year.
I'm responding to the OP - which seems to say "go to war on social media if someone unfavourably portrays the game". I do not think that is going to be constructive and positive.
If the game is incomplete, and someone says "the game is incomplete, and I don't think you should buy it", how is that a misrepresentation?
E.g. another game released earlier this year had many problems with hardware incompatibilities. It isn't misrepresentation to review that product unfavourably, given that it didn't work on the customer's system. It also isn't misrepresentation to review that product unfavourably for the other issues it has, that still haven't been addressed because all of the development focus has been put on resolving the hardware issues.
Yes, I know about Stardock's historical practice of doing this. I also know about previous game releases from Stardock where the collaborative process of giving and receiving feedback before the release went awry. I'm responding to the OP - which seems to say "go to war on social media if someone unfavourably portrays the game". I do not think that is going to be constructive and positive. If the game is incomplete, and someone says "the game is incomplete, and I don't think you should buy it", how is that a misrepresentation?E.g. another game released earlier this year had many problems with hardware incompatibilities. It isn't misrepresentation to review that product unfavorably, given that it didn't work on the customer's system. It also isn't misrepresentation to review that product unfavorably for the other issues it has, that still haven't been addressed because all of the development focus has been put on resolving the hardware issues.
Fair enough, I agree with you. It is also not fair to try and install this game on a system that obviously will not run it, is not within the stated specs for the game and then complain to everyone that the game sucks. Stardock at no time has been deceptive in what they have put out and anybody who bought it without realizing what they were purchasing or doing a little tiny research on it gets what they deserve. Buyer beware is as true now as it also has been. I feel Stardock has been very honest in their communication and most of the complaints I have seen are very juvenile. This is the world we live in I guess with social media, so be it.
Stardock has even come out and said don't buy this unless you are wanting to test it, it will be a while before being fully developed.
My apologies. I misunderstood your meaning, and thought that those were YOUR complaints.
I prefer the research tree to be visual represented like it was in the original SINS. That makes it much easier to see what you're doing in relation to other research paths. And it's much easier to instantly see that I need some prerequisite for something I want or need.
I think it would be nice to have a "style" option in the menu. You could have some different ship mesh styles, such as "Anime" or "Realistic" or something else. This would enable players to enjoy their favorite "look" as they choose.
No other complaints or ideas at the moment.
Hello All good to be back and glad sins is getting a redo WooT Now a few question I have and they may be dumb but stay with this old man, please1 with all the new hardware out will it be optimized to run with multi-core or the same old single-core that no one cares about Single core, it is so outdated with the amount of CPU and Now GPUs that have stacked 3d and whatever they want to call it today.2 with all the Advancements in monitor tech, will they be taking it into consideration for like at least 4K over 1440 P 3 will the game be optimized for Nvidia or AMD primarily I know many are Nvidia Fanboys (no offense meant) but AMD is my choice of hardware with a 3990X AMD 6900 XT OC Nitro and 256 gigs of Ram. As well with the POWER of today's systems, the game should be rather extensive when being able to customize the game (meaning) I like huge maps huge battles, and long-drawn-out fights to waste a lot of this old man's time, Gives me an excuse to give the Wife that I'm in a huge game and can't leave it at the moment . Honestly, I have yet to find a game to even have my system sweat a little (it is cooled by a custom water loop) 4th with Sins they had a collectors edition with a ship and a few extra items? will this be available? is it now? (i want one to add to my collectors game setup.)5th RnD interface could use modernization BUT please don't fix what's not broken. The old interface needed a few fixes and keeping the base aspect of it is Prime!6th About time sins get a update
What a good news! I am excited for this.
I will buy it in a few moments and when I get acquainted with the game, I am coming back to provide some insights.
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