Gameplay
Your Galaxy and You
A game of Sins of a Solar Empire can feature many planets in a solar system with distances spanning millions of miles. In larger games, players may encounter more than 100 planets across six or more solar systems with distances spanning many light years. Solar systems are comprised of a single star surrounded by many planets, planetoids, or anomalies. Each of these objects generates a spherical gravity well around themselves, the size of which is determined by their mass and density.
Ships are affected by gravity wells in several ways: vessels travelling towards the center of a gravity will move faster while those moving away are slower; gravity wells also impact a ship‘s ability to Phase Jump. With such vast distances in play, it would literally take hours for ships to travel from one world to the next using sub-light speeds. The races in Sins of a Solar Empire work around this dilemma by using Phase Space. As a ship reaches the edge of an object‘s gravity well, they will power-up their phase jump engines and punch a temporary hole into Phase Space.
Through Phase Space, trips that would have literally taken hours of game-time to traverse occur in just seconds. There are some limitations with travelling through Phase Space, however. Not all worlds are directly reachable from one another; those that are are indicated by faint lines connecting the objects in a solar system called phase lanes. Phase lanes indicate the corridors of space through which a ship can enter Phase Space. This is important, as it means that you can create bottlenecks to protect your empire from invaders. Another limitation is that once a ship has entered Phase Space, it cannot be interacted with. You must wait for the vessel to reach its destination before issuing it new orders. Lastly, ships entering Phase Space are vulnerable to attack while they power-up their jump engines.
The Empire Tree
One of the most powerful tools in the game is the Empire Tree – a collapsible tree that resides along the left-edge of the screen. The Empire Tree lists the planets, structures, and ships in the galaxy that you have selected or that you have attached through pinning. The Empire Tree gives you direct control over the whole of your territory using an intelligent selection and display system.
At the top of the window are three buttons: Pin, Search and Stack. When you select an object, its hierarchy will appear in the Empire Tree until you select something else or deselect it. If you‘d like to keep an object in the Empire Tree, select it and click the Pin button. The Search button allows you to quickly display and select certain planets, ships and control groups by simply clicking on the appropriate button or icon. As you hover over each button with your cursor, an InfoCard will appear displaying more details for that item. 24 Stacking combines all ships of the same type into a single icon, instead of displaying each vessel individually.
To make the most of the Empire Tree, in particular after selecting units using the Search button, you can move through the sub-selected item in the tree using tab and control-tab. This allows you to operate on each object without losing your overall selection, and is very useful during combat situations. Every object in that appears in the Empire Tree can be interacted with in the same way you would in the main gameplay view. You can even instruct one of your groups to attack an enemy.
Camera Controls and Zooming
With a galaxy at your fingertips, it‘s critical to be able to view what‘s happening quickly and easily. Sins of a Solar Empire‘s camera and zoom options are what help to make this possible. Using the mouse wheel, you can zoom out to a view of the entire galaxy or zoom in to the smallest fighter. There are two primary camera modes: Zoom-to-Cursor and Standard.
Zoom to Cursor (default): This is an intelligent mode where the camera will zoom to where your mouse cursor is located on the screen. If your cursor is over a particular object, the camera will center upon it while you zoom in or out.
Standard: In this mode, the camera will zoom in or out on the center of the screen. You can also lock onto specific objects with this mode by double-clicking on them. Both camera modes are useful and some players may want to switch quickly between them. This can be done by pressing the “m” hotkey.
By holding down the right-mouse button and moving the mouse, you can swivel the camera 360 degrees. If you‘re locked onto an object at the time, the camera will swing around it. Even more ways to control the camera can be found in the key bindings section in the Options menu.
Report Dialogues
Located on the lower left of the gameplay screen are the Report Dialogs. This is where you‘ll get information on the latest happenings around your empire – everything from offers of alliance, to construction projects being completed, to raids against one of your worlds. As a new report comes in, an image will appear in its respective button to give you a quick heads-up on what type of news it is. By clicking on an alert, a dialog box will appear that displays a history of the last several reports you‘ve received in that category. You can move forward through the list of reports by left-clicking on the button, or move backward in the list by right-clicking. If you hit the space bar, the camera will automatically jump to where the highlighted report originated.
From left-to-right the four types of reports are:
Planet Reports: These will tell you when a new planet has been discovered by one of your ships, when one of your worlds has completed a important project and more.
Production Reports: These reports inform you when new ships are completed by one of your shipyards, plus when structures and research are finished.
Diplomacy Reports: Should another player have a treaty to offer, it will be logged in this report.
Threat Reports: When a new item appears here, be warned! It‘s an indication that one of your ships or planets is under attack - or worse.