Talking about no new factions. I really want to applaud the game for including all the factions from the first game and its expansions. It feels like starting with a full slate, and it means that if this game also gets expansions, we can expect to see more factions added as well.
It's sad to think this bare minimum of what a Remake should have is enough to satisfy your low expectations. This game is little more than a SoaSE Rebellion Remake with some QoL improvements. There's nothing in there that would make it a sequel.
@@TurKlack The entire tech trees have been reworked, the various resources and how you harvest them are no longer the same. Planetary and Capital ships upgrades are not the same. Numerous abilities have been changed, numerous more have been added. There's a ton of new game mechanics too. The only way this is the same as Rebellion is that it's an RTS in the same franchise. I've played hundreds of hours of Rebellion but this game feels entirely different. I had no idea what I was doing. My old build orders and tactics did not work
@@TurKlackin the game’s defense; it feels far different to play than the first game. If you don’t play it yourself and only watch gameplay videos online, it’s easy to think that and I can see why.
As a PvE turtle myself, I actually like the orbiting planets: it brings that spice to a match that a static unchanging map wouldn't have. Getting into situations like having a revolving door of planets spinning into a static phase lane where all the enemies come from with occasional side routes they can sneak into makes for some fun gameplay where I need to know which planets I need to shore up my defenses in, and where to move my defense fleet into. It's also worth remembering that the orbiting system benefits you as much as it benefits the enemy, for instance a planet you own that may previously be a frontline may suddenly break its phase lane, giving a much needed reprieve, or perhaps said movement brings a planet in range of some of your ranged interplanetary passives or into a Novalith Cannon. I actually don't think I can go back to the completely static maps of the original.
@@Kanjejou They can - static defenses and other orbital structures above a planet (except mines on asteroids) can be orbited around it so they're facing whatever direction you want them to.
Agreed! I love to heavily fortify and fully garrison some of those asteroids that fly through my empire, because by the time they're in the enemy's empire they're causing havoc automatically attacking nearby planets with free ships and falling back to their starbases when a response is brought. Sure, a concerted effort would bring it down, but when an enemy starts mustering such an effort that direction is exactly when my fleet can attack with impunity.
OG Sins player here....since before Rebellion...back when Sins was on physical medium. Sins 2 is EXACTLY what a sequel should be. If you enjoyed the first one....buy it. If you enjoy RTS games, buy it.
So glad to hear. I still have my original SINS box xP. Used to LAN this with friends in high school and played the crap out of the Star Trek Armada 3 mod for Rebellion.
High praise, friend. I still have that box kicking around somewhere. I enjoyed the hell out of the first and it was great to see it expand so much over time.
I am also a sins of a solar empire 1 old hat. That game released what feels like a lifetime ago so seeing this finally release is a bit surreal. Looking forward to watching this for myself and sending it to some friends on the fence about purchasing. Cheers.
I love Sins2 I'm having such a good time with it. They knocked it out of the park. On the subject of mods I have reached out to both the Sins of the Prophets team and the Star Trek Armada team. Neither have a release date as of yet, but both are hard at work.
@@lewanjosephnimick9359 Removed a lot of content, going from four factions each with three tiers and experimentals for land sea and air to three factions, most only having like two relevant air and naval UNITS (and Aeon not even getting a navy!) while largely reducing the scale as well. It's a shame because the research system was interesting and the artillery in SupCom 2 is great, but overall it definitely isn't what the first was.
@@kiotekful Nope, just gives you a steam key for whichever account you want to play on. I actually gave it to one of my friends who was interested in the game but wasn't sure whether to buy it or not
I like Sins 2 so far. It is more of a reboot than a sequel, but maybe thats for the best nowadays. So far, i like most of the changes they made and hope for a good community and a couple of new factions in the future. If they can't make great new RTS, just make the old ones again and improve them a bit.
I’d also much rather than have a good “reboot” baseline than totally warp the game from release with a bunch of shit that doesn’t fit the vibe of the franchise a la Supreme Commander 2
I have been there from the first moment, earpy access. The devs listen to the community feedback quite thoroughly. I have seen some of the suggestions I made manifest in the game. It feels like "home". I LOVE the new mechanics and the streamlining of plamet/fleet/starbase management. And the diversification of the races. And the nerf of the super weapons. They now are truly a tidebreaker and not a be all end all thing. Also, the best technology advancement is that each gun and missile are their own entity.
@themasterchef9784 sins rebellion has a lot of really, really good full conversion mods. Halo, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. I have more time in sins of the prophets, the halo mod, than i do in vanilla. The vanilla gameplay is similar to 2, but not as in depth, still really good though.
@@themasterchef9784 as an RTS, Sins2 great As a sequel, it's different that it adds a lot of QoL and improvements but with a bit of differences that throw me off from the familiarity of Sins Rebellion
18:13 Ayy TEC Loyalist turtling is how I won my first bot match. Big space brick Argonev stalling a fleet headed by the Vasari Rebel titan long enough for my main fleet to rotate fronts into the system. In this sequel, it pains me to admit that I didn’t quite understand the new durability and armor strength properties until I got rolled over by the AI twice. Those TEC gauss frigates are GOATed in my eyes after their wide spread introduction to my fleet turned the tides.
I recall doing a TEC loyalist run full galaxy map size, just me vs the rest of the galaxy with no allies. I managed to fight my way to the core and when I beat a wave of ships there I would branch out and take out each branch one by one with a good choke point.
@@rustyzipper19 Its been the defining feature of the Vasari since before Rebellion. The new hotness with Sins 2 is combining Mobile Rulership and Core Drilling (or whatever) with how Orkulus can produce ships, even while assaulting.
The new changes to capital ship upgrades and mods is the best change overall. You can easily maximize your capitals ships woth those upgrades and allows capitals ships to handle more versatile situations, til you can buy the cap ship you need to fill that role
Zade, your videos are excellent and they have been really getting a lot better recently. I have been watching for maybe over a year or two now after finding your channel via reddit, and I have come to view your channel as the SkillUp of RTS games - a genre I love. I remember thinking back then that, while being great reviews that I valued, there was still an awkwardness with your screen persona or talking style (or more likely editing). But since then you have really improved on it and I regularly send your videos to friends trying to hook them on the latest awesome strategy games (which there aren't many of sadly). I really appreciate your review on this as it's been so long since I played Sin: Rebellion and I have been so on the fence of Sins 2. I don't often leave comments, but I was really impressed and grateful for this video on Sins 2, so I felt obliged to share my thoughts as thanks.
Sins 1 has always been a comfy game to install once in a while for me. Currently playing 2 and gotta admit, the game is definitely deserving of praise, never knew they would improve even QoL stuff this much. It feels like playing a very polished and modernized version of Sins 1 while still feeling unique.
Showing the "faction" that is following the Vasari is bad in my opinion as there is no way to do it justice. The current lore is that the vasari don't even know what it is they're running from, they started running because half their empire just started going dark. No "ahh we're under attack" no "we need to run away they're too strong" just more and more people stopped answering calls and no one that went to see what was up ever came back. How can you make such an overwhelmingly power full enemy, if it's even a tangible enemy and not a natural disaster, in a way that is balanced and does it justice. The answer is you can't, either it's balanced and thus not as strong as it's previous portrayals or it's too op to include in multiplayer.
I did think of a semi answer to this question but that makes only the advent able to fight them. That being uber mind control but the advents unity allows them to resist.
I also thought about this when they announced that the mystery faction will finally be unveiled. The only way I thought it would work is if the mystery factions gimmick was visibility and communication tactics. Like they sever communication and map visibility as part of the faction so it explains why Vasari couldn’t ever pin who they are against. Would allow you to power them down a bit while staying cannon and also giving them a play style unique among the other 3. Could be fun to have a faction that makes sections of the map dark and introduces some tactics based around visibility
Also been a fan since the early days (sins 1 beta). Very happy with what they have done with this refresh of the game, and what may come. Gamers deserve proper dev lead reboots like this of all their fav franchises.
IGN isn't even relevant anymore. It's like babies first review site and that's it. I'd say anyone who takes gaming even slightly seriously realizes IGN are more interested in ideology than gaming.
I played OG Sins only a little bit as I discovered it years after the release and I couldn't be happier with what they made with the sequel. I'm very glad they did not try to reinvent the wheel or shoved in "novelties" that don't fit the base (like: C&C4, Dawn of War 3, Homeworld 3). I hope this sells well and they can work on the title for years to come - really excited about the campaing and a new race DLC. With that said, I do think their pricing is weird. I think most people would consider an RTS game to be complete when it has a campaign in it. Currently you can't just buy the game with the campaign, you can only buy a whole DLC content pack which would cost you £83.99 (not including the discount expiring in a few days). That cost puts it in the AAA bracket where the expectations are much higher. If I were to look at it through that lens it would need: - More graphics options There's very little here we can adjust. - AI Art overhaul Generally I don't mind what we have, but there are some oddities here and there and when it comes to icons (tech tree) the readability could be improved. On another hand, it would have been extremely cool if they let us adjust the player portraits (or import new ones easily) or even incorporated some form of AI Gen for Unit portraits. - Music improvements I don't dislike it and appreciate that it's a matter of taste, but I do find it overly repetitive to the point where I have to just turn it off and play something else on the web. I only played the game for 10 hrs so far. Compare it to C&C and Starcraft series where it never gotten stale for me.
That's what I'm saying. I'm a big fan of Sins 1, but the icons weren't exactly works of art. I MUCH prefer having actual paintings, especially since they help flesh out the lore.
i'm glad they used ai art, there are some great looking images in there, many more than would otherwise be don't get these 'ai haters'' at all, they never complained when the skybox was created by a generative tool it's also a tons more flexible since you can easily change out artwork, you can't do that if it was a huge painterly investment it's the future, people have to accept it, they will be better in nearly every aspect soon enough, i for one are all for it the only ai images that are lacking are the vasari portraits, they need a lot more distinct variation, but its still fine wpuld rather see great ai art rather than poor human art (not all artist are great, of course some human art is better still)
Ah, how I remember those days. Starting off VERY cautiously and building the economy and new ships slowing. Although it had its faults, it was one of the best space war games. Thanks for the great in-depth review and commentary. 👍👍💯
Loved the first game back in the day. The power of the zoom wheel made the world feel so real. Like if I could zoom in on a total war grand strategy map to see the individual battles. It made the world feel alive. The sequel is just what I wanted.
Slightly off topic comment: 14:06: The comment that (paraphrased) "newly colonised planets begin in the black and... requires investment to bring it into the green". I was listening to your review while doing other things, and this was jarring to hear. I know what you meant, but the colours used are incorrect (for the purposes of the normal idiom). The correct colours are 'being in the red' (meaning making a loss), and 'in the black' (meaning you're making money) - being the colours that were traditionally used to represent profit/loss in accounting.
7:10 tbh, the news you were able to run the game on the dinosaur of a pc was a bit of a godsend for me. I was personally afraid my PC’s cpu, a i5 9600K if you were curious, would cause some problems for me, but now even it does, it shouldnt be as bad as that pc had.
Something to add to the new mechanics of ordering fleeting resupply, if you make the Fleet your control group, it will auto-add the new ships to that control group once they're in the same gravity well as the fleet beacon. Such a tiny feature that provides an insanely huge QOL bonus.
I kinda wish the new faction wasn't going to be the ones chasing the vasari, but it's almost guaranteed that it is. Whatever they come up with will never be better than the mystery itself
@Zade Hear me out on the AI stuff, if you have a moment. I totally agree that in Stardock's case, it is a mean to an end. But also... somehow to me, it fits the bill so well. Especially that one research where you can turn crystal into credits (I think it is an Advent one) and you see the credits made out of crystal. It's awesome. It somehow goes along with the game well. And again, I understand where you are coming from. But still... it is weirdly fitting for Sins.
Been playing it off and on since it was first released on Epic. I knew I already was in love but I was legitimately surprised by how well everything came together. P.S. Didn't know about the Steam transfer, thanks for the tip, doing that now!
Game is amazing in many aspects, but I find the camera tracking random units on zoom to be extremely annoying. It's something they brought back from the first game and it's very obnoxious, as it takes camera control from the player. There's no way to turn it off except to turn off zoom to cursor, which is a separate feature I actually like.
Me: *watching videos on YT at night* The UA-camr: *shows clips from their browser, without using dark mode* My Eyeballs: 💀💀 Thanks for the Review though!
I really like how there are a lot more differences between the races and factions. Each race has a lot more unique mechanics. There are a lot more differences between each race's ships. The Vasari don't even use credits anymore. One thing I don't like is how lot of the research icons are just bad since it's hard to tell what the research is from the icons. So you have to either memorize what they are or read the descriptions every time. And each race has dozens of research options.
My biggest issue with Sins 2 is that the ships just line up, stop and fire. No actual maneuvering in space. Just slugging it out and then moving to a closer to another target. Its pretty, capital ship abilities add a flare, but ultimately its a space game in 2D with no actual maneuvering. I like my space battle like their are in Homeworld, Sword of the Stars 2 ,and Nexus the Jupiter Incident.
I always liked that aspect of the combat. It's easy to control and like World War 2 battleships in space. Still, having some more smaller ships that fly around like the corvettes would be neat.
There seem to be vague hints of upcoming new factions - this ultimate enemy that the Vasari were fleeing from etc... no whether that is just lore or whether that is what is coming, I don't know. Let alone if that/those factions are going to be playable if they make an appearance. I would like to see more factions for sure, even if it's just more subfactions for different Titans or Capital Ships. After you get over the new graphics, it's basically Sins 1. Totally worth buying but nothing groundbreaking.
I've seen lots of people who haven't bought the game yet complain that they didn't want a sequel to be a glorified remaster, and I feel like that was a misstep in the marketing, and one which was hard to make the right move. I've been playing since the beta, and I really consider Sins 2 to be a ground-up modernization. Sure, technically it's set another 10 or 20 years after Rebellion, but at it's heart, it's still Sins of a Solar Empire, just redesigned and reworked to modern gaming expectations when it comes to quality of life, dynamism, and wider ranges of choice, which is really about the best you could ask for with any sucessor game.
in sins 1 you could have bid on pirates the onw who wins will be able to fund their next invasion on another faction , here i couldnt find how to do it , if this even exists plus having unlimited battleships destroying the game and its making smaller ships utterly useless to build ...
I really miss the shield’s mitigation system from Rebellion. Late game things feel like they move to fast and things die way to fast. Having this system back would help with things lasting longer and more “holding” actions to occur.
Pretty sure even in the original game, anything will die quickly if they get focus fired, Shield Mitigation or not. Sins 2 has a lot more tools to keep ships alive when practicing proper unit synergies even against overwhelming odds.
I wouldn't call it "Shield Mitigation", because that's not what it was. It affected both Shield And Hull.. You had 70% Mitigation? You had a 70% damage reduction on Both Shield and Hull. The both was pretty unbalanced. There are talks of an option possibly being added to decrease and increase ship survivability though.
Cons: >Defenses are paper thin and are wiped out fast. Even the Double Agrolev tactic isn't how it used to be. >Starbase Slots work negatively to their function. Should go back to the slot system from the 1st game for them. >Removing fighters from Vasari and have them have Bombers only. >Having Extractors cost Orbital Civic points which is beyond heretical here (not to mention stations seem to cost more OC points). >Overall you can't make any planets with a ton of space stations like in the original game anymore. >Removing trade ports from Advent and Vasari (sure it's part of the TEC mechanics, but come on...). >The space battles are somehow smaller compared to the 1st game (that's my feeling). >Super weapons don't snipe from one star to the other anymore no matter how far it is. >Artifacts now only apply to single planets or capital ships instead of being global upgrades for your empire as a whole. Pros: >Everything else. Still if you want to have some actual fun, then go download some mods that increase unit supply limit and cutting the orbital points for both civic and defense stations.
Adding a Con: with the way the reasearch tree has been streamlined, and how production will lead to automatic research if missing, it feels like research is a lot less relevant.
I like your ideas for rebalancing Sins 2 back to the Sins Rebellion meta, speaking as an old Sins fan myself. However, in the past couple weeks of playing I've come to be accustomed to the Civic points being very limited. It leads to specialized planets and more interesting late game. Upgrading planets is less of a tedious click game and more planned out. You'll need asteroids early game, but can scrap them for Temples of Communion late game, for example. Give the new Sins 2 meta a fair shake and you may grow to like it too, or at least hate it less, in the long term. Happy gaming
Actually most of what you listed as con are actually pros. E.g. diversifying race mechanics. The Advent power of recalling the fleet is mmmuuuuuch more op than any trade advantage. Bases are paper thin? Yeah, mebe learn to doversify your fleets and not move every ship in one big combat group but have defense and assault fleets. The point is to make you use your brain more and be more tactical. Not enough orbital slots? But you have planet slots instead that can free up orbital slots.
One issue I have sins 2, Is that the fleet population doesn't carry as much as it used to. Even at maximum fleet supply you carry less ships than you did in the other games. My TEC enclave at max, carry around 200 ships, where I remember sins rebellion, I can have way more. The fleet supply cost for cruisers is insane as well as the frigates.
Its like a good remake. Still unbalanced here and there tho. And lacking old diplomacy options. No diplomatic missions for example. There is also a lack of game options to tailor a game closer to what we are looking for (cant activate/deactivate pirates or super weapons.). And random maps are not random enough. The game do run well tho. Still is good looking and seems to be mod friendly.
The only thing I don't like is that the sub-factions don't really feel unique until the end of the game. I just wish there was maybe more unique early tech or ships rather than the most fun ones being behind t4/5.
Nobody can take IGN seriously. The point if this update is to update the engine to 2024 so it can take Sins into the future. This isn't an $80 game or anything. It delivers what it needs to.
Who cares, it's been in the top 10 global sellers on steam since launch. That speaks more than any review score and people are obviously happy with the value for the commenter above. About 90 percent positive reviews currently. It's a success already.
I do hate the AI "art". Finding anything in the tech tree at a glance is an absolute pain in the ass. For me it's literally negative production value. Reusing Sins 1 art would've been better. Hell, MS Paint drawings would've been equally good as the AI, if not better.
The biggest dissapointment is that the combat is about just focusing fire on capital ships or a titan, and watch them melt, whoever has the biggest blob wins. And when you loose those precious level 6+ capitals or high level titan, there is no propper way to get those levels back, so you are on the backfoot for like 2 hours until you can somehow get those levels back. The game is basically decided with one battle if you win you get massive exp head start over who ever you defeated, if you loose there is no way for you to catch up.
Because you are not supposed to do blob against blob if you want no losses. You need to micro, know when to pull back, etc. Also, have several fleets, different compositions. I rarely lose capitals even against the hardest AI because I differentiate my fleets and plan my engagements. And have enough foresight to retreat when needed.
@@Dinnye01 that may work agaist ai, but hardly against a real person, they will just push you after crushing one of your smaller fleets. And how do you want to micro and pull back when your capital just melts in 20seconds? Before my ship decides to turn around its crippeled and before it can get to the edge of the system its dead coz my opponent spams javelises or asailants with system wide range. Not to mention how unreadable the fights are since ability effects are almost non existent. And the massive issue persist, when you loose that level 7 titan you cant replace it, you just cant. The oponent will destroy you with their now level 9 titan and you cant stop it. Then there are massive balance issues most natable being tec marza who will hit level 6 and delete your fleet with one ability, the pdcs not shooting down missiles propperly which leads to everyone spamming missile ships. This game realy needs few patches.
I hope they advance the story/plot - I really want to know more about the nemesis the Vasari are fleeing from. I don't think they will, but I can dream.
Overall I agree with what was said but there is one i don't. I don't think it's cool for the Vassari to arrive on the system from outer space. What that means is that you don't pick the starting capital ship you want. You have to make do with the coloniser capital ship for a while until you can actually build your own capital ships and then you can build it using resources which you do start with but you also need those resources rather early because a lot of their early stuff needs it unfortunatly. I'd rather have them start already on the planet and pick a ship like everyone else. I also agree that there is unfortunatly very little documentation to look at a race and know what they do, what are their unique things or even their ships. it's also impossible to know how a weapon work until you see it fire which is terrible for decision making. One thing you didn't mention but which is something I find rather wrong with the way the game was developed is map generation. Simply put, the map doesn't generates clusters with chokepoints making it very hard to keep a place well defended. Sure there are tools to make such maps but it would be ideal for the game to have a generation method the player could opt for which would lead to fewer travel lanes and more chokepoints so it's easier to defend especially in the early game. Now yes, there is the whole system rotation mechanic but like you I don't like it so I disable it. Another thing that annoys me is how the game is heavily skewed towards placing certain minor factions in a map and those factions also tend to change depending on who you are playing or maybe it depends based on what factions have been picked by you and the AI. I'd like for them to be completly random instead so there would be more variety to the game. There is also some balance issue but overall it's a good game, it just needs a bit more polish.
I will give it more time, as I've only a few hours in so far but so far, I think it's a bit of a step back in some ways. That said, I do have to get used to the new mechanics I think, but one thing... why cant we disable super weapons? AI cheating + doomsday device is a way to avoid writing decent AI.
Zade getting his economic terms a bit confused there. Being "in the black" means you are making a profit and is a good thing. As apposed to being "in the red", which is where you are losing money. Being in the green isn't really a phrase that is used in that context.
Ehh... tell me you din't play Sins 1 without saying it. And also that you are from the US. In Sins 1, an expense was in red and income was in green. To a point, planets took money away, so they were in red. Then when you upgraded them, they turned into the green, as the numbers literally turned green. If ya want to be a cultural smartass, mebe don't base it on friggin US culture, WHEN WE ARE TALKING ABOUT AN IMAGINARY WORLD WHIT IT'S OWN RULES.
@@Dinnye01Ehh.. tell me you didn't watch the video without saying it. Yeah I know that new planets start out at a deficit and cost you income to run until upgraded. So even by your metric they would start "in the red" not "in the black" as was stated. And ok, I can see how you could say in the green if that is how it is displayed in the game. Don't think I ever payed that much attention to the in game text color personally. Also yes I am from the US but black and red are pretty universal economic terms not just in the US. Also not trying to be a smart ass, just noting an error to try and prevent confusion. When he said planets start in the black I was immediately thrown off for a second because that is not how I recall the game working. Maybe you should look into a mirror if you want to criticize people for being a smart ass w/o knowing what they are talking about.
Talking about the generative image (ai), its impossible to fully train an model without them to making the software themselves, and this seems to be a lie since the image generated follow the pattern of the other bigs generative image softwares like Midjourney, so even if they trained the alghoritim to use their in house art, the software must also already have in its database other stole art trained, and its looks bad, really bad, and I can't be sure but the background during the match does also looks like its ai generated. And the argument that because of this they can charge less for the game or make a very ambitious game doesn't hold up since the price is following Stardock pattern and they made Sins 1 14 years ago with a smaller team, and 2d art assets is one of the less expensive assets a game will have, so its just Stardock increasingly using it in their games, they did with Galciv 4 and now with Sins 2, and with Sins 2 is worse because there is more of it and because they add very late during the game development so anyone that support early during early access was caugh off guard. ANd I know usually players dont care, they dont care and keeps giving a pass because the game is good, and companies keeps pushing it more and more until the point its everywhere, is making games worse because of it and than players will start to care, its the same process every company use when they turned big expansions into small more expansives dlc, or microtransactions, or battle pass, its a way to cut cost, reduce the ammount of human input in the development to make a souless product devoid of any artistic intention. Giving a pass because doesn't mean you can't like the game, but if you say "if its good I dont care" you will end up with gamesfull of generative content from art, code to storytelling and it's going to be a mess, but such a big mess that its going to be difficult to turned back, and with Stardock this seems to be the plan.
And thanks for reminding me why I dropped Mass effect like a bad habit. It's very off putting that the shoddy job of Bioware to show some nuance in Ashley's experience only turns into people chasing clout by just calling her racist when the the other cast members expressed similar leanings. Which is nothing to say about the harassment that her voice actress had to endure because of it. But I digress. I might get Sins II after I give it some time to settle once the initial release hype wears off.
To be honest, I wouldn't have picked the examples you gave for AI art, at least through UA-cam's compression. You can be assured that whatever the AI image generator spat out got touched up by their actual artists. Concept art and making those kinds of assets for the research screen is very costly and time consuming from the perspective of development. They obviously spent a lot of time creating the art for the ships because they look amazing. If they only have a handful of artists, than I'm glad happy for them to get a machine to a bunch of less important stuff (in the scheme of things for an indie dev). This is the kind of thing I honestly thought AI art was going to be used for, getting more done with a pocket full of dreams but not enough resources. That's probably how EA would explain their use of it though... I doubt anyone at Stardock got laid off though
I was a bit quick to leave this comment, you basically have the same conclusion. Like all technology, AI image generation is neither morally good or bad, it all comes down to house it's used. Teaching a model on your game's concept art is a really good way to come up with alternative variations on your work when your boss tells you something like "I like this, but I want it to be different" 😆
I’m not an RTS player like at all. But I got the first one about 10 years ago specifically for the the Star Trek Armada 3 mod. Now they’ve announced they’re doing an Armada 4 mod for Sins 2 I best start contemplating a computer upgrade.
I dont see how you could dislike the orbital mechanic is bad. The only view i could see is you just dont want to engage with it I do however love that these people get to choose
Still going to stick with Rebellion, unless there's a significant sale or something. I personally don't think there's enough. Should've added a new faction or two, or some sort of campaign. At least something to differentiate the games more.
My issue with SoSE 2 is the end game turns into an absolute stalemate slog, especially when playing certain factions, you end up just sitting of 10x speed watching a fleet locked into a system, and continuously clicking the reinforce buttons. Not exactly gripping gameplay.
AI art is just a fact of life now, and it’s the way things are going to go. Wanna know why? I am not an artist, and I didn’t even notice it was AI generated. Sure professionals can see the difference, but most people won’t know or care. I wouldn’t care if some of the code the game runs on was AI generated either, and I am a pro in that field.
Since they went with AI art for the techs and items, I don't really get why they re-use so many of them. Especially the Alluxian t1 and t3 influence items being right next to each other is damaging to immersion. It's a minor thing (I have greatly been enjoying sins 2 in general) but it seems like such low hanging fruit to fix.
Talking about no new factions. I really want to applaud the game for including all the factions from the first game and its expansions. It feels like starting with a full slate, and it means that if this game also gets expansions, we can expect to see more factions added as well.
I think we're missing a capital ship from each faction though
It's sad to think this bare minimum of what a Remake should have is enough to satisfy your low expectations.
This game is little more than a SoaSE Rebellion Remake with some QoL improvements. There's nothing in there that would make it a sequel.
@@TurKlack The entire tech trees have been reworked, the various resources and how you harvest them are no longer the same. Planetary and Capital ships upgrades are not the same. Numerous abilities have been changed, numerous more have been added. There's a ton of new game mechanics too.
The only way this is the same as Rebellion is that it's an RTS in the same franchise.
I've played hundreds of hours of Rebellion but this game feels entirely different. I had no idea what I was doing. My old build orders and tactics did not work
@@TurKlackin the game’s defense; it feels far different to play than the first game. If you don’t play it yourself and only watch gameplay videos online, it’s easy to think that and I can see why.
@@PatrixBest Like I said a remake. There's nothing new, just remade.
As a PvE turtle myself, I actually like the orbiting planets: it brings that spice to a match that a static unchanging map wouldn't have. Getting into situations like having a revolving door of planets spinning into a static phase lane where all the enemies come from with occasional side routes they can sneak into makes for some fun gameplay where I need to know which planets I need to shore up my defenses in, and where to move my defense fleet into. It's also worth remembering that the orbiting system benefits you as much as it benefits the enemy, for instance a planet you own that may previously be a frontline may suddenly break its phase lane, giving a much needed reprieve, or perhaps said movement brings a planet in range of some of your ranged interplanetary passives or into a Novalith Cannon. I actually don't think I can go back to the completely static maps of the original.
I would like the defences to be able to move so they dont get unvalidated by moving line
@@Kanjejou They can - static defenses and other orbital structures above a planet (except mines on asteroids) can be orbited around it so they're facing whatever direction you want them to.
Wanted to add that there is no downside to a new function you can turn off. Would be different if the rotating planets was forced on
@@Kanjejou click on the planet, then the button on the right, advanced controls or something
Agreed! I love to heavily fortify and fully garrison some of those asteroids that fly through my empire, because by the time they're in the enemy's empire they're causing havoc automatically attacking nearby planets with free ships and falling back to their starbases when a response is brought. Sure, a concerted effort would bring it down, but when an enemy starts mustering such an effort that direction is exactly when my fleet can attack with impunity.
OG Sins player here....since before Rebellion...back when Sins was on physical medium. Sins 2 is EXACTLY what a sequel should be. If you enjoyed the first one....buy it. If you enjoy RTS games, buy it.
So glad to hear. I still have my original SINS box xP. Used to LAN this with friends in high school and played the crap out of the Star Trek Armada 3 mod for Rebellion.
High praise, friend. I still have that box kicking around somewhere. I enjoyed the hell out of the first and it was great to see it expand so much over time.
@@cryptthrasher2213 I'm waiting for Eve Online mod, but yeah all of them are great.
I miss when games were on physical media. It actually meant that developers finished the game and released it to the CD
I have my OG physical copy. I really had good memories of the game and glad Sins 2 has come.
I am also a sins of a solar empire 1 old hat. That game released what feels like a lifetime ago so seeing this finally release is a bit surreal. Looking forward to watching this for myself and sending it to some friends on the fence about purchasing. Cheers.
200+ hours in sins 1 no mods. This game is better in almost every way
I love Sins2 I'm having such a good time with it. They knocked it out of the park.
On the subject of mods I have reached out to both the Sins of the Prophets team and the Star Trek Armada team. Neither have a release date as of yet, but both are hard at work.
You serious bro? That's great news
The devs for Armada even released a teaser the other day.
WEW :DDDD
Damn I can't wait for the mods of this game to really start popping off!
Star Trek Armada 4 development is now underway
@@Anthony-jo7up good lord! I like Armada 3 but Ages of the Federation was my jam for a long time.
@@Anthony-jo7up YES! YES! YEEESSSS!!!! Armada 3 was an absolute GEM when I played it. Too bad it keeps crashing whenever I play it now.
hopefully the borg wont get super nerfed like it did in later releases of armada 3. that made me so sad for my borg drones
StarWar coming
This is a great well-rounded review, and even mentions the dumbassary of IGN's review, which is always welcome
Thanks g
Does anyone even listen to IGN anymore?
I'm so glad they didn't do what GPG did with Supreme Commander 2
Jesus Christ yeah 😅😅😅
The WORST.
What did they do? Haven't played the first
@@lewanjosephnimick9359 Removed a lot of content, going from four factions each with three tiers and experimentals for land sea and air to three factions, most only having like two relevant air and naval UNITS (and Aeon not even getting a navy!) while largely reducing the scale as well.
It's a shame because the research system was interesting and the artillery in SupCom 2 is great, but overall it definitely isn't what the first was.
That was a travesty indeed but a good lesson in "how to cut your feet off in 1 easy release"
I bought sins on epic, thanks for pointing out the steam linking.
does it remove it from epic when you export the key for steam?
@@kiotekful Nope, just gives you a steam key for whichever account you want to play on. I actually gave it to one of my friends who was interested in the game but wasn't sure whether to buy it or not
Thank you for your service as BETA tester. Must have been rough to not even be able to play Advent.
I like Sins 2 so far. It is more of a reboot than a sequel, but maybe thats for the best nowadays.
So far, i like most of the changes they made and hope for a good community and a couple of new factions in the future.
If they can't make great new RTS, just make the old ones again and improve them a bit.
It’s only a reboot until the dlc and expansions drop.
I’d also much rather than have a good “reboot” baseline than totally warp the game from release with a bunch of shit that doesn’t fit the vibe of the franchise a la Supreme Commander 2
I have been there from the first moment, earpy access. The devs listen to the community feedback quite thoroughly. I have seen some of the suggestions I made manifest in the game. It feels like "home".
I LOVE the new mechanics and the streamlining of plamet/fleet/starbase management. And the diversification of the races.
And the nerf of the super weapons. They now are truly a tidebreaker and not a be all end all thing.
Also, the best technology advancement is that each gun and missile are their own entity.
I never played the og sins but I love a good rts game. You’d recommend?
@themasterchef9784 sins rebellion has a lot of really, really good full conversion mods.
Halo, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. I have more time in sins of the prophets, the halo mod, than i do in vanilla. The vanilla gameplay is similar to 2, but not as in depth, still really good though.
@@Phwonk and sins 2? I’m on the fence about getting it.
@@themasterchef9784 as an RTS, Sins2 great
As a sequel, it's different that it adds a lot of QoL and improvements but with a bit of differences that throw me off from the familiarity of Sins Rebellion
@@themasterchef9784 ABSOLUTELY! You are in for a treat! It has a learning curve, but that makes it all the more satisfying!
Thanks for the review! If you guys have any vfx requests (any explosions that you think need work, lasers that need more oomf), lmk!
18:13 Ayy TEC Loyalist turtling is how I won my first bot match. Big space brick Argonev stalling a fleet headed by the Vasari Rebel titan long enough for my main fleet to rotate fronts into the system.
In this sequel, it pains me to admit that I didn’t quite understand the new durability and armor strength properties until I got rolled over by the AI twice. Those TEC gauss frigates are GOATed in my eyes after their wide spread introduction to my fleet turned the tides.
I recall doing a TEC loyalist run full galaxy map size, just me vs the rest of the galaxy with no allies. I managed to fight my way to the core and when I beat a wave of ships there I would branch out and take out each branch one by one with a good choke point.
As a Vasari main, I have to say your Argonev stations make great food for my Orkulus led fleets.
@@adamgroszkiewicz814 I haven’t checked if the orkulus can still jump between systems in Sins II. Iirc it was a Vasari Rebel thing.
@@rustyzipper19 Its been the defining feature of the Vasari since before Rebellion. The new hotness with Sins 2 is combining Mobile Rulership and Core Drilling (or whatever) with how Orkulus can produce ships, even while assaulting.
The new changes to capital ship upgrades and mods is the best change overall. You can easily maximize your capitals ships woth those upgrades and allows capitals ships to handle more versatile situations, til you can buy the cap ship you need to fill that role
Zade, your videos are excellent and they have been really getting a lot better recently. I have been watching for maybe over a year or two now after finding your channel via reddit, and I have come to view your channel as the SkillUp of RTS games - a genre I love.
I remember thinking back then that, while being great reviews that I valued, there was still an awkwardness with your screen persona or talking style (or more likely editing). But since then you have really improved on it and I regularly send your videos to friends trying to hook them on the latest awesome strategy games (which there aren't many of sadly).
I really appreciate your review on this as it's been so long since I played Sin: Rebellion and I have been so on the fence of Sins 2. I don't often leave comments, but I was really impressed and grateful for this video on Sins 2, so I felt obliged to share my thoughts as thanks.
Hey that means a lot, thank you! The skill up of RTS games is truly an amazing compliment. Thanks for sticking around! 😊
Imagine the new Sins with Sins of the Prophets or Star Trek Armada 3 ? I can only get so hard.
Well, Sins of the prophets-team have been working with it for a while so it might not be too long until we can play it.
Sins 1 has always been a comfy game to install once in a while for me. Currently playing 2 and gotta admit, the game is definitely deserving of praise, never knew they would improve even QoL stuff this much. It feels like playing a very polished and modernized version of Sins 1 while still feeling unique.
Showing the "faction" that is following the Vasari is bad in my opinion as there is no way to do it justice. The current lore is that the vasari don't even know what it is they're running from, they started running because half their empire just started going dark. No "ahh we're under attack" no "we need to run away they're too strong" just more and more people stopped answering calls and no one that went to see what was up ever came back.
How can you make such an overwhelmingly power full enemy, if it's even a tangible enemy and not a natural disaster, in a way that is balanced and does it justice. The answer is you can't, either it's balanced and thus not as strong as it's previous portrayals or it's too op to include in multiplayer.
I did think of a semi answer to this question but that makes only the advent able to fight them. That being uber mind control but the advents unity allows them to resist.
I also thought about this when they announced that the mystery faction will finally be unveiled. The only way I thought it would work is if the mystery factions gimmick was visibility and communication tactics. Like they sever communication and map visibility as part of the faction so it explains why Vasari couldn’t ever pin who they are against. Would allow you to power them down a bit while staying cannon and also giving them a play style unique among the other 3. Could be fun to have a faction that makes sections of the map dark and introduces some tactics based around visibility
Aaaaand Star Trek Armada IV (mod) has just been announced to be in development
That's what I like to hear :D
Homeworld 3 was unplayable for me with the camera, they should just do this instead
Also been a fan since the early days (sins 1 beta). Very happy with what they have done with this refresh of the game, and what may come. Gamers deserve proper dev lead reboots like this of all their fav franchises.
lmao IGN
you think you hate journalists
you do not hate them enough
Ign got a shit version of the game so their review is fair
IGN isn't even relevant anymore. It's like babies first review site and that's it.
I'd say anyone who takes gaming even slightly seriously realizes IGN are more interested in ideology than gaming.
@@scatz4569 "Everyone I dislike is ideologically motivated" - a braindead take on quality.
I played OG Sins only a little bit as I discovered it years after the release and I couldn't be happier with what they made with the sequel. I'm very glad they did not try to reinvent the wheel or shoved in "novelties" that don't fit the base (like: C&C4, Dawn of War 3, Homeworld 3).
I hope this sells well and they can work on the title for years to come - really excited about the campaing and a new race DLC.
With that said, I do think their pricing is weird.
I think most people would consider an RTS game to be complete when it has a campaign in it. Currently you can't just buy the game with the campaign, you can only buy a whole DLC content pack which would cost you £83.99 (not including the discount expiring in a few days).
That cost puts it in the AAA bracket where the expectations are much higher. If I were to look at it through that lens it would need:
- More graphics options
There's very little here we can adjust.
- AI Art overhaul
Generally I don't mind what we have, but there are some oddities here and there and when it comes to icons (tech tree) the readability could be improved. On another hand, it would have been extremely cool if they let us adjust the player portraits (or import new ones easily) or even incorporated some form of AI Gen for Unit portraits.
- Music improvements
I don't dislike it and appreciate that it's a matter of taste, but I do find it overly repetitive to the point where I have to just turn it off and play something else on the web. I only played the game for 10 hrs so far. Compare it to C&C and Starcraft series where it never gotten stale for me.
I think the AI art usage in Sins2 is excellent. Zero problems with it. Look at the terrible stuff in Sins1.
That's what I'm saying. I'm a big fan of Sins 1, but the icons weren't exactly works of art. I MUCH prefer having actual paintings, especially since they help flesh out the lore.
I completely agree
i'm glad they used ai art, there are some great looking images in there, many more than would otherwise be
don't get these 'ai haters'' at all, they never complained when the skybox was created by a generative tool
it's also a tons more flexible since you can easily change out artwork, you can't do that if it was a huge painterly investment
it's the future, people have to accept it, they will be better in nearly every aspect soon enough, i for one are all for it
the only ai images that are lacking are the vasari portraits, they need a lot more distinct variation, but its still fine
wpuld rather see great ai art rather than poor human art (not all artist are great, of course some human art is better still)
I turtle like an absolute smeghead and I love the orbiting planet mechanic. It adds a new layer of complexity to defending.
I hear ya
I may come around to it I'll admit
Excellent review Zade! Touched on all the key points and some, as an old vet of the first one with many hours played, this was music to my ears.
Much appreciated brother
Apart from some balances problems i really like sins 2.
Man i was terrible at rebellion i never figured it out maybe should pick it up again
Ah, how I remember those days. Starting off VERY cautiously and building the economy and new ships slowing. Although it had its faults, it was one of the best space war games. Thanks for the great in-depth review and commentary. 👍👍💯
Loved the first game back in the day. The power of the zoom wheel made the world feel so real. Like if I could zoom in on a total war grand strategy map to see the individual battles. It made the world feel alive. The sequel is just what I wanted.
Slightly off topic comment:
14:06: The comment that (paraphrased) "newly colonised planets begin in the black and... requires investment to bring it into the green". I was listening to your review while doing other things, and this was jarring to hear. I know what you meant, but the colours used are incorrect (for the purposes of the normal idiom).
The correct colours are 'being in the red' (meaning making a loss), and 'in the black' (meaning you're making money) - being the colours that were traditionally used to represent profit/loss in accounting.
The fact the Roadmap has everything that I hoped Sins would eventually have is icing on the cake. (Campaign, mostly, looking forward to that)
it's a perfect sequel of a strategy game.
I can't stop playing sins 2 its f'ing amazing
7:10 tbh, the news you were able to run the game on the dinosaur of a pc was a bit of a godsend for me. I was personally afraid my PC’s cpu, a i5 9600K if you were curious, would cause some problems for me, but now even it does, it shouldnt be as bad as that pc had.
Something to add to the new mechanics of ordering fleeting resupply, if you make the Fleet your control group, it will auto-add the new ships to that control group once they're in the same gravity well as the fleet beacon. Such a tiny feature that provides an insanely huge QOL bonus.
i found another turtle , dont we just love our defence huh
I kinda wish the new faction wasn't going to be the ones chasing the vasari, but it's almost guaranteed that it is.
Whatever they come up with will never be better than the mystery itself
why are people malding that this is ''just a remake'' when what they did is continue successfull formula that people liked
As a newcomer to the series, this sounds pretty good
it's the best time to play sins
22:42 this a killer feature for me. Can't go back now that I have it
@Zade Hear me out on the AI stuff, if you have a moment.
I totally agree that in Stardock's case, it is a mean to an end. But also... somehow to me, it fits the bill so well. Especially that one research where you can turn crystal into credits (I think it is an Advent one) and you see the credits made out of crystal. It's awesome. It somehow goes along with the game well. And again, I understand where you are coming from. But still... it is weirdly fitting for Sins.
Sins 1 didn't include a campaign, but if this did get one it would be interesting to see how Stardock implements it.
Sounds like we finally have a worthy sequel this year, lol
Been playing it off and on since it was first released on Epic. I knew I already was in love but I was legitimately surprised by how well everything came together.
P.S. Didn't know about the Steam transfer, thanks for the tip, doing that now!
my pleasure!
Holy crap, I could have sworn the art they used was AI. I thought I was just being paranoid. I'm glad someone mentioned it.
It says it is on the steam page
The Devs have already stated a new faction is coming, along woth expansions and a story campaign...
Game is amazing in many aspects, but I find the camera tracking random units on zoom to be extremely annoying. It's something they brought back from the first game and it's very obnoxious, as it takes camera control from the player. There's no way to turn it off except to turn off zoom to cursor, which is a separate feature I actually like.
Me: *watching videos on YT at night*
The UA-camr: *shows clips from their browser, without using dark mode*
My Eyeballs: 💀💀
Thanks for the Review though!
I really like how there are a lot more differences between the races and factions. Each race has a lot more unique mechanics. There are a lot more differences between each race's ships. The Vasari don't even use credits anymore.
One thing I don't like is how lot of the research icons are just bad since it's hard to tell what the research is from the icons. So you have to either memorize what they are or read the descriptions every time. And each race has dozens of research options.
Missile ship spam is a real pain, same when I watch my fleet get torn apart by 1000 fighters on unfair
IGN isn't worth typing in the three keystrokes.
I love the orbiting planets.
My biggest issue with Sins 2 is that the ships just line up, stop and fire. No actual maneuvering in space. Just slugging it out and then moving to a closer to another target. Its pretty, capital ship abilities add a flare, but ultimately its a space game in 2D with no actual maneuvering. I like my space battle like their are in Homeworld, Sword of the Stars 2 ,and Nexus the Jupiter Incident.
the issue with this is it makes target selection hell
I always liked that aspect of the combat. It's easy to control and like World War 2 battleships in space. Still, having some more smaller ships that fly around like the corvettes would be neat.
There seem to be vague hints of upcoming new factions - this ultimate enemy that the Vasari were fleeing from etc... no whether that is just lore or whether that is what is coming, I don't know. Let alone if that/those factions are going to be playable if they make an appearance. I would like to see more factions for sure, even if it's just more subfactions for different Titans or Capital Ships. After you get over the new graphics, it's basically Sins 1. Totally worth buying but nothing groundbreaking.
33:52 Well, Star trek Armada 4 has already been announced for sins 2, so there's that
I've seen lots of people who haven't bought the game yet complain that they didn't want a sequel to be a glorified remaster, and I feel like that was a misstep in the marketing, and one which was hard to make the right move. I've been playing since the beta, and I really consider Sins 2 to be a ground-up modernization. Sure, technically it's set another 10 or 20 years after Rebellion, but at it's heart, it's still Sins of a Solar Empire, just redesigned and reworked to modern gaming expectations when it comes to quality of life, dynamism, and wider ranges of choice, which is really about the best you could ask for with any sucessor game.
in sins 1 you could have bid on pirates the onw who wins will be able to fund their next invasion on another faction , here i couldnt find how to do it , if this even exists
plus having unlimited battleships destroying the game and its making smaller ships utterly useless to build ...
been a busy week, only have 30 hours logged... loving it
I really miss the shield’s mitigation system from Rebellion. Late game things feel like they move to fast and things die way to fast. Having this system back would help with things lasting longer and more “holding” actions to occur.
Pretty sure even in the original game, anything will die quickly if they get focus fired, Shield Mitigation or not. Sins 2 has a lot more tools to keep ships alive when practicing proper unit synergies even against overwhelming odds.
I wouldn't call it "Shield Mitigation", because that's not what it was. It affected both Shield And Hull.. You had 70% Mitigation? You had a 70% damage reduction on Both Shield and Hull.
The both was pretty unbalanced. There are talks of an option possibly being added to decrease and increase ship survivability though.
I still feel like this game is rather bare bones when compared to the competition.
Cons:
>Defenses are paper thin and are wiped out fast. Even the Double Agrolev tactic isn't how it used to be.
>Starbase Slots work negatively to their function. Should go back to the slot system from the 1st game for them.
>Removing fighters from Vasari and have them have Bombers only.
>Having Extractors cost Orbital Civic points which is beyond heretical here (not to mention stations seem to cost more OC points).
>Overall you can't make any planets with a ton of space stations like in the original game anymore.
>Removing trade ports from Advent and Vasari (sure it's part of the TEC mechanics, but come on...).
>The space battles are somehow smaller compared to the 1st game (that's my feeling).
>Super weapons don't snipe from one star to the other anymore no matter how far it is.
>Artifacts now only apply to single planets or capital ships instead of being global upgrades for your empire as a whole.
Pros:
>Everything else.
Still if you want to have some actual fun, then go download some mods that increase unit supply limit and cutting the orbital points for both civic and defense stations.
Adding a Con:
with the way the reasearch tree has been streamlined, and how production will lead to automatic research if missing, it feels like research is a lot less relevant.
I like your ideas for rebalancing Sins 2 back to the Sins Rebellion meta, speaking as an old Sins fan myself.
However, in the past couple weeks of playing I've come to be accustomed to the Civic points being very limited. It leads to specialized planets and more interesting late game. Upgrading planets is less of a tedious click game and more planned out.
You'll need asteroids early game, but can scrap them for Temples of Communion late game, for example.
Give the new Sins 2 meta a fair shake and you may grow to like it too, or at least hate it less, in the long term.
Happy gaming
I was shocked about only having bombers when i first tried Vasari the other day.
Actually most of what you listed as con are actually pros.
E.g. diversifying race mechanics. The Advent power of recalling the fleet is mmmuuuuuch more op than any trade advantage.
Bases are paper thin? Yeah, mebe learn to doversify your fleets and not move every ship in one big combat group but have defense and assault fleets. The point is to make you use your brain more and be more tactical.
Not enough orbital slots? But you have planet slots instead that can free up orbital slots.
Also, the Vasari are goddamn strong with the Devastators as it is. They can melt you pretty fast as is.
All we needed 1 thing , being able to play it on multiple core systems, they delivered !
Really fun game
One issue I have sins 2, Is that the fleet population doesn't carry as much as it used to. Even at maximum fleet supply you carry less ships than you did in the other games. My TEC enclave at max, carry around 200 ships, where I remember sins rebellion, I can have way more. The fleet supply cost for cruisers is insane as well as the frigates.
cant wait for the startrek mod for this game :D
Also missing are the pirate raids.
oh hallelujah, after homeworld and aom i felt so hopeless about this
Its like a good remake. Still unbalanced here and there tho. And lacking old diplomacy options. No diplomatic missions for example.
There is also a lack of game options to tailor a game closer to what we are looking for (cant activate/deactivate pirates or super weapons.). And random maps are not random enough.
The game do run well tho. Still is good looking and seems to be mod friendly.
Nice review. A ship design I don’t really like is the large TEC-cruiser.
I really miss Upbeat 3 from Sins 1. I hope they will bring that one back. If you know that soundtrack, you know.
man, i spent so many hours in the first game
The only thing I don't like is that the sub-factions don't really feel unique until the end of the game. I just wish there was maybe more unique early tech or ships rather than the most fun ones being behind t4/5.
Great game and good run in this vid! o7
Nobody can take IGN seriously. The point if this update is to update the engine to 2024 so it can take Sins into the future. This isn't an $80 game or anything. It delivers what it needs to.
Lol no but it's a 60$ game. Not exactly indie priced either.
@@sionbarzad5371 launch price was $40, full price is $50.
Who cares, it's been in the top 10 global sellers on steam since launch.
That speaks more than any review score and people are obviously happy with the value for the commenter above.
About 90 percent positive reviews currently. It's a success already.
I do hate the AI "art". Finding anything in the tech tree at a glance is an absolute pain in the ass. For me it's literally negative production value. Reusing Sins 1 art would've been better. Hell, MS Paint drawings would've been equally good as the AI, if not better.
I need a SoTP:2 asap 😓😓😓🫡🫡🫡
The biggest dissapointment is that the combat is about just focusing fire on capital ships or a titan, and watch them melt, whoever has the biggest blob wins. And when you loose those precious level 6+ capitals or high level titan, there is no propper way to get those levels back, so you are on the backfoot for like 2 hours until you can somehow get those levels back. The game is basically decided with one battle if you win you get massive exp head start over who ever you defeated, if you loose there is no way for you to catch up.
Because you are not supposed to do blob against blob if you want no losses. You need to micro, know when to pull back, etc.
Also, have several fleets, different compositions. I rarely lose capitals even against the hardest AI because I differentiate my fleets and plan my engagements. And have enough foresight to retreat when needed.
@@Dinnye01 that may work agaist ai, but hardly against a real person, they will just push you after crushing one of your smaller fleets. And how do you want to micro and pull back when your capital just melts in 20seconds?
Before my ship decides to turn around its crippeled and before it can get to the edge of the system its dead coz my opponent spams javelises or asailants with system wide range. Not to mention how unreadable the fights are since ability effects are almost non existent. And the massive issue persist, when you loose that level 7 titan you cant replace it, you just cant. The oponent will destroy you with their now level 9 titan and you cant stop it.
Then there are massive balance issues most natable being tec marza who will hit level 6 and delete your fleet with one ability, the pdcs not shooting down missiles propperly which leads to everyone spamming missile ships.
This game realy needs few patches.
split a small fleet and attack somewhere else? most defenses are very weak so its easy to split 100-200 fleet points and got do some crimes.
I hope they advance the story/plot - I really want to know more about the nemesis the Vasari are fleeing from. I don't think they will, but I can dream.
amazing ty for the link on how to port the game you sir are a legend
I was so waiting for this video!
We got there!
Overall I agree with what was said but there is one i don't. I don't think it's cool for the Vassari to arrive on the system from outer space. What that means is that you don't pick the starting capital ship you want. You have to make do with the coloniser capital ship for a while until you can actually build your own capital ships and then you can build it using resources which you do start with but you also need those resources rather early because a lot of their early stuff needs it unfortunatly. I'd rather have them start already on the planet and pick a ship like everyone else.
I also agree that there is unfortunatly very little documentation to look at a race and know what they do, what are their unique things or even their ships. it's also impossible to know how a weapon work until you see it fire which is terrible for decision making.
One thing you didn't mention but which is something I find rather wrong with the way the game was developed is map generation. Simply put, the map doesn't generates clusters with chokepoints making it very hard to keep a place well defended. Sure there are tools to make such maps but it would be ideal for the game to have a generation method the player could opt for which would lead to fewer travel lanes and more chokepoints so it's easier to defend especially in the early game. Now yes, there is the whole system rotation mechanic but like you I don't like it so I disable it.
Another thing that annoys me is how the game is heavily skewed towards placing certain minor factions in a map and those factions also tend to change depending on who you are playing or maybe it depends based on what factions have been picked by you and the AI. I'd like for them to be completly random instead so there would be more variety to the game.
There is also some balance issue but overall it's a good game, it just needs a bit more polish.
0:18 .. it still has the faction the vasari are running from coming.
I will give it more time, as I've only a few hours in so far but so far, I think it's a bit of a step back in some ways. That said, I do have to get used to the new mechanics I think, but one thing... why cant we disable super weapons? AI cheating + doomsday device is a way to avoid writing decent AI.
I hope the new faction shows the TEC that they have mastered the racsim, born in it, the TEC merely adopted the space racism.
Zade getting his economic terms a bit confused there. Being "in the black" means you are making a profit and is a good thing. As apposed to being "in the red", which is where you are losing money. Being in the green isn't really a phrase that is used in that context.
Ehh... tell me you din't play Sins 1 without saying it. And also that you are from the US.
In Sins 1, an expense was in red and income was in green. To a point, planets took money away, so they were in red. Then when you upgraded them, they turned into the green, as the numbers literally turned green. If ya want to be a cultural smartass, mebe don't base it on friggin US culture, WHEN WE ARE TALKING ABOUT AN IMAGINARY WORLD WHIT IT'S OWN RULES.
What are you talking about? Literally every stock chart uses green for up and red for down.
@@silicalnz Well for starters stock index's are not ledgers for profit or loss. But either way. Red is still the designation for losses not black.
@@Dinnye01Ehh.. tell me you didn't watch the video without saying it.
Yeah I know that new planets start out at a deficit and cost you income to run until upgraded. So even by your metric they would start "in the red" not "in the black" as was stated.
And ok, I can see how you could say in the green if that is how it is displayed in the game. Don't think I ever payed that much attention to the in game text color personally.
Also yes I am from the US but black and red are pretty universal economic terms not just in the US. Also not trying to be a smart ass, just noting an error to try and prevent confusion. When he said planets start in the black I was immediately thrown off for a second because that is not how I recall the game working. Maybe you should look into a mirror if you want to criticize people for being a smart ass w/o knowing what they are talking about.
@@Dinnye01 People always have to pick at something, to hard to say well done.
Question about the crossplay with EGS, does it force you to have an EGS account like EDF 6?
It does not require an EGS account
@@failfist9308 Good stuff
Nope :)
Talking about the generative image (ai), its impossible to fully train an model without them to making the software themselves, and this seems to be a lie since the image generated follow the pattern of the other bigs generative image softwares like Midjourney, so even if they trained the alghoritim to use their in house art, the software must also already have in its database other stole art trained, and its looks bad, really bad, and I can't be sure but the background during the match does also looks like its ai generated. And the argument that because of this they can charge less for the game or make a very ambitious game doesn't hold up since the price is following Stardock pattern and they made Sins 1 14 years ago with a smaller team, and 2d art assets is one of the less expensive assets a game will have, so its just Stardock increasingly using it in their games, they did with Galciv 4 and now with Sins 2, and with Sins 2 is worse because there is more of it and because they add very late during the game development so anyone that support early during early access was caugh off guard.
ANd I know usually players dont care, they dont care and keeps giving a pass because the game is good, and companies keeps pushing it more and more until the point its everywhere, is making games worse because of it and than players will start to care, its the same process every company use when they turned big expansions into small more expansives dlc, or microtransactions, or battle pass, its a way to cut cost, reduce the ammount of human input in the development to make a souless product devoid of any artistic intention.
Giving a pass because doesn't mean you can't like the game, but if you say "if its good I dont care" you will end up with gamesfull of generative content from art, code to storytelling and it's going to be a mess, but such a big mess that its going to be difficult to turned back, and with Stardock this seems to be the plan.
Jesus Christ that AI art reveal was a jumpscare, I hope what they're saying is true and they only trained their algorithm on in-house input.
And thanks for reminding me why I dropped Mass effect like a bad habit. It's very off putting that the shoddy job of Bioware to show some nuance in Ashley's experience only turns into people chasing clout by just calling her racist when the the other cast members expressed similar leanings. Which is nothing to say about the harassment that her voice actress had to endure because of it. But I digress.
I might get Sins II after I give it some time to settle once the initial release hype wears off.
To be honest, I wouldn't have picked the examples you gave for AI art, at least through UA-cam's compression. You can be assured that whatever the AI image generator spat out got touched up by their actual artists. Concept art and making those kinds of assets for the research screen is very costly and time consuming from the perspective of development. They obviously spent a lot of time creating the art for the ships because they look amazing. If they only have a handful of artists, than I'm glad happy for them to get a machine to a bunch of less important stuff (in the scheme of things for an indie dev). This is the kind of thing I honestly thought AI art was going to be used for, getting more done with a pocket full of dreams but not enough resources. That's probably how EA would explain their use of it though... I doubt anyone at Stardock got laid off though
I was a bit quick to leave this comment, you basically have the same conclusion. Like all technology, AI image generation is neither morally good or bad, it all comes down to house it's used. Teaching a model on your game's concept art is a really good way to come up with alternative variations on your work when your boss tells you something like "I like this, but I want it to be different" 😆
I don't remember seeing the premium version available when I got it on steam. They don't have an upgrade to premium option either. Shame.
I’m not an RTS player like at all. But I got the first one about 10 years ago specifically for the the Star Trek Armada 3 mod. Now they’ve announced they’re doing an Armada 4 mod for Sins 2 I best start contemplating a computer upgrade.
I dont see how you could dislike the orbital mechanic is bad. The only view i could see is you just dont want to engage with it
I do however love that these people get to choose
21:9 user here. Zero info on support.
Still going to stick with Rebellion, unless there's a significant sale or something. I personally don't think there's enough. Should've added a new faction or two, or some sort of campaign. At least something to differentiate the games more.
My issue with SoSE 2 is the end game turns into an absolute stalemate slog, especially when playing certain factions, you end up just sitting of 10x speed watching a fleet locked into a system, and continuously clicking the reinforce buttons. Not exactly gripping gameplay.
AI art is just a fact of life now, and it’s the way things are going to go.
Wanna know why? I am not an artist, and I didn’t even notice it was AI generated.
Sure professionals can see the difference, but most people won’t know or care.
I wouldn’t care if some of the code the game runs on was AI generated either, and I am a pro in that field.
Since they went with AI art for the techs and items, I don't really get why they re-use so many of them. Especially the Alluxian t1 and t3 influence items being right next to each other is damaging to immersion.
It's a minor thing (I have greatly been enjoying sins 2 in general) but it seems like such low hanging fruit to fix.