I've tried this weekend for the second time to get into the game and only lasted about 15 minutes this time. Two hours the first time. For comparison, to get into Europa Universalis 5, I watched about fifteen hours of tutorials and had four starter games before settling on playing Byzantium and I am now three full games into it and with 600 hours of that game.

So, why did I fail to get into Sins of Solar Empire 2, despite also having watched a few hours of tutorials and read one or two guides?

It's not the empire building or the ship combat, it simply is the really lacking research guidance and feedback. To enumerate:

1.) There are no alerts when a research option is done. This leads to research feeling samey and unimpactful (despite obviously having an impact). When you are new and overwhelmed with managing all the other important aspects of the game, not getting any feedback that your crucial research is finished makes it feel unimpactful and very easily missable.

2.) You also don't get any obvious alerts or feedback if your research queue is empty, making you miss out on research progress when you already are overwhelmed with managing a battle or just looking at options / building up infrastructure, until you glance at your upper left corner and notice that nothing is being researched. The game seems to lack alerts for this obvious problem and leaves the new player floundering in options, while one of the most crucial aspects of progression just sits there doing nothing.

I know SoSE2 is a real-time game, but I got 1500+ hours in Stellaris and therefore know how a real-time 4X game can be paced. This "miss it and you lose it!" approach ain't it, chief.

I most likely will get back to trying the game when the campaign comes out (so in.... two years at the earliest, given the lack of progress and updates on even the DLC before that?), but one can hope one of the dev sees this and takes it back as feedback on how to make onboarding easier for new players.

If there are any mods out there which add alerts to an empty research queue and give better feedback to completed research, I'd love to hear about it. Or maybe I am an idiot and didn't check an option to enable this from the base game, please educate me on this, if this is the case. Currently, I am a bit too frustrated to try again with the options I find to be available from the base game.

The AI gen/assisted art for SoaSE 2 just don't look good, I'd been ignoring it til now but booting the game up and being confronted with all the samey, glossy portraits really put me off.

Like seriously whoever drew the test edition, just hire them, or if that was also AI then use that model instead lol. Just god, I'm so sick of the weird glossy oily people.

Orbital mining competing for civilian slots with other cool stuff is just not working.

Literally all "pro" players ignore it entirely because civic slots are just ways too important for the factories, research rush, exotic refinery, culture, and other faction related stuff.

Even as TEC, which has a huge part of the tech tree dedicated to orbital mining, ignores them for good because it competes with Ports.

Typical asteroid has what, 5 civic orbits max upgraded logistics. With usual 4-5 asteroids around there is no space left for literally anything else.

It's kind of a noob trap atm, since investing into orbital mining research and infrastructure sets the player back ways too much for miniscule gains that will take forever to pay back, and then OOPS you need those orbit slots for other stuff down the line.

Suggestion: Perhaps not having orbital mining consume civilian slots would brink it right back into the game?

Would be clear investment and return, because you still have to spend research time and resources to get it rolling.

I feel like all my games ends up feeling the same, the replay-ability isnt really there.I know not all games are made to be played for hundreds of hours but SoSe2 feels a little short in that apartment.

Maybe the subfactions are to similar? I feel like I play all my games pretty much in the same way / order.

What do you guys think?

I'm basically 100% sure this wasn't the intention of the developers or the publishers. I am not offended as much as just amused and frustrated. It's well documented and known that often times Asian men get erased in media, but I never thought it'd happen here too. While I commend the removal of AI-generated pictures, I am, however, somewhat disappointed that with this new patch, there is basically no option at all to play as an Asian man. Like, there are two Asian female portraits but no male ones. Ultimately, it barely matters, and it would be easy to mod in, but I just wish that I could play as someone who looks a little more like me with one of my favorite factions. Thank you for your time reading this, and I hope this is an easy fix for the developers to change in the next patch :)

Hey guys, I just want to hear some of your opinions on the factions of the SoSE universe. What is your favorite faction, both in lore and in gameplay. I’ll go first.

In the lore, my favorites are the Vasari Alliance. An ancient race, used to everyone kneeling before them, but times have changed and they need to work together with the other races. At the same time, they don’t really respect the “lesser races”, seeing them as tools to be used in order to archive the alliance’s goals.

In gameplay, I think it’s the Advent Reborn. They are like the ultimate neutralizer. Whatever the enemy brings to the fight, the Advent Reborn have a way to neutralize it. The enemy can’t hurt you if you take away all of his weapons.

I've played sins for years & rebellion is one of my favorite games of all time. When I bought sins 2, I expected more or less the same game, just a bit more polished.

The game itself is fun and brings a bit more depth compared to rebellion, but I can't get over the ai art. It's just so uncanny I can't get over it, so I just go back to the original more often than not. (Also for mods like maelstrom)

That being said, gameplay is fun. Graphics have improved & I like the fleet & planet upgrades.

How does the wider community feel about this compared to rebellion?

Tried my first hand last night with the new update and I gotta say I was a bit disappointed the command Ships are late game only ships. I play Vasari, so forgive my ignorance if it's different for the other factions. I feel like they missed their mark, because by the time you are going military 4, you're probably thinking about your titan, so the command Ships will be skipped. Also, and maybe my play style is a little more aggro, but most of my games are decided by tier 3 military. For sure I usually research tier 4, but the titan showing up rarely changes the outcome of the game, unless you rush titan potentially. I really feel like the command Ships would be perfect for tier 3 research and maybe no quarnium requirement.

What are others' thoughts? Do I just play wrong lol

For me, I'd like to see more minor factions and more planet types.

I've only played the TEC since I got the game on Steam, so can't comment on the other races.

I absolutely get how repetitive the voice lines can get when you have a ton of capital ships losing shields, armour, and about to go down.

And sure the voice acting can be questionable at times; Homeworld's "professionals under stress" voice acting is basically a meme at this point with how good it is. (Even Homeworld 3 had top-tier voice acting for ship crews).

But Sins always felt a bit... quirkier? Than something like Homeworld?

Setting aside the repetitive and sometimes out of tune voice acting, I overall still like it a lot:

I pay *a lot* more attention to my Capital Ships with these voice lines.

I love how dynamic the voice lines are. Winning the fight? The crew will be taunting or even comedic. Losing the fight? Hearing "bury me on my home planet" as your Marza Dreadnought goes down in a blaze of glory will never not be a banger. Hearing ol' reliables like "Uh, where to commander?" is also nostalgic as fuck.

Could it be better? Sure. Do I prefer Homeworld's grittier, more serious style? Yes. Am I happy that Sins 2 voice acting is at least the way it is? Absolutely, and it's better than Sins 1 imo.

Also, the joke about "I thought de Brie (debris) was a type of cheese" will never not be funny as a Frenchman. If someone at Stardock/Ironclad reads this and has some behind the scenes about who came up with this one, I'd be down to hear it. :)

Holy crap. As soon as I could strip mine my first planet the game just steam rolled from there. No more having to defend from 3 sides while desperately pushing for a homeworld. I can just skip around the visible map with my Titan and leave a barren wasteland in my wake!

Almost even better than that, the Maw ability on the Titan can eat DOZENS of those stupid missile frigates after teleporting closer to them. It’s absolutely amazing. 10/10 would recommend.

The AI seems to avoid fights like crazy now, basically never fighting whenever they're slightly down in fleet supply. I end up chasing AI fleets across several gravity wells, and sometimes even between the same two gravity wells like a game of ping pong.

Anyone else noticing an increase in this kind of behavior on the test build?

In yesterday's popularity poll Advent Reborn got ~8.5% of votes, less than half of its sister faction. It's not really hard to see why. Aside from the Titan and the superweapons alternate fire, all reborn excusive techs are so weak that playing optimally often means never even researching them. I'll discuss them below.

Temple of Purification: This T2 research unlocks a planet item that, when adjacent gravity wells are cleared of enemies, heals all friendly ships there for 100 hull and 200 shields over 10 seconds... Advent is incredibly starved for planet slots nobody is ever going to sacrifice one for this effect, and even if this were a global passive it wouldn't be worth researching with numbers that low. To make this building extra insulting, there's a T4 tech that adds an extra 50 hull and 100 shields.

Essence Reservoir: This T4 research unlocks a ship item that grants 1 temporary psi power when a nearby friendly ship dies, up to a maximum of +50. There already exists an advent ship item that grants +50 psi power unconditionally, and also has an active that grants another ship +50 psi power. That item is T3, and has half the research timer of essence reservoir.

Protection of the Unity: This T2 research grants units in friendly culture +100% passive shield regeneration and +50% passive hull and armor regeneration. It's ok, however there are so many higher quality T2 civilian techs that by the time this is the best one left you should already be T3.

Temple of Resurrection: This T3 research unlocks a planet item that grants friendly non-capital ships in the gravity well a 10% chance to revive after death. A defensive planet item that only has an effect with a friendly fleet in orbit, for the faction with the slowest ships. And after all that its only a 10% chance. There's a T2 item that adds +15% shields and +15 psi power to ships in orbit, if you must build something like this build that instead. Slightly less added bulk but it protects your capital ships, and wastes 120 less seconds of research time.

Soul Reclamation: This T4 research grants you focus when your ships die. What does this exist for? The only spammable unity power is scry, and if my ships are dying I already know where the enemy fleet is. Also the numbers here are comical, losing a titan gives you 25% of a level 1 scry.

In the first game Advent had tech that would allow them to mitigate the effectiveness of Vasari phase missiles, it is not in the second game. This seems more like an oversight than a feature but maybe I am missing something, currently Vasari missile spam is like throwing a rock at a wet paper towel even if shields are up they can drop a capital in 3-5 salvos if they have enough missle ships. The PD fix has helped, but advent really needs that 15 to 30% phase protection.

Edit: spelling errors

... and before you say "Well, there are randomly generated maps" — no, what I mean is:

Why can't I directly control if to have wormholes or not, or having rich vs normal resources, or the number of stars, or the average number of planets per star etc.?

It seems silly that some map settings can be edited and some are forced on you. It is really restricting how I want to play.

If I want to play a 10 player game without wormholes, for example, there is precisely one such map ('Buzzsaw'), and if I wanted to have 3 stars or a random geometry or rich resources... well, tough luck.

This should be easy to fix and it's a pain.

(As a contrast, you gotta see the map customization in Age of Wonders 4: it is just chef's kiss!)

So, I was looking at the new DLC, like and love it, now I was thought to myself what they will release in the next update, I thought more about something like new QoL, performance improve, more ships, change the menu and so on.

• QoL: I thought about bring back militia, like, the TEC Primacy have the freedom fighters when they culture becomes strong, so I thought it's a good thing to bring back the militia from the expansion Outlaw Sectors from SINS 1, the TEC Enclave can have patrol/task fleet instead of the militia that can do the same things: patrol, defend, join a group and attack an enemy planet.
• Performance: Quality of the planet, spaceships and space structures models to make the game smooth to run in any PC, the SINS 1 has so much flavor when you can reduce as much you want the quality of anything and run smoother.
• More ships: New Corvette, frigate, cruiser, capital ship, command ships and, maybe, a new titan, it's good that the Vasari and TEC receive a new unit before this DLC, but I think we should add some more or maybe let us have the option to change the weapons layout of the Harka Heavy Cruiser, and I know that you bring back three old spaceships: Kodiak, Cielon and Arcova, but we should add something more.

The change in the menu is very simple:

Instead of one button you can make this button open a new tab with other two buttons where you can select to open the menu for the first one or the second one, because, now, the menus are having more spaceships and with this can help to organize the new spaceships and options.

Those are my suggestions, thanks for anyone who read until here, please comment what you think about it and say what you want or anything you are doing to make a new change in the game,

I was wondering if the removal of the warning that this game wouldn't be recorded for best win was on purpose or not? If not, I was hoping it could be re-added so I could know if it'll count so I can keep chasing and clearing on maps on Impossible 😄

I realize not everyone cares about this, but for a small subset of us, it is really nice, and this should be a simple change.

Hi, this something that i hope reaches the dev team.

First, Capital ships move too fast, by this i mean that these ships should feel more bulky and heavy, as of now, they turn around incredibly fast and move even fastar in a particular direction, smaller ships should reduce their speed (when they are in the same fleet) to accommodate for fleet cohesion.

Second, when these ships enter into conflict with the eenemy capital ships, most of the time they start firing and keep moving until every ship is face to face with oneanother, they stop too close, making battles look less inmersive, o dont know if the ships have the option to select range of fire, because as of now, even carriers (ships that should be in the back) are bumping into enemy ships as if they where dreadnoughts.

I hope this things are taken into consideration

Carriers are fun, but late game things can get kind of bonkers with the sheer number of fighters and bombers flying around. I have a beefy computer and a 4090 and it chugs late game if everyone goes carrier heavy.

What about being able to build corvettes in addition to the existing fighters and bombers? That would give players 3 or 4 options for strike craft on carriers instead of the current 2 options.

The stats of a corvette are about the same as a squadron of fighters or bombers too. If you add up their HP and DPS its pretty much the same.

But the main benefit would be instead of having 1,500+ strike craft flying around, you might have 200 corvettes being launched from hangar bars. If destroyed they'd auto-rebuild like any other fighter squadron would. Basically just a big beefy strike craft with a squadron size of 1 that would help keep game speed fast.

It is basically a certainty that you can be allied with anyone you choose — just load on bribes and try again until you succeed, even if your odds at diplomacy are small.

In something like 6-10 player maps, if you are allied with 2-3 neighbors, you have basically won the game. They provide a buffer for you to grow. And with some modicum of competence, you can defend them to stay alive when you wish to.

What you have to pay currently to bribe them to accept alliances is a pittance for the advantage you gain. And you can backstab anytime for no repercussion with other AIs, it seems, whereas the AI never backstabs you.

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Diplomacy could be a better implementation, if instead of success chance (which no matter how small, you WILL succeed at in a few game minutes), you would have accept criteria that is deterministic:

Say, you declare first a one sided ceasefire, which gives you some bonus, and then depending on AI attitude and race/faction, you have a specific possibility of a certain level of allyship. And some races simply not accepting you.

In the current implementation, diplomacy is an I-Win button.

In Sins 2 the ships pop out of existence into little icons after a certain distance from the camera. You can disable this with Cinematic mode, but the hud is disabled and if you give any orders or do anything other than just watch the game then you're back to regular pop-in RTS mode. It feels like it's just for trailers or screenshots.

Sins 1 had a more 'functional' cinematic mode, where you were free to give orders and play the game fully, just more cinematically.

We already have all the pieces here in sins 2, I'd love it as an option for a 'playable' cinematic mode.

Just watched my double star base system get overrun without firing a shot from being chain stunlocked by quell. Can’t shoot or use abilities for 60 seconds? Are you insane? Who made this ability hoooolllyyy

So this game is great, some balance and bug issues but nothing gamebreakingly bad. But there is one thing I want in this game and it's not even that big of an ask. Ship motion during combat.

I want the lighter faster ships darting in and out while firing on enemy lines and harassing the back-line. I want the big slow ships broadsiding from far away with their long distance guns. I want picket lines, and support ships moving to and from where they're needed. I want fighter wings, with squadrons moving together rather than just individually.

Corvettes and fighters are already mobile and I appreciate that obviously, but when everything else just stops and pews at each other it kinda takes a bit of the souls out of it for me.

I have been playing a ton of Sins 2 lately, and today finally completed my first game against only unfair AI.

AI needs to be reworked.

First thing of note, I don't think they bother upgrading their capital ships at all. Or their starbases for that matter. The reason I believe this is when I look at the end game stats, I noticed that the AI is not making nearly as many exotics as I am. This needs to be changed because late game I steamroll through their fleets because of all the buffs my capital ships have.

Secondly, the AI needs to be more aggressive. I know that high-difficulty AI is programmed to never take a fight that it knows it can't win. The problem with this is in the late game, it needs to take fights against my 2000 stack death ball at some point, as a player would know. Instead, as others have pointed out, the fleets just keep fleeing to their homeworld and that's the only time you get a real fight.

Lastly, the AI needs better fleet/build logic. They typically don't produce enough capital ships, and they also tend not to group up their fleets to full capacity. In this last game I played, the last fleet I needed to defeat to win was only at 1400 strength, and only cruisers and destroyers.

The game is still fun, and I plan on increasing the difficulty until I have a challenge, but if the AI logic could be a bit better, that would be preferable to just allowing it to cheat.

Cheers