Sins of a Solar Empire Interview
Set to debut in February 2008 is Ironclad's Sins of a Solar Empire, a blend of RTS and classic 4X turn-based gaming.
Many real-time strategy gamers are beginning to see the minimap as an ancient relic, something fondly remembered but shunned in favor of zooming in close to the battlefield, or far, far out to inspect a player's entire army, spread out over a map like tiny pieces on a chessboard. Ironclad's upcoming Sins of a Solar Empire isn't content with showing players single regions of planets, or even single planets--this game is prepared to showcase entire solar systems, viewable simply by scrolling a mouse wheel back and forth. With other features such as varied units collaborating independently from player input and a bounty system designed to humble players who garner too much power, one might be concerned that Sins' goals are far too lofty to reach fruition without the rusty claws of micromanagement sinking deep into the game's fun factor, but Blair Fraser, the game's producer, and Brian Clair, director of publishing at Stardock, don't seem too concerned.
Shack: What genre would you use to classify Sins of a Solar Empire? Is it a pure RTS?Blair Fraser: We've been calling Sins an RT4x, and in our minds, it's a combination of real-time strategy and the old turn-based 4X games. Those are based around the idea where you go out and explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate, doing all the stuff you did in old games such as Master of Orion. What we wanted to do is, blend those two ideas [RTS and 4X] into something that would be fresh, something people could really get into from an RTS point of view, as well as a slower paced, turn-based point of view. You've got some quick, tactical decisions if you want them, or some of the high level strategy decisions if you want to take that route.
Shack: Since the game is set in space, it only makes sense that movement not be constricted to a two dimensional plane. Can you go into some detail about the game's engine, in addition to how movement will work?
Brian Clair: Movement takes place in 3D, though currently base structures can only be placed on a plane. If players wish, they can issue movement to the Z-axis by simply using the ~ key when making the order. The AI will make use of 3D space as the situation warrants in combat situations and when grouping into fleet formations if you've got a lot of ships.
The Iron Engine does allow for 3D movement, which is already present in the current beta we're now running with our pre-order customers. We may flesh out the 3D aspects further as we progress through development, but we would like to keep Sins approachable to all players.
Blair Fraser: I'd like to add...that the gravity well is a full 3d sphere, not a disc or cylinder as has been claimed. Also, your position in the gravity well very much matters when jumping to the next gravity well. This is true as of two patches ago and is further improved upon in beta 2.
Shack: Can you tell us about the game's factions?
Blair Fraser: There are three playable factions. The first is the Vasari Empire. These guys are really, really ancient aliens who want to rule about a quarter of the galaxy. For whatever reason, there was a cataclysmic event, some ten thousand years ago. These guys basically destroyed their entire civilization. They've been on the run through the galaxy all this time, stopping once in a while to pick up resources, pick up some of their ships, do some research, then move on again.
Now, these ancient guys, they run into the humans--the Trader Empire--and they [the humans] have to form a coalition to beat off these aliens. That's called the Trader Emergency Coalition. Now they're fighting each other, and the humans are slowly gaining ground against them. All their [human] vehicles are commercial, and things that are hatefully converted into weapons of war. So they're fighting it out, and they're at a stalemate at this point.
These other humans [the Advent], who were once part of the Trader network but were exiled for committing a bunch of crimes such as genetic enhancement, research into psionics, all this stuff that was very much taboo... They ran off to the other side of the galaxy after being exiled--now they're back with all new weapons of war. They find the [other] humans fighting these aliens, and now you've got a three-way battle going. It's not looking good for the humans, the non-enhanced humans. Their technology [the enhanced humans] is based on psi-tech, which is a technological enhancement of psionics. They have very weak structural ships, but they have all this stuff they can do that's unlike the weapons of the other two factions.The main technological advancement of the [Vasari Empire] is...they can manipulate gravity, and...an equivalent to hyperspace jumping, which can be used in tactical situations, as well as for long-range travel.
Shack: With such an epic scale, I can't help but wonder if micromanagement is a concern. What does Sins do in order to keep busy work to an absolute minimum?
Blair Fraser: There are three main things we tried to follow to accomplish just that. The first was just to slow things down. We didn't want this to be a twitch-fest, and basically, when you're playing the old 4X games and stuff, you want to take your time and make decisions, so we just slowed the game down. For example, when a ship goes to phase jump to another planet, he takes a bit more time to get there, especially if he's jumping to another solar system. He's basically out of your control, so you can't micro until he's arrived. The ships move slower, and we're probably going to make them move even slower still, according to some of the results from the beta.
Brian Clair: If I could interject, Blair, I might be able to answer this. I've been playing Sins for months, now. [Laughs] I'd say that the biggest differences between Sins and other RTS games is that Sins approaches its user interface much, much differently than other games. At all times, you can see all your forces anywhere in the galaxy in an Empire chart at the top-left [of the screen]. At any time, you can select any unit, or any group of units, and send them to another one of your planet system by just right-clicking on it. At a glance, you can instantly see if someone's being attacked, or what the particular interaction is. The chart shows everything, and that completely changes it [the gameplay] because it's not like where, in Supreme Commander, you're constantly zooming out, and then zooming back in. While you're doing something, you can always see what's going on without messing with a minimap.
The best players are the ones who are building the best overall strategy. The unit artificial intelligence in the ships is really good so that, you can actually build a fleet--the fleets are pretty central to the game--so as you build a fleet, you can send that off and they'll take care of themselves. The player can choose to micromanage a fleet if they want, but they don't have to worry about it. It's really about the overall strategy. Because we're dealing with very big capital ships and such, your ships aren't just blowing up like popcorn. The big fleets come together, and a battle is a realbattle. When this giant ships turn, they're not just stepping around each other, they move gradually, and they have really slow turn radiuses. So you can sit there and really watch that battle unfold, rather than in other RTSs, you'll have built up this huge army--and the whole thing's over in ten seconds.Blair Fraser: If you look at some of the fan-made battle videos on Youtube or wherever, some of those battles can go for three to five minutes. Guys are just watching, give orders here and there, and whatnot. It's quite a different experience from most RTS games.
Shack: Can you tell us more about the different ships from each faction? They look incredibly detailed from what I've seen.
Blair Fraser: The capital ships are some of the more interesting units because they've got a lot of extra functionality that the smaller frigates, fighters, and other stuff don't have. What I really like to talk about is the cool Trader battleship, because it kind of exemplifies a number of different things. The first thing is, it's got huge four laser cannons on the front, which is great for firing at a single target, but at the same time it's got cannons in each of its other banks. One of the things in Sins that's really different, and that this unit really shows, is that it can engage multiple targets. That's something to consider when you create your fleet and you'll want to counter another guy's fleet. This ship can basically go right into the middle of combat, engage four targets using four banks, and do relatively punishing damage in all direction.
Now, at the same time that this ship is kicking butt, it's getting high levels of training, which can unlock other abilities. One of the standard counters to this unit would be to send a swarm of bombers at it, because it doesn't have many fighters it could carry, so one of the first things I would upgrade is the flak cannon. As bombers and whatnot come in, the flak cannon will automatically fire, or you can fire it yourself, for better timing or whatever.
The interesting thing about this ship, in terms of its lore, is that it's the first ship the humans have been able to produce that isn't just a trade ship that's been converted; this is the result of actually reverse-engineering some of the Vasari's technology. It has stronger shields and energy weapons, whereas most of the time, they're just using mechanically-propelled weapons.
Another interesting ship, probably the biggest ship in the game, is a colony ship. Sorry, I don't know the name of that ship off the top of my head. We've been switching a lot of stuff around during the beta.
Shack: No problem.
Blair Fraser: Anyway, this thing is basically a mobile city. A good chunk of the Vasari live on these colony ships, and one of the great things about the Vasari is, they've had to learn how to survive in space. This thing has a huge maw, a turbine type thing, on its front, that, when it goes up to a planet, it literally sucks resources straight out of the planet, through the atmosphere, and into the ship's maw. That's one of the great advantages the Vasari have with this ship.
Brian Clair: They're real environmentalists.
Blair Fraser: [Laughs] Yeah, they don't really care what happens, they just need to get resources quickly and then move on. This is one of the ships that does that. Oh, one of their other really cool ships--I don't want to give too much of its special functionality away--it's called the Marauder. What it basically has on it is a portable phase gate. One of the mechanics in Sins, there are specific areas in space that are like phase nodes. That's the area where you're allowed to jump between planets. This ship has its own portable phase gate, so you can jump it into a target area, activate the portable phase gate, and bring in all the other ships, bypassing any potential bottlenecks, defenses and whatnot. You can get in behind enemy lines and trash stuff, do some espionage and stuff.
The Advent have a carrier, and...it has is a number of different telekinetic operators, or abilities. One of its key abilities, to defend fighters and bombers and other stuff, is a telekinetic push. When it activates this [ability], everything within a certain radius is literally thrown away from the ship and basically stranded out in space for a bit until they can regain their bearings, make another attack run, that sort of stuff. Of course there are a number of different uses for that [the telekinetic push], depending on what you're trying to accomplish.
One of the less tactic abilities that the Advent have is to project this huge psychic aura onto the planet, and it causes everyone on the planet to riot and kill each other, destroy structures, and whatnot. The Advent don't have to drop bombs or whatever onto the planet; they can just do it with a single psionic shot, let the population take care of itself. They have a lot of different things like that, in terms of mind control stuff on smaller ships. Of course, for balance reasons, we didn't want them to have the ability to take over the big ships for any length of time.
Shack: You mentioned constructing fleets. How exactly is that accomplished? Are certain ships responsible for building other types of ships? I imagine resources come into play at some point.
Blair Fraser: The primary way to procure resources--and I say primary because there are a number of auxiliary ways of gathering resources--is building mining facilities on these valuable resource nodes, these resource asteroids that are in orbit around the major bodies in the solar systems. You harvest these into a pool, and they're acquired over time. Once you've got enough of them, you can select the appropriate building, like the capital ship factory, or frigate bay, or whatever, and commission the projection of a unit. Once the unit arrives, it can go out and fight the different pirates or enemy units. Every time it kills something it gains experience, which can then be used to select new abilities for that ship. Alternatively--and this is something we wanted to do for a more economic approach, for those who don't like the typical combat rush--is the idea of training. You can spend the money to upgrade the ship without having to go into combat. Just spend the cash and get the upgrade.
Shack: Can players customize their ships, or upgrade them in certain ways?
Blair Fraser: The customization in Sins is fairly limited, and the reason for that is, the game is in real-time. You just don't have the time to design a ship, do all the micro-tweaking you want. The idea is that when they level up--the capital ships, that is--you can select different abilities, and each capital ship has three different abilities. They have something like ten possible levels.
Turn the page to learn more about Sins of a Solar Empire.
_PAGE_BREAK_Brian Clair: Have you played Company of Heroes?
Shack: Yes.
Brian Clair: The way you customize your ships is a little bit like Company of Heroes, where it opens up different ways to customize ships. There is no dedicated way to design ships, like in Galactic Civilizations where you sit there and design a ship, because obviously if a player is out designing their ultimate ship, they're probably getting creamed. Where the player's customization comes into play is in fleets. You have a bunch of ships, and when you hotkey them to put them together to make them into a fleet, that fleet works together. Some ships are better at long range or short range, some are faster, and have other attributes. So in effect, you get to design your fleets, and this lets the player customize their gameplay style in real-time, because they're doing it [customizing their style] their units themselves.
Blair Fraser: We have some new stuff going in to support that. One thing is, you can see, when you select a group, you'll see a little icon appear on the left side of the screen that works just like the empire tree we discussed earlier. You can expand it or close it to different levels of detail to see exactly what you have in that fleet.Brian Clair: What are some of your favorite RTSs or strategy games in general, David?
Shack: I'm still a huge StarCraft fan. I really enjoy Homeworld, as well.
Blair Fraser: Wow, perfect combo.
Brian Clair: Yeah, you're definitely going to like this game. In a way, this game has a lot of similarities to Homeworld. Homeworld took place around one system, whereas in Sins, imagine if Homeworld could encompass not just one planet, but dozens of star systems. That's the kind of scale we're talking. You can zoom in and see detailed shots coming out of a carrier, and then zoom out to see dozens of star systems, each with their own solar systems. You could have so many fleets battling around the galaxy, colonizing planets, mining resources. If you like Homeworld, then yeah, just think about it--everything that happened in Homeworld, picture it happening on just one planet, in one star system.
Blair Fraser: That was basically one of the key points of design--a single deathmatch in Homeworld was just one battle around one planet. In Sins, the battles will be among many systems.
Brian Clair: That's why the user interface has to be so concise. No screens can get in the way, you have to be able to see everything [happening] on all of your planets at once... It's such great user interface innovation. Without that UI, it [the gameplay] would become unmanageable. I mean, there's a reason why you can zoom out and see everything really quickly. The fact that I can instantly click on any of my ships in any star system on any planet--they're represented by dots, obviously, but it's just a real solid feeling.
Did you know that we made the Retribution expansion pack for StarCraft?
Shack: Yes.
Brian Clair: In StarCraft, I would put my marines together with a wraith and maybe a [siege] tank, and then send them all to battle, but they don't all work together; they just happen to be grouped. Maybe I team my dreadnaught with an anti-fighter, right? There are various frigates and capital ships that, when combined into a fleet, they turn that fleet into an overall fighting force that works [together] seamlessly. It's one of those cases where I right-click and my ships all move across at various speeds, but by default, they're all working together. Again, because of the epic scale of the game, the units need to work together automatically. The player's not going to have time to sit there and jump between eight different ships in a fleet and get them to do what they should automatically be doing.
Did you play a lot of StarCraft online?
Shack: I did, before everyone started building lots of easy money maps.
Brian Clair: [Laughs] I get frustrated when I lose a game because the other guy is just quicker with the keyboard hotkeys and stuff, rather than building a better strategy. That's what makes Sins so different from anything I've ever played before. Having been a hardcore RTS player for a while--I played StarCraft, as well as a lot of Total Annihilation--I like the idea that I'm winning the game because I've devised the better strategy. I've gotten the best resource points in the galaxy, I've done my scouting correctly to see what ships [my opponent] is focusing on and I've built ships to counter theirs, I've put the right forces in the right places for protection... It's not about cranking out lots of ships and just setting them somewhere, hoping they do okay. Building the right ships, putting them in the right place, upgrading them correctly, and letting the fleets do the work on their own... it's great.Shack: Some players gain an advantage through luck rather than skill, as you mentioned. Is there anything to offset the luck advantage?
Brian Clair: Oh, yeah. You want to talk about the bounty system, Blair?
Blair Fraser: Yeah, and the system's getting better, Brian.
Brian Clair: Better, or more evil?
Blair Fraser: [Laughs] The bounty system isn't all that functional in the current beta, because it's missing some key components and some balancing, but I'd like to give you an overview of how it's going to function. One of the things that used to really frustrate us in multiplayer games, or even more so in single-player, is when there's a pirate, somebody who's ruling the galaxy, and the only way guys could possibly beat him--because he's just so powerful--is to cooperate. But, when you're online, or playing with the AI, it's really difficult to communicate sometimes.
We use a mechanism that will try to harness people's greed to force cooperation. You put money on someone, and everyone else can contribute to the pool. When people take out that player, they get a portion of the pool in their own income. So if I blow up the guy's capital ship, maybe I get one thousand credits. If I blow up his trade ships, maybe I get one hundred credits or something. One of the really neat things is, when you place a bounty on someone, it's completely anonymous. So you could be allied with a guy, you've got a trade network with him, you're making a ton of money off this trade network, but guess what you're doing with the money? You're putting a bounty on him.
Brian Clair: "I love you, man! We're best buddies, and no, I don't know why those other guys are all attacking you at once!"
Blair Fraser: One of the non-playable factions is another group of humans who didn't want to join the coalition. They're rebelling, basically, so there are these little pirate groups that are constantly getting in the way, and one thing they want to do is, when they see a bounty on somebody, they'll also go after that person. You've got an outside force that raids ships and goes after bounties. It's quite rewarding to sit there and not have to type to some anonymous person on the Internet, "C'mon man, we gotta take this guy down," only to have this guy start cursing at you, telling you that you're such a noob.
Shack: What sort of multiplayer options are in the works?
Blair Fraser: We'll have LAN options, and online of course. There will be a matchmaking and statistic tracking service. Sins will support up to ten players, and of course you can add different AI players set to different difficulty levels, along with human players. You can create teams, you can put in observers, people who just watch the match. One thing people really like is game recording, so they can post replays on the Internet. All Sins games will be recorded.
As far as different modes, we'll have options such as one-versus-one, free-for-all, the ability to create teams and disable them on the fly if you want. Basically any combination you can come up with that involves ten players, Sins has them.
One thing we've really been looking into is Sins single-player. Playing the AI can be a long experience. That's the first thing you want when you play a grand strategy game--you can save the game, pick it up another day. Depending on the galaxy creation parameters, it could be a really long game. If you create four solar systems with tons of planets, you could be playing for days. Obviously, that sort of thing won't work in multiplayer, so what we have are separate multiplayer galaxy creation parameters that can, for example, restrict the game down to a quick deathmatch, where you basically send your fleet against someone else's fleet.
Shack: I was wondering about single-player options. A lot of times I don't like playing against online opponents--they cheat, or they're obnoxious, or whatever--so I opt to play a custom scenario against the AI The problem with this is, in games like StarCraft, the AI overtly cheats. Will Sins cater to gamers who don't always want to partake in the multiplayer experience by providing fair and balanced single-player options?
Brian Clair: Yeah, that's so cheap.
Shack: Oh, it's terrible! I always seem to have about eighteen zealots knocking on my door in just a few minutes.
Blair Fraser: There's absolutely no cheating at this point--
Brian Clair: --but there will be in the end, I'm sure of it!
Blair Fraser: [Laughs]
Brian Clair: The difference is, there's cheating--and then there's cheating. In StarCraft, we know because we worked with the AI a lot. They're not playing the same game. They're programmed to say, "At this time we should have this, and at this time we should be doing that," and so on. Of course, back then, CPU time was significant, in regards to trying to calculate all of that stuff out in real-time.
Sins is playing the same game as you. The most the difficulty levels will do is, maybe at the hardest level, they're getting twenty-five percent more [resources] from their mines or something.
Blair Fraser: Yeah, exactly. One of the key things that I've never brought up before, and I've asked a lot of the players about this--they were only playing one human versus one AI Now, that's what you'd normally expect in a typical RTS because the AI usually gangs up against you, but one thing to remember in Sins is that you want a bunch of AI opponents. That's where you get all the really unique interactions. The AI is doing diplomacy between one another, attacking one another... They're not just going after you, so to get things really interesting, you want to have four or five AIs in there to get all these different dynamics going on. Of course, if you want to ramp up the difficulty, you could tweak things so that the AIs are all on the same team, but that's, um...
Brian Clair: Suicidal?
Blair Fraser: [Laughs] Yeah. There's nothing more exciting than being in the middle of a battle and the AI teammate has come to support you. On the reverse of that, you could be in a battle and have the AI turn on you.
Shack: So the AI can make use of the battle system?
Blair Fraser: Oh, yes. They can make use of every diplomacy feature. Unfortunately, some people complain that the AI, in the current beta, likes to backstab a bit too often.
Brian Clair: I've suffered from that.
Blair Fraser: It needs some tweaking. I mean, you're joining a fight against someone else, and all the sudden, your AI teammate is on the other side, and they gang up and destroy you.
Brian Clair: That damn AI!
Sins of a Solar Empire is scheduled for release on the PC in February 2008.
