What should someone who's played the first SOTS be expecting from this game?
Less polish, prettier graphics (way prettier) and more potential once they finish patching out some of the last remaining issues.
The first game was already pretty unpolished, but outside of the "public beta" aspect what can I expect? Also, how's tactical combat handled this time? I remember hearing about larger "maps" but is it much different from the first?
Tactical combat now takes place in a solar system map. Every star now has several planets instead of just one, so where you place your system defense fleets and platforms can matter a great deal. Time is initially compressed while your fleet looks for the enemy fleet because they don't just start right in front of you. If you don't have a sensor platform network in your system it can take a while to find them sometimes, unless you have a deepscan ship with your fleet. Once you're within sensor range of the other fleet time resumes normal speed and combat is very similar to SOTS1. Differences:
There are 3 combat planes which you can order ships to.
You can order ships to roll or turn in place. Its entirely viable to have several ships on the 'top' plane flying upside down while some on the 'bottom' are right side up and then you fly past the enemy in a box formation to bring ALL the guns to bear.
You can set half speed, normal speed, or high speed for your ships. The speed they're traveling at influences their sensor range.
Armor is handled very differently. You have armor 'hardness' which will negate a certain number of damage points per hit. You then have armor 'depth' which is the strength of the armor. Armor is set in an array of boxes and weapons have different penetration values and shapes. Only once a weapon pierces your armor does it start doing internal damage. Internal damage can cause bad things, like loss of life support or reactor overload. Because of this, a few lucky shots hitting the same spot could in theory kill a ship, while another ship with the same setup who gets the damage spread out among the armor boxes could last much much longer.
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Topic: Sword of the Stars (Read 124789 times)