For those of you unfamiliar with Sins of a Solar Empire, I advise you duct tape yourself to the inside of a jet engine on a Boeing 737.


Image provided by sinsofasolarempire.com

MODERN GAMING
Sins of a Solar Empire
Developer:  Ironclad Games
Publisher:  Stardock
Year:  2008
Genre:  RTS
System:  PC

I haven't been able to play the vanilla version of Sins of a Solar Empire due to the fact that there is this mod that completely rips my head open and fucks my brain stem. I doubt I'll ever return to the vanilla game after playing it.

If I had to describe Sins of a Solar Empire in one word, that word would be "Vast." How vast? I'd say at least elbow deep. In the past it has been assumed that games with such incredible depth must be turn based in order to provide the player with enough time to manage everything that must be managed. Sins hurls that old-school thinking out the window, onto the street below, and proceeds to run it over numerous times with an ice cream truck.

One of the most amazing aspects of Sins of a Solar Empire is the maps. They can be as tiny or as massive as you wish them to be. How massive you ask? First you must understand how the game operates. Sins takes place as a space only RTS game where the battles happen in what are called "gravity wells" around planets you or your opponent’s control. These planets are connected by jump lanes. They are basically the exactly same as the trade lanes from Empire at War. The main difference between the planetary systems from Empire at War and Sins of a Solar Empire is that, while Empire at War could have maps that contained maybe 50ish planets, SoSE has NO LIMIT to the amount of planetary bodies in your solar system. That's right. With the map editor you can create maps with thousands of planets, as well as other space objects (asteroids, wormholes, nebulae, etc).


(Close up of the action. You can be as close or as far from the action as you want to be. Managing multiple planets becomes a simple task from afar, allowing you time to zoom in to watch the carnage unfold)
Image provided by sinsofasolarempire.com

Capital ships are included in Sins of a Solar Empire but don't play the same role as they normally do in RTS style space games. Capital ships have a history of being the end-all game deciding unit that, once acquired, rapes your nostrils until you end up looking like... well... this:



SoSE takes a new approach to the old school train of thought on capital ships. They function in more of a support role assisting the smaller frigates and cruisers in combat. While they are powerful, they simply cannot withstand an onslaught by smaller vessels like they do in other space RTS games. It took me a few tries with SoSE to understand that fact. It wasn't until I understood the function of the capital ships in Sins that I realized I was doing it wrong and thus failed at life. However, looking at the game play mechanics with capital ships now, I think it's a much more reasonable approach to the genre.

Capital ships in SoSE utilize a level system seen in many RTS and RPG style games in which they gain levels through experience. Any enemy vessel or structure destroyed in the same gravity well as a capital ship increases its experience count. Upon leveling up, the capital ships gain access to buffs and show an increase in damage and HP values. Eventually these warships become a force to be reckoned with. Take 'em out early.

The SoSE AI allows you to manage your entire civilization without worrying about micro-managing your fleets. Many RTS games suffer from a fear of missing the action while trying to keep up with an expansive tech tree and managing resources. SoSE allows you to manage your entire empire on one screen through a very complex, yet practical interface menu.


(Zoomed out to view the entire map. This allows the player to view everything happening in his/her empire, as well as keep an eye on enemy movements)
Image provided by sinsofasolarempire.com

The UI in SoSE is daunting at first glance. Again, there is a steep learning curve, but once you grab hold of the basic principles of operating it, you'll soon find it a blessing in disguise.

SoSE offers some seriously interesting diplomacy and economy based game play. There are pirate factions which can be bribed into attacking your enemies, which can be very useful as a distraction to allow you to gain the upper hand. There is also a black market that is ever fluctuating that allows you to spend excess credits, metal, or crystal on other resources needed to achieve your goals.


(The black market allows you to buy and sell excess materials to further increase your empire. The Pirate menu allows you to bribe raiders into pestering your foes)
Image provided by sinsofasolarempire.com

The fleet cap in SoSE is also fantastic. The game allows you, through research into fleet upgrades, to build up a massive armada to bring doom upon enemy worlds. Careful though, each fleet upgrade to increase the fleet cap also increases fleet upkeep costs, which take a percentage of your resources from you.

However, sometimes it's just fucking worth it for the epic battles you create.


(Suck that one down, asshole)
Image provided by sinsofasolarempire.com

Overall there are a million features that I could go into great detail on, but I'll let you experience them on your own. Here's a quick list of some of the most prominent features taken from the SoSE website:

I

• Can support thousands of planets and solar systems, the only limitation is the player's system.
• Massive, detailed textures on ships, planets and orbital structures.
• Hundreds of ships on-screen at once, engaged in epic battle.
• Up to 10,000 particles (explosions, missiles, laser blasts etc.) on the screen at once in full-out combat.
• Seamless zoom-in and zoom-out from looking at a one-man space fighter, to viewing your entire empire spanning billions of kilometers of space.
• The Iron Engine is designed to perform well on systems ranging from middle-of-the-road hardware, to the biggest, most powerful machines on the market today.  Effects, number of ships, planets etc. are only limited by how powerful your machine is.  There are no hard-coded limits. 

They also go into detail about the game's "Iron Engine" features:

• Per-Pixel Specular Lighting
• Dynamic Fractal Generation
• Post Process Bloom Filtering
• High Resolution Compressed Textures
• Environment Mapping
• Custom Pixel and Vertex Shaders For All Meshes and Effects
• An Advanced Particle System

In terms of how the game will run on your system, I wouldn't worry. The game packs a serious punch on the lower-end systems as well.

I'd say the major flaw with this game isn't in the game itself, but with the horrible website for the game. The forums barely pass as operational and can be very frustrating when attempting to use. 

However, this being one of the only issues that stands out to me really says a lot about this game... as I hate most games.

Also, it is important to note that this game takes time. This isn't the type of game you sit down to expecting to finish a battle in 30 minutes (though it is possible). Most battles I play take hours upon hours to complete. Something to consider.


For more information check out the following links:

Gameplay Information

Features

As far as system information is concerned:

Minimum Requirements:

• Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista
• 1.8 GHz Single-Core Processor
• 512 MB RAM (1 GB for Windows Vista)
• 128 MB DirectX 9 3D Video Card (Radeon 9600 / GeForce FX 6600 and above)
• DirectX 9.0c Compatible Sound Card
• DVD-ROM Drive
• 3 GB Hard Drive Space
• Keyboard and Mouse
• DirectX 9.0c

Recommended Requirements:

• 2.2 GHz Dual- or Quad-Core Processor
• 1 GB RAM (2 GB for Windows Vista)
• 256 MB DirectX 9 3D Video Card (Radeon X1600 / GeForce 7600 and above)

Visit sinsofasolarempire.com . You won't be disappointed.
And with that, we come to the next big mention in this article.

Essentially what the creator of 7DS did was take all of the major mods out for Sins currently and combine them with his own mod, thus creating a super mod while retaining balance. The mod in itself is growing with every release. The next version comes out later today. Basically as new mods crop up and offer to allow assimilation into this mod, it grows. It is borg.

Currently one of my favorite aspects of the mod is Danman's Atlantian race. Currently they are just Vasari on speed... with a couple new ships. However, their capital ships fuck you in the ass with razor blades attached to the offending member. The Atlantians were added as a super race for two reasons. One, to give noobs the ability to win some of the time... and two, for people like me to take their RTS skills and push 'em to the MAX. Playing against the Atlantians on unfair AI is no easy task, especially considering how badass Sins of a Solar Empire AI is anyway (and take my word for it, you'll find yourself yelling at your screen because it seems the AI is just trying to fuck with you).


7 Deadly Sins currently consists of the following popular mods for SoSE:

This mod is adds 11 new Planets and 66 new Planetary Bonuses, as well as Ship Graveyards. Custom research is also included for some of the new planets, and there is the option to colonize Gas Giants, once you have acquired the technology.

This mod greatly enhances the game play of stock SoSE. The colonization of the previously uncolonizeable  gas giants is something special in itself. However, I feel the addition of ship graveyards are really where this mod shines and adds a very interesting an enjoyable element to the already exciting game play.

Basically, scattered through the galaxy are these ship grave yards filled with derelict ships abandoned long ago.

Think of it as similar to that scene in Event Horizon when they come through the clouds exposing the abandoned space titan. It's an eerie concept.

(Something like that.. except not at all).

Players are able to research an ability for their colony vessels to enter this area of space and utilize their antimatter reserves to capture these ships, bolstering your fleet even further. There are even capital ships that can be captured. Keep in mind, however, that the captured ships are weaker than their faction counter-parts and the capital ships captured do not gain levels.

Bailknight's Graphic Mod:

Bailknight, modder of one of my favorite Empire at War mods, moved on to SoSE to release his graphics mod for it, replacing many aspects of the games lighting and particle effects to produce a much more visually stimulating experience. It's like porn for your retinas.

List of additions with Bailknights Mod:
Changes - Visual
   1. Enhanced every weapon effects include planetary bombing. (1)
   2. Enhanced many skill effects. (1)
   3. Enhanced explosion effects (New fighter/cruiser class explosion) (1)
   4. Enhanced construction effects. (2)
   5. Enhanced exhaust effects.
   6. Kortul Devastator`s pulse beam relocated. (2)
   7. Heavy Crusiers looks longer then original. (2)
   8. Phase Gate now stand up and rotate and bigger
   9. Weapon Jamming Module downsized. (2)
   10. Fix some effect disappearing when load saved game ( Destra Crusader`s Ruthlessness effect and Phase Gate`s phase effect) (1)

3. Changes - Gameplay
   1. Kodiac and Defense replaced their weapon type so they receive different upgrade bonus. (Kodiac - Gauss / Defense - Beam)
       (Still Ships spec itself is untouched - same dps,hp,cost,etc)
   2. Radiation Bomb and Incendiary Shells skills slightly changed for better visual represent. Efficiency is almost same.
   3. Overall Culture efficiency doubled.
   4. Pirate Gauss Defense damage reduced from 120 to 100
   5. Pirate Gauss Defense hull reduced from 3000 to 2500

Not really much to say about this mod other than it makes the game looks turbo-sexy. Having been rather disappointed with the visuals originally, this mod definitely improved things for me.

Sins Enhanced:

This Mod is simply a recolor and duplication of Ironclad/Stardock's original textures.  Small mod, but effective.

Atlantian Mod:

This mod successfully adds a fourth race to Sins. A very powerful race called the Atlantians. Those of us who are SciFi junkies (hopeless nerds) will appreciate this race. Danman has thrown out the conventional thinking that all teams must be equal. I say good show, sir. If they are all equal, then they are the same. Screw that. In war there are winners and losers. The Atlantians are winners. War isn't fair. Go blog about it in your live journal, fuckwit.

In the current build of 7 Deadly Sins, the Atlantians are still in their infancy as a full blown race. Using the Vasari technology currently, they boast some serious capital ships. This is an interesting twist from the vanilla version of Sins of a Solar Empire due to the fact that the Atlantian capital ships act like capital ships is expected to and I like it. I know this contradicts an earlier paragraph, but for this race I make an exception. The Atlantians have also added some new game play elements which I felt SoSE seriously needed. New players now have a race in which they can stand up against more challenging foes and stand a chance. This ensures that noobs won't get put off immediately by the games fierce AI. As I mentioned earlier, they are a fierce foe when opposed. It's a welcome addition to the games already chaotic game play.

Eventually Danman hopes to have the Atlantians completely remoddeled and reskinned to give them their own unique feel. He hopes to turn them into a combination of Advent and Vasari technology, which will be an interesting hybrid for sure.

Finally, with tonight’s release, Danman includes his Solar Sins mod.

The mod promises the addition extra stars, anomalies, skyboxes, etc.

Here are some screen shots that Danman posted on the Sinsofasolarempire.com forum:

Solar Sins will allow for multiple stars within the galaxy. The stars are colonizeable, just as the planets are, and will include star bases in future releases.


(Obviously that is excessive, but it serves to demonstrate how the new multiple stars will function in 7 Deadly Sins featuring Solar Sins).

Solar Sins will also include the addition of black holes, though what they currently do hasn't been announced yet.


(Personally I hope it fucks shit up royally)

Finally, here's one of his new gas giants:




There is literally weeks worth of gaming here. With the addition of all of the mods being released for this game, the possibilities are endless. Ironclad/Stardock are one of the last remaining game developers who actually support the modding community, going as far as taking requests for features to include in patches to further assist in the development of mods.

On a final note, I'd like to point out one crucial element to SoSE and its mods. Multiplayer. This is where Empire at War collapsed in front of my eyes like a stroke victim. All mods are playable online unless specified otherwise by the mod creator. This means, as long as everyone in the game has the same mod version, its multiplayer compatible. Fuck yeah.

Sins of a Solar Empire with the addition of 7 Deadly Sins receives my following score. All scores based out of a scale of 0-5.
Fun and Innovation - 3.5
Replayability - 5
Gameplay - 4
Visuals - 4
Sound - 4
Multiplayer Functionality - / Untested.

WDF Score:  4/5

Grab 7 Deadly Sins Here

Official 7 Deadly Sins Forum Here

UPDATE: 7 Deadly Sins Updated To Version 1.2 Including Solar Sins. Black Hole apparently not included in this release and has been pushed back to next release.

[13:58] TheSpaniard84: I have a kitty stuck to my rump
[13:58] WhuTdufK: I suppose that's better than what's normally stuck to your rump.