Gameplay Trailer Breakdown

We thought it might be helpful to point out some details in our gameplay trailer that illustrate some key differences between Sins 2, Sins: Rebellion, and other strategy games (especially of this scale).

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The Planner

This scene shows how planets orbit and phase lanes change. The speed is accelerated to exaggerate the feature but it actually occurs very slowly giving players time to plan their defensive and offensive strategies.

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However, note that some planets in the video move in a retrograde direction - this opens up some really cool strategies.

The Mobilizer

The aggressor in this video is the red Vasari player. The scene shows the new look of the War Year 35 designs of the Vasari and two of their new units which I admit are difficult to see. We'll make them more obvious in the future.

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Near the right wing of the titan are a few "Jusotra Fabricator" cruisers. The Vasari are a very mobile race so the new Fabricators allow them to construct corvettes and frigates while moving with the fleet. Fabricators also collect combat debris for resources to fuel their construction abilities. Finally, they also operate as mobile retrofit bays which allows players to customize their capital ships and titans on the fly (instead of having to return back to a planet with the appropriate structure). This is a brand new and very important feature. I'll dive into more detail at another time.

The Defender

This shows the TEC defender who is preparing for a potential attack from the red Vasari player. There is a lot to unpack here so I'll just hit a few points.

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The blue and yellow coloring reflects the ability of the player to choose his primary and secondary hull colors before beginning the match. Players who prefer less color paint on their ships can select the 'minimal color' option when they choose their logo and portrait. This is closer to the Sins: Rebellion style.

The Influencer

Sins 2 introduces a new currency called "Influence". Influence allows players to convince minor factions into doing your bidding.

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There is a lot more to minor factions such as auctions, markets, destruction, and more but I'll cover those at another time.

The Empire Builder

This scene shows the player building some structures, building a ship, zooming out to see the empire, and some other unique features I'll describe momentarily.

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The final section of this scene shows the Exotics window. Exotics are new rare resources that are used to build the most powerful units, items, and research subjects. At the beginning of the game you can find them by excavating your planets or by capturing them from the new derelicts you find at random gravity wells. Eventually, these sources will run dry and you'll want to build Exotic Refineries to produce them on a reliable, on-demand schedule. Their build time is extremely slow, so it's worth building a few refineries to have multiple exotics building in parallel.

The Backstabber

Next, the Vasari player has moved his fleet to a retrograde asteroid. Using the Future Orbit tool (see above) he saw that it was going to fly behind one of blue's important planets at a specific time. Blue has no recent intel on the asteroid as it only just became connected to his territory. When the phase lane connection is made, red phase jumps in from behind and bombs the crap out of blue's planet. The possibility of this scenario is completely unique to Sins 2.

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The Body Blocker

This scene illustrates a cool event that occurred in a developer game and is unique to Sins 2. Yellow's fleet showed up at blue's home planet before blue could get his main fleet back to defend. However, yellow couldn't finish off blue without taking out the starbase that was providing a shield around the planet.

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Unlike Sins: Rebellion, Sins 2 missiles and torpedoes are fully simulated (not just effects), and just one part of a much deeper combat model that allows for a lot of really fun and creative tactics.

The Missile Screen

A group of vulnerable yellow ships are being torn to pieces by enemy missiles. Yellow then places a wall of Garda flak frigates in front of the vulnerable ships using a 'wide' formation to get maximum coverage. They proceed to start picking off all the incoming missiles rendering the enemy long range cruisers useless.

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In the previous scene blue's titan could have purchased a custom item to add point defense guns. These would have helped him handle at least a few of those torpedoes (although they are much tougher to take down than missiles) without having to take as much hull damage.

The Last Stand

The red Vasari fleet has finally arrived at the blue TEC player's home planet. As blue brings his fleet around the planet you can see a battle already raging in the distance. Blue finally brings his fleet into range and engages red in a small/medium sized battle, destroys him, and even takes down his titan.

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