Basic Game Controls

Sins of a Solar Empire II has been designed to streamline the usual micro-management that RTS games demand. Of course, you can still play any way you like, so we’ll go over all the options in this section.

Camera Controls

The camera can be easily controlled by using your mouse and/or keyboard. You can use the standard WASD key arrangement to pan the camera forward, left, backward and right. Furthermore, the camera is context sensitive which you’ll discover over time.

Zoom to Cursor

Being able to quickly zoom in and out of the strategic view is essential to playing the game. At any time, you can use the mouse wheel to quickly move out to view the entire map or in to view the smallest ship. This makes it very easy to maneuver around the battlefield or your empire.

If you need quick jumps out or in, you can use the “Q” and “E” keys respectively.

Camera Focus

The camera will automatically focus on whatever unit you’re currently centering your mouse over, or that you have selected. This can be anything from the smallest strike craft to something like a star! Don’t worry, the camera won’t run away from you - it only focuses on what you’re actively trying to look at.

To break focus, just move the camera away from the object by either using the WASD keys or zooming to an empty area.

Rotation

With your camera focused on an object, you can use the mouse wheel to zoom in/out on it. You can also press the right mouse button and rotate the camera around the object.

Tooltips

Sins II makes heavy use of tooltips that will appear anytime you briefly hover the mouse over an object. By doing this you can get context sensitive information that will help you play the game. This ranges from descriptions on objects, to background lore, to detailed unit information.

By holding the ALT key, you can display Advanced Tooltips which contain even more detail. (This is also a game Setting you can enable by default.)