SINS has my favorite game for over a decade!  I can confidently say SINS II has the potential to surpass it by lightyears! 

I've played six games testing everything I could find, even continuing after the game is won to see what I can do.  It's pretty solid and enjoyable. 

For players there is one thing I wish I would have known sooner:  There's a file in the install folder "Sins II New Player Guide.pdf". It’s also posted somewhere here.  Read it. It would have saved me a lot of time fumbling around in the first two games, and it taught me to finally figure out how to pin items to the bookmarks (I wasn’t holding down long enough before dragging).  One thing I found useful that wasn't in the documentation was the button on the capital ship screen to automate level up selections. 

Bugs:

The only time I got a crash was after I beat the game and continued playing to test some of the limits.  I crashed the game by scuttling my 2000 fleet supply worth of capital ships all at once to see how fast I could rebuild.  Along with the notifications, there was a black dot that I clicked on.  When I clicked the black dot the game crashed, I reloaded from an auto-save and was unable to duplicate the error.  Which brings me to the second bug that I found.  I owned all the planets and completed all the research.  When I loaded the autosave, one of the planets resorted to unoccupied (previously owned by the crystal faction then conquered and owned by me.)  The autosave also undid one of my research items.  I forget which one, but it was one of then shield upgrades.  That's it for bugs, which is remarkable for this stage of the development.

The good:

1. Its smooth!  I'm using an i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz/16 GB RAM and a GeForce GTX 1650.  I wasn't even sure if I'd be able to play because SINS 1 bogs downs after about 4 hours.  The game ran smooth without any lag or slowdown, even at 10X speed. 

2. It’s fun!  Some of the mechanics took a bit to figure out, because I didn't know about the Guide.  But I quickly learned enough to have fun.  The upkeep took getting used to but wasn’t bad once I realized I needed to upgrade right away.

3. Its flexible!  The entities files are simple enough to edit and see what works better.  (I know, we shouldn't be creating more issues while the game is being tested, but I enjoy this stuff)

4. The orbiting planets added a new strategic element to the game.  For now, it’s definitely worth owning garrisons on some key planets orbiting in the opposite direction of the home systems.  I ran the game at high speed for several hours and noticed the phase lanes never formed at the home world, which is probably good, but I am curious how the game would play out if home systems orbited at different speeds and eventually caught one another.  The orbits also allow for some interesting possibilities in the future, like researching “Planetary Thrusters” to modify an orbit.  I really look forward to having my twin fortresses on a collision course with my enemy’s home world.

5. Drag and drop rearrangement of ques.  I wished for this many times in the original.

6. There is no six. (Following Sycloness’ example)

7. The little planetary semi-rings for selecting fleet ships, garrison ships, etc., work great.

8. Notifications icons are a nice touch.  I’d prefer if there were different rows or locations for different categories.

9. I love the Colonized Planets Screen!  (but sometimes it shows an empty slot when there isn’t one)

10. I love the Capital Ship Screen! Would like to auto-select skills at the individual ship level as well.

11. Exciting game throughout! – After some modifications detailed below.

12. Scuttling orbital structures instantly with 1 click – my biggest frustration from SINS 1 eliminated.  It would be nice to be able to do this with surface structures.  

13. Scuttling entire garrison fleets one button. Saved me when I hit the unit limit.  I still had to get rid of the factory to keep them from coming back.

The bad:

1. Scout ships die before they get anywhere and are almost useless.  (I poked around in the files and edited the trader_loyalist_player to start with "count": [10,20] (a random number from 10 to 20. I had 13 to start with and still didn't find the black market, but felt like it wasn't a waste)

2. Capital ships get pounded and destroyed before you even realize you've jumped into a trap.  (Really painful lesson to learn, particularly when a planet orbits into its path)

3. The economy is bottlenecked by credits without a way to exchange at the beginning, it feels like the first two hours are wasted waiting to build. (Even with doing everything I could to eliminate upkeep.)  My solution which greatly enhanced my enjoyment was to edit the trader_loyalist_player file... "default_starting_assets": {"credits": 13000.0, "metal": 1500.0, "crystal": 1500.0}, and "income_rates": {"credits": 15.75,"metal": 1.8, "crystal": 1.4}  This made the game feel much faster and exciting throughout.  It also made the computer players seem more formidable when we first met.

4. I felt cheated by volcanic and ice planets not having enough asteroids so I edited their file to "count": [3, 6] (anything more than this won't show up on the colonized planets screen, but can still be used)

5. Setting trade partners.  Sounds like a good idea, but in reality, nobody has time to micromanage them.  I would prefer a simple triangle with 7 positions I could select and my entire fleet of trade ships would adjust accordingly.  (Balanced – in the middle, All Credits – at the top, All Metal – at the lower left, All Crystal – at the lower right, No Credits - the middle of the bottom, No Crystal – the middle of the left side, and No Metal – the middle of the right side.)

6. There is no six. 

7. Garrisons are overpowering and the AI doesn’t take advantage of them– But I’ll overlook this for now, because at this stage of the game its about functionality, not necessarily balance.

8. I found it time consuming to try and select a single ship if there were multiple ones around the planet.  The only way I found to do this was to zoom in far enough to spot it and select it.  There may be another way, but it wasn’t intuitive enough to find.

 UI Changes needed: 

1.  When looking at resources after the list of planets gets long, the important stuff (upkeep and totals) is at the bottom, so it can’t be seen.  This should be at the top.

2. My eyes have difficulty spotting the rectangles for undeveloped tracks.  More contrast would be appreciated.

3. I’d like to be able to “number-click” things to que them up for when resources become available with the number being a priority level (so it doesn’t feel like I’m spending most my time waiting). 

4. When trying to select a planet with many ships flying in and out, it is nearly impossible.  Please provide a larger unblocked area to click on a planet.

5. Sometimes its hard to spot a ship.  I know I need to take out the ships that fire missiles right away, but sometimes I can’t find them, or they are clustered together so I can’t select them.  A small ship icon at zoomed in levels would be nice.  Or a list of all ships in gravity well when zoomed.

6. No need for a six.

Things I miss:

1. Being able to research things multiple times for additional upgrades.  (One of my favorite mods sets the max level for most research items to 100, so you can really specialize.)

2. Being able to select specific items to attack from the bookmark bar.

3. Researching multiple types of technologies at a time (I think this is just because of the rollout and will be changed in the future)

4. I don’t miss the way the old fleet upkeep worked where it couldn’t be scaled back.  Maybe a dynamic upkeep that adjusted automatically.  I’m still not clear what all goes into infrastructure, maybe its in that but if it is it should be amplified or elaborated.

5. Orbital structures / defense ships targeting siege frigates first.  (My strategy is to occupy the planet, then use planetary defense to clear the ships)

6. There is no six

7. Seeing attack range rings of other structures while placing a new one.

8. The toggle for auto-place structures

9. And of course, features that just aren’t developed yet (races, starbases, etc.)

More from snooping around in the files:

1. I like that the planets tracks (upgrade slots) are defined at the race level, meaning the other races might have different preferred planets. 

2. Some planets trade for credits, some for crystal, some for metal.  If the black market had better exchange rates this might work, but as it is I’d prefer if most of them traded for credits, or a blend.

3. Each planet type is set up for different results from excavations.  I look forward to seeing what the developers come up with.

4. I’m not sure how AI strategies are being developed, but I would love the ability to edit their priorities and have them compete against each other at top speed. 

6. No six

Once again, I would like to emphasize how thrilled I am with the game.  Particularly at this stage of development.  Thanks for all your hard work!