We get an in-depth look with Sword of the Stars II

Despite the impressive tech demos, the talks, the wish-lists and the dreams, you can never really get a 'feel' for a game without getting a complete build in your hands. As amazing as Kerberos has made Sword of the Stars II sound, do this kind of thing for long enough and you'll soon learn that keeping a "believe it when we see it" mentality is key. But with only four months left on the clock, we're finally seeing the game come together, and for the first time Strategy Informer got to play around with a more complete build.
 

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only- wait, wrong franchise...

The basics of the game you should already know - Sword of the Stars II is set 100 years after the first game, and is a thematic and logical evolution of that original title. This is reflected in the way things have been set up - technology has advanced, empires have been formed, politics have evolved... there's a real paradigm shift as to how the game plays. SOTS2 also sees the return of the 'Lords of Winter', an ancient, terrible, and fully playable extra race which we're told has a completely different play style to the other five, but what that entails is probably going to be a secret right up until we get a review going.

The changes are immediately apparent - from the stunningly beautiful MARS 2.0 engine, to simply how you set up a game. There will still be a wide selection of shaped Galaxy Maps to choose from, although this time the position of the stars are 'fixed' for each map. However, the specifics of those stars - what kind of planets it has, resources etc... will be randomised each time, so there's still customisation and randomization there to keep things interesting. You can also choose the size and number of stars as well.

Managing your empire seems like it's going to very similar, although there are several key changes - instead of those abstract trade zones, you can set up semi-autonomous provinces or regions. Instead of having to micro-manage your fleet's fuel, you simple assign them to a base of operations, and they will have a certain range they can operate out to. That change in particular will make exploration and recon slightly more difficult, but it's in line with the thematic shift from exploration to empires. Independent colonies - either splinter groups of your race, or new, emerging 'minor' races, will have more of an impact and you can interact with them in more ways as well.
 

Very nice, although we can't help but feel they've spent way more time on the ships than they have the planatery bodies...

Even the political landscape has changed - each race now has several ideological factions that are attributed to certain play styles and decisions. When you deal with a another empire diplomatically, not only do you have to take into account their race and beliefs, but also what faction you're dealing with as well. This also opens up new gameplay avenues in terms of coups and civil wars.



Other factors - like the technology tree, have also been touched upon already, but in all honesty that will probably be the most familiar part of the game. Tech trees are still randomized, and the kind of techs available have been updated to reflect the times. However, it's important to note that all technologies will be viewable at once, and you won't know what techs have been 'assigned' to you that playthrough until you start working your way up the tree. Instead, techs that are officially 'off-limits' to you are still technically achievable, through surveys, random events, or getting it off another ace. There's also the interesting mechanic of 'prototype' ships in the ship design section, although that's something we're probably going to have to wait to find out about

And then of course there's the new MARS 2.0 engine, and how that's effected the game. We've spoken a bit about it already, but seeing it perform outside of the a tech demo is still pretty impressive. No you don't need to be in a real-time battle scenario to glimpse the solar system and the planets around it (although you still load in to a more detailed map, we think, when it comes to tactical engagements). Not only that, but the changes made to how combat works are also highly visible as well. Instead of just being comprised of three 'sections' (where if you lost 2/3, the ship blew up), ships are now made up of varying sup systems, and each 'side' has its own shield and armour rating which are visually highlighted.

You can read up on interviews or press information as to what specifically this means for combat, as Kerberos have certainly spoken a lot about this, but to see in action is again nice to see. Weapon effects seem a little underwhelming at the moment, but we imagine those will be improved come the final build. The damage that the ship's skin shows doesn't necessarily effect what the read-outs say comprehensively, but like the first game there are visual indicators to show that your ship is getting pummelled. What we're really excited about is the more realistic damage 'blocks', with different weapons having different effects - shallow gouges, deep penetrations... should be fun.

This was in no way the final build however - it's still got content missing, still got a lot of work left on it, but it's getting there. As is common in game development, the final few months are actually spent bug-hinting and troubleshooting as opposed to actually developing or creating features, so we wouldn't be surprised if it'll be 'complete' sometime within the next couple of months.

Here you can see the new UI read-outs for ship health and damage. Very Sci-Fi!

But what we've seen so far is certainly exciting, and this game is shaping up rather nicely. The major changes are going to need some getting used to, but we're not that attached to how things used to be, so we're keeping an open mind. As always though, the release date can never seem to come quick enough. Sword of the Stars II is due out on PC on August 16th, 2011.

Oh, and we totally saw a Suul'ka ship.

Most anticipated feature: Getting to grips fully with the new combat engine and how it plays.