[Mecron]

Thanks for the welcome, guys!

Let me get to some of your questions right away and always feel free to ask more.

Before getting excited, do you mean the battles are similar to Birth of The Federation (if you have played that game), where when there is a battle it is turn based with ordering your ships then watching the battle unfold?

Ummm not sure what thought is exciting you but its not like BoF per se. Probably be easiest just to explain the turn system and I will use a multiplayer game as an example but you can assume the same for single player vs AI.
SOTS has turn based strategic play which means all players simultaneous maintain their empire, adjust planet settings, build ships, research and move fleets. When you are happy with what you have done, you hit end turn. Your efforts are then beamed to the server (the player who started the game) and the game arranges all that data together. If the fleet of any 2 (or more) hostile empires is in the same system or has a deep space intercept encounter, then the system notifies the involved players that real time combat is about to begin and you have a choice of fighting it out yourself or leaving it up to the AI. Combat is fully 3-D though we have tightened movement down to a 2-D plain (though ships will leave the plain briefly to manouver over and under each other). This will be familiar to anyone who has played our critically acclaimed but very obscure effort for Disney, Treasure PLanet:Battle at Procyon or the Starfleet Command games. (If you would like a full explanation of the perils of unlimited 3-D movement in a space game, I can do that later). Battles last for 5 minutes or until only one side rules the zone. If the battle is still unresolved after 5 mins, combat ends, simulating a period of regrouping for both sides and the game starts the next strategic turn. Leaving players free to retreat, reinforce or repair before the next combat turn.
The games arranges for as many simultaneous battles as possible to reduce down time for non-fighting players. ie.- If players 1 and 3 have a battle and 2 and 4 also have a battle, they are played out at the same time. THough if player 1 also has a battle with player 2 it will have to wait till his first fight is resolved. Players NOT involved in combat still have access to their empire for planning and can also spy on combat providing they have the right tech.

Is there going to be an option for "skirmish" games where you choose galaxy size etc, or is it a linear game in the likes of Imperium Galactica?

SOTS its a traditional wargame, NOT a HW style adventure game. It is all about picking the galaxy, size, turn or time limit and what race you want to play. We are also including "Historical" scenarios that take the game out of the purely "everyone starts with nothing" basic scenario. Want to feel like the fledgling SOL force encountering the ancient and huge Tark empire, (or contrarily, the harried Tark Sector Admiral who has to deal with an upstart new race AND the outrageous demands of the Emperor?) then there will be pre-set scenarios and maps for that sort of thing as well. k:

I thought the graphics looked great from what I have seen, but is the game going to NEED pixel shaders to work? The reason is that I have a radeon 7500m which has no such ability. I still have no idea how you give orders to your ships and planets, and how large the playing field (ie galaxy size) of the game is. Is it like a star system, several, many like GalCiv Stars! etc.

The game looks great with shaders but it does NOT need them We are trying to approach a large range of systems and graphics cards with the stree being put on maintaining the level of graphics that let a player make tactical decisions based on visual input, not just numbers and health bars. As far as interface goes, we are peeling the genre back to its roots on this one and going with a lot of point n click and slider bars. We want you to feel like an Emperor and Admiral, NOT a bureaucrat and a number cruncher. Systems are basic affairs of one star and a primary planet that is rated for size, resource base and suitability. ANd galaxy sizes range from 50 to 250 stars right now, and come in various 3-D shapes like globes, spirals, and arms.

Reminds me of Imperium Galactica 2. Should be interesting.

We would like it to remind you of the best parts of games that have been while taking advatange of the power of this generation of comps to take the genre out into more dynamic and graphic directions.

the ships have a kind of babylon 5 look to them.

We are bigs fans of the B5 Universe ourselves, (though there are all sorts of nods to different SF universes in the game) especially those great multi-race battles where there are all sorts of different design philosophy ships firing all sorts of cool and exotic weapons that make you go "holy crap! what was that?" and "Ow! thats gonna leave a mark!" We have added essays and data on the Tarka and Hiver on the website over the past couple of weeks (with the Liir soon to come) so feel free to check that out as well.

Great talking to you guys,
--MEC