Ummm..... speaking from many hours of beta play. There is much to the depth of the factions with regards to tactics and game play. Yes there are the basic hull classes but beyond that there are major differences. Please spend a few hours reviewing the tech trees, the ship functions and how things work together. You may be surprised with what you will find. There is a lot of depth to this game and the strategies one can employ to win.

Have you seen the Vasari Stargate (phase tunneling) yet?

More tech, I say! More laboratories! ^^

The factions are only similar in what roles ships play. Weapons, and abilities are different. So are the research trees. If they all seem similar then you aren't using them to their fullest, or have all abilities on autocast. Try micro-ing the Vasari, or Advent a little, and using the abilities manually.

Vasari missile frigate does better damage vs capitols than its TEC counterpart. Phase missiles can bypass shields. Vasari ships can take a pounding compared to the other 2 factions, but their ships are much more expensive. Once Vasari get high tier tech they are very dangerous with phase tunneling, phase gates, and dark fleet.

Advent are all about beams, and shields, but their specialty is buffing, and de-buffing through their Psi-Tech. That is where the Advent shine.

TEC are the jack of all trade, master of none faction. Their ships are weak, but cheap. So if you wipe 1 TEC fleet out, expect another one to hit you very soon. TEC specializes in economy, and the ability to replace its losses very quickly.

"It would have been nice to see some major differences between the races but thats the difference between a world altering game like starcraft and a game that rates 8.5"


Amen.

Taking the easy way out with subtle differences is MEH.
Creating 3 different factions that play COMPLETELY differently, so much that each has their own interface design, and having them all well balanced is what a work of art game is about.

I hope that with some of the update content there will be more of an element of difference between the factions.
Not more and more ships and units (which I have a feeling is what will happen, to the complete detriment of balancing ability), but rather just exaggerating the differences in play styles

I think this release is great in that we have three races that ARE similar, but still have some depth in terms of differences in research and ship function. I definately agree that completely different play styles/units/factions are the difference between 10/10 and 8/10 games.

I'm not really sure how many changes they could realistically make to the existing three races without essentially completely stripping them down and starting from the bare bones. Ideally, I would have liked to have seen the Vasari be along the lines of a super-advanced, Protoss-esq faction with emphasized tech advantages. The Advent, not really too sure, maybe could have been a very nomadic race as in virtually all of their structures are mobile/could jump around systems. That could have worked with their backstory also. TEC I think are great being the stereotypical human space faring race with rugged but functional ships.

I think it would be interesting to see the race that the Vasari fleeing from being some sort of biological space faring race, ala Zergish. That would be something very different that players would notice instantly both visually and in gameplay.

I'm not trying to make it seem like the devs should be cloning Starcraft or anythihng, I was just using the Protoss and Zerg examples as they are the best examples of different play styles out there that I can think of.

Of course, the more different you make the races, the harder it is to balance them out against one another. BUT it can be done, and while I'm really happy with Sins, I'm even more excited for future expansions/sequels now that the team has this under their belt

Cheers

The major difference lies in the abilities the Capital ships have, and the research that can be done. But even with that, the game feels the same no matter what race I pick.

I do foresee some really cool mods though, possibly even campaigns. Since there are modding tools available and a creative fan base around there's no end to what fun we can have with the game engine. Even though the vanilla game was rather dull the actual game engine is quite fantastic!

No doubt we will see new ships and functions very soon. I can't wait for it.

Zerg rush!!! kekekeke

I could have enjoyed unbalanced factions! It's even normal after having read the story of TEC/Vasari/Advent. I think TEC must have been very overpowered by any vasari vessel and must have had big problems dealing with the advent which is not the case... My hopes relies on modding and ...Ironclad to get thing even more chalenging...

imo the factions are somewhat unbalanced they certainly are NOT even remotely the "same"