1 on 1 i think it can get repetitivew, at the moment in the beginning fase it plays very much the same, colonize your closest asteroids/planets, you can try to hassle a player early on, but on a 1vs1 map there are only so many areas to fight, so the early game might see some skirmishes, but good players will withdraw if outclassed, which can be seen early on in the fight.

So 1vs early stage is quitte repetitive in my opinion, might change with the different races and some other tweaks.

The point where it gets interesting is in larger games, 2vs2 or even better 4vs4. On these larger maps manouvering is as important, if not more important, then the number of ships/classes.

You can have big fleet attacking an asteroid at the end of your empire, but when an enemy launches an attack on your worlds you have a problem. There are stationary defences, but they can only fend of small/medium fleets.

And becouse you can only have a limited number of ships, position will be VERY important.

So to answer your question: There is alot to do in midgame, and in the muliplayer games i played it was always different, early game can get quitte repetitive though at the moment.

Graphics wise, well it aint top notch, but it is a small developer, and the path finding at the moment is not quitte good, but mostly you will be playing from a zoomed out perspective, like supreme commander.

I think a game needs four things to be fun for a long time. Two have to be in the game and two can come later:

Ingame:

1. Balanced Options: Many different paths to go or few but really distinctive ones. This may be realised by unit diversity or the tech tree or something else. The problem is to balance these. There are quite good games that have alot of options like C&C Generals. You can choose several distinctive abilities with the strategy points. Problem is that I usually choose the same as they are just too powerful.
Sins has some interesting options with the capital ships and the tech tree. They could be more distinctive though but the games is not finished yet and the other two races will bring more options.
Nothing to say about balance before Beta 4.

2. Opponents: More balanced options, more fun in multiplayer. That is a simple formula. But there are alot of people who can't or don't want to play online, so good AI's that don't always do the same thing are key, too. Games with different AI profiles (Battle Realms, Civilisation) give you a new challange in every game for a long time. In both games the AI can also be scaled beyond the easy/medium/hard scale. Battle Realms has a handicap system for this which is also useable in MP.
Sins AI is not finished yet. I really hope the AI will be good, because it would be a pain to play 10 player games online for example

Outside the game:

3. Mods: Good editors and modding support keep games alive. Neverwinter Nights 1 is a good example for it. Most normal casual gamers can do marvellous things with the editors. So far IC seems on the right track.

4. Support: This means not only patches for problems and balance issues but also new material once in a while. Ranging from a new map to add-ons. Stardock's GC II is a good example for it

Schod is right, and any single player strategy game gets repetitive because the AI becomes predictable.

In multiplayer this isn't an issue. Even right now with just one race the way people play varies widely and when you start playing unlocked teams/FFA games half the fun comes from just forming secret alliances and backstabbing people

Plus, as was mentioned, the AI currently is a work in progress, and fighting the AI is very easy and dull right now. I've easily been able to take on 3 teamed hard AI by myself, I imagine I could have kicked it up to 5 without much more trouble.

As for strategy and tactics, they do exist in Sins and they can play a very big role. Tactics with just one race right now aren't as important as strategy, simply because everyone draws from the same pool of units and there are only limited ways of going about controlling the fight. Strategic planning goes much farther, though

No idea what you're talking about. No, sir, no idea at all. *walks away whistling*

We also only have one multiplayer setting, flagships on. It would be a vastly different game without a flagship, no early dominance, slow expansion through the pirates, actual casualties in doing so. You might have a capital ship out by the time you met your opponent on a small map, but it would be a free kill against a dozen cobalts instead of walking all over them with the shields still up at level 4. Right now you're more varied by flagship choice than map composition often.

The game has great promise, it's just a very empty game right now. There are literally no features. You colonize a planet, build your few buildings, and move onto the next one. The ai is so bad that I've been trying to win 8v1's on a small map. Although small maps with 9 players aren't exactly small. Single player is severely blegh right now, but it's a stability test for multiplayer.

Fleet combat between two people is a blast, multiplayer is long, very long, but quite fun even in the rather limited state the game is in right now. There's not a whole lot to a really small map, but in a four hour game I've seen rather diverse fleet compositions, differing defensive plans, varied tech upgrade levels and choices. Outside of the nitty gritty fleet engagements though, it's still pretty boring. There's just nothing to do much of the time, which makes sense since it's a netcode test right now.

I really doubt I'll ever want to play single player over and over for years, but I doubt the capacity of man to create an ai better than himself, so multiplayer will always be more interesting for me in any game. I'm only here for the strategy part of the game, so fluff will just be fluff outside of strategic mechanics. If it's fleshed out though it will be quite the game. You really need to wait till beta4 to ask this. An actual gameplay test is going to be infinitely more useful for formulating an opinion than a netcode test with barebones systems in play. Beta4 isn't supposed to be a complete game either, but it will at least resemble one. Right now it's more of a shell, a rather fun shell that might even be worth the money I spent as is if I were on a connection besides satellite, but most definitely a shell of a game.

I like different gameplay, so long as your not bogged down to that ONE style of gaming.

The same race currently fighting each other OVER AND OVER is very repetitive... toss in 2 more races and the uber FUN shalt return...

I completely agree with annatar on this.

I remember a game when allied with EVEYONE on the map (three other ppl)

the person I turned against was..... surprise surprise... Annatar, funny he should say this.

nope

I would say it depends on the variety of maps and the modes you play. I could imagine playing the small "close encounters" map over and over again can get repetitive, but larger games, either ffa or team based can provide a lot of variety, as I played a few games and almost each of them had a unique twist in it.

I mean, alone whether you play one or multiple stars, ffa, team ffa or teams, game options and so on, gives the game a different character and a different focus. but in particular, and thats what I find is something of a difference to rts games, is that you usually have way more options where you want to attack, where you think you need to fortify and station a fleet, also what upgrades to choose and more. so, that alone makes for a good amount of variety. and building on the map issue, there are already some maps delivered by the devs, plus a few players made maps and trust me, map layout significantly changes the way a game is played and I guess there are/ will be many players who have just crazy ideas about map layout.

so, if you toss in two more races, which hopefully play widely different, you should have a deadly mix.

6 weeks now, oh no and I already started hoping.

just a general question: are any further patches for beta 3 planed or will the next update be beta 4 straight?

*shrug* could swear he said late november

no more beta 3 patches EVAH!

yeah, beta 4 straight.

What do you mean "nope"? I know that was their position for the longest time, but then they did an about-face in a thread a little while ago.

Isn't it at the beginning of November?