Both. There's no "campaign." If you play against the comp, it's just single-player multiplayer (like Civilization). But the AI seems competent. The multiplayer is pretty solid.

Is the spaceflight/combat good? I hated EVE's point and click and sit back to watch the action interface. I'm more of the Star Trek Online and the old Wing Commander hands on approach, although I'd love some true 3-D space combat. so much is 2-D aerial style. Sur, you can fly under or over the enemy, but try pulling something like Riker did with the Enterprise-D and the game balks at trying to orient yourself on something other than the 2-D plane for any length of time.

The best part is it's only $20 for the game and both expansion packs: SSE: Trinity

Have you ever played Homeworld? If so, it's exactly like that.

Remember, it's an RTS and each unit has very good AI, so if you wanted, you could just click your fleet to attack and let it figure it out. Of course, it's also possible to directly command each unit.

The map is completely rotatably 3 , although the ships don't seem to take too much advantage of the Z direction.

Combat and Industry takes place orbiting various planets in a solar system with ships jumping between planets (much like EVE). It's actually a lot similar to Ascendancy, if you played that back in the 90's.

And I will say, the graphics are beautiful. Watching the space combat is mesmerizing.

i never really felt that much interest in the game... (though i've only watched others play it, so i guess i don't have the full story)

I think your list missed a few games, Master of Orion (I and II, though i think I is better it has no multiplayer support) Star Control (though it's a bit grindy) Imperium Galactica I and II, Civilisation and Alpha Centuari.

i'm a big fan of the genre. Though i don't know what i'd place at the top of my list.

I've seen Homeworld long ago, but don't rmember much and never played
ascendancy. So, being RTS, I guess it's more along the lines of Warcraft (not Wow) in that you control many units and direct them to certain tasks. I coudl try that out. I like the old Warcarft and Civ serious along with Age of Empires and similar games. There was even a fun Star Wars RTS at one poitn and it had an Ewok cheat that would let you recruit an undefeatable Ewok army.

Well, I can't put games on the list I haven't played.

Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of Sid Meier. I don't really like turn-based games. It takes too long for anything interesting to happen and I like reflexes to count in a game.

Alpha Centauri - My favorite of the Sid Meier's RTSs in the Civ vein.

Yes, it would be more like Warcraft/Starcraft, but it has much better resource management and tech trees. It also focus on economy and culture (like Civ), but does so in an RTS fashion, rather than turnbased.

Does anybody remember the first "god" like RTS, Populous? That was one fun game for it's day.

Alpha Centauri isn't a RTS.

I played a bit of Solar Empire but I'm not one for RTS games - too much stress. I need turn based games. I used to really like Master of Orion for turn based games. I'm not sure what the connection is other than space, but I stumbled on Solar Empire when looking for a newer version of MoO.

Civ is still the gold standard for gaming for me but my computer is too dated to play the latest one which is killing me.

OK, true. They are strategy games, but not real time. Granted. Idea is the same, but turn based.

I like the tactical part of Homeworld more than Sins, but for overall strategy Sins is much more complex and fun.

Agreed also about movement in EVE - it's not user-controlled enough, and there are broad swathes of space that have pretty much no function.
.

Yonni, take a look at the freeOrion project if you want a newer version of
MoO, though i don't think they have finished it yet.

and yes, there is a big difference in the level of importance of strategy and tactics, real-time and turn-based.... lots of variation... though i think real-time is just lots of really fast and short turns...

I agree that combat in Homeworld is better, but Sins adds so much in other areas that it's OK.

If you are into modern combat simulation, I still have a the floppy disks for "TacOps". You would issue orders in intervals of a few seconds for your units then play it out in real time based on what was considered "battlefield reaction time" for a commander of a small unit. Truly one of the best sims I've played for realism.

I'm not too into "realism" I just like massive space battles!

Have you tried Star Trek Online? You can get some massive battles defending starbases from Klingons and such. It's really fun to go in severely outnumbered and still pull out a victory by the skin of your teeth.

I try to stay away from MMORPGs. They consume too much of my time. I like being able to sit down with an FPS or RTS and be able to play from start to finish in 1-3 hours.

I tried it, Abge, but as good of a RTS as it is.. it's still just a RTS :(

You don't have to be a dedicated player in STO. that's why I like it. I get on a couple times a week for an hour or three. Blast some klingons, eventually get promoted, rinse and repeat...

@Yellowjacket

I'm not sure what that means....

@Draug

How much is it? I also don't like spending /month for a game. Makes me feel obligated to play it.

Yeah, there is that. $20 a month is $20 a month. I'm just so used to paying $15 for Rhapsody and $9 for Netflix that another $20 is no big deal especially for something more mentally stimulating than watching some movie or listening to some tunes while I work.

Yeah, but I'm a grad student : )

Also, I bought SupCom and Killing Floor for $20 and $5 respectively 4 years ago and I've easily logged over a hundred hours between the two and I still play both regularly. For your money, that's a much better deal.

And, don't even get me started on LoL, which is free.

Its my fav 'traditional' RTS.
By traditional I mean following the 4X RTS's. Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate.
Starcraft, Warcraft, Rise of Nations, Age of Empires etc. are all examples of 4X RTS's.

Games like Total War are not.

Yeah, I still need to check out LoL. Loaded it up and created an account but did nothing with it. Just got too into STO and now moving.

I love LoL because the games never last more than 1hour. That means you get to try a lot of different champs and builds without investing too much time. It's also very heavily team based, which is great if you have a good team, and awful if you're playing with pubies.

@Fasces

Did you have play SupCom? That's still number 1 for me, but I've only played 3 games of Sins.