Regarding the three races' ultimate superweapon structures, all are capable of firing shots across a system or even to another system.
Logistic buildings include shipyards, civic research labs and more, while tactical buildings are defense structures ranging from jump inhibitors, which slow down fleeing enemy units, to turrets and strike craft hangars. Players can build planet-based improvements and orbital structures, the latter of which is divided into "logistic" and "tactical" structures. Finally capital ship crews are needed to field capital ships in addition to the general fleet supply points. They can be increased by increasing the fleet logistic capacity at the cost of a higher upkeep and thus a lower overall income. Supply points are points that are used up when ships are purchased, acting as a population cap for the player's ships. The game has three main resources to gather: credits (the general currency used), which are gained by completing missions, collecting bounties, and taxing planets metal (the most common resource, used in the construction of ships and buildings), is gathered by building refineries on asteroids and crystal (the rarest resource, used for advanced technology and building capital ships), is also found on asteroids.
Players can conquer neighboring planets and explore distant star systems in a "massively scaled, fully 3D environment featuring entire galaxies, orbiting planets, clusters of asteroids, space dust and radiant stars." In an interview with IGN, Ironclad director Blair Fraser suggests that the game's " Iron engine" is specially designed with new technologies that allow it to handle very large differences in size, scale, and distance. Players can view entire star systems, then zoom in to their planets, individual fleets, starships, and even fighters, similar to the strategic zoom featured in the 2007 RTS title Supreme Commander. It features a sandbox mode, allowing the player to choose different types of solar systems to unlock achievements. The playing field is a 3D web of planets and other celestial objects in the orbital plane of one or more stars. Sins of a Solar Empire is a space-bound game. 5.2 Unnamed second and third expansions.
1.3 Diplomacy, bounty, and the black market.1.2 Planets, asteroids and spatial anomalies.