How long does it take to understand the basics in this game?
It's a fairly simple RTS, with the exception of the 3D camera.
It'll take a while to master the camera, though the basics aren't too difficult. Everything else is quite simple and plays similarly to starcraft or command and conquer.
The combat is a kind of expanded rock-paper-scissors system, and works well.
Fighters beat bombers, corvettes beat fighters, firgates beat covettes, bombers beat frigates.
As the game goes on, you get more specialised units with more complicated roles, just like in any other RTS.
The best part of the game is that it looks like a space dogfight, unlike Starcraft or other RTS games, which look like a bunch of 2D units standing still and shooting from maximum range. Watching a squad of bombers do an attack run on some frigates is exhilarating, 'cinematic' even.
And if the balance is the same as the original, you can break the game by using LOTS of salvage corvettes. By the end my fleet was almost nothing but captured enemy frigates. I think I had an impenetrable wall of missile frigates and the death-ray frigates (can't remember the actual names!).
Obligatory comment: It's ridiculous that no other game has come close to this qualityof 3D combat in the last decade.
