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Welcome to Sword of the Stars 2. Sword of the Stars 2 is a sequel to Sword of the Stars (often called SotS "Prime", or just SotS1) and was released October 28th 2011. Sword of the Stars 2 is a space 4X strategy game. The release and the state the game was in is legendary. Many described their experiences about the game's condition and enjoyability with colourful descriptions involving a lot of manure, steam and piles. Basically the game was released in a pre-alpha state, with a lot of missing features and hilarious bugs like the signature of something spawning inside a star or a planet. The state of the game now Useful links! Daton's Mod This mod makes the game less terrible. The mod is still a work in progress and therefore can have a lot of bugs, but hey so does this lovely game itself. It's still good. Official site Official Forums Old SotS2 Thread Old SotS1 Thread SotS2 Wiki - Use this as your primary resource for information. A very good guide how to actually play the game. Includes all races, even the expansion race. Another guide Rorschach's instructional LP Rorschach's instructional videos for SotS2 (From Kerberos forums not the SA Rorschach) Random Map Generator! Sword of the Stars 1 Resources and Links Trademod for SotS1 - Makes trade require less clicks. Abyss posted:There are a various custom maps that were designed for the SotS prime community on the kerberos forums. But since no one should be forced to scrounge through all the posts there I've zipped them up. They provide some more variety to the game once the usual map choices have been played through. If I find more I'll redo the link. Extract the files to the Maps folder located in the main SotS directory. Map pack for SotS1 Ulsoro posted:
IRC is #sots2 at synirc http://steamcommunity.com/groups/goonsots The Goon SotS Steam Group. Get in! The Factions: The Humans The Humans in this game are suprisingly, not the "average and boring" faction. Human fleets have ridiculous strategic speed, and can therefore spread very fast in the galaxy to cherrypick on the best planets and project a lot of control over space. Their weakness is that their ships are kind of on the frail side compared to the average. Also the possibility exists that you can get "nodefucked", which means that you cannot reach places because the nodelanes human fleets travel have decided to be linked in inconvenient ways. Tech rate is average, and the chances to get certain technologies, also called "tech rolls", are average. This is a change from the previous iteration of the game, wherein Humans had a tech rate on par with the Morrigi. The Node Drive FTL is essentially a style of movement where you need to use predetermined wormholes to move around. Only a full Morrigi warfleet with max upgrades is faster. (From ordinary stuff.) The Morrigi The Morrigi are the trader federation faction. Overall they are better in trade than the other factions, because they get a better trade range than others. They excel with drone technology and gain a free pair of drones on their command and support ships just for the hell of it. They love their drones so much. Their drones are also just plain better than everyone else's. Morrigi also get a moderate innate bonus to research (20%), giving them an early jump-start on technology with good tech rolls overall. Their federation is multi-racial, and they get admirals from all races. The drawbacks of playing Morrigi are more expensive ships, poor environmental hazard tolerance and relatively slow population growth. The Morrigi FTL is the flock drive, which means the more ships you have in a fleet the faster the fleet will go! The Liir Space Wizard Dolphins. Blissful and perfect. The Tarkas The Tarkas are the reptilian warrior race of SotS. These guys are the average race, considered most boring overall. Tarkas have pretty good warships, but their fleets are considered slower than average. Tarkas have average research speed and excellent rolls on ballistic weaponry and armor. Otherwise their rolls suck somewhat. Tarkas use the good ol' warp drive, which means their ships always move at a constant speed no matter what. This is the primary reason it is recommended for starting players. It is only a recommendation though, if you've played 4X games before, go ahead and try any race you think is the coolest. The Hivers Space bugs. The Hivers have massive armor on their ships. Their ships just refuse to loving die and can take almost anything while sporting a decent amount of guns most of which are placed along the sides of the ship, meaning you'll be firing broadsides a lot. To balance this out hiver ships are really slow and have the maneuverability and accerelation of a brick on asphalt. The Hivers do not have FTL. Their ships go in STL speeds into their destination and set up a gate. This gate they set up allow them to instantly travel to any other gate they own, essentially meaning that it is meaningless if their empire is stretched out or clustered. Later they can compensate for the STL weakness by essentially using their gates as celestial slings, that throw their ships up to 10LY from their gate, giving them a head start. This means Hivers can execute surprise attacks in the lategame just like others. The Zuul (Also known as the "Suul'ka Horde" but gently caress that) The Suul'ka horde is composed of a huge, huge horde of Zuul and their Suul'ka masters. In a nutshell, Zuul are an artificially created sentient biological bioweapon. Marsupials that invade the minds of their victims with space magic to steal information. Their Suul'ka masters are giant space whales with so powerful space magic they can live in space. The Zuul ships are have cheap-to-moderate cost and are somewhat on the frail side, but oh god all those guns what the hell how is it even possible to stick so many on a ship?! The Zuul also engage in droll activities like slavery and piracy. With somewhat poo poo tech rate and really lovely tech rolls, as a Zuul player you won't be researching much technology for quite a while. It is possible to compensate for the bad technology rolls by salvaging for technology from others. Best hazard tolerance and population growth in the game. Zuul FTL drive is called the Bore Drive, which is a lot similiar to the Human Node FTL. The Zuul also use nodes, but instead of natural wormholes they bore these nodes themselves. The nodelines created are unstable and will collapse after a while, requiring maintenance. Zuul fleets are also a little bit slower in their nodes compared to the Humans. The Loa (Yes, you can actually choose this as your badge. It will be holographically projected from your ships.) The Loa is the newest faction and race added in the latest expansion "End of Flesh". Loa are the AI rebellion from the first game that fled to the fringes of space from their former masters, and formed a new faction that's now back to give poo poo to their old owners. The Loa ships have an incredibly durable engine section, sleek form that is hard to hit from the front and a lot of guns in the front giving a good firing arc. The Loa can colonize absolutely everything that isn't a gas giant or a barren planetoid, but must eradicate all life on the planet (biosphere) before their population can grow on it's own. To balance for their incredible ships and colonization abilities, Loa ships are really loving expensive, the most expensive of all factions. They also have an extra limiting factor to their fleet size that you can increase with technology. That said, Loa fleets are still really fun, because their fleets are composed of tiny cubes that can rearrange fast. This means your fleets are shapeshifters, your colony fleet can transform into a battlefleet instantly and go meet the enemy invader. I wouldn't recommend Loa for your first game because they play so different. The Loa FTL is essentially a mix of the Suul'ka and Hiver FTL, in that they essentially build stable nodelines that cost money and need to be maintained with money. It's also a bit on the slow side, atleast during the start. The Patch List Now before I mentioned about the buggy as hell release. Kerberos has been patching the game ever since, and it has been very entertaining to follow as they fix horrible bugs and introduce more hilariou bugs as they fix them. Here's some of the best bits over that time, collectively collected by the last SotS2 thread: quote:
Can my rig run it? Minimum requirements: OS: Windows Vista 32-bit RAM: 2-GB RAM Video: 512-MB DirectX 10 Display: 1024x768 HDD: 2-GB free space CPU: Core2 Duo or equivalent DX: February 2010 or newer (DX10) Sound: Any Windows Vista compatible sound device, stereo speakers or head phones Control: 2-button mouse and keyboard Recommended: OS: Windows 7 64-bit RAM: 6-GB Video: 1-GB DirectX 10/11 Display: 1650x1080 or greater CPU: Intel i5 equivalent or better Sound: Any Windows Vista compatible sound device, 5.1 speaker configuration for full effect Control: 3-button mouse and keyboard Screenshots Keisari fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Oct 11, 2013 |
# ? Dec 5, 2012 09:35 |
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# ? Apr 19, 2024 02:29 |
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Handy tips section I want to reserve a post for goons to share tips. The game mechanics are hard to understand and unintuitive, I'll put posts detailing some mechanics well here over time. Trade, stimulus and supply Rakthar posted:Each ship has supply and an "endurance rating" in the design screen. It's right above the weapon stats, and will range from like 1T-9T (thats turns the ship can go). Different modules affect this - missiles and mass drivers will use a lot, beam weapons will use a little. The Standard command section will also reduce the usage of supply and increase the amount compared to Battle / Hammerhead command sections. If you want long endurance ships go Standard command -> Green Beamers / Fusion Cannons / Beam Weapons -> Camel modules everywhere. Rakthar posted:It will double your civ pop in exchange for like 3-6 resources a turn. Most planets start with 5000. After 100 turns the resources may drop 500, this is negligible. But the double citizen pop is a huge bonus, so most people recommend going that route. Nessin posted:
Minor races StringOfLetters posted:Yup. Was that system originally protected by a bunch of amoeba-looking 'Protean pods?' That system has been 'colonized' by the proteans, all the planets are at their ideal hazard rating. They are apparently a minor species of goop stuff that has no infrastructure, language, diplomacy, or FTL, and they show up as biosphere. If you get some biosphere preservation techs before colonizing it, and keep your civ population low, you can turn them into a big generator of psi stuff for the rest of your fleet. Fleet Stuff Rakthar posted:Reserve fleets don't count for squat - they have reduced maintenance costs but are basically 'mothballed' and don't do anythinig. If you want to defend a system make it a normal fleet with an admiral and assign it to patrol the system - it will do that in perpetuity if it's based there. Keisari fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Mar 14, 2013 |
# ? Dec 5, 2012 09:35 |
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Repository of :kerberos: This area of the thread contains awful quotes from what Kerberos staff has posted. Arinn "Erinys" Dembo, ~Loremaster~ posted:When the audience stops paying for content, they lose the ability to demand integrity. The salaries and expenses of all gaming news sites, blogs and broadcasts are paid by advertisers. And in the gaming industry at present, the advertisers are the publishers. Arinn posted:
Mecron, Lead Designer, "Idea Guy", His Majesty posted:Never fear, people always get what they deserve in the end, regardless of what they think they are entitled to. Mecron posted:Sometimes people are only as confused as they choose to be. In this case the fantasy that expansions and daily, weekly or monthly support are the same thing is a nice one but it is fantasy nonetheless. "Fanfic" section This is probably a terrible idea but I'll put... "interesting" posts here where goons fill SotS2 story plotholes or write other peculiar things you may or may not want to read. Soylent Pudding explains why interstellar travel doesn't seem to follow Newton's laws of motion. Soylent Pudding posted:The Mecron-Boson is the particle responsible for the Mecron field, the universal source of . This is not found near star systems as the intense solar wind drives Mecron-Bosons away. However in interstellar space, the concentrated smugness acts as a source of drag and eventually causes all nice things to grind to a halt. When transiting deep space hiver ships must constantly burn fuel to offset this drag force. Furthermore, unusually high concentrations of Mecron-Bosons are so unbearable they have been know to cause certain species of asteroids to commit suicide against the nearest inhabited planet. I have no words. Denari posted:So, how far down the rabbits hole are we going here? Arglebargle III posted:Yessssss. Keisari fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Oct 8, 2013 |
# ? Dec 5, 2012 09:35 |
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I vastly exceed the minimum requirements for the game, but it is loving plodding in combat sometimes. Is there a particular option that will make my framerate jump like shadows tend to do in some games if I turn it off?
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 09:42 |
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Defiance Industries posted:I vastly exceed the minimum requirements for the game, but it is loving plodding in combat sometimes. Is there a particular option that will make my framerate jump like shadows tend to do in some games if I turn it off? I recommend turning off Antialiasing and focal blur immediately, and reducing the texture detail levels.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 09:44 |
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Keisari posted:I recommend turning off Antialiasing and focal blur immediately, and reducing the texture detail levels. Just turning off focal blur help my system a ton and I've got a fairly beefy rig.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 10:18 |
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This has probably been asked in the old thread, but I'll ask anyway to satisfy my own curiosity and so other people who read the first page wont have to ask either: Is there any kind of modding potential for this game? Especially in regards to the removal of the awful fleet system? I know that would be a pretty big overhaul to most of the game, but is it possible? I loaded the game up a few days ago just because I saw some screenshots and the trailer from the new expansion that came out and I remembered how gorgeous the game looked on the MARS 2 engine. The combat looks amazing. Unfortunately I gave up my game about 25 turns in because I just can't stand the fleet system.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 11:57 |
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AtillatheBum posted:This has probably been asked in the old thread, but I'll ask anyway to satisfy my own curiosity and so other people who read the first page wont have to ask either: Is there any kind of modding potential for this game? Especially in regards to the removal of the awful fleet system? I know that would be a pretty big overhaul to most of the game, but is it possible? Mecron would probably send anyone attempting to mod the fleet system out a cease and desist.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 12:17 |
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Keisari posted:if you liked SotS1 a lot but didn't like the design choices they made in SotS2 it's highly likely you won't enjoy this game ever. What are some of those design choices? Why is the fleet system making people mad? I loved SotS and I've been purposefully staying away from and not paying attention to SotS 2 until it's more playable which I guess it is now (?). Some of those bugs are Moridin920 fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Dec 5, 2012 |
# ? Dec 5, 2012 12:48 |
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Moridin920 posted:What are some of those design choices? Why is the fleet system making people mad? Trying to keep it short, in essence what makes people dislike it so much is how much more micromanagement it requires to get ships moving while adding so little to the game. But that's only slightly irritating, the fleet system has it's upsides too. The absolute main gripe is that you cannot change your orders mid run, nor can you chain together missions. It produces incredibly frustrating scenarios, for example your survey fleet is going to survey a colony, but after a few turns you notice an enemy fleet is on an attack vector on your HW. At this point you'd want to tell your survey fleet to change course and patrol your Homeworld system, but the fleet just simply cancels the survey mission and absolutely has to return to base to change their clothes or something before going to defend your Homeworld, and will not negotiate about it. So far I have yet to hear an argument defending the fleet system in it's entirety other than ~realism~. Realism is important in this sci-fi strategy game with space magic you see. gently caress fun. That is only an example of all the ridiculous ~realistic~ scenarios that happen with the current system.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 12:57 |
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I just pretend my military is just that inept. That's why I only play as these guys:
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 13:28 |
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^^^ Team America IN SPACE! That's awesome. Alright I'll try it, I don't mind micromanagement and while I can see how those situations would be irritating as gently caress I'll give conquering the galaxy for MY QUEEEEN a shot. I am ridiculously forgiving when it's my favorite genre. (Is the voice acting still hilarious?) Moridin920 fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Dec 5, 2012 |
# ? Dec 5, 2012 15:06 |
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As someone who hasn't really touched 4X since playing Master of Orion 2 a decade or so ago, would either of the SotS games be a good place to pick up the genre again? The lore looks really interesting, as does the way the races each have unique mechanics in play.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 15:13 |
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Ludicrous G. Gibs posted:As someone who hasn't really touched 4X since playing Master of Orion 2 a decade or so ago, would either of the SotS games be a good place to pick up the genre again? The lore looks really interesting, as does the way the races each have unique mechanics in play. If you don't mind a simple battle system I would really recommend Endless Space since it has a fantastic UI and is very user friendly (for a space 4x). It also doesn't have any game breaking bugs and is constantly adding new content.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 15:19 |
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I think I'm done with singleplayer. It's just a giant slog of endless survey fleets and lovely combat ships. The AI is no threat at all in combat, it's just really stupid. I'll settle for trying to murder Keisari in MP. I also realised today that Master of Orion 3 actually had a random tech tree. I'm temtped to install it again with fan patches but I seriously doubt it's any better than SotS2.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 15:22 |
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Would it be possible for someone to post up like a newbie guy on playing this game? I feel a bit lost when starting it up and sort of press buttons, pass a few turns then realise I've hosed myself over somehow and close the game.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 15:25 |
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Flipswitch posted:Would it be possible for someone to post up like a newbie guy on playing this game? I feel a bit lost when starting it up and sort of press buttons, pass a few turns then realise I've hosed myself over somehow and close the game. This http://www.kerberos-productions.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=37699 got posted in the last thread as a good newbie guide. I haven't actually read it and while I'm sure it's "out of date" since the expansion it probably has a lot of the good basics. It is on my list of things to read before I start playing, which will be sometime after I hear that the expansion is stable.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 15:55 |
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At some point once I finally figure this game out I'll probably get sick of the AI as well (are hard AI's any different?). What time frame do multiplayer games run in? Would I need to dedicate a whole day to play a game? Normally I avoid multiplayer for games like this only because of the huge time sink that's needed. But I remember reading that you can swap in and out to leave an AI in your place while you're gone. Can you get games that span days at a time?
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 16:53 |
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DrManiac posted:If you don't mind a simple battle system I would really recommend Endless Space since it has a fantastic UI and is very user friendly (for a space 4x). It also doesn't have any game breaking bugs and is constantly adding new content. Please don't recommend that soulless, bland, samey game in this thread And by that I simply mean the kind of person that wants a combat-heavy, randomized game which is what SOTS 1 / SOTS 2 are, is really unlikely to enjoy the design choices that Endless Space made. To me, Endless Space is the epitome of polished but awful, in a very similar way to GalCiv2. Rock / Paper / Scissors combat is the absolute worst mechanic IMO and the fact that both of those games implement it is telling. Flipswitch posted:Would it be possible for someone to post up like a newbie guy on playing this game? I feel a bit lost when starting it up and sort of press buttons, pass a few turns then realise I've hosed myself over somehow and close the game. In addition to that forum post, there's two other places that I used to figure out how to play the game. Rorschach's walkthrough here: http://brokenforum.com/index.php?threads/one-year-later-lets-play-sword-of-the-stars-ii.3889/ And this guy's streams on Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/terrakus/videos I recommend the 5:08:05 multiplayer match called "Friday Night Multiplayer Fun", his turn starts about 16 minutes in when everyone connects so you can fast forward to that part.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 17:02 |
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DrManiac posted:If you don't mind a simple battle system I would really recommend Endless Space since it has a fantastic UI and is very user friendly (for a space 4x). It also doesn't have any game breaking bugs and is constantly adding new content. Endless Space is a piece of poo poo. It's what happens when you streamline a game to the point where there's no actual gameplay left. For someone who loved Master of Orion 2 there's really no better pick up than SotS 1 (with all the expansions) - it's simple in the parts that are usually micro-hell and deep in the place that needs to be (combat).
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 17:09 |
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Sots really seems desperate to ruin its own fun. Between the absurdly overkill random events and the rolls to see if a given tech is available it just wasn't as fun as it should have been.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 17:26 |
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dis astranagant posted:Sots really seems desperate to ruin its own fun. Between the absurdly overkill random events and the rolls to see if a given tech is available it just wasn't as fun as it should have been. Actually I love the random tech tree myself. The thrill of "Oh holy gently caress I didn't roll X, what am I going to do now?" and then trying to adapt to that new situation. I think it really adds to the game. DarkAvenger211 posted:At some point once I finally figure this game out I'll probably get sick of the AI as well (are hard AI's any different?). Yes, you can, but consider how loving bad the AI is in it's current state I wouldn't recommend doing that. Also thanks Rakthar for the helpful link, I'm adding it to the OP.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 17:40 |
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Game strung me along with addictive spaceship tinkering for 40 minutes before crashing just before I could end turn 1. gently caress this game (again)
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 17:43 |
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I have conquered the AI and it's horde of 3 cruiser "invasion" fleets and now want to try playing against for-reals people. How does one join the invite-only "A Murder of Goons" group?
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 17:55 |
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Keisari posted:Actually I love the random tech tree myself. The thrill of "Oh holy gently caress I didn't roll X, what am I going to do now?" and then trying to adapt to that new situation. I think it really adds to the game. It was one of the highlights in the first game as well. It brought me into the nice situation where i got locked into basic everything and ended with me using waves upon waves of destroyers, armed with piddly little gaussguns (which by the way, did no damage to the enemy due to his absurd armor advantage and him being hiver), and yet i still won fights simply because i used the overwhelming mass of my piddly poo poo guns to push his dreadnaughts into my planets! (I obviously lost that war but i had fun while it lasted.)
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 17:57 |
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MisterVec posted:I have conquered the AI and it's horde of 3 cruiser "invasion" fleets and now want to try playing against for-reals people. How does one join the invite-only "A Murder of Goons" group? Post a link to your Steam ID and an admin (usually me) will invite you.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 18:00 |
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Gyoru posted:Post a link to your Steam ID and an admin (usually me) will invite you. Given that I am a creature built from failure, forgive me if I do not do this correctly: My steam ID is monkyfnd. I am currently sitting in the group chat if that helps.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 18:02 |
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Keisari posted:Actually I love the random tech tree myself. The thrill of "Oh holy gently caress I didn't roll X, what am I going to do now?" and then trying to adapt to that new situation. I think it really adds to the game. I figured the AI wouldn't be the greatest. How long does your average multiplayer game take (say with 4 - 5 players)?
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 18:11 |
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DarkAvenger211 posted:I figured the AI wouldn't be the greatest. How long does your average multiplayer game take (say with 4 - 5 players)? I've only played duels so far, but the game is slower than SotS1. I'd say over a dozen hours if everyone's familiar with the mechanics. Atleast. A long time. MisterVec posted:Given that I am a creature built from failure, forgive me if I do not do this correctly: Taken care of. Arglebargle III posted:Game strung me along with addictive spaceship tinkering for 40 minutes before crashing just before I could end turn 1. gently caress this game (again) Hahahaha oh man that is harsh.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 18:16 |
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DarkAvenger211 posted:I figured the AI wouldn't be the greatest. How long does your average multiplayer game take (say with 4 - 5 players)? If it's anything like the original, we all have a set amount of time for us to concurrently run our turns (usually 4 minutes or so), which isn't so bad. The down side is waiting for the other players to finish their battles between turns. You could get 10 turns done in an hour if it was relatively quiet or as few as 3 turns if things got ridiculously busy.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 18:16 |
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Ssthalar posted:It was one of the highlights in the first game as well. Speaking of the wonders of kinetics pushing poo poo around, SotS 2 has a great update to the good old Thumper super-push drivers. Tumblers - all the push of the Thumper, but it's focusing into spinning the target, not just pushing it.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 18:17 |
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Can you still have everybody leave from a multiplayer game and then rejoin it later? That was one of the multiplayer features that I really liked from the original SotS.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 18:44 |
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So if I pre-ordered this and gave up on it a week after 'release', should I reinstall now that it's apparently playable and has what sounds like an awesome new beep boop machine faction? Unless I have to buy an expac for the Loa in which case gently caress that.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 18:48 |
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WarLocke posted:So if I pre-ordered this and gave up on it a week after 'release', should I reinstall now that it's apparently playable and has what sounds like an awesome new beep boop machine faction? Loa comes with the game. if you've got the original, it will magically become the Enhanced Edition on steam, using whatever dolphin magic their servers run on.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 18:58 |
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Sots2 irc is up and working. #sots2 at synirc Come complain with us.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 19:07 |
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Keisari posted:Sots2 irc is up and working. #sots2 at synirc No magic is required. Simply go to https://www.synirc.net and use the web chat.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 20:05 |
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:I just pretend my military is just that inept. You missed the bit where your leader is Lady Commander Shepard because one of the avatar's is that.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 22:14 |
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Are there any other good LP's out there? This one is unreadable because most of the images are broken.
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 23:07 |
So are supernovas just a giant gently caress you right now? I got a warning and it said HURRY RESEARCH THE SPECIAL PROJECT BEFORE IT EXPLODES. There is no special project
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# ? Dec 5, 2012 23:49 |
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# ? Apr 19, 2024 02:29 |
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Why hello there, SotS2, I missed- ohsweetjesus
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# ? Dec 6, 2012 01:32 |