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Kerberos's policy of NO SPOILERS ALLOWED NO SPOILERS ALLOWED on out-of-game resources is one of the dumbest things. Wikis are for people who are actively seeking out information on something and thus should be able to access that information if they want to. It's annoying and stupid to have such difficulty finding things like a concise list of Grand Menaces and roughly what they do or what random events can spawn to help you decide if you want to turn them on or off or whatever. If I want to look something up on a wiki it means I'm willing to spoil myself, you stupid shits.
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Mar 20, 2013 15:06
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Kanos posted:If I want to look something up on a wiki it means I'm willing to spoil myself, you stupid shits. How dare you attempt to ruin the perfect vision of Mecron's glorious space-dolphin 4Xtravaganza.
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Mar 21, 2013 01:29
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Is this playable yet? I looked back a couple of pages to see if it was people having fun but it seemed to be some argument about how ftl drives = jesus or something? I'm not sure. Is the fleet system still terrible garbage that is single handedly holding this game back?
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Mar 21, 2013 01:39
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Drone_Fragger posted:Is this playable yet? I looked back a couple of pages to see if it was people having fun but it seemed to be some argument about how ftl drives = jesus or something? I'm not sure. It's playable if you want to play by yourself basically. The AI still poses no challenge even at the highest setting and has highly annoying repetitive behavior, like sending waves and waves of the exact same fleet to attack a system where they're destroyed every time. Not sure if multiplayer is still crash happy, but last I checked it was. The fleet system is still there and still bad but they've added a little flexibility, though I don't recall exactly what was changed. There's still a lack of information in-game, stations are still micro heavy and pirates are still annoying until you've built even police cutters. Even then if your cutters are lost in combat then enjoy pirate attacks every turn or two until they're rebuilt. They did recently add weapon firing arc display to the ship designer and the game is getting more stable. Since I highly doubt Mecron will ever give up on his fleet/mission system crusade, that will probably never be completely removed. Given that I think it could still be a very fun 4X if they'd just get the AI to a decent level. Of course, making good AI is probably one of the hardest things to do. EDIT: Diplomacy is still horrible as well. The AI frequently makes demands of you with no explanation. Like, "Give me 400,000!" or "Give me system/planet X!". Uh, how about no? Plus it's still using the poorly designed diplomacy points system and you have very little feedback about what's going on when attempting to use diplomacy to trade or form treaties. If you were lucky, you never found the hidden buttons on the diplomacy screen that actually allowed you to start using it.  Edit 2: From the diplomacy screen:  How that UI design ever made it into ANYTHING is beyond me. The arrows are pointing to the buttons you have to click to get to the real diplomacy options for that race/faction. RandomBlue fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Mar 21, 2013 |
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Mar 21, 2013 01:51
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Did you know that a patch occurred?2.0.24917.6 posted:
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Mar 24, 2013 00:50
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No because who plays this shitheap of a game any more?
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Mar 24, 2013 03:40
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Arglebargle III posted:No because who plays this shitheap of a game any more? Apparently not even the "Kerbicron Clerics" since it took so long for this obvious bug to be noticed/reported.
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Mar 24, 2013 04:59
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Arglebargle III posted:No because who plays this shitheap of a game any more? I started to play this game finally after having purchased it way back when it came out. And it's like, there's almost something gleaming down in there, but I just can't wipe away enough crap to see if there really is a fun game in this poo poo heap. There are too many absurd design decisions that make absolutely no sense. Sure there are things like the fleet system that were maybe once cool ideas, but then there are all the things that have zero documentation and are completely obfuscated from the player. Should I worry about ecosystem? I don't know! What do all those weapon graphs mean? Who cares! Who decided prototyping was a good idea? (Mecron, obviously). How did they manage to make trade more annoying than Sots prime? Lord only knows! I seriously want to like this game, but it goes out of its way all the time to shoot itself in the foot.
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Mar 24, 2013 05:22
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The last big barrier for me is the AI. It took me nearly 300 hours but I know how to play the game. Then I realized the computer doesn't know how to play the game. That's what got me to finally throw in the towel.
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Mar 24, 2013 05:44
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Arglebargle III posted:The last big barrier for me is the AI. It took me nearly 300 hours but I know how to play the game. Then I realized the computer doesn't know how to play the game. That's what got me to finally throw in the towel. Yeah, after about 100 hours in for me, its painful how any AI, any point in the game, can pretty much be beaten by 10 armor cruisers with nothing but point defense. I tried putting them on hard, but even then at turn 150 I'll meet a new AI on the other side of the galaxy and they have expanded to 5 systems and are still using what looks like their starting fleets. Also, one thing I've never figured out is how to retrofit ships. I've upgraded the design, and it becomes whatever Mark 2, but how do, or can you, upgrade the ships themselves? Xenoborg fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Mar 24, 2013 |
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Mar 24, 2013 05:52
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Xenoborg posted:Also, one thing I've never figured out is how to retrofit ships. I've upgraded the design, and it becomes whatever Mark 2, but how do, or can you, upgrade the ships themselves? You can only do it in a system with a rank 3 naval station (or above) and you have to have prototyped a ship that ONLY upgrades the weapons. Any other changes and you can't refit to that design.
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Mar 24, 2013 07:05
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Arglebargle III posted:The last big barrier for me is the AI. It took me nearly 300 hours but I know how to play the game. Then I realized the computer doesn't know how to play the game. That's what got me to finally throw in the towel. This is the same thing that happened to me; though I'm at least half sure that part of the reason the AI has no loving clue how to play the game is because of the fleet system.
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Mar 24, 2013 07:30
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Neruz posted:This is the same thing that happened to me; though I'm at least half sure that part of the reason the AI has no loving clue how to play the game is because of the fleet system. I'm pretty sure Mecron will apologize to all of his customers, admit to every time he's been wrong and beg for forgiveness before he ever removes the fleet/mission system from SotS2. That is to say, it's never going to happen.
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Mar 24, 2013 07:36
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Just think of the hoops you need to jump through to make the fleet system work for you and it should come as no surprise that the AI can't handle it.
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Mar 24, 2013 07:41
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I've long since given up on SotS2 ever being good. I did buy a copy of The Pit despite not really liking it simply as a "thank you" to Kerberos for all the fun I had with SotS for 10 bucks(I consider SotS2 to be a financial wash for me because remembering how lovely it was saved me from buying Legends of Pegasus which turned out even worse, so I'm cash neutral on that front). I feel kind of sorry for people who work there who aren't Mecron.
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Mar 24, 2013 07:54
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You guys need to either change the thread title or just designate someone to reiterate how terrible the game is every couple of pages, because I thought about picking this up, and it took a couple of pages for the bitterness to resurface and convince me nothing has changed. You guys are slipping 
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Mar 24, 2013 21:29
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MoreLikeTen posted:You guys need to either change the thread title or just designate someone to reiterate how terrible the game is every couple of pages, because I thought about picking this up, and it took a couple of pages for the bitterness to resurface and convince me nothing has changed. You guys are slipping
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Mar 25, 2013 00:17
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Ok, this game sucks, worst thing ever, blah blah blah. Still, there's one important question that was never answered or ever bought up: Is it worse than Master of Orion 3? Bholder fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Mar 25, 2013 |
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Mar 25, 2013 00:23
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Bholder posted:Ok, this game sucks, worst thing ever, blah blah blah. It's still light years ahead of MoO3. For all the questionable interface design and lackluster AI there is still at least a game here.
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Mar 25, 2013 01:17
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I swear steam keeps uninstalling the game. It's like Steam is trying to save me from myself.
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Mar 25, 2013 02:53
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Bholder posted:Is it worse than Master of Orion 3? As we get closer to a playable game it almost gets more frustrating. The tactical combat was always pretty good, there are now just a few kinks in it like you'd expect from an indie developer. Stuff like ultra-high level carriers docking animations screwing up and preventing refueling. The fleet system is better than it was and, frankly, never was the biggest impediment to playing this game. Yes, it requires more mouse clicks than it should to do things, but very few people are genuinely confused by the system after their first few hours in-game. The interface has made some slight improvements. Lack of tooltips is still a killer because they decided to use unlabeled icons for all their buttons. Still takes too many clicks to do things, space stations are still a micro nightmare, there is still interface lag. Information that was readily available in the first game, like distances between stars or fleet ETAs, is annoyingly hard to get on the new interface. The overview screens don't work with the new multiple-body systems; everything is compartmentalized between systems and you can't compare like you used to. You can't sort colony worlds by industrial output or potential colonies by climate hazard, which were enormous time-savers in the first game. The strategic map game mechanics are probably the biggest bugbear remaining from a pure game mechanics perspective. Diplomacy doesn't work. Space stations make no sense for the amount of effort you have to put in. Research is too slow. Prototyping is annoying. Upkeep costs are ridiculous, both for station and ships, and especially for things that aren't cruisers but cost the same upkeep as one. Logistics is an even bigger headache now because it involves building space stations, after they introduced that whole thing to deal with the headache of including tankers in fleets. But the big problems is the AI. The AI will bankrupt itself, stop expanding, research slowly because it's bankrupt, make terrible diplomatic decisions, send its whole navy to certain death, and use turn 1 ship designs for the whole game. A human player barely has to poke an AI to get it to collapse. There's zero challenge, and you will actually feel sorry for the AI because it's so drat stupid it's like fighting a baby. Right now Sword of the Stars II is like solitaire. If you want to play a one-player space empire building game you're set. Might as well set the game for two players and a huge map so you don't even have to see the AI. For anything else it's broken.
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Mar 25, 2013 03:25
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My big problem with SotS2 is that it's just not fun to play because of all the micromanagement hell. With Civ4, I can and have played for many hours at a time, and even when the late game gets bogged down in doomstacks, it's still a functional game that isn't that tedious to play. I can't even get to midgame in SotS2 without getting frustrated and giving up.
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Mar 25, 2013 04:01
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Bholder posted:Ok, this game sucks, worst thing ever, blah blah blah. MoO3 ran at release and no one felt the need to hide information necessary to play the game. It even came with a manual. Yeah, I bought both at release.  And of course, there is the whole "completely wasted potential" factor of both.
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Mar 25, 2013 05:39
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Sinister_Beekeeper posted:MoO3 ran at release and no one felt the need to hide information necessary to play the game. It even came with a manual. MoO3 was probably the most disappointed I have ever been in a game purchase. At least with SotS2 you had all of 1 as an example of what launch would be like. I waited until SotS2 was on sale for $5, and however bad it was I got my money's worth. I'll never get the $60 that MoO2 made me think three would be worth.
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Mar 25, 2013 06:25
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Arglebargle III posted:The overview screens don't work with the new multiple-body systems; everything is compartmentalized between systems and you can't compare like you used to. You can't sort colony worlds by industrial output or potential colonies by climate hazard, which were enormous time-savers in the first game. You can, but it's not going to show _all_ the worlds; you have to step through the systems and take note of what you're looking for because the overviews (which were added late) don't filter, they just sort. It was my go-to whinge after firing arcs, because SotS is supposed to abstract some of this stuff away so that you can concentrate on the fun stuff. Also I'm utterly peeved that the 'Meteors!' random event appears to be geared towards simply loving a colony completely. Rather than have it so that the meteors traverse through the system in a single direction and hit planets _randomly_ (much as happens in real life), they're all converging on one of your colonies from all directions. It's such bullshit and doesn't add anything other than keeping a colony fleet on hot standby. 'Fight' map with two combatants and my Tarka opponent keeps suing for peace. <sigh> Bholder posted:Is it worse than Master of Orion 3? Luckily there are other recent releases that can snatch that crown from the malformed temples of this game; in this case Kerberos is saved by edging out the competition on mediocrity.
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Mar 25, 2013 15:42
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Bholder posted:Ok, this game sucks, worst thing ever, blah blah blah. Comparing Current State, modded and patched MoO3 with Current State, modded and patched SotS 2 (well, patched - they're so anti-modding it's not even funny) you come out about even. Strawberry Patch MoO3 is a lot of fun, especially in those areas SotS 2 fails - AI, consistency of mechanics and tech progression speed. Of course, SotS 2 was never as bad as release state MoO3.
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Mar 26, 2013 01:54
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People talk alot about MoO2 when it comes to 4xs. I have a question though, is Moo2 worth actually playing if I've never played it before, or is it a relic surviving on nostalgia of how fun it was at the time, but isn't really all that great in 2013.
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Mar 26, 2013 02:00
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maev posted:People talk alot about MoO2 when it comes to 4xs. I have a question though, is Moo2 worth actually playing if I've never played it before, or is it a relic surviving on nostalgia of how fun it was at the time, but isn't really all that great in 2013. It still holds up pretty well, actually - definite "one more turn" sense to it, along with a number of mechanics that were never really taken up afterwards - the research system is still fairly unique as far as I can recall, and very few games make trading food between nations a priority, which in MoO2 leads to things like designated farm worlds supplying designated forge worlds or research worlds and the like very organically. The way fleet movement relies on having outposts in strategic locations, and how fleet sizes have a soft cap based on starbases also doesn't appear to have been replicated recently. Diplomacy doesn't really compare unfavorably to more modern games, as well, and even has a few quirks of its own - trade/research agreements costing money before they ramp up into full effectiveness, for instance. Combat relies on highly varied ship designs allowing for any number of possible battle tactics, though I admit I've never been very good at fine-tuning those designs - you seem to need either a certain level of experience or number-crunching to work out the most effective designs. Overall a very solid game that does a lot of things later games have eschewed but maybe shouldn't have. And I say this as somebody who first picked up MoO2 via GOG, mark you, not someone who played it when it came out.
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Mar 26, 2013 02:35
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Thanks, turns out it was on sale for the ripe British price of £1.34! Thanks GoG.
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Mar 26, 2013 02:49
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One advice: Turn off Antaren attacks. They are dicks.
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Mar 26, 2013 02:53
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If you wind up playing MoO2 long enough, one of the main challenges is capping their stuff to use back on them (or other people). That said, they will wreck your poo poo until you get good.
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Mar 26, 2013 03:25
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maev posted:People talk alot about MoO2 when it comes to 4xs. I have a question though, is Moo2 worth actually playing if I've never played it before, or is it a relic surviving on nostalgia of how fun it was at the time, but isn't really all that great in 2013. You will find it a most rewarding experience. Unless you hate that genre of game, which would make your question kind of odd. 
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Mar 26, 2013 03:27
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I modded Antaran guns to be competitive with regular late game ones. Regular Antarans are a cakewalk most of the game, these fuckers are just wrong. Their star fortress has something like 200 heavy death rays, among other things.
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Mar 26, 2013 03:41
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Q: Is SotS 2 worth buying? A: Current SotS 2 value -2 USD: If you can find some one who will pay you 2 or more dollars to own this game. Take the deal other wise avoid. Check back in 2 - 6 months for a new SotS2 value assessment.
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Mar 26, 2013 04:21
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Hagop posted:Q: Is SotS 2 worth buying? Note this answer says nothing about actually playing the game.
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Mar 26, 2013 04:23
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Hagop posted:A: Current SotS 2 value -2 USD: Overly harsh, although I do feel sometimes that 200 hours has given me a weird Stockholm perspective on things. It's easily worth $8 at the moment, and could rise to $12 with a addition of some AI, maybe even $25 with more modding capabilities, but that does rely on someone understanding that some longevity might be an *awesome* resume idea right now. Meteor random events are still utter bullshit, though.
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Mar 26, 2013 04:27
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I have yet to make it more than 10 turns into a game. I always just get bored fighting the UI and deciding to go play Civ V or if I really want space booting up Gal Civ 2.
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Mar 26, 2013 04:36
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Sinister_Beekeeper posted:You will find it a most rewarding experience. Unless you hate that genre of game, which would make your question kind of odd. I've owned MoO2 for awhile, and while I've booted it up a few times in the 2 or so years that I've had it, I don't know that I've ever really understood what I was doing. Is there a really good beginners guide?
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Mar 26, 2013 04:39
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Soylent Pudding posted:I have yet to make it more than 10 turns into a game. I always just get bored fighting the UI and deciding to go play Civ V or if I really want space booting up Gal Civ 2. I've played more Gal Civ 2 since SotS 2 came out than in the preceding three years. That's a very sad statement.
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Mar 26, 2013 04:53
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Medoken posted:I've owned MoO2 for awhile, and while I've booted it up a few times in the 2 or so years that I've had it, I don't know that I've ever really understood what I was doing. Is there a really good beginners guide? I recommend making a creative race and loving around for a bit figuring out the tech tree. I'm partial to taking subterranean and aquatic along with creative, but it's a bit of a slow burner. You almost always want to take repulsive, ground combat penalty and ship defense penalty to max out race points, only changing that if you have something specific in mind. Assuming a prewarp start, most every game begins with a mad rush for research labs on the second tier of computers. It is a major boost to your research for only 200 RP invested. From there you'll want to get your basic construction, power and chemistry techs so you can build your first ships. The second tier of construction has Automated Factories, which is nearly as big of a benefit as research labs, only put toward building things. Early combat tends to be dominated by ships with nuclear missiles, preferably with enough chemistry research to enable the MIRV mod. Take 2 ammo per launcher, fire your shots and run for a corner til they hit. Beam weapons take a lot more tech to actually make useful, since you'll need battle scanners from fairly high up the physics tree in order to hit anything, however once you get battle scanners you can grab mass drivers from the fields tree and rush up to class 3 shields, giving you both powerful weapons that don't run out and decent defenses for midgame encounters. dis astranagant fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Mar 26, 2013 |
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Mar 26, 2013 05:40
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