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DatonKallandor
Aug 21, 2009

"I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."
Ortgay is back?! He was the most fun menace. I hope he still has his incredibly corny speech from SotS 1.

If it's the same menace it's an Engram from a galaxy spanning united civlization type thing that patrols several younger galaxies like a cop. It punishes fleet buildup and aggression, but won't touch you if you're peaceful.

DatonKallandor fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Dec 11, 2012

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Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

DatonKallandor posted:

Ortgay is back?! He was the most fun menace. I hope he still has his incredibly corny speech from SotS 1.

If it's the same menace it's an Engram from a galaxy spanning united civlization type thing that patrols several younger galaxies like a cop. It punishes fleet buildup and aggression, but won't touch you if you're peaceful.

A quick check of the saved game reveals it is called an 'Uuatu Observer'. I have no clue what its motives are but when I decided to poke it with my most powerful fleet it responded by one shotting one of my Leviathans. I promptly got the gently caress out of dodge.

Moridin920
Nov 15, 2007

by FactsAreUseless
I had a couple systems with stations in the planet. I just left them and took over his other systems. It sucks but 'war is broken' is an overstatement unless you're just ridiculously unlucky and every system the guy has is like that.

It's nice being Hiver with the fleet system, I just have 3 big gently caress off fleets in my homeworld that can go anywhere in my empire and they'll get there in time for combat when I hit end turn.

It would be nice if it could not crash so much or take forever getting back to the main star map screen though. I can't fit any of the fun modules like Karnak onto my leviathans either which sucks. At least they realize it crashes like a mofo because it autosaves twice per turn from what I can tell.

Moridin920 fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Dec 11, 2012

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Hmm yeah one station making a system unconquerable doesn't really count as "war is broken" I guess since you almost never have to build stations in this game. Really it's not a big issue, I guess I can just work around it. Kerberos has really earned my sympathy and if I want to play their game I guess I should just soldier past the crippling bugs (which I now realize are not crippling thanks to your helpful comment) until they get around to fixing them. With their customer service record I'm sure they'll rush out an update by Monday.

:frogout:

Superstring
Jul 22, 2007

I thought I was going insane for a second.

Neruz posted:

A quick check of the saved game reveals it is called an 'Uuatu Observer'. I have no clue what its motives are but when I decided to poke it with my most powerful fleet it responded by one shotting one of my Leviathans. I promptly got the gently caress out of dodge.

Uuaatu Observer is Uatu the Watcher: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uatu

I think all the Grand Menaces are cribbed from some other bit of pop culture.

Deadmeat5150
Nov 21, 2005

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN
Well I just got the first case of a station spawning inside a planet. drat.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Superstring posted:

Uuaatu Observer is Uatu the Watcher: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uatu

I think all the Grand Menaces are cribbed from some other bit of pop culture.

Wikipedia posted:

As a member of the race of Watchers, Uatu possesses vast psionic abilities which have been further developed through training. These abilities include flight, telepathy, energy-manipulation powers, power-negating force-field projection, illusion casting, the ability to psionically alter his appearance at will, and highly advanced cosmic senses allowing him to be aware of countless events of Earth. His superhumanly complex intelligence enables him to monitor activities throughout Earth's solar system simultaneously. Uatu can convert his body into an unknown form of energy while still retaining his sentience for travel through hyperspace, and then return to his physical form. Bolstered by treatment with "delta-rays", Uatu possesses virtual immortality, although he can die by losing the will to live. He has shown he is able to transport himself and others though time, and in one issue he claims he can send someone to Limbo.

Watchers can augment their strength with cosmic psionic energy if they choose to; however, they tend to minimize their physical activities. The 1985 edition of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe compared Uatu's scale of power to that of Galactus, the Stranger, Odin, and Zeus.

Uatu received a highly extensive education in his youth on his home world. He has devoted himself to the study of Earth's solar system and its sentient beings for millions of years. His home on the Blue Area of the Moon contains an enormous array of weaponry, artifacts, and technology created by various alien races from throughout the universe.

In recent years, Uatu has undertaken the study of the Earths of alternate realities. With permission from the Timekeepers, he possesses a portal through which he can observe alternate realities. He has acquired extraordinary knowledge of the history of both the sentient beings on "mainstream" Earth and the numerous alternate Earths.

So I'm not going anywhere near that thing ever again.

Nuclearmonkee
Jun 10, 2009


Moridin920 posted:

It's nice being Hiver with the fleet system, I just have 3 big gently caress off fleets in my homeworld that can go anywhere in my empire and they'll get there in time for combat when I hit end turn.

Works well against AI, but against players the fleet system if a loving nightmare for hivers. If they snipe your gate, doesn't matter if you win or lose, once the mission ends you either have to 1) immediately deploy a gate that you had saved in system before the defenders patrol mission ends, or 2) watch all of your big fuckoff fleets go slowboating back leaving you defenseless.

Also noticed that if you board and capture a ship heavy on PD, it will proceed to burn through battle riders like no tomorrow. Normally PD doesn't target riders but apparently boarded ships just shoot whatever and it's EXTREMELY effective. Was a bit confused as to what was happening at first with the riders blowing up about 2 per second due to focused laser PD fire.

Deadmeat5150
Nov 21, 2005

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN

Nuclearmonkee posted:

Works well against AI, but against players the fleet system if a loving nightmare for hivers. If they snipe your gate, doesn't matter if you win or lose, once the mission ends you either have to 1) immediately deploy a gate that you had saved in system before the defenders patrol mission ends, or 2) watch all of your big fuckoff fleets go slowboating back leaving you defenseless.

Also noticed that if you board and capture a ship heavy on PD, it will proceed to burn through battle riders like no tomorrow. Normally PD doesn't target riders but apparently boarded ships just shoot whatever and it's EXTREMELY effective. Was a bit confused as to what was happening at first with the riders blowing up about 2 per second due to focused laser PD fire.

Hiver gate bases are a goddamn nightmare to destroy.

Happy Underpants
Jul 23, 2007

DatonKallandor posted:

That's a new (grand?) menace. It's an ancient O'neill cylinder that can be used to super-terraform worlds. It's being pursued by all the Proteans though.

With SotS incorporating encounters and menaces into more fleshed out parts of the main game I hope this means later on we get leviathan sized mega colony ships. Dropping an entire ecosystem on to a prohibitive planet would be badass.

Do the developers still try to eliminate online spoilers? Not being able to look up effective defenses against grand menaces that were already kicking my rear end in single player games made me sad.

Thyrork
Apr 21, 2010

"COME PLAY MECHS M'LANCER."

Or at least use Retrograde Mini's to make cool mechs and fantasy stuff.

:awesomelon:
Slippery Tilde

I mean this with every fiber of my being; GOD loving DAMNIT! :argh:

This is why i wanted to love this game, having... THAT as a thing is just loving incredible. The Loa also sound just awesome thematically. The team behind SOTS has talent somewhere, it just feels saddled with some kind of god awful management that cant organise a pissup in a brewery, or they have serious issues staying focused for more then five minutes and rush around spewing said talent everywhere with no solid structure.

The creepy dolphin and other creepy stuff aside, there are some awesome ideas here that really make me want to crack open the game, but i'd mostly be playing for single player so i could slowly digest the weirdness.

:sigh: I'm sad now, i need a space game that's not awful to cheer me up, one that i can invoke/be cosmic horrors would be a plus.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Shadowmorn posted:

I mean this with every fiber of my being; GOD loving DAMNIT! :argh:

It's overpowered as gently caress; having a Suul'Ka at turn 70 when most other people are only just starting to think about Dreadnaughts is insane (keep in mind that Suul'Ka are basically Leviathan+'s).

Thyrork
Apr 21, 2010

"COME PLAY MECHS M'LANCER."

Or at least use Retrograde Mini's to make cool mechs and fantasy stuff.

:awesomelon:
Slippery Tilde

Neruz posted:

It's overpowered as gently caress; having a Suul'Ka at turn 70 when most other people are only just starting to think about Dreadnaughts is insane (keep in mind that Suul'Ka are basically Leviathan+'s).

Its not about the power, its about the feeling. Invoking your literal stargod to do untold destruction upon your foes is awesome. The fact that it comes with a heap of hosed up backstory to support it just spices the deal a delicious flavour of crazy.

I mean, more of this kind of thing is the psionics in space too, thats awesome, the idea of "magic" powers on a ship to ship scale is really cool to me. Sins of a Solar Empire had that with the Advent faction and it was a cool thematic element that i want more of.

Thyrork fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Dec 11, 2012

Moridin920
Nov 15, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

Arglebargle III posted:

Hmm yeah one station making a system unconquerable doesn't really count as "war is broken" I guess since you almost never have to build stations in this game. Really it's not a big issue, I guess I can just work around it. Kerberos has really earned my sympathy and if I want to play their game I guess I should just soldier past the crippling bugs (which I now realize are not crippling thanks to your helpful comment) until they get around to fixing them. With their customer service record I'm sure they'll rush out an update by Monday.

:frogout:

Yeah because it definitely happens to every single system. I'm on turn 350 and I just have 5 systems because I just can't expand for the life of me because everywhere I go I just can't kill those dumb stations!

Calm down. All I said was 'war is broken' is an overstatement.

The Sharmat
Sep 5, 2011

by Lowtax

Happy Underpants posted:

Do the developers still try to eliminate online spoilers? Not being able to look up effective defenses against grand menaces that were already kicking my rear end in single player games made me sad.

Spoilers? Really? For a 4x game? What the hell is their wiki for then? Never had this issue with SOTS 1.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness
Yes they do; any discussion of SotS2 lore and lategame is still considered spoilers in the Kerberos forums and the wiki remains woefully underinformed. In addition what little information there is on the Wiki is poorly formatted to say the least and outright incorrect in at least one instance.

Joe_Richter
Oct 8, 2005

Laser Lenin approves of hobo murder simulators.

Moridin920 posted:

Yeah because it definitely happens to every single system. I'm on turn 350 and I just have 5 systems because I just can't expand for the life of me because everywhere I go I just can't kill those dumb stations!

Calm down. All I said was 'war is broken' is an overstatement.

In my game at least, the Tarkas and Liir are hellbent on building a naval station in every goddamned system they can reach,which puts a crimp in the standard expand into captured territory strategy that's needed to expand your fleet ranges.

DatonKallandor
Aug 21, 2009

"I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."
The station in planets bug is fixed again now.

Loa have some interesting Drone quirks - their standard drones are pretty awesome (1 medium mount like Zuul), but their advanced drones are kind of poo poo because the extra small isn't a turret. The Loa Heavy Assault Shuttles are insane though - they get 2 small turrets, which means Shuttle Cruisers can act as point defense by having 6 double-PD shuttles orbit them.

Moridin920
Nov 15, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

The Sharmat posted:

Spoilers? Really? For a 4x game? What the hell is their wiki for then? Never had this issue with SOTS 1.

Their wiki is for pissing you off when you look something up and it just has the vague tooltip copy-pasted there.

Demiurge4
Aug 10, 2011

DatonKallandor posted:

The station in planets bug is fixed again now.

Loa have some interesting Drone quirks - their standard drones are pretty awesome (1 medium mount like Zuul), but their advanced drones are kind of poo poo because the extra small isn't a turret. The Loa Heavy Assault Shuttles are insane though - they get 2 small turrets, which means Shuttle Cruisers can act as point defense by having 6 double-PD shuttles orbit them.

I disagree, Loa spinal mount drones have two beam mounts. Which is loving ridiculous.

Joe_Richter
Oct 8, 2005

Laser Lenin approves of hobo murder simulators.

Demiurge4 posted:

I disagree, Loa spinal mount drones have two beam mounts. Which is loving ridiculous.

Wait, what?

So, does losing drones (or battle riders, assault shuttles or boarding pods) cost Loa any space Legos? I assumed drones and battle riders at least would so smeared clear of them as I'm always hurting for more Legos.

Demiurge4
Aug 10, 2011

Joe_Richter posted:

Wait, what?

So, does losing drones (or battle riders, assault shuttles or boarding pods) cost Loa any space Legos? I assumed drones and battle riders at least would so smeared clear of them as I'm always hurting for more Legos.

They're totally ridiculous, and really punish the enemy for not having PD. It's incredibly worthwhile getting the spinal tech as loa just for the drones. I'm not sure about the cube costs, but I'm almost convinced there's no cost because Kerberos.

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Wait, what? Spinal mount drones?!

I think I may have to research advanced drone frames after all.

Nuclearmonkee
Jun 10, 2009


Deadmeat5150 posted:

Hiver gate bases are a goddamn nightmare to destroy.

There are a variety of ways to kill it very quickly regardless. Massed torpedoes or pods being my favorite.

It would also appear that stations have decided to once again orbit their systems. Guess I'll actually play some more.

TehSaurus
Jun 12, 2006

Nuclearmonkee posted:

There are a variety of ways to kill it very quickly regardless. Massed torpedoes or pods being my favorite.

It would also appear that stations have decided to once again orbit their systems. Guess I'll actually play some more.

The station fix isn't even listed in their update thread. What the gently caress guys.

DatonKallandor
Aug 21, 2009

"I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."

Demiurge4 posted:

I disagree, Loa spinal mount drones have two beam mounts. Which is loving ridiculous.

Are you sure you mean Drones? Drones are the small fighter looking things. Battleriders are the Destroyer sized Riders that come in 2-sections including spinal and torpedo mission sections. (Battlecruisers are the Cruiser sized Riders, and Battleships are the Dreadnaught sized Riders)

Keisari
May 24, 2011

TehSaurus posted:

The station fix isn't even listed in their update thread. What the gently caress guys.

Well I was wondering if they had started hiding their fixes so we wouldn't make fun of them so much. Kerberos, you may deliver us a lovely game and be obnoxious about it, but goddamn if you take away our patch list! :argh:

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Is there any way to deal with the extremely lumpy way they implemented buy-as-you-go payment? It's nice I guess to be able to queue things without paying for them immediately, but it leads to my expenses jumping around wildly. I assume this is "the player's fault" technically like many of the issues with this game, but how do you guys work through it?

It would be nice if they simply took the average build payment per turn and smoothed things out the way a real economy would (via loans and repayments) but of course real life isn't realistic enough for Kerberos. If they did that then it would be really easy to see whether you were buying more than you could afford per turn. But making the player do it in their head or on paper or check back to the budget screen every time they want to queue up a new construction fleet is certainly a solution I guess.

Hagop
May 14, 2012

First one out of the Ranger gets a prize!

nessin posted:

It's a bug introduced with the hotfix on Friday.

Kerberos, a leading pioneer in hotbreaking.

Keisari
May 24, 2011

Arglebargle III posted:

Is there any way to deal with the extremely lumpy way they implemented buy-as-you-go payment? It's nice I guess to be able to queue things without paying for them immediately, but it leads to my expenses jumping around wildly. I assume this is "the player's fault" technically like many of the issues with this game, but how do you guys work through it?

It would be nice if they simply took the average build payment per turn and smoothed things out the way a real economy would (via loans and repayments) but of course real life isn't realistic enough for Kerberos. If they did that then it would be really easy to see whether you were buying more than you could afford per turn. But making the player do it in their head or on paper or check back to the budget screen every time they want to queue up a new construction fleet is certainly a solution I guess.

I just do a very rough estimate on my head and just build what I want, and every once in a while I check my empire screen before submitting the turn to check if I'd go negative. If I would, I cut down research and stimulus spending for a while so I don't go too badly in debt. Keeping about a million as a buffer also helps, and if you're not Loa it atleast allegedly gives you a tiny interest so it's not sitting completely useless. Also I recall civilians really liking your responsible financial policy of having a ton of money in the bank.

AlanFrost
Nov 16, 2012

Keisari posted:

Well I was wondering if they had started hiding their fixes so we wouldn't make fun of them so much. Kerberos, you may deliver us a lovely game and be obnoxious about it, but goddamn if you take away our patch list! :argh:

The "Update Superlist" isn't always up-to-the minute. Week. Whatever.

Here:

(2.0.24494.3)
Critical fixes:
- Fixed stations spawning inside planets
- Fixed possess psionic causing CTD
- Fixed CTD dragging Loa cubes in fleet manager

Other fixes:
- Fixed assault shuttle cues not playing
- Fixed Proliferate colony factions not starting with max pop growth
- Stimulus freighters will now always use the latest freighter design
- Fixed Loa/Zuul AI colonizing non-terrestrial planets
- Fixed Loa command ships not having their battleriders built

Other changes and additions:
- Added input box to Loa cube transfer dialog

StringOfLetters
Apr 2, 2007
What?
It's worth re-posting some patch notes from February,

1.0.22773.1
------
+ Fixed an issue that could cause stations under construction to appear inside planets.

Deadmeat5150
Nov 21, 2005

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN
Things that crash the game again:
    Dread psionic powers
    Dread psion beam thingy module
    Dread cyberbrain module
    Dread firing Jaeger missiles
    Dread using sideways mounted torpedo slot
    Dread using sideways mounted heavy beam slot
    Dread with scout battlerider attached

Can't use dreads any more! yay!

DarkAvenger211
Jun 29, 2011

Damnit Steve, you know I'm a sucker for Back to the Future references.
So I've been trying to invade a planet for a looong time now. I'm attacking it with multple fleets in one turn. Do I need a Colonization vessel to capture a planet? Not to mention the planet barely takes any damage from my assault and only seems to go back up to full on the next attack.

Not only that but when I just run through the auto resolve, My ships don't fire any missiles the whole time. This makes it so I have to manually fight every battle where I watch my ships shoot a planet for 5 minutes and get nowhere.

Any suggestions here?

Hagop
May 14, 2012

First one out of the Ranger gets a prize!

DarkAvenger211 posted:

So I've been trying to invade a planet for a looong time now. I'm attacking it with multple fleets in one turn. Do I need a Colonization vessel to capture a planet? Not to mention the planet barely takes any damage from my assault and only seems to go back up to full on the next attack.

Not only that but when I just run through the auto resolve, My ships don't fire any missiles the whole time. This makes it so I have to manually fight every battle where I watch my ships shoot a planet for 5 minutes and get nowhere.

Any suggestions here?

Assault shuttles! Few things kill a colony faster than assault shuttles, I seem to remember that 10 of them do about 200 bazillion pop damage a run.

Talkie Toaster
Jan 23, 2006
May contain carcinogens
What weapons are you using? In SotS1 energy weapons (plasma/fusion cannons in particular) were terrible at killing planets and I imagine that's carried over. Mass drivers are certainly still effective, though.

DatonKallandor
Aug 21, 2009

"I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."

DarkAvenger211 posted:

So I've been trying to invade a planet for a looong time now. I'm attacking it with multple fleets in one turn. Do I need a Colonization vessel to capture a planet? Not to mention the planet barely takes any damage from my assault and only seems to go back up to full on the next attack.

Not only that but when I just run through the auto resolve, My ships don't fire any missiles the whole time. This makes it so I have to manually fight every battle where I watch my ships shoot a planet for 5 minutes and get nowhere.

Any suggestions here?

You want to hit the planet with Assault Shuttles - 4 Cruisers worth will kill most planets in one run, and if you conquer the system before you bring in the shuttle fleet and start right in front of the planet you can easily get 3 or more attack runs in.

I recommend Strafe sections filled with mass drivers for those cruisers too, just in case you need some more planet killing power.

DarkAvenger211
Jun 29, 2011

Damnit Steve, you know I'm a sucker for Back to the Future references.
I'll try that next. I was mostly using Missiles. But like I said they don't launch in auto resolve for some reason. Do shuttles launch in auto resolve?

nessin
Feb 7, 2010

DarkAvenger211 posted:

So I've been trying to invade a planet for a looong time now. I'm attacking it with multple fleets in one turn. Do I need a Colonization vessel to capture a planet? Not to mention the planet barely takes any damage from my assault and only seems to go back up to full on the next attack.

Not only that but when I just run through the auto resolve, My ships don't fire any missiles the whole time. This makes it so I have to manually fight every battle where I watch my ships shoot a planet for 5 minutes and get nowhere.

Any suggestions here?

Aside from the aforementioned assault shuttles, some weapons do almost nothing in planetary damage. Note that even those that do a lot, still are nothing compared to Assault Shuttles or siege drivers.

Also you can't really capture a planet unless you've invested heavily into the diplomatic tech tree for the ability, which is mostly a waste of time (this game really has far too many techs given the time it takes to research them and the feasibility process). Instead you just blow them up and re-settle them yourself.

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DatonKallandor
Aug 21, 2009

"I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."
You can also grab some Plagues from the Biology tree and Bio-War the planet to death - that way you get to keep the infrastructure and reuse it when you colonise again.

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