Practical question: is it possible to give custom names to your ships? I find way more enjoyment than I should out of naming them. My flagship must be named Dauntless.
Not at this time but you can create unique layouts and name them whatever you like. So if the Dauntless is a unique ship that is unlike any other ship that you have, that should fit right in.
Because I will totally name all my capital ships if I have that option
No, you can't name ships, but you can make unique blueprints which each have a different name as a bit of a work around. Who wants a bunch of clones with different names anyway?
I appreciate the ability to distinguish units from one another and wouldn't mind a system to award units with medals and various honors for acts of bravery
Oh hello there, thread with sexy words in the title.
Random tech trees make me excited. I liked how Sword of the Stars did it - the actual tech trees were always static, but each race started with different technologies and had a percentage chance to start with certain others.
Each race then had a certain percentage to discover further technologies - the Morrigi focuses on beam weapons and fighter drones, so they have a much higher chance to discover those techs than the Hivers, who focus on missiles and heavy armor.
You could still go missiles as Morrigi, you were just less likely to be able to get the top tier missile technology.
Don't listen to him; though he can speak Russian, he does a terribly cliche characterization.
Isn't that what the people need? I think they need more "Battle cruiser operational."
This is exactly what I need. Basically, the more Henry J. Gloval you can be, the better.
So moving the thread forward with an additional question, modding has been mentioned repeatedly. What sort of tools will be required to modify the game? I'm assuming the creation of art assets will be another discussion entirely, but say I want to make a new ship design. Am I doing that within the game itself using a ship builder utility (for example, Spore), or will I need to first design my ship and then import it in to the game using some other application?
[edit] I read the OP again and realized this question has mostly been answered already. However any light you can (or will) shed on this would be nice.
Most 4x do ship design inside the game, at least from a functional standpoint. (i.e. you control the stats, changing the LOOKS is done outside the game). I imagine this is similar.
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FirgofBlind Mind Studios - Co-lead DeveloperRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
Ship designing is done in game with the aid of the ship layout editor (as you can see in its unfinished state here:)
Everything else can be modified in Notepad; excluding ship models and particle effects (We recommend Notepad++)
Particle Effects are created in-game through the Particle System editor. It's a little dev-ish at the moment and needs some attention, but it and the Model Configurator should be big helps in getting custom models, particle effects, and so forth into the game.
Firgof on
Co-Lead Developer, Blind Mind Studios Click here to visit our thread on Penny-Arcade
Oh wow, this thread went places, and good ones if the revelation that you can apparently blow up the entire galaxy is any indicator.
Reading through this thread and some of the stuff that's been brought up, I've got a few more questions (sorry if there're any repeats):
A) What system are you using for weapon/subsystem layout and allocation? I know ships have different sections ala Sword of the Stars, but does each section have a fixed number of slots for guns and stuff ala SotS, Homeworld, Sins of a Solar Empire that just scales up in size and power and cost and whatnot? Or are you using more of the style from Master of Orion and Space Empires where you can cram as much stuff into a ship as the basic structure can support, and the game just sorta' fudges weapon directions based on model heading and such?
IIRC you said there's only about 23 core technologies, but are there any modifications you can add to weapons and subsystems and ships as a whole? You've already said you can essentially make a ship out of a single gun, but can you take a gun and, say, give it increased firing rates, or point-defense capabilities, or simply make it bigger and heavier and nastier? Can I, for example, have a gunship with Robotech lasers that all curve out from their point of origin before homing in on their target, or with a big ol' Macross Cannon that completily obliterates everything in its path? Can you roll together different modifications for weapons and particular subsystems to make a modern-day Orion Sphere?
EDIT:
C) Is it possible to achieve a technological singularity? If my Empire becomes large enough (and I play with the right settings...) would it be possible to achieve a state of ever-accelerating research by recursively improving techs related to research inbetween other stuff?
So in that screen I'm seeing you designing a ship by picking parts from the various categories, each of which presumably adds stats as indicated on the right, and has to fit within the sphere the ship will occupy. And there's a size limiter in place as dictated by the scale of the ship? Presumably at some point you choose which in-game model the ship will use?
IronKnuckle's Ghost on
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FirgofBlind Mind Studios - Co-lead DeveloperRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
A) MoO/SoaSE =like.
Coolant Systems increase firing rate or beam duration, Rack Mounts duplicate the weapon they're attached to a number of times at the scale they're at. Et cetera.
It would be cool to tool together 'packages' of subsystems and subsystem modifiers and just toss the glob onto your ships for ease of construction.
So in that screen I'm seeing you designing a ship by picking parts from the various categories, each of which presumably adds stats as indicated on the right, and has to fit within the sphere the ship will occupy. And there's a size limiter in place as dictated by the scale of the ship? Presumably at some point you choose which in-game model the ship will use?
Yep, yep, and yep; there's some overlap in what those subsystems are adding to and subtracting from in stats of course. The size limiter is given by the kind of hull that you're using for your ship, not the size. (Everything scales up alongside the scale of the ship). At the moment what model the ship gets is decided from how the ship is laid out (whether it has huge ship bays and etc. will make it into a transport; if it has weapons it's an armed transport for instance) but we want to add a force override.
For those ships that you want to be larger than a whole solar system but use the model of the Fighter just for kicks.
Firgof on
Co-Lead Developer, Blind Mind Studios Click here to visit our thread on Penny-Arcade
So I just pre-ordered the game. Looking forward to playing it
Mild Confusion on
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
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FirgofBlind Mind Studios - Co-lead DeveloperRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
Thanks, Mild Confusion; hope it's everything you wanted and more. Please do stick around and complain at us post-release if there's stuff that you'd like in the game that's missing.
Firgof on
Co-Lead Developer, Blind Mind Studios Click here to visit our thread on Penny-Arcade
I also pre-ordered to support the developers, though I don't anticipate having any time to play it soon given all the other games I'm already waiting for. A bumper crop of strategy coming out soon, between Victoria 2, Elemental, Civ V and now this.
Well, one more than previously as i've just pre-ordered it as well.
Rather hoping i can but giant chainsaws on my planets before i ram things with them, but i'm willing to wait on both because of galaxy sized ships.
Now theres an idea. A planet with a belt of mountains that go all around the equator that spin. Raar.
Slightly reminds me of something from pczone once where they suggested the death star would be slightly scarier as a cube since then as well as the vast legions of laser guns / planet buster, it could also give you a nasty glancing cut... (bonus points for remembering the other shape variants!)
As awesome as the soundtrack may be...If I feel like switching things up a little and blowing up solar systems to the tune of the Gurren Lagann soundtrack or vomit forth locust-like hordes of fighters to a Macross tune... could I swap in my own .mp3's?
So reading through the thread my interest is piqued (if only for the fact that you can destroy a solar system by making its star go nova), but I think I'll hold off on the pre-order until a little later and maybe some other stores are added.
Never used gamersgate, so I can't comment on it either way, but like others have said, I'd prefer to keep my games on as few services as possible. And I've already got SOASE and GalCiv 2 on Impulse, so one more 4x game would be fitting there. :P
I've heard that the game doesn't have gravity. This includes gravity between planets and other planets or stars? I mean, it'd be awesome to just start playing around with the delicate balance of gravity in the universe... just tow a second star into the enemy's star system and watch the planets ending up being shot out of the star system due to the new star affecting their orbit.
Have an enemy you really don't like? shoot his planet into the cold infinite space Mwahahaha :P Or maybe just into the sun. Much faster than just TOWING it into the sun.
Also, building planet-sized ships then ramming them onto a planet to change it's orbit would also be nice... Would give a whole new meaning to engines on planets, since it could be a DEFENSIVE weapon (what? you're ramming my capital planet off it's orbit? *Commence Orbital Correction*)
Also... We urgently need black holes and black hole generation techs... My dream in space strategy games is to make a black hole right next to the enemy's capital planet just to piss them off... It'd be the most awesome thing ever.
Send in a huuuuge defensive fleet and a single "Black Hole Creation Ship" and just camp near the enemy's planet defending the black hole creation ship until we finally have created the black hole, sacrificing the whole defensive fleet but really pissing off the other player
Even better when done during a LAN, since you can really see their reaction to that hehe
Also, stars going Nova should create a black hole too :P
Never used gamersgate, so I can't comment on it either way, but like others have said, I'd prefer to keep my games on as few services as possible. And I've already got SOASE and GalCiv 2 on Impulse, so one more 4x game would be fitting there. :P
Gamersgate is cool, if a bit odd (you get an exe which then downloads the rest. You can then (although it attempts to hide this) get your mitts on the full installer for offline installs ala gog.
Personally I fall into the spreading my eggs category (steam,gamersgate,d2d,impulse,gog* and I'm sure there was another one, oh well), but I can see the appeal in having it centralised
So I have a question: Is this game fun? I mean it's obviously very technically impressive and has lots of the goodies we like from other space sims, but how is it usability wise? With it being real time I'm a little worried about being overwhelmed. Can I give ships orders when the game is paused and have them execute when I unpause? Can I do things like design ships or set up research and build queues while paused?
How is the AI? Would it be reasonable for me to just send a fleet into a lightly defended enemy system and let them kill it on their own, or do I need to go in and pick individual targets?
I think I might just grab this. I certainly don't need a new game (especially with Civ around the corner), but I have a soft spot for indie developers. Doubly so for those who take the time to [strike]advertise to[/strike] discuss with their fanbase/customers/whatever.
RBach on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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FirgofBlind Mind Studios - Co-lead DeveloperRegistered Userregular
edited August 2010
I realise this is a spectacularly flamebait question to ask, and I'm sorry for that, but what's the DRM going to be like?
There is no DRM whatsoever.
By the way, do you know how many you've got now?
64 in the last 24 hours, 242 total.
As awesome as the soundtrack may be...If I feel like switching things up a little and blowing up solar systems to the tune of the Gurren Lagann soundtrack or vomit forth locust-like hordes of fighters to a Macross tune... could I swap in my own .mp3's?
Yep. The music.txt is totally editable.
Can I give ships orders when the game is paused and have them execute when I unpause? Can I do things like design ships or set up research and build queues while paused? Can I do things like design ships or set up research and build queues while paused?
Yes. Yes.
Would it be reasonable for me to just send a fleet into a lightly defended enemy system and let them kill it on their own, or do I need to go in and pick individual targets?
Depending on the defenders of that system: tentatively yes. If you're sending in a bunch of fighters and they so happen to have an anti-fighter focus on their ships they're not likely to take many casualties.
Doubly so for those who take the time to advertise to discuss with their fanbase/customers/whatever.
Hehe, thanks.
Firgof on
Co-Lead Developer, Blind Mind Studios Click here to visit our thread on Penny-Arcade
Also... We urgently need black holes and black hole generation techs... My dream in space strategy games is to make a black hole right next to the enemy's capital planet just to piss them off... It'd be the most awesome thing ever.
Send in a huuuuge defensive fleet and a single "Black Hole Creation Ship" and just camp near the enemy's planet defending the black hole creation ship until we finally have created the black hole, sacrificing the whole defensive fleet but really pissing off the other player
Even better when done during a LAN, since you can really see their reaction to that hehe
Also, stars going Nova should create a black hole too :P
Play Space Empires V. There's one tech path that allows you to create and destroy stars, create black holes which will eat entire systems, damage ships, and pull every ship towards the hole itself, and generally be awesome. Also you can create and destroy plasma storms. Also you can create planets and dyson spheres in SEV as well.
SE:V is probably the 4x game with the most wasted potential I have ever played. And I still love it. If the diplomacy wasn't god awful, the AI atrocious, and the game everywhere pretty buggy, it would probably be the perfect 4x. But Diplomacy like, completely doesn't work in any way shape or form, even though it has awesome ideas, you can basically crush the AI without any problems pretty easily, and the late game becomes an exercise in tedium.
Never used gamersgate, so I can't comment on it either way, but like others have said, I'd prefer to keep my games on as few services as possible. And I've already got SOASE and GalCiv 2 on Impulse, so one more 4x game would be fitting there. :P
Gamersgate is cool, if a bit odd (you get an exe which then downloads the rest. You can then (although it attempts to hide this) get your mitts on the full installer for offline installs ala gog.
Really? Do tell, that sounds like it'd swing me towards an order.
Unless of course it's against the board rules or anything.
I have to admit, I'd be pre-ordering this right now if I had any money. Just dropped it all on a new phone to replace my broken one (Droids are still quite expensive, despite the new one that came out).
Though I have to admit that the last game I played which was even close to this was Homeworld 2. Yeah.
Which is to say I'm very excited about this.
Xenogear_0001 on
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Forever Zefirocloaked in the midnight glory of an event horizonRegistered Userregular
Well, one more than previously as i've just pre-ordered it as well.
Rather hoping i can but giant chainsaws on my planets before i ram things with them, but i'm willing to wait on both because of galaxy sized ships.
Now theres an idea. A planet with a belt of mountains that go all around the equator that spin. Raar.
Slightly reminds me of something from pczone once where they suggested the death star would be slightly scarier as a cube since then as well as the vast legions of laser guns / planet buster, it could also give you a nasty glancing cut... (bonus points for remembering the other shape variants!)
You guys should watch Aim For The Top! 2: Diebuster. Pretty much has a chainsaw planet.
Forever Zefiro on
XBL - Foreverender | 3DS FC - 1418 6696 1012 | Steam ID | LoL
At some point soon I will buy this game, based entirely on my desire to reward the composer.
Well, almost entirely. I do want to blow up some suns.
Thanks. I'm glad you love it so much. If you really want to reward me, you can donate to me as you're downloading the soundtrack on it's own. All of that cash goes almost directly to me.
As awesome as the soundtrack may be...If I feel like switching things up a little and blowing up solar systems to the tune of the Gurren Lagann soundtrack or vomit forth locust-like hordes of fighters to a Macross tune... could I swap in my own .mp3's?
Yea, but why would you want to do that anyway? I'm just kidding. It's really simple to do, and I recommend folk music personally.
shojin on
This is My Empire, These Cities Among the Stars
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
So far Distant Worlds has been my 4x game of choice lately. Honestly I am starting to prefer real time over turn based in my 4x games. Maybe because I've been playing a lot of CK, EU3, and HoI3 lately.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
Anyone has any experience with Gamersgate? Is it more like steam or more like D2D? I don't like that I got only 6 month in which i can download the game like D2D.
Posts
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I appreciate the ability to distinguish units from one another and wouldn't mind a system to award units with medals and various honors for acts of bravery
Random tech trees make me excited. I liked how Sword of the Stars did it - the actual tech trees were always static, but each race started with different technologies and had a percentage chance to start with certain others.
Each race then had a certain percentage to discover further technologies - the Morrigi focuses on beam weapons and fighter drones, so they have a much higher chance to discover those techs than the Hivers, who focus on missiles and heavy armor.
You could still go missiles as Morrigi, you were just less likely to be able to get the top tier missile technology.
argh
kpop appreciation station i also like to tweet some
This is exactly what I need. Basically, the more Henry J. Gloval you can be, the better.
So moving the thread forward with an additional question, modding has been mentioned repeatedly. What sort of tools will be required to modify the game? I'm assuming the creation of art assets will be another discussion entirely, but say I want to make a new ship design. Am I doing that within the game itself using a ship builder utility (for example, Spore), or will I need to first design my ship and then import it in to the game using some other application?
[edit] I read the OP again and realized this question has mostly been answered already. However any light you can (or will) shed on this would be nice.
Everything else can be modified in Notepad; excluding ship models and particle effects (We recommend Notepad++)
Particle Effects are created in-game through the Particle System editor. It's a little dev-ish at the moment and needs some attention, but it and the Model Configurator should be big helps in getting custom models, particle effects, and so forth into the game.
Click here to visit our thread on Penny-Arcade
Reading through this thread and some of the stuff that's been brought up, I've got a few more questions (sorry if there're any repeats):
A) What system are you using for weapon/subsystem layout and allocation? I know ships have different sections ala Sword of the Stars, but does each section have a fixed number of slots for guns and stuff ala SotS, Homeworld, Sins of a Solar Empire that just scales up in size and power and cost and whatnot? Or are you using more of the style from Master of Orion and Space Empires where you can cram as much stuff into a ship as the basic structure can support, and the game just sorta' fudges weapon directions based on model heading and such?
EDIT:
C) Is it possible to achieve a technological singularity? If my Empire becomes large enough (and I play with the right settings...) would it be possible to achieve a state of ever-accelerating research by recursively improving techs related to research inbetween other stuff?
It would be cool to tool together 'packages' of subsystems and subsystem modifiers and just toss the glob onto your ships for ease of construction.
Yep, yep, and yep; there's some overlap in what those subsystems are adding to and subtracting from in stats of course. The size limiter is given by the kind of hull that you're using for your ship, not the size. (Everything scales up alongside the scale of the ship). At the moment what model the ship gets is decided from how the ship is laid out (whether it has huge ship bays and etc. will make it into a transport; if it has weapons it's an armed transport for instance) but we want to add a force override.
For those ships that you want to be larger than a whole solar system but use the model of the Fighter just for kicks.
Click here to visit our thread on Penny-Arcade
Only one more song to do before the end of this soundtrack, and I'm also doing a little bonus song, an acoustic-rock version of City in the Stars.
http://artembank.bandcamp.com/album/star-ruler
Soundtrack will be available for download (or donation) about a week before the release date.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Click here to visit our thread on Penny-Arcade
TOPT fail! Pre-ordered as well, should be interesting.
Though between this, Elemental, and my backlog..
I'd love to actually play that timpani part.
EDIT: Really, check out the soundtrack if you haven't. It's got kind of a Metroid feel to it.
I don't mind if there is some, just that it's not inherently ridiculous (as in Ubisoft).
Not official answer, but according to gamersgate its drm free.
I have a wedding coming up in ten days, and I have very little money
I should be saving what is left for a honeymoon
But you've developed a game where I can blow up a solar system's star if an enemy race defies me?
And where I can have dedicated supply ships for my main vessels, even if it isn't automatic yet
And I'll eventually be able to build a Dyson's Sphere?
Norway can wait, you got yourself another pre-order.
By the way, do you know how many you've got now?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/wishlist/1A4GKH199FBMU/ - My wishlist
Rather hoping i can but giant chainsaws on my planets before i ram things with them, but i'm willing to wait on both because of galaxy sized ships.
Now theres an idea. A planet with a belt of mountains that go all around the equator that spin. Raar.
Slightly reminds me of something from pczone once where they suggested the death star would be slightly scarier as a cube since then as well as the vast legions of laser guns / planet buster, it could also give you a nasty glancing cut... (bonus points for remembering the other shape variants!)
Imagine if:
-the music that plays in the Midgar portions of FF7
-the funkier, more chill tunes from FF6
-the slower, quieter tunes from Metroid Prime
all showed up to a party. And then Sigur Ros showed up and all of them had sex. Nine months later you'd have this soundtrack.
the album "Homogenic" by Bjork
basically I'm giving this soundtrack the highest praise possible, I don't know if that's clear or not :P
At some point soon I will buy this game, based entirely on my desire to reward the composer.
Well, almost entirely. I do want to blow up some suns.
STEAM
Never used gamersgate, so I can't comment on it either way, but like others have said, I'd prefer to keep my games on as few services as possible. And I've already got SOASE and GalCiv 2 on Impulse, so one more 4x game would be fitting there. :P
I've heard that the game doesn't have gravity. This includes gravity between planets and other planets or stars? I mean, it'd be awesome to just start playing around with the delicate balance of gravity in the universe... just tow a second star into the enemy's star system and watch the planets ending up being shot out of the star system due to the new star affecting their orbit.
Have an enemy you really don't like? shoot his planet into the cold infinite space Mwahahaha :P Or maybe just into the sun. Much faster than just TOWING it into the sun.
Also, building planet-sized ships then ramming them onto a planet to change it's orbit would also be nice... Would give a whole new meaning to engines on planets, since it could be a DEFENSIVE weapon (what? you're ramming my capital planet off it's orbit? *Commence Orbital Correction*)
Also... We urgently need black holes and black hole generation techs... My dream in space strategy games is to make a black hole right next to the enemy's capital planet just to piss them off... It'd be the most awesome thing ever.
Send in a huuuuge defensive fleet and a single "Black Hole Creation Ship" and just camp near the enemy's planet defending the black hole creation ship until we finally have created the black hole, sacrificing the whole defensive fleet but really pissing off the other player
Even better when done during a LAN, since you can really see their reaction to that hehe
Also, stars going Nova should create a black hole too :P
Xfire: lordgravewish
Steam: LordGravewish
Gamersgate is cool, if a bit odd (you get an exe which then downloads the rest. You can then (although it attempts to hide this) get your mitts on the full installer for offline installs ala gog.
Personally I fall into the spreading my eggs category (steam,gamersgate,d2d,impulse,gog* and I'm sure there was another one, oh well), but I can see the appeal in having it centralised
How is the AI? Would it be reasonable for me to just send a fleet into a lightly defended enemy system and let them kill it on their own, or do I need to go in and pick individual targets?
There is no DRM whatsoever.
64 in the last 24 hours, 242 total.
Yep. The music.txt is totally editable.
Yes. Yes.
Depending on the defenders of that system: tentatively yes. If you're sending in a bunch of fighters and they so happen to have an anti-fighter focus on their ships they're not likely to take many casualties.
Hehe, thanks.
Click here to visit our thread on Penny-Arcade
Play Space Empires V. There's one tech path that allows you to create and destroy stars, create black holes which will eat entire systems, damage ships, and pull every ship towards the hole itself, and generally be awesome. Also you can create and destroy plasma storms. Also you can create planets and dyson spheres in SEV as well.
SE:V is probably the 4x game with the most wasted potential I have ever played. And I still love it. If the diplomacy wasn't god awful, the AI atrocious, and the game everywhere pretty buggy, it would probably be the perfect 4x. But Diplomacy like, completely doesn't work in any way shape or form, even though it has awesome ideas, you can basically crush the AI without any problems pretty easily, and the late game becomes an exercise in tedium.
Really? Do tell, that sounds like it'd swing me towards an order.
Unless of course it's against the board rules or anything.
Though I have to admit that the last game I played which was even close to this was Homeworld 2. Yeah.
Which is to say I'm very excited about this.
You guys should watch Aim For The Top! 2: Diebuster. Pretty much has a chainsaw planet.
XBL - Foreverender | 3DS FC - 1418 6696 1012 | Steam ID | LoL
Yea, but why would you want to do that anyway? I'm just kidding. It's really simple to do, and I recommend folk music personally.