So how does fleet range work in this one? I find it strange how much different this game is from SotS1, especially with the mission structure(it's making me not want to play Zuul... i'm sorry 'Suul'ka Horde' anymore)
I have a general idea of what will enhance my fleet ranges in terms of tech(plasma focusing, upgrading to antimatter, upgrading drives), but what assists in the short term? More supply ships? Auxiliary whatever that module thing is that goes on the engine sections?
How does that factor with Supply and Endurance? Speed I understand, as that's a rather simple "I go this many ly/turn".
Also still amazed that Trade still has its own separate screen and filter.
Endurance is how many turns your fleet can survive outside supply range from your naval base. That together with speed determines range. Endurance is based on how much supplies you have vs how much you eat up per turn. Crew and weapons eat up supplies. Kinetic weapon eat more supplies than energy weapons (on the other hand energy weapons put a drain on your reactor).
P.S: An easy way to boost range is to put on modules that boost supplies on your ships. Camel is often the best way to go if you strictly want to boost your endurance.
Fiendishrabbit on
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
So an optimal survey fleet would be many supply ships with a command ship, loaded with as many camel mods and as few kinetic/ballistic weapons as possible, and the fastest available drive at that point? Makes sense.
i gotta try to play this again, but its so very different from the first. I miss that simplicity of slapping a fleet together and getting it out, but once I understand this system I am sure it will make more sense and show promise
i gotta try to play this again, but its so very different from the first. I miss that simplicity of slapping a fleet together and getting it out, but once I understand this system I am sure it will make more sense and show promise
I'm right there with you. The mission system drives me nuts. I can't just keep rending more and more node lines as zuul anymore, they have to keep having a return trip. It feels very odd.
So an optimal survey fleet would be many supply ships with a command ship, loaded with as many camel mods and as few kinetic/ballistic weapons as possible, and the fastest available drive at that point? Makes sense.
Not so fast buster. Mecron didn't want it to be that easy so he added some undocumented modifiers to spice things up.
AR get bonuses to survey time and the time itself is based on total units in the fleet so drones and riders are good, if costly, additions to survey fleets operating in multi planet systems. I have heard that colony ships get a malus but haven't tested or seen hard evidence, so grain of salt.
Also, when expanding keep in mind that you are bootstrapping your way out from starting planets so look for good places to set up your naval stations so your fleets can rebase and cut down on travel time. Think of it like a mini game.
Well. The kerberos team have said that they used WWII as a basis for gameplay. So it's probably best to think of it as an islandhopping campaign.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
So an optimal survey fleet would be many supply ships with a command ship, loaded with as many camel mods and as few kinetic/ballistic weapons as possible, and the fastest available drive at that point? Makes sense.
Not so fast buster. Mecron didn't want it to be that easy so he added some undocumented modifiers to spice things up.
AR get bonuses to survey time and the time itself is based on total units in the fleet so drones and riders are good, if costly, additions to survey fleets operating in multi planet systems. I have heard that colony ships get a malus but haven't tested or seen hard evidence, so grain of salt.
Also, when expanding keep in mind that you are bootstrapping your way out from starting planets so look for good places to set up your naval stations so your fleets can rebase and cut down on travel time. Think of it like a mini game.
I think it's a typo and that he meant ER ships (Extended Range).
Overall Extended Range ships are quite viable in Survey fleets as they in general provide a lot better value for money than a pure supply fleet.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I think it's a typo and that he meant ER ships (Extended Range).
Overall Extended Range ships are quite viable in Survey fleets as they in general provide a lot better value for money than a pure supply fleet.
Ah, that makes sense, as my follow to an affirmative was going to be "then what the hell are ER's for?"
Yup, sorry Er. Great for scouting and a good cheap mission section otherwise.
One thing new players sometimes do is not paying attention to the cost of their designs. Remember that money spent on ships is money that isn't making returns elsewhere in the economy so a lot of times the extra guns aren't worth the money. The added supplies are just a bonus.
But they also added a shitload of micromanagement busywork which pissed in the face of the initial design brief for the game, which specifically detailed a streamlined and abstracted strategic layer in the mold of the original MOO.
For one: MOO had micromanagement, too. Ship design for one. Of course - most people LIKE to design their ships. In fact, thats one of the things wich made MOO great. Fleet management in combat in contrast to just numerical values and a combat report, wich in turn comes right from King's Bounty (Master of magic predecessor, Dos title).
Micromanagement is not a problem if you do it right - in a way thats entertaining an adds to imersion. Commanding a fleet in SotS1 during a realtime battle is doing it right, playing cards in Endless Space with cutscene-esque 3D sequences is wrong. It destroys imersion. Managing endless buildorders for buildings on planets in MOO2 is wrong, too btw, but not too obstrusive. Its bearable. Thats why there is an option to automate it (wich i never used). And don't get me started on the production Ai in MOO3.
Seriously, if you compare the "micromanagement" to, for a random example, an Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire its *very* mild. To be honest i would not ever have dreamed to use SotS1 and micromanagement in the same sentence. But those were different days with different standarts.
The point ist that there is a way to do it right and a way to do it wrong. If you tugger out templates for planetary colonization, domestic projects or other governmantal task-shuffling thats boring (albeit realistic, but uninteresting). If we talk about secret projects or designing the layout for your newest warmachine to werak havoc among the enemy forces... now we are talking, thats the right way.
The question here is... do you like to command a fleet on a tactical level? Do you like tweaking and designing military grade hardware? Do you like to plan ahead how your fleet formation will be when combat starts? If the answer is no, forget about SotS. Because thats the most extensively covered part in the game. And there is no game that comes even close to deliveting as much detail. You prefer card-play to decide combat? Go with Endless Space instead. Yes, its much simpler. Not all of us like it that simple. Some of us like to cut through the enemy ranks with a flagship practically under manual control, whilst giving enough orders so the rest of the fleet will put up a fight. Yes, Star Wars, of course.
They added a fucking godawful trade system which took more clicks to manage on one planet than the rest of the game combined. And then they piled stations on top of that, because lord knows the leader of any galaxy spanning empire would realistically want to control every single minute detail.
No, not really. Thought so myself for quite a while until i discovered the "Trade" tab, with a planet list where you can set the number of trade routes and directly order freighters. No idea which patch implemented it, but its there and its really easy to use. The only thing wich seperates it from MOO is that there is piracy and in fact you can pirate youreslf, wich is quite nice on the fleet level. Yes, it adds complexiy (namely escorts/raiders are needed).
Stations... is another cup of tea. To be honest i think stations are too deep into gameplay mechanics in SotS2, it becomes obstrusive, especially with the lacking documentation (command limit on naval stations was the hardest thing to figure out about SotS2 on my side, and with all the auto-disband mechanics... i have to say i don't like it). In SotS1 it was perfect. You could build a certain ammount of stations wich gave different bonuses to the planet, thus customizing it. They also were present in planetary battles in a way that seemed right to me. Not to deep, a nice bonus, no must have, just right.
In fact the initial design was so good, that I think Mecron had nothing to do with it. I see him as a bit of a Lucas figure, as soon as he got full control of his baby, he fucked it up.
Edit: Oh and drones, because: "this universe has no fighters full stop not happening... oh wait how can I cave in to fan pressure while simultaneously not losing face, I know drones" -- Mecron
Well, seriously, with all that naval touch carriers were practically a gap that needed to be closed at that time. And they did it. They din't like the idea first, but its in. I honestly don't care for Mecrons stance on this, the important thing is i can launch waves of fighters(/drones/whateveR), should i choose so.
For me SotS1 is a masterpiece. Of course thats totally subjective. SotS2 falls a bit short of that. But boy is it improving. And... yes, thats how SotS1 started out, too. Most people liked what they did with the game. As it was released most people didn't like it so much. It evolved. SotS2 still evolves, its still being worked on and it has the potential to become better than SotS1. But it will take some time.
Anyone know much about the Trade system in SotS2? I researched the FTL Economics, then built some freighters, and after a while I had trade income showing up in my Empire Summary. But then some pirates took a freighter, and the enemy empire took some planets, and now I cant get my trade going again.
EDIT: I did already wipe the enemy out from the area.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Is there a way to tell how many ships I can base in a given system? I make standard 1 command, 4 armor fleets for basic defense in each system. But for newly colonized planets the fleets just go and return to their starting system when given a relocate command. I'm sure it is because new systems have some low CE limit, but I don't know where to easily see that number.
I've started just building a base level naval station in every colonized system, and then the new system will accept the fleet. But the maintenance is a drain on my treasury, and I'd like to have more of a plan than "upgrade the naval station until the mission works" because station costs ramp up rather quickly.
This game is alright, and I really like a lot of things they are doing but their interface is opaque as hell.
The colony needs to grow to a certain level before it can support ships (6 cruiser equivalents can be based at a system). Which might take a while.
The best idea is to set the fleet to Patrol Mission in the system (where they will intercept anything that's within 1 turns of the system) until the system colony can support relocation. Then they will stay until Endurance runs out. Afaik Endurance will only run out if you're outside the support range of the naval base they're operating out of.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Thanks that helps. I am still getting my head around the mission system.
I was having trouble building defense satellites and I read around on their forums. Apparently satellites are not implemented yet, which sucks because in sots1 they were pretty important. Perhaps the much touted "all clear" is a bit premature?
Edit: @Gnome-Interruptus after you get FTL economics a trade view becomes available from the menu in the lower left. (the little star icon)
Symbols will show up next to the selected system that tell you how many trade routes and freighters you have in each. There is also a button to build freighters. Unlike sots1, you don't have to assign freighters to sectors just have them in a given systems reserves to use them.
One thing I don't understand about Civilian stations is what upgrading them does to trade. The wiki mentions trade revenue being tied to the amount of trade modules you have, but in the station manager I can't build any trade modules. Just docks, warehouses, and hab modules (not sure on the 3rd). To increase the amount of tradeable goods (filled in circles) I just move the planet slider a notch toward trade. So I'm not sure what upgrading Civ stations gives you other than moreslots for the 3 aforementioned modules?
One thing I don't understand about Civilian stations is what upgrading them does to trade. The wiki mentions trade revenue being tied to the amount of trade modules you have, but in the station manager I can't build any trade modules. Just docks, warehouses, and hab modules (not sure on the 3rd). To increase the amount of tradeable goods (filled in circles) I just move the planet slider a notch toward trade. So I'm not sure what upgrading Civ stations gives you other than moreslots for the 3 aforementioned modules?
Stations are basically frames you build modules on. Docks increase the number of freighters you can service and Habs give a percent bonus to your trade income.
One (arguably) nice thing about this game is that trade is completly optional so the best answer to any trade questions is to complety ignore it.
I dont think just ignoring trade is a good idea. Its fairly easy once you figure out the basics (about as easy as moving fleets around really) and is a good source of income (trade accounts for around 25% of my total income)
Hmm.. I checked the wiki, but just wanted to confirm with you guys. Is there any way to defend freighters against pirates without building a fleet? I tried building a bunch of police cruisers and putting them into the system defense group, but not sure if that is working against the random encounter pirates or not.
I remember reading that there are some techs further up the tree that allow police cruisers to spawn right next to a freighter being attacked. I think the effect is similar to a fleet on patrol with an admiral with the vigilant trait. I don't remember what the techs are called. There is also one that spawns a Q ship next to a freighter under pirate attack. This is going by the wiki, I haven't actually done this in game yet.
I dont think just ignoring trade is a good idea. Its fairly easy once you figure out the basics (about as easy as moving fleets around really) and is a good source of income (trade accounts for around 25% of my total income)
Hmm.. I checked the wiki, but just wanted to confirm with you guys. Is there any way to defend freighters against pirates without building a fleet? I tried building a bunch of police cruisers and putting them into the system defense group, but not sure if that is working against the random encounter pirates or not.
Yeah trade is very important, don't ignore it.
After 600+ turns into 2 games, trade is one of the things that let me build all this leviathan/battle riders and all other support ships. A few million less a month and I would certainly lose the war.....
It's enough if you do the basic homework, build freighters, upgrade them to heavy freighters. Build class I civilian stations and at your hubs upgrade them to class II or III and add all stuff to them.
Anti pirate tools are: Build one naval station in every system you have trade going, add 2 Police cutters into the defense and then add the planets into a province. All of this decrease the chance of pirate fleet into your system oh and if you have menace on throw some extra Asteroid monitor / Satellites into your defense force....a strong system defense kills even a ghost ship without fleet support.
I dont think just ignoring trade is a good idea. Its fairly easy once you figure out the basics (about as easy as moving fleets around really) and is a good source of income (trade accounts for around 25% of my total income)
Hmm.. I checked the wiki, but just wanted to confirm with you guys. Is there any way to defend freighters against pirates without building a fleet? I tried building a bunch of police cruisers and putting them into the system defense group, but not sure if that is working against the random encounter pirates or not.
Yeah trade is very important, don't ignore it.
After 600+ turns into 2 games, trade is one of the things that let me build all this leviathan/battle riders and all other support ships. A few million less a month and I would certainly lose the war.....
It's enough if you do the basic homework, build freighters, upgrade them to heavy freighters. Build class I civilian stations and at your hubs upgrade them to class II or III and add all stuff to them.
Anti pirate tools are: Build one naval station in every system you have trade going, add 2 Police cutters into the defense and then add the planets into a province. All of this decrease the chance of pirate fleet into your system oh and if you have menace on throw some extra Asteroid monitor / Satellites into your defense force....a strong system defense kills even a ghost ship without fleet support.
The thing that people forget is that the upkeep for your freighters(if you are building them yourself, civilian ships play those own) and stations are not put into the trade income number so it is really trade gross revenue and that all the money you invest in trade could be using for something else (combat and colony ships mostly). The actual return on investment is really bad and it ties up your planets when you need to use their industry for other stuff. Same with science stations, the smallest science station takes 20 straight turns of 2 million science investment just to pay for itself.
Long story short, internal investment is only worth it if you can't expand for some reason and if you can't expand you are doing something wrong.
In regards to trade try this on an 8 player maps and wait tell you have like 20+ systems with trade and let's see how can you mange this trough their awful UI.
Trade in SOTS prime was much much more manageable...But in this it's awful.
Oh hey, so this is a thing. And apparently it's playable now? Kickass, installing.
Edit: Oh hey, apparently I now have the Enhanced version, and got an Expansion for free? Interesting.
Edit2: Ooo, Cyborgs and AI in the expansion? And they... a creepy corrupt church-themed... thing? Fun! Doesn't seem like the Wiki has been updated with the expansion yet.
Yeah. They decided to make the first expansion free to make up for the buggy launch.
The loa are...interesting.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Yeah. They decided to make the first expansion free to make up for the buggy launch.
The loa are...interesting.
In what way?
Well. They have a pretty terrible stardrive and fairly expensive ships.
On the other hand. What they do have is Wise Clay, a nanomaterial that functions as the host for the Loa.
Wise clay means that a Loa fleet is made up of a Fleet Cube (led by a more powerful Loa commanding his "horsemen") that then can reform itself into any function it desires, creating any shape that you've designed.
Yes, that means every fleet can be pretty much any fleet. Your colonizing fleet? It can reform into a combat fleet. Or vice versa.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
So I finally won a game against the AI... really kinda disappointing ending.
I was expecting to see some stats or something, especially considering how much of a seige/trench warfare it is. But nope, its just a tiny "You Win" window and thats it. Not even personalized for the race you played or the one you beat like SotS original had.
Actually the LOA endgame or when you decide to take down a planet at the later stage of the game is very bad....
Don't know what was they thinking that 300k cubes is enough when a leviathan would coast near 1 million so you would need to make a 3+ fleets and because the stupid limitation that you can't slow boat as LOA with complete ships their end game is terrible.
This and having to invest in Qships is really bad economy wise because no matter what you'll do Qships can't stand to pirates attack.
The faction is good on paper but in game like many things isn't as good.
I did ditch in a little to see how the game progressed. First combat encounter was one of my Morrigi scout fleets running into a system littered with progenitor pods, one of the many non-faction random encounters. I had seen those before. they were implemented somewhere before christmas last year.
Lorewise the pods are terraformers of another faction, wich will be implemented in the next expansion. Some form of artificial gardner Von Neumann, preparing planets for the arrival of their creators.
The first surprise came as my drones tried to strafe the first batch orbiting one of the two habitable worlds in the system. Obviously the pods are armed now, and a decent PD weapon seems to be part of the armament. So much for the drones. The second surprise came as my ships engaged in close combat. Obviously they are also well stacked with anti-ship weapons. I cleansed the first planet, taking considerable damag and prepared to engage the batch orbiting the second planet. They took down half of the fleet and i was unable to desroy all of them, forcing me to rethreat off-system with the scout fleet.
I launched my dedicated military fleet (mostly compromised of the drone-carrying type, wich wasn't optimal, but at least the ships carried a large massdriver each, as well as a good compliment of plasma guns and lasers). I cleansed the system ultimately with no loss to that fleet but all ships were damaged and of course all drones destroyed.
Combat works pretty good. The AI maneuvers really well, i saw my ships rolling and spinning as they engaged the enemy. The whole thing was pretty fluent and the encounter well set. At the moment they are improving ship combat and strategic AI. Its subtle but it has a much better fell to it now.
They also applied a multitude of fixes to the LOA, but i have to say i didn't test it, for that race is simply not my cup of tea. I always prefered the birdies and this preference perisists, despit a few games with the Tarka, Humans and Hive. I have to get around to play the Zuul to try summoning the elders.
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Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
Lorewise the pods are terraformers of another faction, wich will be implemented in the next expansion. Some form of artificial gardner Von Neumann, preparing planets for the arrival of their creators.
Eh, not so much. The proteans exterminated their creators - following them from world to world and endlessly perusing the last of their great gardenships. Them terraforming planets is a side effect of their 'programming' - it's the only thing they know how to do. Well, that and hate.
So, I recently finished off my massive 221 star game of Sword of the Stars 1 that I picked up in the Steam Summer Sale. I really enjoyed the real-time combat combined with regular turn-based empire management. I was also impressed at how easy it was to have stories emerge as you were playing and how different the various races feel when you play. The different types of stardrives really contributes to this. In my first game, I played as the Liir and while I had some bumpy encounters with the Hivers (who I ended up conquering) and some diplomatic entanglements with the Humans, Morrigi, and Takara, it was the Zuul that really earned my ire. While I had a huge technological advantage over the other races, I'd kept certain weapons and technologies off-limits due to their horrible nature (Meson Projector and Bio-Warfare). The Zuul crossed a line however when they raided one of my young colonies and carried off and enslaved most of the population in a raid. After sending multiple doom-fleets rampaging across the Zuul's territory using dreadnought mounted Meson Projectors and dreadnought mounted assimilation plague fleets, victory was mine as I was able to bribe/badger/threaten the other races into submitting to my benevolent tyranny.
Thanks for all those who encouraged me to pick this game up.
On the down-side, the trade system became very annoying to micromanage and it wasn't until the late game where I discovered the trade management tab in one of the menus that made it much easier. There's definitely a steep learning curve to this game and some elements of the UI /game systems are not at all obvious to a first-timer.
LoL, yeah i know. Discovered the trade tab accidently, too. I feel your pain. Micromanaging tradesectors via the trade-sector-cubes is a real pain in the ass. But now you are beyond that. SotS1 is, beyond the shadow of doubt one the best 4X games out there. And SotS2... well it doesn't play that quick and fluent the way a SotS1 did, but its still subject to major improvements and well progressing along its way. Yes, it was a rough start, but so was SotS1. I think at this point space combat in SotS2 moved beyond SotS1. However, on the sstrategic side (the map view) it is still a step behind. Its also a much slower paced game and most likely always will be. And it still doesn't give enough feedback on functions to the player (albeit its better now). A problem virtually non existant in SotS1 (except for that pretty good hidden trade tab).
Of course it makes up with all those neat random encounters. If it had only been like this on release day...
Strategic AI improved greatly. The AI also takes diplomatic action. For example it offers chease fire when casaulties mount. Ships are modified, it exploits incidents and also tries to outmaneuver the player on strategic level. tactical AI seems to have improved too. It tries to keep support ships out of the fight and makes a run for it when its loosing.
Turns take a bit longer now again, but thats a price i am willign to pay for a decent AI.
The game is well on its way, even if i have to admit that SotS1 still plays more fluently.
Nevertheless, considering all the contend i think its now all right to settle that this game moved beyond its predecessor.
Still, it needs work. But its in a state now i would count it to the better 4X games out there.
UI feedback is still in a horrible state, but if one is willing to climb that steep learning curve one will be rewarded with a more than decent game.
The music reminds me of Thunder Force III.
$50 price point seems uh... ambitious for a roguelike, especially after their previous/current commercial release.
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I have a general idea of what will enhance my fleet ranges in terms of tech(plasma focusing, upgrading to antimatter, upgrading drives), but what assists in the short term? More supply ships? Auxiliary whatever that module thing is that goes on the engine sections?
How does that factor with Supply and Endurance? Speed I understand, as that's a rather simple "I go this many ly/turn".
Also still amazed that Trade still has its own separate screen and filter.
P.S: An easy way to boost range is to put on modules that boost supplies on your ships. Camel is often the best way to go if you strictly want to boost your endurance.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I'm right there with you. The mission system drives me nuts. I can't just keep rending more and more node lines as zuul anymore, they have to keep having a return trip. It feels very odd.
Not so fast buster. Mecron didn't want it to be that easy so he added some undocumented modifiers to spice things up.
AR get bonuses to survey time and the time itself is based on total units in the fleet so drones and riders are good, if costly, additions to survey fleets operating in multi planet systems. I have heard that colony ships get a malus but haven't tested or seen hard evidence, so grain of salt.
Also, when expanding keep in mind that you are bootstrapping your way out from starting planets so look for good places to set up your naval stations so your fleets can rebase and cut down on travel time. Think of it like a mini game.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
AR = Armor ships?
I think it's a typo and that he meant ER ships (Extended Range).
Overall Extended Range ships are quite viable in Survey fleets as they in general provide a lot better value for money than a pure supply fleet.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Ah, that makes sense, as my follow to an affirmative was going to be "then what the hell are ER's for?"
One thing new players sometimes do is not paying attention to the cost of their designs. Remember that money spent on ships is money that isn't making returns elsewhere in the economy so a lot of times the extra guns aren't worth the money. The added supplies are just a bonus.
Tons, like flagships and stations for an example.
For one: MOO had micromanagement, too. Ship design for one. Of course - most people LIKE to design their ships. In fact, thats one of the things wich made MOO great. Fleet management in combat in contrast to just numerical values and a combat report, wich in turn comes right from King's Bounty (Master of magic predecessor, Dos title).
Micromanagement is not a problem if you do it right - in a way thats entertaining an adds to imersion. Commanding a fleet in SotS1 during a realtime battle is doing it right, playing cards in Endless Space with cutscene-esque 3D sequences is wrong. It destroys imersion. Managing endless buildorders for buildings on planets in MOO2 is wrong, too btw, but not too obstrusive. Its bearable. Thats why there is an option to automate it (wich i never used). And don't get me started on the production Ai in MOO3.
Seriously, if you compare the "micromanagement" to, for a random example, an Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire its *very* mild. To be honest i would not ever have dreamed to use SotS1 and micromanagement in the same sentence. But those were different days with different standarts.
The point ist that there is a way to do it right and a way to do it wrong. If you tugger out templates for planetary colonization, domestic projects or other governmantal task-shuffling thats boring (albeit realistic, but uninteresting). If we talk about secret projects or designing the layout for your newest warmachine to werak havoc among the enemy forces... now we are talking, thats the right way.
The question here is... do you like to command a fleet on a tactical level? Do you like tweaking and designing military grade hardware? Do you like to plan ahead how your fleet formation will be when combat starts? If the answer is no, forget about SotS. Because thats the most extensively covered part in the game. And there is no game that comes even close to deliveting as much detail. You prefer card-play to decide combat? Go with Endless Space instead. Yes, its much simpler. Not all of us like it that simple. Some of us like to cut through the enemy ranks with a flagship practically under manual control, whilst giving enough orders so the rest of the fleet will put up a fight. Yes, Star Wars, of course.
No, not really. Thought so myself for quite a while until i discovered the "Trade" tab, with a planet list where you can set the number of trade routes and directly order freighters. No idea which patch implemented it, but its there and its really easy to use. The only thing wich seperates it from MOO is that there is piracy and in fact you can pirate youreslf, wich is quite nice on the fleet level. Yes, it adds complexiy (namely escorts/raiders are needed).
Stations... is another cup of tea. To be honest i think stations are too deep into gameplay mechanics in SotS2, it becomes obstrusive, especially with the lacking documentation (command limit on naval stations was the hardest thing to figure out about SotS2 on my side, and with all the auto-disband mechanics... i have to say i don't like it). In SotS1 it was perfect. You could build a certain ammount of stations wich gave different bonuses to the planet, thus customizing it. They also were present in planetary battles in a way that seemed right to me. Not to deep, a nice bonus, no must have, just right.
Well, seriously, with all that naval touch carriers were practically a gap that needed to be closed at that time. And they did it. They din't like the idea first, but its in. I honestly don't care for Mecrons stance on this, the important thing is i can launch waves of fighters(/drones/whateveR), should i choose so.
For me SotS1 is a masterpiece. Of course thats totally subjective. SotS2 falls a bit short of that. But boy is it improving. And... yes, thats how SotS1 started out, too. Most people liked what they did with the game. As it was released most people didn't like it so much. It evolved. SotS2 still evolves, its still being worked on and it has the potential to become better than SotS1. But it will take some time.
EDIT: I did already wipe the enemy out from the area.
MWO: Adamski
Sword of the Stars 2 wiki: Trade
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I've started just building a base level naval station in every colonized system, and then the new system will accept the fleet. But the maintenance is a drain on my treasury, and I'd like to have more of a plan than "upgrade the naval station until the mission works" because station costs ramp up rather quickly.
This game is alright, and I really like a lot of things they are doing but their interface is opaque as hell.
The best idea is to set the fleet to Patrol Mission in the system (where they will intercept anything that's within 1 turns of the system) until the system colony can support relocation. Then they will stay until Endurance runs out. Afaik Endurance will only run out if you're outside the support range of the naval base they're operating out of.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I was having trouble building defense satellites and I read around on their forums. Apparently satellites are not implemented yet, which sucks because in sots1 they were pretty important. Perhaps the much touted "all clear" is a bit premature?
Edit: @Gnome-Interruptus after you get FTL economics a trade view becomes available from the menu in the lower left. (the little star icon)
Symbols will show up next to the selected system that tell you how many trade routes and freighters you have in each. There is also a button to build freighters. Unlike sots1, you don't have to assign freighters to sectors just have them in a given systems reserves to use them.
MWO: Adamski
One (arguably) nice thing about this game is that trade is completly optional so the best answer to any trade questions is to complety ignore it.
Hmm.. I checked the wiki, but just wanted to confirm with you guys. Is there any way to defend freighters against pirates without building a fleet? I tried building a bunch of police cruisers and putting them into the system defense group, but not sure if that is working against the random encounter pirates or not.
MWO: Adamski
Yeah trade is very important, don't ignore it.
After 600+ turns into 2 games, trade is one of the things that let me build all this leviathan/battle riders and all other support ships. A few million less a month and I would certainly lose the war.....
It's enough if you do the basic homework, build freighters, upgrade them to heavy freighters. Build class I civilian stations and at your hubs upgrade them to class II or III and add all stuff to them.
Anti pirate tools are: Build one naval station in every system you have trade going, add 2 Police cutters into the defense and then add the planets into a province. All of this decrease the chance of pirate fleet into your system oh and if you have menace on throw some extra Asteroid monitor / Satellites into your defense force....a strong system defense kills even a ghost ship without fleet support.
Long story short, internal investment is only worth it if you can't expand for some reason and if you can't expand you are doing something wrong.
Trade in SOTS prime was much much more manageable...But in this it's awful.
Edit: Oh hey, apparently I now have the Enhanced version, and got an Expansion for free? Interesting.
Edit2: Ooo, Cyborgs and AI in the expansion? And they... a creepy corrupt church-themed... thing? Fun! Doesn't seem like the Wiki has been updated with the expansion yet.
The loa are...interesting.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
In what way?
Well. They have a pretty terrible stardrive and fairly expensive ships.
On the other hand. What they do have is Wise Clay, a nanomaterial that functions as the host for the Loa.
Wise clay means that a Loa fleet is made up of a Fleet Cube (led by a more powerful Loa commanding his "horsemen") that then can reform itself into any function it desires, creating any shape that you've designed.
Yes, that means every fleet can be pretty much any fleet. Your colonizing fleet? It can reform into a combat fleet. Or vice versa.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I was expecting to see some stats or something, especially considering how much of a seige/trench warfare it is. But nope, its just a tiny "You Win" window and thats it. Not even personalized for the race you played or the one you beat like SotS original had.
MWO: Adamski
Don't know what was they thinking that 300k cubes is enough when a leviathan would coast near 1 million so you would need to make a 3+ fleets and because the stupid limitation that you can't slow boat as LOA with complete ships their end game is terrible.
This and having to invest in Qships is really bad economy wise because no matter what you'll do Qships can't stand to pirates attack.
The faction is good on paper but in game like many things isn't as good.
Lorewise the pods are terraformers of another faction, wich will be implemented in the next expansion. Some form of artificial gardner Von Neumann, preparing planets for the arrival of their creators.
The first surprise came as my drones tried to strafe the first batch orbiting one of the two habitable worlds in the system. Obviously the pods are armed now, and a decent PD weapon seems to be part of the armament. So much for the drones. The second surprise came as my ships engaged in close combat. Obviously they are also well stacked with anti-ship weapons. I cleansed the first planet, taking considerable damag and prepared to engage the batch orbiting the second planet. They took down half of the fleet and i was unable to desroy all of them, forcing me to rethreat off-system with the scout fleet.
I launched my dedicated military fleet (mostly compromised of the drone-carrying type, wich wasn't optimal, but at least the ships carried a large massdriver each, as well as a good compliment of plasma guns and lasers). I cleansed the system ultimately with no loss to that fleet but all ships were damaged and of course all drones destroyed.
Combat works pretty good. The AI maneuvers really well, i saw my ships rolling and spinning as they engaged the enemy. The whole thing was pretty fluent and the encounter well set. At the moment they are improving ship combat and strategic AI. Its subtle but it has a much better fell to it now.
They also applied a multitude of fixes to the LOA, but i have to say i didn't test it, for that race is simply not my cup of tea. I always prefered the birdies and this preference perisists, despit a few games with the Tarka, Humans and Hive. I have to get around to play the Zuul to try summoning the elders.
Eh, not so much. The proteans exterminated their creators - following them from world to world and endlessly perusing the last of their great gardenships. Them terraforming planets is a side effect of their 'programming' - it's the only thing they know how to do. Well, that and hate.
Thanks for all those who encouraged me to pick this game up.
On the down-side, the trade system became very annoying to micromanage and it wasn't until the late game where I discovered the trade management tab in one of the menus that made it much easier. There's definitely a steep learning curve to this game and some elements of the UI /game systems are not at all obvious to a first-timer.
That shit was crazy. Like, once you figure it out it makes such an amazing difference. But yeah that was a bitch to discover.
Of course it makes up with all those neat random encounters. If it had only been like this on release day...
SotS.txt right here.
Turns take a bit longer now again, but thats a price i am willign to pay for a decent AI.
The game is well on its way, even if i have to admit that SotS1 still plays more fluently.
Nevertheless, considering all the contend i think its now all right to settle that this game moved beyond its predecessor.
Still, it needs work. But its in a state now i would count it to the better 4X games out there.
UI feedback is still in a horrible state, but if one is willing to climb that steep learning curve one will be rewarded with a more than decent game.
The music reminds me of Thunder Force III.
$50 price point seems uh... ambitious for a roguelike, especially after their previous/current commercial release.
There are neat random encounters, now? How neat? O_o