I would say it's more to do with the fact that he was able to sample the game first, and not a hamstrung version, or a "best bits" version, but what the game actually was.
Yes. Perfect advertising ^^ Wouldn't work without a good game, but they made a smart choice I think.
goodwill towards a developer that's willing to treat it's customers in goodwill.
Yes. I don't think this is even a real thing in the world as we know (knew?) it, I would like to encourage this kind of karma.
So I've only played as Vasari for more than 5 minutes at a time. What do the other races have instead of Phase Stabilizers? I was like "I'll try out this guy... ogod no"
Indeed, you buy it because it's convenient to own it.
"I could torrent this, but what if my pc dies or I uninstall it at some point and want it back? Meh. Buy, buy."
"Oooh, nifty package."
I think that's one thing I can really appreciate about Stardock, they don't treat copyright as a one-way street where it's only convenient to them.
What I mean by that is, they treat a licence like a licence. When you purchase the game, you're not just purchasing the physical media, you're purchasing the licence to play the game. Losing the game CD means nothing because you've bought the licence so they will allow you to download the game again without re-paying. Much like with Steam.
You purchase a copy of any other PC game. You're buying the licence to run that software, but the CD goes bad and they treat it as is what they sold you was only the physical media and not the licence to run that software. So you need to re-purchase again.
Similar with music, for the longest time music companies kept trying to make format shifting of your music illegal because your ability to change the music to a new modern format on your own meant that you didn't need to re-purchase a copy from them again. From records to tapes to CD's, you never at any point were given the option to say "but I purchased the personal right to make use of this intellectual property already, why can't I get a format shifted version for the price of the media?" It makes sense but it isn't something they would be willing to put up with because of the kind of revenue they would lose. So you end up having to re-purchase the same licence again and again. In an age where digital reproduction is simple for even the most computer illiterate home users, this barrier no longer exists, and it's possible to do your own format shifting.
I mean, when all's said and done, it's a far more fair system than say, EA's download service, where you pay the cost of the game to get a DRM'd 1-time download (at least, that was the state of it last I read about it. I suppose it could have changed by now, but I doubt it).
Okay, okay. What they got? I'll tell you what they got.
The TEC, terrans at heart. They're capitalist religious fundamentalist zealots. Their economy is the stuff of legend and they nuke planets and seed them with cattle because they can. Their ships have windows. Windows are awesome. Rail guns are awesome. Missiles are awesome. Did I say that windows are awesome? Their capital ships have 'scale'. They're big, they're bad, they're clunky, and they shoot missiles and rail guns. And cuban cigars. Their highest level techs make everyone in the game pay them money when they build stuff. Their economic grasp is so tight that even the Vasari pay them royalties for the privilege of warping in new mobile planet raping space hoover vacuum cleaners shaped like cordless mice.
The Advent? These guys are space communist hippies with laser guns. They strap children into pods and have them control swarms of fighter craft, they mind rape entire planetary populations and drive them to kill themselves and each other before taking over in a media storm of mind wired software and networked daytime television. They snort crystal for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and when they get tired of making laser guns they make shield bubbles. BIG shield bubbles. These shield bubbles have wintereenmas lights hanging off them. They're huge. And then they go and mount three separate laser guns on every single long range frigate they have, stick gigantic ship pulverising kinetic energy powered rainbow bubble cannons on their battle ships, and they they just go batshit with the things. They have laser guns sticking out of their god damned engines and they're still not satisfied. THE ADVENT IS THE TRAVELING LIGHTSHOW OF SALVATION.
And on a separate, the devs behind Sins made an interesting statement regarding the whole 'PC as a viable platform' issue that seems to be cropping up more and more.
Amongst other things there was this little snippet I found quite interesting:
I saw an article at IGN about how PC developers are blaming piracy as the reason some high profile games aren't selling in the quantities they should. As some of you know, Stardock's "main" business is in the PC software realm so we have a bit different outlook on market dynamics. Here's the deal: Piracy is a problem, no doubt about it. It does cost sales. But it isn't the driving reason for lost sales, it's the size of the market. Sins of a Solar Empire is outselling some higher profile games not just because it's a "great game" but because it runs on a vastly larger number of PCs.
For console advocates out there, ask yourself how well a given game would sell if it required players to run out and buy a $300 upgrade to their console to play the game? That's essentially what a lot of high profile PC game developers expect. When Ironclad and Stardock were working on Sins, we made a conscious decision that the game would not require potential gamers to upgrade their systems. That meant we couldn't have things like moving turrets or whatever but it means that the size of the market was much larger. No matter how good your game is, if people can't play it, you will always be limited. The number of people willing to upgrade PCs for games is not that large. If you want to sell lots of copies of your PC game, make sure it runs on a lot of machines.
This echoes similar comments by Josh Mosqueira (one of the lead designers on Company of Heroes) on a recent GFW podcast, when he was called out on them limiting their potential audience quite heavily by the system specs they were going with. He basically agreed that that's what they had done, and talked for a while about how easy a trap it is to fall into. In any case, I'm glad that he's free to say that piracy is an issue but you've got bigger problems before that.
And on a separate, the devs behind Sins made an interesting statement regarding the whole 'PC as a viable platform' issue that seems to be cropping up more and more.
Amongst other things there was this little snippet I found quite interesting:
I saw an article at IGN about how PC developers are blaming piracy as the reason some high profile games aren't selling in the quantities they should. As some of you know, Stardock's "main" business is in the PC software realm so we have a bit different outlook on market dynamics. Here's the deal: Piracy is a problem, no doubt about it. It does cost sales. But it isn't the driving reason for lost sales, it's the size of the market. Sins of a Solar Empire is outselling some higher profile games not just because it's a "great game" but because it runs on a vastly larger number of PCs.
For console advocates out there, ask yourself how well a given game would sell if it required players to run out and buy a $300 upgrade to their console to play the game? That's essentially what a lot of high profile PC game developers expect. When Ironclad and Stardock were working on Sins, we made a conscious decision that the game would not require potential gamers to upgrade their systems. That meant we couldn't have things like moving turrets or whatever but it means that the size of the market was much larger. No matter how good your game is, if people can't play it, you will always be limited. The number of people willing to upgrade PCs for games is not that large. If you want to sell lots of copies of your PC game, make sure it runs on a lot of machines.
This echoes similar comments by Josh Mosqueira (one of the lead designers on Company of Heroes) on a recent GFW podcast, when he was called out on them limiting their potential audience quite heavily by the system specs they were going with. He basically agreed that that's what they had done, and talked for a while about how easy a trap it is to fall into. In any case, I'm glad that he's free to say that piracy is an issue but you've got bigger problems before that.
Thats a pretty good stand IMO, aim for a bigger market with a game that takes less to run but still looks good, instead of making a game that runs like ass for most people but looks fantastic.
I wish companies would implement something along the lines what EVE did - have a kind of two graphic systems. If the game detects that your PC is strong enough to run the high fancy settings, it'll run them on it. If it detects that your PC can only run 'medium' settings or whatever, it'll run the version that doesn't have moving turrets etc etc.
Realistically I guess its not too viable for companies to do this since it makes more work - but I can dream can't I?
And on a separate, the devs behind Sins made an interesting statement regarding the whole 'PC as a viable platform' issue that seems to be cropping up more and more.
Amongst other things there was this little snippet I found quite interesting:
I saw an article at IGN about how PC developers are blaming piracy as the reason some high profile games aren't selling in the quantities they should. As some of you know, Stardock's "main" business is in the PC software realm so we have a bit different outlook on market dynamics. Here's the deal: Piracy is a problem, no doubt about it. It does cost sales. But it isn't the driving reason for lost sales, it's the size of the market. Sins of a Solar Empire is outselling some higher profile games not just because it's a "great game" but because it runs on a vastly larger number of PCs.
For console advocates out there, ask yourself how well a given game would sell if it required players to run out and buy a $300 upgrade to their console to play the game? That's essentially what a lot of high profile PC game developers expect. When Ironclad and Stardock were working on Sins, we made a conscious decision that the game would not require potential gamers to upgrade their systems. That meant we couldn't have things like moving turrets or whatever but it means that the size of the market was much larger. No matter how good your game is, if people can't play it, you will always be limited. The number of people willing to upgrade PCs for games is not that large. If you want to sell lots of copies of your PC game, make sure it runs on a lot of machines.
This echoes similar comments by Josh Mosqueira (one of the lead designers on Company of Heroes) on a recent GFW podcast, when he was called out on them limiting their potential audience quite heavily by the system specs they were going with. He basically agreed that that's what they had done, and talked for a while about how easy a trap it is to fall into. In any case, I'm glad that he's free to say that piracy is an issue but you've got bigger problems before that.
Thats a pretty good stand IMO, aim for a bigger market with a game that takes less to run but still looks good, instead of making a game that runs like ass for most people but looks fantastic.
Or to put it another way, Sins has sold more in its first week that GalCiv II did in it's first month, and according to Gamasutra is currently at the top of the PC sales chart, putting it ahead of Call of Duty 4. And this is excluding sales on digital distribution. That says a lot right there.
Sins may be a more niche game, with no DRM, and had almost no real advertising outside of its fanbase, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if we saw it outsell Supreme Commander.
I wish companies would implement something along the lines what EVE did - have a kind of two graphic systems. If the game detects that your PC is strong enough to run the high fancy settings, it'll run them on it. If it detects that your PC can only run 'medium' settings or whatever, it'll run the version that doesn't have moving turrets etc etc.
Realistically I guess its not too viable for companies to do this since it makes more work - but I can dream can't I?
I think it's just better if companies finally learn that a good art style gets you a lot farther than lots of technical minutiae. I mean, I didn't even realise that you didn't see the movement of turrets in Sins until they actually pointed that out.
PC games didn't used to have such heavy requirements in order to run. I'm not even talking about the days before graphics cards, when even most store bought PC's could run the average game. Over the past few years devs have almost been trying to one-up each other in how bleeding edge they can make the hardware requirements, and that's been nothing but detrimental to sales, if not the PC space as a whole. There's only so 'specialist' you can go before your sales crap out. And I'm saying all this as a person who can actually run games like Crysis OK. Doesn't matter if I can, fundamentally if you limit your userbase to such a degree and then go crying about how nobody is buying your game, well what do you expect? You may as well release a new game for the Sega Saturn for all the people that'll have access to it.
The older versions of Point Defense Systems were bloody amazing. Then the dev lead went batshit crazy insane and went overboard trying to scale up the engine. I don't know if the insanity went away since then. (It appears that it has not.)
OK yeah I have no idea how to play this game. I'm chillin developing my home planet and an asteroid I got and next thing I know a huge fleet of enemies comes up and rapes me. I can't possibly manage my civilian development and build units while managing them and shit.
Too much micro, I guess is what im trying to say. I loved Homeworld 2 but this is a bit overwhelming for my tastes.
Civilian development doesn't really take much in the way of management after you figure out how to do it. Pause the game and off you go, if you're overwhelmed.
Point Defense Systems was THE most amazing HW2 mod I have ever had the pleasure to install on my computer. While not obvious at first, the depth of tactics involved in fleet engagements is just amazing. And it helps that it's good to look at, too. While I played PDS my friend would sit right by me and go "oooh" and "aaah" at all the pretty lasers and ship trails.
OK yeah I have no idea how to play this game. I'm chillin developing my home planet and an asteroid I got and next thing I know a huge fleet of enemies comes up and rapes me. I can't possibly manage my civilian development and build units while managing them and shit.
Too much micro, I guess is what im trying to say. I loved Homeworld 2 but this is a bit overwhelming for my tastes.
The civilian aspect isn't all that deep...
EDIT: One of the things that really bothers me about this game is how you can't use the Steam overlay with it and the devs have no intention of fixing this. The Sins forums (including the devs that I've seen post there) are pretty hostile to anyone who even mentions Steam.
There is a person making a mod that increases all the effects in the game, or just replaces them to make them look a lot better. I'll try and find it and will post a link when I do.
so.. how the hell do you use wormholes and those race specific phase jump points ?
I have the researched skills for the wh .. and i've tried simply flying into it or selecting the output hole for a destination.. no dice.
Phase jumps are the same thing... I have a two which I would like to travel between.. but no dice...
Halp?
I haven't seen a wormhole yet, but the Vasari phase stabilizers are easy: just order your ship/fleet to jump from any planet with a phase stab to any other planet with a phase stab. They will jump in a straight line from origin to destination, ignoring the standard phase lanes and crossing any amount of space* in a single jump.
The position of the stab in your gravity well doesn't seem to matter.
* = I've only played single system games so far, you may not be able to change solar systems with these.
i've tried exactly this.. it was between two planets on opposite sides of the map.. so i dunno.
i started at planet a, clicked on planet b as a destination.. and it tried to warp all the way through the various systems ..
It's a real-time strategy game, mixing the great things about MOO except without the needless micromanagement, with the depth of homeworld?
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited February 2008
I too was surprised to find out that the Steam overlay did not work with Sins. In retrospect I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised at all. All I want to do is chat with my buddy when the game is paused. Is that to much to ask?!
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
I wish companies would implement something along the lines what EVE did - have a kind of two graphic systems. If the game detects that your PC is strong enough to run the high fancy settings, it'll run them on it. If it detects that your PC can only run 'medium' settings or whatever, it'll run the version that doesn't have moving turrets etc etc.
Realistically I guess its not too viable for companies to do this since it makes more work - but I can dream can't I?
Except most games ALREADY do this. Crysis even has a button for it, for crying out loud . Its just most gamers want everything dialed to 11 all the time and cry when they can't.
I too was surprised to find out that the Steam overlay did not work with Sins. In retrospect I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised at all. All I want to do is chat with my buddy when the game is paused. Is that to much to ask?!
When you've got a team of nine people your priority should not be making your game work with some random third party overlay/chat system. I'd rather they spend their time on new content and gameplay adjustments than making their game more compatible with a UI system that has nothing to do with them.
I too was surprised to find out that the Steam overlay did not work with Sins. In retrospect I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised at all. All I want to do is chat with my buddy when the game is paused. Is that to much to ask?!
When you've got a team of nine people your priority should not be making your game work with some random third party overlay/chat system. I'd rather they spend their time on new content and gameplay adjustments than making their game more compatible with a UI system that has nothing to do with them.
It's also undertandable. Steam is the competition, and aside from that, has the whole DRM thing going on that Stardock and Ironclad are pretty heavily against.
I too was surprised to find out that the Steam overlay did not work with Sins. In retrospect I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised at all. All I want to do is chat with my buddy when the game is paused. Is that to much to ask?!
When you've got a team of nine people your priority should not be making your game work with some random third party overlay/chat system. I'd rather they spend their time on new content and gameplay adjustments than making their game more compatible with a UI system that has nothing to do with them.
It's also undertandable. Steam is the competition, and aside from that, has the whole DRM thing going on that Stardock and Ironclad are pretty heavily against.
Oh I agree about the whole Steam thing.
But who's bright idea was it to not allow chatting while the game is paused? I really hope they fix that in the next patch.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
i started at planet a, clicked on planet b as a destination.. and it tried to warp all the way through the various systems ..
1) Both planets had Phase Stabilizers built, correct?
2) Were both planets orbiting the same star? If not, I think it's a safe bet that you can only cross one system at most with a Phase Stab setup... so you will need a minimum of 1 jump per system you are crossing, plus one jump between each system.
The collectors edition, is it going to be limited? Or will I be able to buy it when my PC is done near the end of March? :?:
I'm sure there'll be plenty of copies of the SE around. If you order it direct from Stardock (as in pay extra to be sent a physical copy along with your download) they give you the SE automatically. At least I think that's how it works, it's the version I got when I ordered from them.
In any case, it's a couple of small posters, the tech-tree wallscroll, they key-reference and the soundtrack. I'm not sure how much value you put in that stuff over the standard edition. Nice to have but I wouldn't exactly call any of it necessary.
So I'm in the middle of a huge map skirmish. I'm only about 4 hours into it so I'm still in one system with 3 others to conquer. Quick question though. Do you travel between systems through wormholes? Or do you come in at stars? I'm wondering because I'm wondering where to position my home fleet for defense.
A little off topic but I gotta find out more about that PDS for Homeworld 2. I'm going to be reinstalling it just to see that action but my search mostly comes up with videos and mods that are not too clear on whether that have the PDS in them or not. Thanks.
Closing note, this game has been a perfect balance of management for someone like me who hates micro-management.
The collectors edition, is it going to be limited? Or will I be able to buy it when my PC is done near the end of March? :?:
I'm sure there'll be plenty of copies of the SE around. If you order it direct from Stardock (as in pay extra to be sent a physical copy along with your download) they give you the SE automatically. At least I think that's how it works, it's the version I got when I ordered from them.
In any case, it's a couple of small posters, the tech-tree wallscroll, they key-reference and the soundtrack. I'm not sure how much value you put in that stuff over the standard edition. Nice to have but I wouldn't exactly call any of it necessary.
If you're phase jumping, you travel to new systems by jumping from star to star. I'm pretty sure wormholes can exit in other star systems, though, so the answer is both.
Wait till you see the Novalith. It puts a gigantic pimple on the planet surface.
So is there any way to turn off auto-fleet of ships as they are produced? They're on by default and it would be a real logistic aid to turn them off so they don't start warping away on their own.
I'd have to play on Hamachi, if that's all right with everyone else... I figure it would be. The program's so damn easy. Like... extremely easy to use.
As far as I'm aware you can't disable it from the factory, however auto-fleet doesn't work that way. If they're warping away on their own it sounds like you've set the rally point in another system.
Not had much chance to play this online lately, currently doing a 2v2v2v2v2 on a 5 star map against hard AI. Going well so far got 2-3 nova cannons up firing between stars is fun.
i started at planet a, clicked on planet b as a destination.. and it tried to warp all the way through the various systems ..
1) Both planets had Phase Stabilizers built, correct?
2) Were both planets orbiting the same star? If not, I think it's a safe bet that you can only cross one system at most with a Phase Stab setup... so you will need a minimum of 1 jump per system you are crossing, plus one jump between each system.
it was a one star system, 11(?) planets.. 2 wormholes..
i built it between 2 planets even with each other on the map, (one jump from the starting homeworld, mine and enemy) but on opposite sides.
I'll try doing it again.. maybe i was clicking too much.
Posts
So I've only played as Vasari for more than 5 minutes at a time. What do the other races have instead of Phase Stabilizers? I was like "I'll try out this guy... ogod no"
I think that's one thing I can really appreciate about Stardock, they don't treat copyright as a one-way street where it's only convenient to them.
What I mean by that is, they treat a licence like a licence. When you purchase the game, you're not just purchasing the physical media, you're purchasing the licence to play the game. Losing the game CD means nothing because you've bought the licence so they will allow you to download the game again without re-paying. Much like with Steam.
You purchase a copy of any other PC game. You're buying the licence to run that software, but the CD goes bad and they treat it as is what they sold you was only the physical media and not the licence to run that software. So you need to re-purchase again.
Similar with music, for the longest time music companies kept trying to make format shifting of your music illegal because your ability to change the music to a new modern format on your own meant that you didn't need to re-purchase a copy from them again. From records to tapes to CD's, you never at any point were given the option to say "but I purchased the personal right to make use of this intellectual property already, why can't I get a format shifted version for the price of the media?" It makes sense but it isn't something they would be willing to put up with because of the kind of revenue they would lose. So you end up having to re-purchase the same licence again and again. In an age where digital reproduction is simple for even the most computer illiterate home users, this barrier no longer exists, and it's possible to do your own format shifting.
I mean, when all's said and done, it's a far more fair system than say, EA's download service, where you pay the cost of the game to get a DRM'd 1-time download (at least, that was the state of it last I read about it. I suppose it could have changed by now, but I doubt it).
The TEC, terrans at heart. They're capitalist religious fundamentalist zealots. Their economy is the stuff of legend and they nuke planets and seed them with cattle because they can. Their ships have windows. Windows are awesome. Rail guns are awesome. Missiles are awesome. Did I say that windows are awesome? Their capital ships have 'scale'. They're big, they're bad, they're clunky, and they shoot missiles and rail guns. And cuban cigars. Their highest level techs make everyone in the game pay them money when they build stuff. Their economic grasp is so tight that even the Vasari pay them royalties for the privilege of warping in new mobile planet raping space hoover vacuum cleaners shaped like cordless mice.
The Advent? These guys are space communist hippies with laser guns. They strap children into pods and have them control swarms of fighter craft, they mind rape entire planetary populations and drive them to kill themselves and each other before taking over in a media storm of mind wired software and networked daytime television. They snort crystal for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and when they get tired of making laser guns they make shield bubbles. BIG shield bubbles. These shield bubbles have wintereenmas lights hanging off them. They're huge. And then they go and mount three separate laser guns on every single long range frigate they have, stick gigantic ship pulverising kinetic energy powered rainbow bubble cannons on their battle ships, and they they just go batshit with the things. They have laser guns sticking out of their god damned engines and they're still not satisfied. THE ADVENT IS THE TRAVELING LIGHTSHOW OF SALVATION.
Anway:
Hi-res
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/31206.html
Low-res
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/31207.html
Still haven't watched it yet.
Amongst other things there was this little snippet I found quite interesting:
This echoes similar comments by Josh Mosqueira (one of the lead designers on Company of Heroes) on a recent GFW podcast, when he was called out on them limiting their potential audience quite heavily by the system specs they were going with. He basically agreed that that's what they had done, and talked for a while about how easy a trap it is to fall into. In any case, I'm glad that he's free to say that piracy is an issue but you've got bigger problems before that.
Thats a pretty good stand IMO, aim for a bigger market with a game that takes less to run but still looks good, instead of making a game that runs like ass for most people but looks fantastic.
I wish companies would implement something along the lines what EVE did - have a kind of two graphic systems. If the game detects that your PC is strong enough to run the high fancy settings, it'll run them on it. If it detects that your PC can only run 'medium' settings or whatever, it'll run the version that doesn't have moving turrets etc etc.
Realistically I guess its not too viable for companies to do this since it makes more work - but I can dream can't I?
Or to put it another way, Sins has sold more in its first week that GalCiv II did in it's first month, and according to Gamasutra is currently at the top of the PC sales chart, putting it ahead of Call of Duty 4. And this is excluding sales on digital distribution. That says a lot right there.
Sins may be a more niche game, with no DRM, and had almost no real advertising outside of its fanbase, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if we saw it outsell Supreme Commander.
I think it's just better if companies finally learn that a good art style gets you a lot farther than lots of technical minutiae. I mean, I didn't even realise that you didn't see the movement of turrets in Sins until they actually pointed that out.
PC games didn't used to have such heavy requirements in order to run. I'm not even talking about the days before graphics cards, when even most store bought PC's could run the average game. Over the past few years devs have almost been trying to one-up each other in how bleeding edge they can make the hardware requirements, and that's been nothing but detrimental to sales, if not the PC space as a whole. There's only so 'specialist' you can go before your sales crap out. And I'm saying all this as a person who can actually run games like Crysis OK. Doesn't matter if I can, fundamentally if you limit your userbase to such a degree and then go crying about how nobody is buying your game, well what do you expect? You may as well release a new game for the Sega Saturn for all the people that'll have access to it.
v4.9 and v7
Brutally awesome:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ef9G5oogtg <---- Good one, not the best vid. My favorite disappeared off the net at some point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_AKE0Jkxq4 <---- Also good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1WgqJP06iA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBwVbvQafy4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9nBbT5LnJ4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXTQrtq-Da8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3ylZrrmyuI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwJkdcYp0po&feature=related
v11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z61bKT-m0UE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aijdLNFoBqg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCo8K78ms6Q&feature=related
Personally, I prefer the older versions to the new ones but its all really well done. Versions seven, eight on were all in good working condition.
Link spam over.
Too much micro, I guess is what im trying to say. I loved Homeworld 2 but this is a bit overwhelming for my tastes.
Point Defense Systems was THE most amazing HW2 mod I have ever had the pleasure to install on my computer. While not obvious at first, the depth of tactics involved in fleet engagements is just amazing. And it helps that it's good to look at, too. While I played PDS my friend would sit right by me and go "oooh" and "aaah" at all the pretty lasers and ship trails.
(Those are missiles being blown up, largely.)
The civilian aspect isn't all that deep...
EDIT: One of the things that really bothers me about this game is how you can't use the Steam overlay with it and the devs have no intention of fixing this. The Sins forums (including the devs that I've seen post there) are pretty hostile to anyone who even mentions Steam.
There is a person making a mod that increases all the effects in the game, or just replaces them to make them look a lot better. I'll try and find it and will post a link when I do.
Edit: These are a few that I can recommend -
Planet Mod - http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?forumid=443&aid=301574
Game and Slight Visual Tweaks - http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?forumid=443&aid=301007
Edit 2: Heres that effects mod I was talking about
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?forumid=443&aid=301418
Its not ready for download yet, the guy is working on it it seems.
i've tried exactly this.. it was between two planets on opposite sides of the map.. so i dunno.
i started at planet a, clicked on planet b as a destination.. and it tried to warp all the way through the various systems ..
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
It's a real-time strategy game, mixing the great things about MOO except without the needless micromanagement, with the depth of homeworld?
Sort of exactly but not quite. Eye the videos and you will see, yes.
Except most games ALREADY do this. Crysis even has a button for it, for crying out loud . Its just most gamers want everything dialed to 11 all the time and cry when they can't.
When you've got a team of nine people your priority should not be making your game work with some random third party overlay/chat system. I'd rather they spend their time on new content and gameplay adjustments than making their game more compatible with a UI system that has nothing to do with them.
It's also undertandable. Steam is the competition, and aside from that, has the whole DRM thing going on that Stardock and Ironclad are pretty heavily against.
Oh I agree about the whole Steam thing.
But who's bright idea was it to not allow chatting while the game is paused? I really hope they fix that in the next patch.
1) Both planets had Phase Stabilizers built, correct?
2) Were both planets orbiting the same star? If not, I think it's a safe bet that you can only cross one system at most with a Phase Stab setup... so you will need a minimum of 1 jump per system you are crossing, plus one jump between each system.
I'm sure there'll be plenty of copies of the SE around. If you order it direct from Stardock (as in pay extra to be sent a physical copy along with your download) they give you the SE automatically. At least I think that's how it works, it's the version I got when I ordered from them.
In any case, it's a couple of small posters, the tech-tree wallscroll, they key-reference and the soundtrack. I'm not sure how much value you put in that stuff over the standard edition. Nice to have but I wouldn't exactly call any of it necessary.
A little off topic but I gotta find out more about that PDS for Homeworld 2. I'm going to be reinstalling it just to see that action but my search mostly comes up with videos and mods that are not too clear on whether that have the PDS in them or not. Thanks.
Closing note, this game has been a perfect balance of management for someone like me who hates micro-management.
I'm a huge whore for SE of video games.
A huge one.
Fuck.
That.
Shit.
Managed to catch them all disorganized at one of the stars and blew them to high hell.
Wait till you see the Novalith. It puts a gigantic pimple on the planet surface.
So is there any way to turn off auto-fleet of ships as they are produced? They're on by default and it would be a real logistic aid to turn them off so they don't start warping away on their own.
I'd have to play on Hamachi, if that's all right with everyone else... I figure it would be. The program's so damn easy. Like... extremely easy to use.
Not had much chance to play this online lately, currently doing a 2v2v2v2v2 on a 5 star map against hard AI. Going well so far got 2-3 nova cannons up firing between stars is fun.
it was a one star system, 11(?) planets.. 2 wormholes..
i built it between 2 planets even with each other on the map, (one jump from the starting homeworld, mine and enemy) but on opposite sides.
I'll try doing it again.. maybe i was clicking too much.
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