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I'd never heard of this game before. Seems interesting, but is it actually worth the $50?
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May 24, 2014 00:50
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Shima Honnou posted:I'd never heard of this game before. Seems interesting, but is it actually worth the $50? I payed a hell of a lot more than $50 for it and I think so, but YMMV. e: because it's a new page V for Vegas posted:Unlocked on Steam.
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May 24, 2014 00:51
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Shima Honnou posted:I'd never heard of this game before. Seems interesting, but is it actually worth the $50? It's the best space 4x since MOO2, IMO. It was hard for me to recommend it at $60 for the base game and $40 per expansion for its 3 expansions, but $50 on Steam is a Good Deal.
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May 24, 2014 00:54
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I played this a few years back when it was distributed by Digital River (I think?) Though I liked the scope of it, the lack of polish and general clunkiness was a big turn off. I seem to remember the interface lagging a lot too. Have they largely eliminated these issues with all the expansions?
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May 24, 2014 01:00
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Hot Sexy Jupiter posted:I played this a few years back when it was distributed by Digital River (I think?) Though I liked the scope of it, the lack of polish and general clunkiness was a big turn off. I seem to remember the interface lagging a lot too. Have they largely eliminated these issues with all the expansions? I remember the issues as well. One of the expansions specifically focused on clearing all those up, but I can't remember which one. It runs pretty smoothly now, though. You could always ask Digital River to send you a new download link (ugh) and try it out again.
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May 24, 2014 01:02
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Cantorsdust posted:It's the best space 4x since MOO2, IMO. It was hard for me to recommend it at $60 for the base game and $40 per expansion for its 3 expansions, but $50 on Steam is a Good Deal. So it's a lot like Master of Orion? Sounds good to me.
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May 24, 2014 01:12
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Shima Honnou posted:So it's a lot like Master of Orion? Sounds good to me. It isn't turn based, it's pausable real time like Crusader Kings/Europa Universalis. And it's a lot more complicated than MOO... takes some time to get into. But it is my favorite game of its type at the moment.
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May 24, 2014 02:56
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It's managed to claw itself into the top 10 on Steam. Being above DaS 2, Transistor, and DayZ is pretty damned impressive. Although I don't know exactly how Steam counts things bought elsewhere, so maybe all of us just upgrading to Universe have played a role there? Still not a bad showing and hopefully it'll boost sales further.
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May 24, 2014 03:13
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I recall that Steam top sellers is based on total revenue rather than units sold. I could be wrong, but I remember this point brought up to report on how impressive Terraria's spot was when it was on sale for $2.50.
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May 24, 2014 05:10
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I think the best way to describe this game is that it's similar to Paradox offerings like CK2, EU4, etc., but with a slight similarity to Alpha Centauri in that it tries to have a Storyline, which is a bit hit and miss. Like a lot of space games, it tries to simulate resources and the like, but unlike them it takes them out of your hands- your Private Sector, which you have little control over, will take care of that for you, sometimes well, sometimes to your detriment. In addition, virtually everything can be automated and virtually anything can be controlled except the Private Sector. Want to grog out and spend time min-maxing your ship designs, you can. Want to control a single ship and leave literally everything else and go around exploring, you can. Universe adds very little except for a few things, but greatly increases the modding capabilities, and they were already extensive enough before. There were well-done Mass Effect mods, mods that added a lot more races, etc., and it'll only get better.
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May 24, 2014 05:18
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The only thing I wish this game had was more transparency on the mechanics; I have no idea how efficient or inefficient my mining stations are, and that bugs the crap out of me.
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May 24, 2014 07:32
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There's a limit to how much you can extract. It's something like 4 extractors is the most you ever need for gas or metals, and luxuries only need 1 in any case. An occupied planet needs no extractors, of course. It's probably more important to make sure they stay up, but that's a personal view.
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May 24, 2014 07:56
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V for Vegas posted:OK, this is a fairly complicated process. Thanks.
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May 24, 2014 08:56
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Mister Adequate posted:It's managed to claw itself into the top 10 on Steam. Being above DaS 2, Transistor, and DayZ is pretty damned impressive. Although I don't know exactly how Steam counts things bought elsewhere, so maybe all of us just upgrading to Universe have played a role there? Still not a bad showing and hopefully it'll boost sales further. Hopefully many more people will get interested in this game now to you can avoid the dealing with Matrix Games. This game really deserves all the attention it gets. In my opinion it's way better than eg. Stardrive that has had way more publicity.
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May 24, 2014 10:47
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It has been months since I played this game. Have they finally done something to make the exploitation part of the 4X gameplay more than just building mining stations everywhere and maybe colonizing a planet (and then forgetting about it because it doesn't matter)? Because that was pretty much why I stopped playing. The fact that creating a new colony feels incredibly boring and inconsequential. At some point you build a wonder or two, and that is it. Also the lack of terraforming (the terraformer only repairs damage up to the original quality of the planet, you can never turn a volcanic planet into a terran planet).
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May 24, 2014 11:31
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ArchangeI posted:Also the lack of terraforming (the terraformer only repairs damage up to the original quality of the planet, you can never turn a volcanic planet into a terran planet). Good news, you can probably fix that now!  Also, on that note, some impressions i've had of the new expansion so far:Apparently the new expansion gives pretty much full mod control over the game. The new ancients campaign appears to be an example of some of the new stuff you can do with it. There's a pretty hefty amount of capabilities modding-wise now too. You can even attach events to research and add new research items. From a quick browse of the new tech tiers in the ancients campaign this apparently includes creating the ancient guardian race and a super plague event that slowly murders the entire galaxy as it spreads among a bunch of different things. I know DW Extended was able to come out with a new version using a few of the new modding capabilities like a few days after Universe was released too. So apparently the mod tools must be extremely easy to use. For those wondering, Extended apparently just added new races with unique tech trees and more racial behaviors to each race. Which puts the mod at 40 unique races overall that are added to the game. Which itself is pretty crazy given how much variety the races added to the universe in terms of gameplay and AI personalities prior to this expansion. Edit: Actually, upon closer inspection the Ancient era campaign is basically a story mode that shows off how much batshit insane customization the game has on the modding front now. For those on the fence about it, here's a quick review from what i've seen so far. I'm seeing weird alliances I have no idea how to get into (They even have names!). And this special alliance is unilaterally excluding me from a massive inter-species trade pact out of spite towards what I did towards a new member.  At the end game galaxy spanning apocalyptic research projects that are probably not a good idea for anyone to research are obviously present just from a brief and incomplete five minute perusal of the new tech tree for humanity. Some of those research projects make planet destroyers look weak too.Interestingly enough, one research option I see requires an in game event to happen. Which I believe is another moddable thing now too on top of all of the other moddable stuff. Case in point, the aforementioned Shakturi plague research option that humans have at the end of one path in one tech tree. Which if you played the prior expansions is one of two or three things that backfired when it literally depopulated the galaxy to the point where every planet was catapulted back to the dark ages, and every ancient era ship was left dead and drifting in space for the classic/shadow era empires to find. Presumably that also includes the ability to make that loving horrifying space outpost you can find in classic/shadows that produces enough space worms to devour everything left alive in the universe after the plague gets done with it.  The end game really seems to amp the apocalyptic poo poo up to incredible levels beyond what your usual planet destroyers and such allowed in most games.There is also a ton of neat features to the campaign i'm noticing. Derelicts have about as much stats as your producible ships at the start for instance. And the story elements are all there in gameplay format from the backstory of the previous world types. This include new custom features for the "campaign" (more like a sim) that none of the other expansions has. Ever wanted to form the freedom alliance? You can do that. Or just delve into research while sticking your head in the sand as the galaxy goes to poo poo. Or a poo poo ton of other stuff that I won't get into since this post is getting a bit long. TL;DR: The new campaign is basically a "Stargate: How The Ancients hosed Up And Got Murdered" simulator from what I can tell so far. Humanity even starts with the "Way of the Ancients" government. The modding potential of the game is pretty crazy too. If you have the prior expansions you'd be stupid not to pick this up before the release discount ends. Even without the new campaign with the inclusion of it on Steam it's almost a certainty this thing will get a crazy mod community if it catches on enough and word of mouth about it spreads. Plus, it's currently only 9.99 for previous expansion owners, at which point it'll be about 19.99 afterwards. Archonex fucked around with this message at 18:39 on May 24, 2014 |
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May 24, 2014 14:32
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I've been eyeing DW for a while, but a few things have held me back from purchasing -- the awful interface icons and tiny fonts at 1080. It looks like GEM will solve the icon issue, but this is gonna give me a headache: It's like SoaSE all over again.  Anyone know of a way to bump fonts up or replace 'em?
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May 24, 2014 14:46
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I've been watching Larry Monte on youtube, I don't know how good he is at the game in general, but the guy does a great job of explaining how to play the game. I would definitely recommend watching a bit of his videos if you want to learn to play the game. On the topic of mining bases, Larry mentioned that when choosing a planet you want the percentages for mining to add up to 120% or more. At that point you make a profit from the base. Any know the math behind this?
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May 24, 2014 15:03
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God, if only they'd Steamleased this a couple months later. Say, in September. I might still pick it up.
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May 24, 2014 16:00
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I caved. I had the base game and two expansions already, so getting two expansions only cost about 20 bucks. Which for matrix/slitherine is basically a bargain.
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May 24, 2014 17:32
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It's on Steam, thank gently caress for that. No more fighting with the loving dyslexic captcha on the matrix forums. gently caress that thing in the ear. To the goon who posted the guide to getting the steam key with a discount, you sir are a good man and you have my thanks.
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May 24, 2014 17:42
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Archonex posted:Good news, you can probably fix that now! You can't  At least I haven't found anything in the mod guide that suggests that it is possible. The whole "vastly improved modding ability" is a bit of a misnomer. You are still very restricted by what the game allows. You can add new facilities, for example, but you are restricted in what they do to what the already existing facilities do, so you are in effect restricted to up-/downgraded versions of the facilities already in game. You can't, for example, manipulate other planetary values, or assign values the base facility doesn't have (you can't create a military academy that also improves research). The game is just not designed for mods at all, which is why they are actually called themes. It's pretty telling that the first section of the guide is about adding your custom images. It was never intended to actually mod the game in a substantial way beyond changing the appearance or create a new scenario. It is utterly incomparable to, say, a paradox game.
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May 24, 2014 19:49
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ArchangeI posted:You can't Going up against it is pretty unique since it doesn't want to start a war with you (It can "lose" if victory conditions are on by starting wars.) but can pretty much push your poo poo in if you tick it off enough. Case in point, the times it'll touch off a war and pretty much come barreling out of nowhere to murder a civ, all so that it can preempt a ton of other wars getting declared on it due to the chaos the murdered civ was liable to cause. Given how inexplicable some of its actions are it's about the closest thing to an eldritch abomination style AI opponent that i've seen. I've been paging through the config files and you can do some neat stuff like create entirely new governmental systems from scratch. Though you're right that facilities look a bit lackluster in terms of modding capabilities at the moment. Edit: Also, you can do stuff like this: quote:Anyway, here is a little tip on something I discovered just this morning: Someone needs to mod that in for that T-Rex race. Or just create a horrifying insectoid swarm that wants to eat everything. Maybe like the Tyranids? 
Archonex fucked around with this message at 21:24 on May 24, 2014 |
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May 24, 2014 20:26
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I'd like a way to create national wonders, perhaps the only way to do it is to set up racial wonders like the zenox galactic archives?
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May 24, 2014 20:37
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spider wisdom posted:I've been eyeing DW for a while, but a few things have held me back from purchasing -- the awful interface icons and tiny fonts at 1080. It looks like GEM will solve the icon issue, but this is gonna give me a headache: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3211317 There might be an issue with certain moons showing up, I think there is an easy solution where you back up 2 of your originals or something. I'd test it out with the new version but my download link for the new version is DOA/FUBAR I'm refreshing every few hours. Ah yes; quote:Yes, just delete the shadow folder (under \Images\environment\overlays\) after unpacking the zip. Apparently it's not compatible. Quaint Quail Quilt fucked around with this message at 21:02 on May 24, 2014 |
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May 24, 2014 20:50
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spider wisdom posted:I've been eyeing DW for a while, but a few things have held me back from purchasing -- the awful interface icons and tiny fonts at 1080. It looks like GEM will solve the icon issue, but this is gonna give me a headache: Thats odd, by default I have a button to enlargen it  But yeah, GEM is also good.
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May 24, 2014 21:24
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So is the May 29th $10 dollar off discount already off the base price, or is it factored in after the transaction?
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May 24, 2014 21:48
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How do you stop your fleets/ships from attacking anything/a specific target? I had a mining base that was captured by pirates, and about five seconds later my fleet arrived, at which points they just started laying into the thing (why?). I tried changing their engagement stance but that didn't work, even when set to "when attacked", noting that the mining base hadn't (and by definition, couldn't since it's an early game automated design) attacked them. I tried mashing "stop" over and over again but that didn't work, and it's still quite early in the game so I couldn't maneuver them out of position before they blew the thing up. Edit: please tell me there is a way to set a "no-go" policy so ships stop suiciding on pirate base worlds? This is ridiculous. Sheep fucked around with this message at 00:49 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 24, 2014 23:56
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How do you find an "Unknown pirate base"? I've just stole a territory map from a pirate faction but I still don't know where their headquarters are. How do you finally wipe a pirate faction out? I had these guys down to nothing an in game year or two ago then they went back to being pains in the dick again.
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May 25, 2014 00:40
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Are you sure you didn't set the pirate factions can not regenerate after being defeated option? I think by default they came back even after being wiped out.
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May 25, 2014 00:42
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Sheep posted:How do you stop your fleets/ships from attacking anything/a specific target? I don't know if you can mark targets as off limits but you can make the AI ask about military orders before executing them. I don't think this applies to ships on patrol though. I usually have patrolling ships make contact and quickly warp a whole fleet in to gently caress 'em.
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May 25, 2014 01:03
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Thern posted:Are you sure you didn't set the pirate factions can not regenerate after being defeated option? I think by default they came back even after being wiped out. I'm not sure to be honest. I think I just used the default age of shadows game options. I'll start a new game just in case, this whack a mole stuff sucks.
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May 25, 2014 01:04
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Sheep posted:How do you stop your fleets/ships from attacking anything/a specific target? I haven't played in a while, but I think you should be able to use "Blockade" or "Patrol" commands on colonies or bases instead of Move or Attack, so that your forces will just clear the area and not attack the specific target.
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May 25, 2014 01:36
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Jimmy4400nav posted:So is the May 29th $10 dollar off discount already off the base price, or is it factored in after the transaction? Already in.
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May 25, 2014 03:19
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galahan posted:There might be an issue with certain moons showing up, I think there is an easy solution where you back up 2 of your originals or something. I'd test it out with the new version but my download link for the new version is DOA/FUBAR Do you mean this? I installed the mod and it happened for every planet of every size.  Because if so, that was easily fixed by taking the original shading.png from images\environment\overlays\shadow\ and replacing the one the mod put in (So basically, not replacing the original, or using the one from a backup folder).
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May 25, 2014 04:21
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quote:How do you find an "Unknown pirate base"? I've just stole a territory map from a pirate faction but I still don't know where their headquarters are. How do you finally wipe a pirate faction out? I had these guys down to nothing an in game year or two ago then they went back to being pains in the dick again. One of several things is happening here: 1. The pirate faction was wiped out and regenerated around when the map was stolen. Unless you set the pirate strength to a ridiculously high number though the regeneration takes quite awhile. This is on top of the fact that the new faction will need to re-arm, get re-established in the local politics, and basically have some prep time before it can do anything but raid poorly defended frontier worlds. 2. The map that was stolen is in fact accurate. When it was stolen they lost their last pirate base. Unlike empires pirates don't just lose the game because they lost their last base of operations. If they have a constructor they can still build a new one. Granted, most of their forces will defect away if they can't refuel in the meantime, but it would explain why the base is "unknown" instead of giving you a location to look for. Most likely another empire (Or if it's an age of shadows game, another pirate fleet.) is the cause of this. If you're wanting to kill a pirate faction, there's a few things you can do: 1. Guard your outer colonies. Mid to late game, this is how savvy pirate and AI players survive the tech advantage empires have. Throw up a few escorts at least until your ships can get there. 2. Destroy every pirate facility you can find. This will absolutely cripple their economy. Doing that leads to defections if they go into the red. Check all your planets for pirate bases and fortresses to assist with this. 3. Keep an eye on independent planets with lots of pirate activity around them. Pirates and empires can use them as refueling points. Pirates can also raid them, which means they can become a hub of activity over time once a facility is set up too. Worst case scenario, the pirates make their top tier pirate facility and they get control of the planet like an empire would. This means they can do everything an empire can, and basically become the local equivalent of the Hutt Cartel from Star Wars. 4. Set up ambushes for their ships. Leave a few destroyers over a planet they commonly refuel at. Or a fleet if need be. This is a really good way to gently caress with a pirate empire that is raiding from far away or has few bases. Since energy weapons require fuel, they'll drop in with low supplies and get butchered by a fully prepped and ready group of modernized military ships. If you have some good interdiction tech you can even make the planet a no jump zone and put a starbase or interdictor over it, effectively cutting it off from usage. 5. Murder every base, ever. If you can't find the base, send out exploration ships. If that fails, board or murder some ships. You can see 3 and 4 for tips on that. I think the boarding option is better than killing them too, since it gives a higher chance of getting an event where you discover the location of a pirate base. Once you have it, run wild on that sucker. Even if it's a gas station go after it. This cripples their supply lines. If it's a fuel based harvesting base it'll also give them one less place to refuel at too. 6. Be aware that smarter pirate factions will put bases in out of the way places. If there's a nebula that murders everything that gets built inside, they'll happily put it in the center and use it for refueling only. If it's a spiral galaxy map, they'll hide a base out in the fringes of the galaxy in a gas cloud. Also, I think they can make discoveries, so they'll happily pick up special stations if possible. 7. Pirate factions don't work like empire factions. When a pirate faction is doing badly, pirates will start to mutiny. They may even start plotting to put a cap in their factional leaders to try and turn stuff around. Generally this means that the more damage you do to a faction, the more likely it is another faction will get their remaining assets. Don't be surprised if this leads to you having a second fleet from farther away show up. In reality it's probably the first factions ships. The plus side to this is that if a faction likes you/if it thinks it'll spite someone, it may give you its stuff when it dies. This can include stations which can vastly increase the range of your ships, along with ships you can retire at your shipyards for huge tech boosts in the early shadows era. Archonex fucked around with this message at 13:38 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 11:39
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I also picked up this game and than this The very first ship I ever built in the tut levels, and the game names and makes it like a penis!  I have been having fun playing the shadow campaign playing my inner pirate, left most of the processes to automation/ask great leader and just fiddle in manual input when needed. Its been 18 years and the empires never really took off, one never even got past building a spaceport and only two have expended beyond their solar system, while the pirates have been pirating eachother  one planet in particular that is independent is the main battle field between me and two other pirates, + one pirate who found a gently caress off cruiser with a beam that shakes ships to death (lost my mothership to that thing, hyper drive was first module knocked out )
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May 25, 2014 13:21
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Shima Honnou posted:Do you mean this? I installed the mod and it happened for every planet of every size. I was stupid and didn't make a backup folder. Can you upload the shading.png please?
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May 25, 2014 15:40
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if you have steam version..can't you revalidate the files via steam?
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May 25, 2014 16:00
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tuluk posted:if you have steam version..can't you revalidate the files via steam? I don't own the steam version.
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May 25, 2014 16:01
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