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OwlFancier posted:If people can't figure it out then, well, frankly I think they're a bit thick. If every game has to be built entirely out of components from existing games because anything you don't already know how to use is "too hard" to learn, then it bodes poorly for the future of the genre because to be completely honest I don't like master-of-orion likes. To be blunt, this kind of thinking is prevalent in real life too and it doesn't bode well for the Human race. Until you remember that stupidity has infected us basically since the first time a Human tribe went extinct because learning to deal with fire was "too hard". 
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Apr 18, 2016 18:07
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In fairness to those who struggle, I can put myself in their shoes and see a bit into why they have trouble. I mean if you've spent the last 10 years playing the exact same kind of game, down to pretty much identical mechanics, and then suddenly you're playing a game which throws all those conventions out the window then yeah, I can imagine you'd be experiencing something like 'culture shock'. After all, maybe you haven't had to learn 'how to play a 4X' in 10 years; you've just been learning how to play a particular set of mechanics (e.g. MoO, Civ) better and better over time. It could take a while to shake all that off and actually start learning how to play the game without trying to fit it into the framework you learned how to play expertly. That's my theory anyway.
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Apr 18, 2016 18:42
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Firgof posted:You might like the Game option: "Escape Returns to Galaxy Tab". Should do what you're describing here. Serious questions: Why are these not defaulted to on? Why default them to off?
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Apr 18, 2016 18:54
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LordSaturn posted:Serious questions: Why are these not defaulted to on? Why default them to off? The escape thing is just a preference, I suppose. I wasn't aware this was such a natural thing for people to do, since you don't really press escape in a browser either, which the UI is modeled after. The pausing is more deliberate. Pausing the game regularly is a perfectly fine way to play it, of course, but it's not really what we designed the game around. We consider time pressure a part of the game's difficulty, and we made sure you don't need any crazy levels of micro to manage all your things in real time and in multiplayer.
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Apr 18, 2016 19:03
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Yeah I have it turned off, because it's much more efficient to just learn to use the natural downtime to do different non-galaxy map things. While you're waiting for the budget cycle to tick over, have a look at the research tree, while waiting for a colony to get established and grow, design some parts of a ship.
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Apr 18, 2016 19:10
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I have to turn it on because otherwise I spend 30 minute in the ship designer and things are rather different when I come back to the galaxy tab.
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Apr 18, 2016 20:01
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OwlFancier posted:I have to turn it on because otherwise I spend 30 minute in the ship designer and things are rather different when I come back to the galaxy tab. You can manually pause the game and then visit the ship designer. That's what I do. For things like the diplomacy and research menus I find they work well in real time between directing my empire on the galaxy map.
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Apr 18, 2016 20:04
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Bremen posted:You can manually pause the game and then visit the ship designer. That's what I do. I tend to forget.
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Apr 18, 2016 20:05
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Preview of some of our new full screen shader effects - and of the upgrade to stars Jon is working on
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Apr 18, 2016 20:18
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Lprsti99 posted:Pretty sure there's an option that toggles exactly that situation. Firgof posted:You might like the Game option: "Escape Returns to Galaxy Tab". Should do what you're describing here. Well I feel like a fool now.  Thanks to both!
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Apr 18, 2016 20:25
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Firgof posted:Preview of some of our new full screen shader effects - and of the upgrade to stars Jon is working on I like to read this as he's making a system where we can upgrade stars to be better and brighter (to support a larger ring of stolen homeworlds in a wider orbit)
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Apr 18, 2016 21:34
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For whatever it's worth, I found the tabbed interface very intuitive, to the point that I wondered why another game hadn't done it sooner. I think what makes SR2 challenging to learn is that it takes just about every RTS and 4X convention and innovates on it in a new, interesting way. So players aren't learning the "one neat trick", they have to learn many. E.g. Planetary Annihilation looks like a cool game, but it's basically a gimmick. "Oh look! It's Total Annihilation from 1996 with spherical battlegrounds and the ability to use even bigger nukes." SR2 has new gimmicks for everything: ship design, research costs, diplomacy, the concept of influence, scale, resources, etc.
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Apr 18, 2016 21:44
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So I've got a decent handle on the game now, and pretty much the most important resources is money. Anything else can be bought, or built, but without money resources you are screwed. I may not fully understand research though. I've got a late game crystal planet that I've upgraded to lvl 5 and I've filled with Research Labs (20 or so) and my research rate is still pretty low, like <3rp/s. This implies that the best way to get research is actually just that one galactic event, which seems bad.
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Apr 18, 2016 21:54
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Mind that the more research you generate, the harder research points become to generate. This is why costs stay fixed in the web but empires nonetheless tend to 'harden' over time, requiring more and more investment to foray into 'new' territories of science. Edit: Unless it's changed, the formula for it ought to be: 2000 / (2000 + totalGenerated) where totalGenerated is the total amount of research points you've created this game. Firgof fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Apr 18, 2016 |
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Apr 18, 2016 21:55
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Seems counter-intuitive. I know why you'd do it that way, but it's difficult for the player to understand what's going on with their research planet generating such low yields.
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Apr 18, 2016 22:12
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Flash update just went up on the Steam forums, announcing the new Satellite-type for Orbitals and, in particular, the "Ring Habitat" shown below: GGLucas posted:These orbitals must be placed in orbit of a planet, and each planet can only have one of each, giving it benefits.
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Apr 18, 2016 23:21
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I know you probably can't tell us about any new FTL or Life Styles but I am excited for them anyway.
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Apr 18, 2016 23:23
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Well, we have talked about the Extragalactic trait some already when we announced the Heralds - who are the owners of that Life trait.
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Apr 18, 2016 23:24
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Satellites are back? Sweet!
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Apr 19, 2016 05:09
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Firgof posted:Flash update just went up on the Steam forums, announcing the new Satellite-type for Orbitals and, in particular, the "Ring Habitat" shown below: Finally Star Ruler 2 can fully inhabit the "Ian M. Banks Culture Simulator" title of its predecessor 
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Apr 19, 2016 10:55
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There's a new article on Wake of the Heralds' Invasion maptype, the Senate Leader mechanic for Diplomacy, and the Influence Victory condition. More info here!
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Apr 19, 2016 19:30
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Firgof posted:There's a new article on Wake of the Heralds' Invasion maptype, the Senate Leader mechanic for Diplomacy, and the Influence Victory condition. Invasion sounds like a fun thing to do if you don't want to play a 10 hour game or you just wanna have fun with some friends. Re: Influence Victory, will there be any way to "block" that, outside of the influence system itself? I'm having flashbacks to Endless Legend and its Drakken race, that if you let get out of control/are too far away to touch, can become unstoppable because they force peace on you and slowly rack up their victory points while you sit there paralyzed because your mega huge death swarm of bugs/humans/living armour is politically paralyzed from consuming them.
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Apr 20, 2016 10:57
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A Horde mode for a 4x is a brilliant idea (and logical evolution of MoO2s Antarans) and I can't wait to play it.
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Apr 20, 2016 15:11
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Conot posted:Re: Influence Victory, will there be any way to "block" that, outside of the influence system itself? I'm having flashbacks to Endless Legend and its Drakken race, that if you let get out of control/are too far away to touch, can become unstoppable because they force peace on you and slowly rack up their victory points while you sit there paralyzed because your mega huge death swarm of bugs/humans/living armour is politically paralyzed from consuming them. Like the other alternate victory condition (The Revenant parts, which are the energy victory), we made it a little softer than a "you win now" button. There's a ton of prerequisites (become senate leader, build a senatorial palace, win both a galactic utopia and a galactic superpower vote), and if you lose your senate leader status or your palace gets destroyed anywhere along the way you have to start over. Even after you get all those things, rather than simply "winning" your empire is deemed so amazing that any planets bordering it will automatically start converting to you side, so enemies will likely have some minutes to watch their dwindling empires and try to mount a desperate last stand. GGLucas fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Apr 20, 2016 |
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Apr 20, 2016 15:12
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GGLucas posted:Like the other alternate victory condition (The Revenant parts, which are the energy victory), we made it a little softer than a "you win now" button. Right, that makes sense, so a last minute, Ride of the Valkyries style lightning strike on the planet with a fleet of planet bombarders could save you from the wave of
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Apr 20, 2016 17:04
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GGLucas posted:Like the other alternate victory condition (The Revenant parts, which are the energy victory), we made it a little softer than a "you win now" button. I looked at the write-up on this victory condition on Steam and thought "meh" because I dislike auto-win alternate victory scenarios. I should have known better with you guys. "Adjacent planets start flipping" is a really, really cool way to do this. It's not an automatic win, but is inevitable unless the other side does something about it.
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Apr 20, 2016 18:54
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Ynglaur posted:I looked at the write-up on this victory condition on Steam and thought "meh" because I dislike auto-win alternate victory scenarios. I should have known better with you guys. "Adjacent planets start flipping" is a really, really cool way to do this. It's not an automatic win, but is inevitable unless the other side does something about it. We like to try and keep everything exciting at all times - even when you're losing we hope you're still having fun.
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Apr 20, 2016 19:04
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I just wish the Revenant had fewer torpedo launchers, and more lasers/railguns. Also more engines would be nice too.
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Apr 20, 2016 19:09
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The newtonian mechanics bother me in this game. I feel like that is one aspect that should be more "gamey" since we are already gaming the distances between the stars. The huge momentum of moving ships, not having a top speed, and the ships speed not changing with their engine damage is kind of frustrating. Specifically I'm talking about hunting down the Pirates and Seed ships, but it applies to all the ships. There should be a way to make a large ship more agile, something like an inertia nullifier or something like that to be researched, that lets a ship change non-ftl velocity instantly, making a ship with that system be incredibly maneuverable. Also a top speed dependent on amount of engine tiles you have.
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Apr 20, 2016 20:03
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Closest we've got to that at the moment is the Graviton engine, which allows the ship to thrust in any direction no matter what direction it's presently facing. The Skip Drive also can instantly nullify any accrued speed with a point-FTL to the ship's present location. We do try to keep things at least semi-realistic. Some stuff has to be abstracted out simply because we're playing a game but Andrew likes to ensure things at least try to remain accurate (e.g. no green/purple stars)
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Apr 20, 2016 20:08
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Haha you guys made a horde mode with diplomacy. That's the most beautiful madness. I'll definitely get a copy of the DLC, and I'll send one to my friend I bought a copy for at release as well. Hopefully we can do some horde mode together.
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Apr 21, 2016 04:36
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Okay I'm seeing a lot I like here but Attitutes or something similar is a mechanic I have been arguing for for literally years so I am god drat getting your expansion on release, you've got at least one of those sales you need. As for spreading the news, I obvious don't know who you may have talked to, but the cast of Three Moves Ahead talk a shitload about various strategy games and I'd guess they would be interested. I'd suggest contacting Rob Zacny as he's the dude in charge these days. At least some of these guys have SA accounts I believe, but I don't know who, or their usernames. 
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Apr 21, 2016 05:02
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The Stellaris talk branching off into SR2 talk reminded me that I had this most excellent game! So I've been playing it again the last week or so. I've been playing as the Mechanoids and think I maybe encountered a bug: I annexed a system via diplomacy, but the UI flat out refuses to let me teleport out civilian pops regardless of the FTL cost (even with my LVL 5 FTL world being flung into the same system.) However I have no problems 'resettling' the population of worlds I conquer militarily. Am I missing something? I'd rather just glass some of these worlds if I can't move them, as I have no use for food and they're costing me maintenance.
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Apr 21, 2016 05:23
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Mister Adequate posted:As for spreading the news, I obvious don't know who you may have talked to, but the cast of Three Moves Ahead talk a shitload about various strategy games and I'd guess they would be interested. I'd suggest contacting Rob Zacny as he's the dude in charge these days. At least some of these guys have SA accounts I believe, but I don't know who, or their usernames. Yeah, 3MA is a great idea - they've had an episode recently about the stagnation of the space 4X genre where I -think- SR got a brief mention for bucking the trend but don't quote me on that. It's definitely squarely in (some of) their wheelhouse.
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Apr 21, 2016 08:25
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Bettik posted:Yeah, 3MA is a great idea - they've had an episode recently about the stagnation of the space 4X genre where I -think- SR got a brief mention for bucking the trend but don't quote me on that. It's definitely squarely in (some of) their wheelhouse. Rob Zacny has spoken about his dislike of cookie cutter MoO clones (ep 216) before so a game like this, which tries something different, might encourage a good discussion.
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Apr 21, 2016 09:23
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So is there a price somewhere for the expansion and I'm just missing it?
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Apr 21, 2016 15:58
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Sinister_Beekeeper posted:So is there a price somewhere for the expansion and I'm just missing it? this x2
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Apr 21, 2016 16:08
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Sinister_Beekeeper posted:So is there a price somewhere for the expansion and I'm just missing it? You'll be able to buy the expansion for $9,99.
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Apr 21, 2016 16:48
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GGLucas posted:Like the other alternate victory condition (The Revenant parts, which are the energy victory), we made it a little softer than a "you win now" button. Do outposts/protect system cards have any effect on that? E: also can I blow up stars to stop my planets "bordering" the other empire? Because that sounds pretty reasonable to me. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Apr 21, 2016 |
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Apr 21, 2016 17:19
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OwlFancier posted:Do outposts/protect system cards have any effect on that? Outpost and Protect System have no effect on the takeovers from an influence victory. You can totally firewall off your empire by surrounding it with supernovas though. Though all they'd need to do would be to move a planet into one of the now empty systems 
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Apr 21, 2016 18:23
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