|
I'm pretty pumped for ES2. I really like the faction videos and I think they might be taking a few new paths with some faction quests. For example the narrator for the Sophon video seems to be this AI they created and despite the tone it strikes me as rather sinister and ominous.
|
#
¿
Sep 15, 2016 16:03
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 14:47 |
|
|
The new ship design system looks pretty neat and breaks down min maxing. Hopefully it also does away with the rock-paper-scissors system of ES1.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 15, 2016 18:35
|
|
|
Monument victory. You literally win by production.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 15, 2016 20:42
|
|
|
Lichtenstein posted:Endless Legend got me to buy a music DLC and I'm not feeling a single bit of shame about it. The Crusader Kings metal soundtracks are super sweet too. So when is ES2 hitting early access? I really want to buy this one.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 19, 2016 10:35
|
|
|
Speedball posted:How is their devouring gimmick this time around? In ES1 they would get bonus FIDS for a certain number of turns, but over time a planet would get devoured-out and they'd need to continue to exploit more. It's the same thing this time. Expect now races are represented as their own populations and Cravers will use them as slaves, giving you great production on systems with high alien populations but killing them over time (replacing them with less productive Craver pops).
|
|
#
¿
Sep 20, 2016 20:56
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:I wonder how that works if a non-Craver empire ends up controlling Craver populations - if you conquer Craver worlds, Cravers will start to enslave and devour your other pops ala the Harvesters from MOO3. If they do... Yeah, normal pops will probably stop reproducing and only reduce under Craver leadership but it's unclear how it works the other way around and if Craver pops can participate in politics. Maybe they do just get exterminated. Here's a fun art piece of life under Cravers. 
|
|
#
¿
Sep 20, 2016 23:38
|
|
|
Yeah units are cool and unique but the designer should have taken more from SMAC. It really should just be base units, melee/ranged or melee 'type' (like circular attacks etc) and one or two slots for unique modifiers like movement or adjacency bonuses. The way weapons and armor upgrades work is a huge slog and each tier immediately obsoletes the previous which wrecks balance.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 23, 2016 13:16
|
|
|
Maybe just have a single piece of 'armor' and weapons with no tiers for iron that lasts the entire game, with them made from resources giving them a minor damage/protection buff but a unique property for a big cost. That way you can build a few elite units that stand out but overall combat balance is mostly the same the entire game. Leave the techs in as just ways to make those weapons and armor from the strategics. This also let's you kind of finesse some balance in for each race with a modifier that synergises with them. For example if era 4 armor gives a small adjacency buff to other units it would synergies super well for fallen lords and make that era a power spike. Demiurge4 fucked around with this message at 13:32 on Sep 23, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Sep 23, 2016 13:29
|
|
|
So a few youtubers have got their hands in the game and as usual my reaction is 'you're not playing optimally, God! What do you mean you picked food over happiness! You're vodyani, happiness is percentage boosts!' Game looks good though. Can't wait to play it.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 29, 2016 10:38
|
|
|
The Sophons are kind of boring but they at least have a potentially sinister plot line with that AI they've built. There's also an anti-Sophon (Mavros) minor faction that use red LEDs instead of blue which strikes me as kind of lazy. I do like the Lumeris though and the Vodyani definitely have a cool unique mechanic to them. I've binged a few gameplay videos on YouTube but I'm trying not to spoil everything for me, however it seems that the AI (even on Hard) is extremely passive and it could well be the EA release will be the same.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 2, 2016 14:26
|
|
|
I usually split my army into three on turn 1, then merge again around turn 15. In my experience roaming armies don't start spawning until after my first empire plan.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 5, 2016 01:13
|
|
|
Who is the 4xplorer guy? He did a craver playthrough and the studio retweeted his endless legend thing but his endless space 2 videos are literally his first ever uploads. Why does he get such exposure?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 5, 2016 15:12
|
|
|
So my first impressions of ES2 are pretty positive. The AI will absolutely pile on you early if you let it and it really sucks to start next to either Cravers or Vodyani. Cravers because, well they're Cravers and they will absolutely run at you with a hundred ships on turn 20. Vodyani because their massive nomad ships have 300+ military power to your starting ships 20+ but at least they don't seem too keen on using them to attack your fleets, probably a balance thing. Sophons appear to have a branching storyline. I picked military focus because I figured 3 battles was easy, but then the next pair of missions was down that line too which is cool. The Craver story seems a lot more streamlined however. A few bugs, I found one with the Cravers on the mission after you blow up the ship in the story. The planet spawns 3 exploration anomalies and the each give you 20 hyperium which is kind of insane.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 7, 2016 00:21
|
|
|
I haven't tried the titanium techs yet (I was swimming in hyperium) but the hyperium weapon is a close range laser that does horrible damage and has identical stats to a regular tier 2 laser. I also noticed that tier 2 still uses hyperium and titanium but I haven't gotten around to researching them yet, I imagine they just let you skip to the next tier again. The ship design system in ES2 is much better than what Endless Legend had because each ship has a very specific role and types of modules (for example exploration and support ships only have access to short range guns). There is still however a rather extreme jump in power levels between tiers and I imagine if the titanium tier 1 gun is an artillery gun you can really dominate in the first round of combat even early on.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 7, 2016 00:56
|
|
|
Cravers rely heavily on happiness boosts once systems are depleted to keep them productive. In my game I kept up happiness with the law that gives approval for having a fleet in orbit.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 7, 2016 10:21
|
|
|
The humans in all the art so far look like they could come from a setting that's not far removed from us today. They all wear leather jackets, jumpsuits and generally don't have anything that could suggest which faction they would belong to which makes guessing a lot harder. If they were from any of the ES1 factions you'd expect them to appear more martial. You can also tell that a lot of population interactions don't work correctly right now or aren't implemented at all. Cravers don't kill off other pops and if you conquer them there's no way to avoid them depleting your planets, which could get very annoying if they spread around your other systems. Elections are also a little bugged, what with my Sophon scientists losing a vote by 70% to the pacifists in the first election.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 9, 2016 16:52
|
|
|
For multiplayer only one person needs the dlc and it's on for everyone. I believe all the expansions are just factions and you get balance changes for free.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 9, 2016 20:11
|
|
|
Aren't the Mogwr basically the weird hosed up dudes you fight in Dungeon of the Endless?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2016 08:29
|
|
|
Era 2 has an industy to dust tech.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2016 13:08
|
|
|
Siphons have the fun ability to research era 2 techs from the start. Sadly they don't seem to actually get the T2 weapons from the tech until you actually progress to that era so no crazy Sophon war supremacy from turn 3. That said I'm gonna try getting the T2 ships and see how they fare against a craver AI in era 1.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2016 13:22
|
|
|
It's a design choice. Endless legend does it too. I think the rationale is to make the early game feel like the exploration phase and era 2 is the beginning of the space history where borders have been established and conflict erupts (hence why invasions are gated behind and era 2 tech). The pacing of the game doesn't really support it though. I run out of things to build and do only halfway through era 1 right now. But it's clear to me that the eras are supposed to represent a few hundred years of progress.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2016 13:34
|
|
|
You can upgrade your system levEl (in era 2  )Honestly I think a lot of the pacing problems are down to the game being content light. I think they should stack some colonisation techs together and put the improvements elsewhere. A lot of system improvements in era 1 are super situational for example. The tech that unlocks titanium gives you a building that produces a whopping 5 industry per turn and 10 for every forest planet, but in my experience forests are incredible rare. It's the same with drone networks and virtualization, they give a pittance at best. The science tech is good for sophons because they begin with a veldt planet but I think it should be science per pop instead. I also encountered a weird bug when I researched AI assisted production. Suddenly every planet was coloniseable. Gonna have to see if I can replicate that.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2016 09:20
|
|
|
IAmTheRad posted:Era I just feels slow. There's not much to do. Of course, the game being in early access and all makes it seem slower than usual. A large galaxy with eight different circulations, all the minor factions, a greatly expanded tech tree, more to discover will expand the game and give more stuff to do in Era I. Yeah a lot of the faction traits are very underwhelming outside of the racial affinity. 'Great Soldiers II' woop di loving doo. A larger list of unique traits with no scaling would be aces. Also to go back to the invasion thing. I think that they are supposed to be gated behind survival suits but invasions are just super buggy right now, what with the AI being able to bypass fleets entirely and the Vodyani mechanic being completely broken when it comes to that facet of the game (you can invade a system with an ark ship (which has almost no manpower) and when they lose they lose the arkship. Demiurge4 fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Oct 11, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2016 11:38
|
|
|
The FIDSI bonuses were a little hard to read for me at first. Sophons just show +1 Science +3 on cold which at first I thought meant they produced nothing else. But of course pops on planets produce the entire output of the planet and then whatever bonus they have on top which is just shown as exploitation. The racial traits are fine, I have no problem with the new system, I'd just like them to do away with the levels on them to make them stand out more. The affinity is what really matters anyway, which for Sophons is the percentage bonus on science output for certain techs and the ability to research any Era 2 tech from the start of the game.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2016 11:57
|
|
|
The system upgrade system is kind of odd and feels tacked on right now. The bonuses are nice and it's a use for all those luxury resources, but there's no information about it ingame or in tooltips and when I saw it on the system view I honestly expected it to upgrade by itself as the system improved over time.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2016 14:32
|
|
|
If you have Cravers near you, you absolutely need to drop everything you're doing and go full military or you are out of the game.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2016 14:40
|
|
|
The Hunter class medium is pretty good. It has a pair of batteries of double, symetrical guns and a huge amount of HP. If you rushed it, you could potentially have one of those, an attacker class support ship for close range and a hero in your fleet. It has a huge production cost though so it'll take a while just to get the one out and I'm not sure you want to do that unless you're certain you can turn it into a system or two right away.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2016 17:20
|
|
|
Maybe they should give the various system improvements upgrade paths. Drone Networks is hilariously useless on its own as even on turn 1 your homeworld alone produces 30+ industry and 40+ food and it only gives a flat +5 to both. Xeno Industrial Complex provides 5 industry and an extra 10 on forest planets but forests are rare and yet you're still compelled to get the technology since it unlocks the mining of titanium. I think that some buildings should instead upgrade and have more pronounced benefits. For example Drone Networks could prove +1 industry per population and then upgrade into Interplanetary Transport Network which would give the extra +3 per population on deposits. That way you keep it useful and relevant through the entire game instead of being something you throw production at because you have nothing else to build. The same issue exists with Sustainable Farms and Magnetic Field Generators. Era 1 just feels very undeveloped.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2016 23:08
|
|
|
IAmTheRad posted:Era 1 seems like the era where you should expand your empire. The problem is that there are too few planets you can natively settle on. You need to take the colonization techs in order to settle on planets that will be spread throughout the map. There's also too much variance besides your homeworld. It would be better if they had pre-made home systems because whether I get a medium tropical world or 3 lava worlds makes a huge difference.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2016 23:17
|
|
|
Lichtenstein posted:Super-streamlined gratuitous space battles would be awesome. I wish someone would make use of Oxide Engine already.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 14, 2016 01:34
|
|
|
Are the mogawr kind of op? By turn 50 I was getting 80 influence a turn from just my citadels (had an influence thing on one of them). I didn't have to focus on influence at all ever and could pretty mucheap max out my empire plan every time.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2016 08:50
|
|
|
At least they didn't cut out religion with the excuse that it doesn't fit the gameplay this time.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2016 10:12
|
|
|
I love that image of the alien giving the human soldier food as an offering. Then in the next slide, with the flag, the soldier is standing atop a pile of bones with the very same green fruit in the pile. This is gonna be some grindark poo poo.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 23, 2016 16:08
|
|
|
What changes about the combat?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 5, 2017 20:37
|
|
|
The Riftborn remind me a lot of the Loa from Sword of the Stars 2, going by the trailer.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2017 20:09
|
|
|
I'm really digging the faction story for the Empire. It seems they are the Mezari and the Emperor is basically super paranoia Stalin. I find I don't really enjoy any of the playstyles though. The factions feel, if anything, too specialized. I find myself longing for a generic one without a specific resource gimmick.
|
|
#
¿
May 15, 2017 08:00
|
|
|
What do the Vodyani use food for?
|
|
#
¿
May 19, 2017 07:21
|
|
|
Horatio is way cooler now and the main story quest does a lot to do that. Horatio Prime is a title and all his dirty little clones are constantly fighting over who gets to be the original. The thing is, none of them are but they are every bit as selfish and egomaniacal as the original.
|
|
#
¿
May 19, 2017 13:39
|
|
|
So what determines when you get tanks/aircraft in your fleets and planets? I have both unlocked but I'm only fighting with infantry.
|
|
#
¿
May 20, 2017 17:35
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 14:47 |
|
|
Maybe I missed it but the game doesn't seem to have a lot of feedback on how defenses and weapon systems interact. For most games I'll just go with the piddly starting weapons and grab a quest reward for an upgrade while I go full economy. The UE start off with a pretty decent all-ranges laser gun that does a lot of work through most of the game for me. I have no idea how laser and kinetic defense works though. They're just stat points but I haven't actually had a hard game yet, I think I need to bump the difficulty up another notch because the AI always rolls over in a war.
|
|
#
¿
May 22, 2017 08:39
|
|