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ES2 going into early access next week? Interesting... Hmm, of the four factions revealed, 2 of them are new. This bodes poorly for any of the previous ES factions. I seem to be unusual in this, but the faction I'd most like to see return is the Sowers. The idea of of a sentient terraforming machine that views everyone else in the universe as irrelevant at best and potential obstacles at worst in a grand quest to terraform the universe strikes a chord with me as a "cool alien", and the very nature of ignoring food and planetary climate entirely has a lot of potential for creating unique gameplay (which to be fair, wasn't fully realized in ES). I mean, seriously, think of how weird they could be. They don't care about having an empire or controlling space, they just care about terraforming planets. Heck, maybe they invite other species to live on their planets when they're done with them. Use the immigration system or something? I just think they have the most potential to be re-imagined in a post-EL world. If there's only one Human faction, then I think UE makes the most sense. Maybe they're not all that interesting, but all the other humans were essentially defined as spin-offs of the United Empire. Horatio are fun flavor-wise, but honestly not all that interesting gameplay-wise. They just reproduce quickly. You could do something with the cloning, but personally I can't think of much beyond the hero cloning they had before. The new space vampires are Pilgrims+ in terms of being nomadic and religious, and while Vaulters seem to be a fan favorite, they've always felt too "creator's pet" for me to actually enjoy. They just don't seem that interesting to me, in either flavor or mechanics. It's just another science faction. Harmony are interesting, so I guess they'd fit in. Or maybe they'd just get replaced with a similar anti-dust faction, like how the Amoebas apparently got replaced by frogs as peaceful trade specialists. Automaton are... I've never really understood why a futuristic SF game had clockwork robots. That just seems really silly to me, and not in a good way like Horatio. Their mechanic also wasn't that great, imo. As I recall they were the result of a fan contest, but so were the Cultists in EL and those were more interesting to me. Hissho are already out, but good riddance. And... I can't recall the others. Clarste fucked around with this message at 11:44 on Oct 2, 2016 |
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Oct 2, 2016 10:52
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Cythereal posted:I like the Sowers, but one of the existing minor races is the Sowers in all but name with the backstory changed slightly. Nah, those guys are military drones or whatever. I mean, you could say the same thing of the Cravers, really: abandoned military hardware gone crazy. The important thing about the Sowers isn't just that they're abandoned robots (the Automata also had that exact backstory in ES, btw), it's the fact that they're living infrastructure. They're self-growing colonies with 0 population. They aren't human-like androids walking around or anything, they're body-less AIs who continuously build farms and shopping malls that they can never use, for masters who will never come back.
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Oct 2, 2016 22:58
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So, Endless Space 2 (Early Access) is coming out at 7 PM Paris time? Which is apparently 10 AM PST? Nothing even close to a midnight steam release then.
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Oct 6, 2016 01:09
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Gwyrgyn Blood posted:I'd really like to hear some impressions of the combat system, ship design, and how it ties into research and resources and such. Ship Design is very similar to Endless Legend. You have generic gun/laser/missile/armor/shields that automatically improve with each tech tier (you still have to refit your ships though, like in Endless Legend). However, you can also research "Titanium equipment" which will let you equip improved versions of all those things that use Titanium (or other resources, obviously). I think these also upgrade with tier, but honestly I wasn't researching all that many military techs. Each ship chassis has its own unique configuration of slots. Like, they might have 2 weapon slots and 2 armor slots, but in those weapon slots you can have 2 lasers or 2 guns or mix and match. However, it seems some ships have slots that can only be used for specific weapons. It just depends. There are also utility/support slots but I never actually researched any of those. Combat itself is incredibly straightforward, even simpler than the original ES. You just choose a tactic and watch it play out, except you only get 1 tactic for the entire battle instead of 3. I played a game as Lumeris and while I did end up utterly dominating the galaxy with infinite money and influence, I found it hard to actually be at peace with anyone. Even the Sophons hated my guts from the very beginning, and in fact declared war on me before it was even possible for me to research diplomacy. Which is sort of a more general thing I noticed: all the diplomacy techs seem way too advanced. By the time I'd even researched "peace treaty", I'd already gotten into a doom war and wiped out an empire. It also seems to be impossible to negotiate for peace: after a certain amount of time the game just declares that someone won and auto-allocates tributary payments from the loser. Also I found it impossible to advance in the story quest because I chose the option where they wanted me to get 80% pacifist in the Senate, but the act of building up enough warships to not die tipped my population to around 50% militarist and it never recovered. Clarste fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Oct 7, 2016 |
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Oct 7, 2016 00:45
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You can also upgrade ship types with certain techs, so I'd imagine they can stick around into the late game in some fashion. Hmm, another thing of note is that it's rather hard to find planets you can actually colonize. By default you can only colonize planets that are exactly like your homeworld (which are much more specific than they used to be: Lumeris get Atoll (not Ocean) and Sophons get Svelte (not Terran)), and the colonizations techs don't end up being super-cheap like they did in ES (because of the scaling tech cost thing). I actually couldn't find any colonizable worlds for a huge fraction of the game, and ended up expanding by assimilating minor faction homeworlds instead. And, uh, conquering the Sophon homeworld. Although one of those minor factions were those robot guys and I guess they have some form of tolerance because they could colonize the other worlds in their system immediately. Which made that system such a powerhouse compared to all the other crappy systems everyone had at the time that it became my de facto capital and I steamrolled to victory. Demiurge4 posted: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 first resource tech I researched was Tier 3, and it had upgraded versions of each weapon and armor type. Clarste fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Oct 7, 2016 |
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Oct 7, 2016 01:11
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I think Ingris might be a little influential:
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Oct 7, 2016 02:44
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This is probably just Alpha weirdness, but the Cravers feel sort of clunky right now. In that they're crippled by their food feeling unhappy about being unrepresented in the elections. Unhappiness penalties turn into huge amounts of negative food (probably to represent people emigrating: they don't "starve" anymore) which means that unhappy cattle kills off my Craver population too. Luckily colonies can suvive with 0 population, but then I just find myself wasting depletion points. Or maybe I just don't know how to play yet.
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Oct 7, 2016 10:18
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Demiurge4 posted: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. Er... yeah, +25 doesn't seem like it'd be anything more than a drop in the bucket. I get -35 just from voting Militarist in the dictatorship government, and than another -100 from over-colonization since I'm eating everything. I mean, I'm still winning just from having a huge fleet, but every single system has been in rebellion for the past 50 turns and I have negative population growth everywhere. Luckily I keep conquering more planets to slowly kill off.  The only reason I'm not broke too is the Spoils of War law. The biggest problem I have is that the game automatically ends wars so I need to wait out cease fires a lot.Edit: Almost got an elimination victory before the timer ran out, except they got their stupid cease fire on the last turn. Clarste fucked around with this message at 12:45 on Oct 7, 2016 |
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Oct 7, 2016 12:40
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Safety Factor posted:I actually have no idea how to do ground assaults/defenses well. Ships take forever to restock their manpower even in my own territory with the right laws in place. Manpower is produced by food, so the Vodyani are exceptionally bad at it. You basically need to build up an empire stockpile of it, and the fastest way to do that is the "draft" button available on the military screen. It consumes influence and food (ie: population) to max out your stockpile.
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Oct 8, 2016 02:13
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I set it to 4 players, one for each race. Also, Harmony disconfirmed? One of the Sophon quest chains involves finding Harmony ruins, and they're described as an ancient, extinct civilization. While that doesn't mean they won't show up in a later expansion, I think that strongly implies they won't be in the base game. Clarste fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Oct 9, 2016 |
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Oct 9, 2016 06:23
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Cynic Jester posted:Vaulters are a science faction, so it'd be sort of redundant with Sophons already doing their thing. I guess you could shift their focus to something else, but their secondary focus always felt like Defense, and defensive stuff tends to blow. Well, there are 8 slots and 6 political factions (Scientific, Religious, Pacifist, Militarist, Ecologist, and Industrialist), so there has to be at least 1 overlap. Unless two of them are so weird that they don't even have the senate. Incidentally, we're currently missing an Ecologist and an Industrialist faction. I can definitely see UE showing up as the Industrialists, and while it's weird to imagine Sowers focused on food, they're probably the best fit for Ecologist of any of the previous game's factions. Or maybe Horatio. The Ecologist starting law (I think you get the starting laws for having a supermajority? it's not clear) allows you to colonize any type of world, so that's definitely Sowers-esque. Dartonus posted:Dunno if this is the same chain you're thinking of, but one quest chain spawns a fleet to fight and after the fact describes it as being "blue crystal". Weirdly, the ships spawned when I got this were one of the generic minor faction ships, and one of the heavier Sophon ships. Mainly my love for the Harmony speaking, but I figured that the Harmony ships aren't done yet so it was grabbing whatever ships were the right class as placeholders. Yes, that was the quest. You disturbed the Harmony ruins and fought a Sophon ship for some reason. While I agree this was probably a placeholder, I still think it'd be really weird for the flavor text to talk about them as if they don't exist anymore if they're a selectable faction. Clarste fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Oct 9, 2016 |
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Oct 9, 2016 08:43
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They've said there will be a human faction. The only question is which one. I personally think United Empire is the most likely, but Vaulters have always been a fan favorite so who knows?
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Oct 9, 2016 08:50
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It does seem likely, but honestly I loathe the Vaulters so I certainly hope not.
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Oct 9, 2016 10:02
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I think Horatio would be a minor faction. They're a popular joke, but no one especially cares for their gameplay. Vaulters are way more popular than them anyway. And yeah, the trees are almost certainly the ecologist faction, now that you mention it. Clarste fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Oct 9, 2016 |
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Oct 9, 2016 13:15
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Actually, now that I think about it it would be kind of weird for them to have this whole Senate faction design and not have anything planned ahead of time for Ecologist. I mean, they didn't know what would be submitted for the contest, right? This one's also all about being Pacifist. It's more likely to be one of the 2 wildcards than the basic Ecologist.
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Oct 9, 2016 14:38
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Chocolate Chunk posted:I bet Vaulters come back as a Minor Faction based on Auriga. They'll start the game with a a major defensive installation (think Orion's defenses in MoO) and once included into an empire give large science boosts and an extremely dust & science heavy planet. Auriga is already in the game, btw. It's one of several "unique" planets that you discover from time to time. They pretty much all suck, as far as I can tell, except for the major faction homeworlds which are also unique. Auriga is an Ice world which can't even be colonized with the available techs.
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Oct 9, 2016 15:08
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I'm just saying the Vaulters probably don't live there anymore, given that winter won out in the end.
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Oct 9, 2016 15:12
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HiKaizer posted:I didn't have enough influence as I'd just assimilated the gas giant science minor race. Unless it's the default law in which case it helped me a little but ship expenses seemed to overwhelm my tiny and fragile economy. I don't know if I just colonised poorly though. The Pacifist default law is -25% cost to all interactions with minor factions. And yeah, managing your dust and happiness seems way more important in this game, at least until they tweak the balance. Even a small fleet will chew through your resources, and often you're better off building nothing than a new ship or improvement which will just siphon your money.
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Oct 10, 2016 12:28
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Era 3 also has industry to science.
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Oct 10, 2016 13:15
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Max posted:I really do wish there was a "Produce Science / Money" build option for systems, like there is in Civ. I don't relish getting the popup that I have an empty queue every time I hit next turn. There is, you just have to research it. Just like you have to research every other basic function in this game. Personally, I feel like it's a problem: too many fundamental game systems are gated by research. You can't even do basic diplomacy until tier 2.
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Oct 10, 2016 13:30
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Demiurge4 posted:(hence why invasions are gated behind and era 2 tech). They aren't though. Wars can be fought and systems lost before tier 2. I hear this was changed from an earlier version of the game?
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Oct 10, 2016 13:47
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Dallan Invictus posted:It took me three tries to even get Sophons off the ground, and then on the third try my empire imploded due to happiness penalties tanking my economy after WINNING a war because I took territory trying to weaken my Lumeris neighbour when really I just wanted to bomb the planets in question flat so they couldn't have them - hopefully they add a way to do that. Razing planets is on the List.
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Oct 10, 2016 22:20
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Era 1 just takes too long to get out of and is missing too many mechanics. They just easily move the production-> dust tech down to Tier one.
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Oct 10, 2016 22:58
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pedro0930 posted:Well, one can always build more ships as a production sink. Well, not really because the basic ships cost like 8 dust per turn as maintenance. You really don't want a huge fleet you're not immediately using in this game.
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Oct 11, 2016 02:24
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From the official forums:quote:BREAKING NEWS:
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Oct 11, 2016 03:08
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Demiurge4 posted: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. Part of it is that a lot of things that were previously faction traits have been shunted off into being racial traits that exist regardless of how you acquire that population. IE: My population is good/bad at FIDS in some way. And frankly they're more powerful than ever, such as Sophons producing +4 science per pop on Cold planets. I'm not entirely sure what they could replace those with, I guess some sort of species editor could exist too, but I wouldn't really count on it.
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Oct 11, 2016 11:49
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Oh, I misunderstood what you said. What kinds of unique, non-scaling traits have existed in previous games?
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Oct 11, 2016 12:12
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That was their affinity. I meant more the customizable traits that you could use to design a custom faction. Although you'd still need to pick an existing affinity of course. Incidentally, I'm sure that's also why they're scalable when possible. Because the whole point of those traits is to make custom factions out of them.
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Oct 11, 2016 12:47
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Basically, Affinities affect what unique technologies and faction questlines you'll get. If you didn't have an Affinity, there would simply be blank spots in the game, and for the same reason it doesn't make much sense to have more than one Affinity at once. They're also the huge, asymmetrical gameplay changing features of each faction that everyone always praises about the series. Like, the Broken Lords not using food and growing with dust. Or the Cultists only having one city and converting neutral villages instead of expanding. Those are Affinities, while traits are more like +20% science production or +2 control cap.
Clarste fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Oct 11, 2016 |
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Oct 11, 2016 12:55
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The Deleter posted:Anyone who enjoyed the tech tree from EL1 is probably delusional. A huge stream of symbols thats hard to parse and hugely intimidating for newcomers? Tech Eras all the way. ES2 needs more work to feel right at the moment but I think going back to a tech tree would be unenjoyable . As I've suggested in the official forums, I think a hybrid system could work. The main benefits of the ES1 tech web were A) logical links so you aren't able to skip past lower tier techs entirely (like how probe level 3 overwrites both probe level 1 and 2), B) the ability to specialize your empire by going deep in one direction early on, and C) the ability to get older techs for cheap, so it doesn't feel like you've been semi-permanently locked out of the Tier 1 techs you skipped, by endlessly increasing tech costs. Also, well, honestly I've always found the Endless Legend tech icons harder to parse, personally. I mean, I can see how having less of them to deal with at once makes things simpler, but it's not like the icons themselves are any clearer.
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Oct 12, 2016 20:17
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Chomp8645 posted:What the gently caress. EL was pretty bad when it first came out in Early Access. I did that too, although I came back to it on the full release.
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Oct 14, 2016 01:50
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Chomp8645 posted:Sure I guess. I didn't play either in their EA days. But I am offended at the notion of someone playing "the poo poo out of" that turd ES and then dropping EL, an infinitely better game, after an hour or whatever. Honestly, I still go back to ES more often than EL. It's just really relaxing to sit back and watch the numbers go up.
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Oct 14, 2016 02:02
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Enemy influence never disappears, you can only overwrite it with your own. Not sure if that's intended or not. And yes, producing the influence resource makes the circles grow. Getting the luxury good that creates +50 influence developments is hilarious.
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Oct 14, 2016 03:31
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Rygar201 posted:Wars just end after so long long, and the loser is assigned a Tribute to the winner (Dust/Turn). Apparently it's a placeholder until diplomacy gets more fleshed out. The general idea though is that wars shouldn't last forever by default and that wars of elimination should be rare.
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Oct 16, 2016 23:10
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The most popular suggestion of the forums, last I checked, is that war takes influence to maintain, with increasing costs for longer wars, and Cravers get some sort of cost reduction from either their government or their racial traits.
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Oct 17, 2016 04:15
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Fhqwhgads posted:EL was my introduction to the Endless series of games, and I played the poo poo out of it and loved it. So I got ES2's Alpha and I am completely lost at this game. I have no idea what to do or research or anything. It just feels so completely different from EL that I can't transfer that gameplay knowledge to this one. Here's hoping they have tutorials or something when the game gets fully released? Are there any youtube tutorials on ES2's alpha, or would ES1's tutorials give me a decent enough background on the basics? At this point in Early Access, EL had no tutorials either (and was hopelessly confusing to me). So they're almost certainly going to be added. ES1's tutorials might work, depending on what you mean by "the basics". I think the most confusing part might be that Systems are the basic unit of production, equivalent to a city, and colonizing planets within the system is the equivalent to expanding your city's districts. You move pops between different planets instead of to specific FIDS. Incidentally, this makes X per pop upgrades far more valuable than they are in EL, since every single one of them applies to all your pops at the same time.
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Oct 17, 2016 17:21
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WarLocke posted:Well ES2 is apparently playable and finishable in it current state, which already puts it ahead of SotS2 (which was only 'playable' by the loosest of definitions on release). Well, ES2 only has 3 tech eras so far, so it's basically half-finishable.
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Oct 17, 2016 17:41
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You can also buy out Science with influence. Basically stack as much influence as possible and buy out the galaxy until you win. Or at least that's how my quick game with them went. Honestly there's nothing especially militaristic about their gameplay: I did win a military victory but that's just because I expanded my borders enough to buy all the enemy planets.
Clarste fucked around with this message at 09:45 on Nov 24, 2016 |
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Nov 24, 2016 09:38
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Well, they were a heavily militaristic faction in the previous game (and in the trailer just now), so it wasn't exactly a strange assumption to make.
Clarste fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Nov 28, 2016 |
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Nov 24, 2016 10:05
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Jastiger posted:Worth getting early access or waiting it out for Endless Space 2? How is it shaping up, and whens the release date? I have early access, and I would wait. It's just not a very engaging game yet, so I don't feel much motivation to play it other than a few times after each major patch to see what they changed. It's not bad exactly, it's just obviously incomplete, with major gameplay systems either missing or due for a revamp. I personally like the direction it seems to be heading, but they've also simplified combat a lot since EL (at the moment it's even simpler than ES1 too), and they've specifically said that their goal is a combat system where auto-resolving is never worse than playing it out: ie: no in-battle commands of any sort. If that's the kind of thing that bugs you, you might hate this game. Clarste fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Dec 23, 2016 |
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Dec 23, 2016 22:27
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