Sword of the Stars 2

CEJ wrote:

I came to SOTS Prime kind of late. All the expansions and such had been released and the game ran very well.

That all said and done, did Kerb do the same this with it? Released early then patch, patch and patch some more to make it playable?

The early SoTS releases weren't perfect, but they were NOWHERE as unfinished as this game. They were playable, even if I didn't realize how buggy it was because there was so much to take in and learn.

garion333 wrote:
CEJ wrote:

I came to SOTS Prime kind of late. All the expansions and such had been released and the game ran very well.

That all said and done, did Kerb do the same this with it? Released early then patch, patch and patch some more to make it playable?

The early SoTS releases weren't perfect, but they were NOWHERE as unfinished as this game. They were playable, even if I didn't realize how buggy it was because there was so much to take in and learn.

Yeah SOTS1 was buggy as all get out but at least it was playable, unlike how SOTS2 was originally released. That was a travesty.

CEJ wrote:

For what its worth, I played the hell out of Masters of Orion (I & II) and am kind of hard wired for these games. Must be some sort of character flaw.

Have you checked out Distant Worlds? Really cool space 4x. Also, Star Ruler is pretty good too. It's a good time to be a fan of these games.

tboon wrote:
CEJ wrote:

For what its worth, I played the hell out of Masters of Orion (I & II) and am kind of hard wired for these games. Must be some sort of character flaw.

Have you checked out Distant Worlds? Really cool space 4x. Also, Star Ruler is pretty good too. It's a good time to be a fan of these games. :)

Check this out: http://www.spacegamejunkie.com/2099/...

CEJ wrote:

For what its worth, I played the hell out of Masters of Orion (I & II) and am kind of hard wired for these games. Must be some sort of character flaw.

tboon wrote:

Have you checked out Distant Worlds? Really cool space 4x. Also, Star Ruler is pretty good too. It's a good time to be a fan of these games. :)

No on both. Like that Star Ruler is on Steam. Which of the two is worth checking out first?

I do like Matrix ... excellent strategy turn based games.

Distant Worlds for me is the better game, but because it's published by Matrix you're better off waiting for it to go on sale again ... in December.

SOTS II update released yesterday. Solved some transition issues etc.

CEJ wrote:

SOTS II update released yesterday. Solved some transition issues etc.

Transition issues? Transitions between screens taking for ever? Transition as in labor?

Once I move, I might finally get a chance to load it and give it a shake.

They fixed some performance issues associated with transitions between the various widgits (tech, stations, design, build, strategy screen). I made some changes to my gaming rig so not sure how much of the performance is there vs the game, but the forums seem pretty positive about the latest release.

One annoying thing is my realtec sound clips out when I place stations in the game. Need to try something else to isolate it but its strang playing the game without sound. If you quite and reload, the sound comes back.

A major patch and subsequent hot fix shipped last week. BF3 sucked me in and I have not gone back to check.

There has been some forum buzz on the AI being more aggressive and the addition of a ghost ship random encounter.

So I played this a couple of hours today (80-ish turns). No crashes, so that's positive.

This game is weird, more-so that SotS (which was pretty weird for this genre). Sometimes I felt like I was actually running a galactic empire (I guess; I never have actually done that ); making decisions, sending fleets hither and yon, deciding where to build bases, stuff like that. Other times I felt like I was flailing around blindly trying to do something that should be easy.

The UI is set up so you cannot see how your economy is really working (I at least could not figure out how to). So one turn I'm up 100,000 monetary units, the next turn I'm at -50,000. Not real sure why.

You can research tech that let's you build trade structures and freighters but I have no idea what that does or if it does anything.

The UI can be obtuse. One time I accidentally colonized a crappy world because I did not see that you could click on the planet to colonize in the mission screen. I won't do that again and now I know, but there seems to be a lot of that sort of thing. For example, the fleet set up menu has a very well-defined workflow that it does not give you help in working through. Now I know but it was frustrating figuring it out.

The game pauses for a "long" while after battles which makes it look hung. I had a minute wait after auto fighting a battle but it came back. This is where the game's reputation kind of hurts it with me since I am much more likely to assume something bad has happened than the game is just doing a lot of calculation.

On the positive side, bases are cool, even though I am still trying to figure out what all the modules you can add to them actually do and why I would want one thing and not another.

Random encounters are still cool. Nothing like having your battle fleet ship out and then have pirates pop in or exploring a system and have some old ruin attack you.

Personally, I like the mission system, but I always have; others have differing opinions on it.

The ship designer is in a lot better shape than it was the last time I played.

Overall, I would say, based on admittedly limited time, that this game appears to be in playable shape (finally) and is pretty fun. Just be ready to work through some intricacies in the UI.

Thanks Tboon. Good info.

Hm sounds like I'll give it a shot. The system underneath sounded good, but the annoying lag killed it for me. I'll see how much the patches helped.

Edit
It's better but the lag between menus and new turns are still way to high. Basically the action which you'll wind up doing a thousand times per game all have lag. This just makes it unplayable to me. Which is too bad as I was starting to dig the research and the fleet management in particular now.

master0 wrote:

It's better but the lag between menus and new turns are still way to high. Basically the action which you'll wind up doing a thousand times per game all have lag. This just makes it unplayable to me. Which is too bad as I was starting to dig the research and the fleet management in particular now.

I didn't notice anything like that but I do tend to filter out things of that nature. The only lag I really noticed was while the turn was processing: 3..2..1................Next Turn. But if it bugs you, I can see it really bugging you. Too bad, after a couple more hours, I am getting into it.

tboon wrote:
master0 wrote:

It's better but the lag between menus and new turns are still way to high. Basically the action which you'll wind up doing a thousand times per game all have lag. This just makes it unplayable to me. Which is too bad as I was starting to dig the research and the fleet management in particular now.

I didn't notice anything like that but I do tend to filter out things of that nature. The only lag I really noticed was while the turn was processing: 3..2..1................Next Turn. But if it bugs you, I can see it really bugging you. Too bad, after a couple more hours, I am getting into it.

Yeah the end turn one was a big one for me, but it also occurred during menus. Say you go to the research screen or give an order to a fleet, or return to the main map. There is this pause for me that could be anywhere from 1-3 seconds long. It's very disorienting, maybe if I cranked down the settings it would improve.

That being said the recent patches have made it smoother then before, and the worst pauses were in the beginning.

Got the game as the Daily Deal today on Steam.

Hoping bugs were out.

I can tolerate loading. Wish there is no crash..

Setuping the video display was wonky.. well, I find it weird nowaday a game that you need to fix the video MANUALLY (Even the resolution display) outside of said game..

I'll see if it was word that 7.49$ I throw at it.

Been a long time I haven't played 4x space games.. The last being SIN.

Manach wrote:

I'll see if it was word that 7.49$ I throw at it.

Your timing is pretty good. Speculation on the dev forums is that they are close to announcing the 'all clear' and re-launching the game. Expansion pack maybe announced soon as well. They've brought the game along fairly well in astonishing short period of time (Feb to May).

But, I like the game and have a bit of fan boy-ism in me.

Thanks for the info. I can be patient with a game that have potential.

I wish the fix the loading screen. I always think the computer shut down on me... And once I saw an intro!!

Ill play the first game a while to get the hang of it.

Manach wrote:

Thanks for the info. I can be patient with a game that have potential.

I wish the fix the loading screen. I always think the computer shut down on me... And once I saw an intro!!

Manach wrote:

Ill play the first game a while to get the hang of it.

I'm not sure that playing the first game will be much help in the second. Concept maybe. Seeing the races and their differences, sure. Also, SotS is a good game in its own right, so worth playing in and of itself. But, don't expect a whole lot to carry over to SotS2, it is quite different, mechanically speaking. I think it may actually hurt your enjoyment of SotS2 if you really get into the first game, unless you go into 2 expecting something very different. I think this has certainly been the case for a lot of people; most complaints now (after all the patching) are of the "well it didn't work that way in the first game" variety.

Not telling you not to play, just putting it out there that using SotS as a prelude to SotS2 is maybe not a good idea.

This is probably getting old but I haven't been following: What's the status of the game nowadays? Have the bugs been fixed? Looking to pick it up as part of this pack on Amazon, but there's another one with Warlock and CK2 DLC that I'm considering instead.

Caveat: I will put up with (and hardly notice!) stuff in games that make other people rage. But then again, some things just piss me off that other people can overlook. So, with that said:

The Current State of Sword of the Stars 2: A Personal account by tboon
I re-visited this game about 5 weeks ago (30-ish hours put into in that time) and I can say that I think SotS2 is finally in a valid and defensible 1.0 state. All major systems are in and appear to be working for the most part; at least I have not noticed anything in my games. There are probably some fringe elements that do not work for certain races or some combinations of things that cause problems. The game is complicated under the hood. Probably too complicated. I have only had one crash in that 30-ish hours, when I tried to zoom in after a battle was over. I have not been able to make it crash again doing this.

I really like this game now. But it is complex. No other space 4x makes me feel more like a Space Emperor from Space, not the MoOs, not my current space 4x addiction Endless Worlds, maybe Distant Worlds. You have to think and plan. You need to worry about the budget and if you *really* need that new ship class (the first of a new design costs *a lot* more than it will afterwards - like bank-breakingly a lot). You need to worry about expansion and how your fleets are put together and where (and if! and what type!) to put stations. You need to worry about research - do you spend time and resources on tech that may not pan out? Or go a different direction that's more certain but less optimal?

"That sounds great, tboon", I hear you say, "But are there problems?" Sure there are. The UI has become somewhat cluttered - whereas SotS had a relative simplicity in design, SotS2 has become somewhat bloated due to the extra game systems and mechanics (the tech tree has always been problematic - it is more-so now). The turns can take a while, depending on your rig. Switching between game menus is not instantaneous like it really should be. Adding modules to ships is much more difficult than it should be (it can be difficult to see the anchor points on the models). Most of the objectively-viewed problems in the game are UI-based - it's not clear enough and too cluttered. One may or may not like the way fleet missions are handled - I do, so I don't see it as a problem. Others will disagree (and be wrong ).

One other thing - the devs are supporting the sh*t of this game. One can certainly fault them for releasing a mangled piece of garbage back in October - that was unconscionable and I complained about it back then. But, instead of stealing our money and working on something else, they have stuck around and fixed it into a pretty damn good game.

So, to answer your other question: the answer, as always, is "it depends". Either Amazon deal is fantastic, simply because Crusader Kings 2 is part of it. Personally, I have really enjoyed Warlock and think those two games by themselves are worth $20 (hell, I thought they were great deals at $60 which is what I gave for them when they came out - CK2 was $40 and Warlock was $20). Magicka, Majesty, and Vicky2 are just gravy at that point. That's what I would recommend personally, I think you get much more bang for your buck with that package. You can probably pick up SotS2 on sale for cheap later this summer if you are still interested in it. But as I said, either deal is fantastic.

edit: for English and correctness - my how time flies!

tboon wrote:

So, to answer your other question: the answer, as always, is "it depends". Either Amazon deal is fantastic, simply because Crusader Kings 2 is part of it. Personally, I have really enjoyed Warlock and think those two games by themselves are worth $20 (hell, I thought they were great deals at $60 which is what I gave for them when they came out - CK2 was $40 and Warlock was $20). Magicka, Majesty, and Vicky2 are just gravy at that point. That's what I would recommend personally, I think you get much more bang for your buck with that package. You can probably pick up SotS2 on sale for cheap later this summer if you are still interested in it. But as I said, either deal is fantastic.

edit: for English and correctness - my how time flies!

Thank you for the detailed response and the recommendation! I think I'll go with the pack with Warlock and all the CK2 DLC then and pick up SotS2 as soon as it goes on sale again on Steam, which should be sometime this summer.

Rexneron wrote:
tboon wrote:

So, to answer your other question: the answer, as always, is "it depends". Either Amazon deal is fantastic, simply because Crusader Kings 2 is part of it. Personally, I have really enjoyed Warlock and think those two games by themselves are worth $20 (hell, I thought they were great deals at $60 which is what I gave for them when they came out - CK2 was $40 and Warlock was $20). Magicka, Majesty, and Vicky2 are just gravy at that point. That's what I would recommend personally, I think you get much more bang for your buck with that package. You can probably pick up SotS2 on sale for cheap later this summer if you are still interested in it. But as I said, either deal is fantastic.

edit: for English and correctness - my how time flies!

Thank you for the detailed response and the recommendation! I think I'll go with the pack with Warlock and all the CK2 DLC then and pick up SotS2 as soon as it goes on sale again on Steam, which should be sometime this summer.

Concur with your decision.

I picked up both the 12.50 deal and the 7.50 deal yesterday and I Ended up playing Warlock all day. I was planning on trying SotS2 but warlock sucked me right in. Hopefully I'll get around to it tonight.

Warlock has that magic. The endgame needs work, but it's still a great game.

Kommissar wrote:

I picked up both the 12.50 deal and the 7.50 deal yesterday and I Ended up playing Warlock all day. I was planning on trying SotS2 but warlock sucked me right in. Hopefully I'll get around to it tonight.

I picked up those two deals on July 1st as well. I've only been playing Crusader Kings II so far, but I plan on making either SoTS Complete or SoTS 2 next in my queue.

Any thoughts on which would be the better way to go at this point? In most cases, I'd probably just jump straight to the new game and skip the old one. However it sounds like the older one is much more polished, and that the systems in the new one have changed so much that the sequel isn't so much a replacement for the old but an alternative branch.

It also probably depends on if there is a Steam sale this week. If Endless Space shows up at $20 (i.e. 33% off), I'll probably snag and play it before either of the Sword of the Stars games based on the videos of all three that I've watched.

Hm thanks for the current state of the game post tboon.

Both games are up on flash sale on Steam overnight. Thinking about it...

Updated the OP with

10/19/2012 - Almost exactly 1 year to the date The official "All Clear" post was put up by Mecron announcing that the game has reached the state the wish it was in at release. After 80 patches we can now play the game. I have been enjoying it for the past several months and am glad to final tell all goojers who might want a good, deep, complex, and awful purdy space pew pew 4x to go enjoy the game.

jam3 wrote:

Updated the OP with

10/19/2012 - Almost exactly 1 year to the date The official "All Clear" post was put up by Mecron announcing that the game has reached the state the wish it was in at release. After 80 patches we can now play the game. I have been enjoying it for the past several months and am glad to final tell all goojers who might want a good, deep, complex, and awful purdy space pew pew 4x to go enjoy the game.

So I can now reinstall the game, forget what I tried, and go forward?

Nah, kidding, I love those type of games, so I'll look it up sooner than expected. I am on a run for clearing 2-3 more games off the pile.

wow ... they finally did it. Good for them.

What he doesn't mention is it still has some issues, the game crashed on me when he was walking me through it. He says that is rare now, though I must say the UI is still not up to what I had wished for.