Space Sims/Strategy Games Catch-All

Robear wrote:

I’m interested in Stardeus, but if it’s overwhelming DF players, well.. Cancer brain is not going to play well with that…

There's a pretty good demo for it. It's definitely not the pain that dwarf fortress is. More RimWorldish. Holding back on getting it until it is done.

Ah, thanks.

I’m still waiting for the new visually-oriented DF, if they get it out before Star Citizen reaches v1.0…

Robear wrote:

Ah, thanks.

I’m still waiting for the new visually-oriented DF, if they get it out before Star Citizen reaches v1.0…

Me too. I started a new DF game a little while ago for a few hours for some nostalgia. Looking forward to the new version. They're even adding a tutorial!

Robear wrote:

Ah, thanks.

I’m still waiting for the new visually-oriented DF, if they get it out before Star Citizen reaches v1.0…

Right now, it's looking like (and the running guesses) end of the year/first half of next year for the Steam release of DF. There's a livestream from Kitfox coming up where they're going to play it live and show off the tutorial.

Stardeus isn't that bad from my play time with the full game. There are a number of things to keep an eye on (temp, O2, power and computer hardware in the early game), but it's no harder than say...pumping lava up from the Lava Sea for forges in DF and not killing any Dwarves

Steam Link

Was playing this today. It's really solid if still in early access. The ship building is quick, the single player is fun. The only real weakness is lack of content. It needs more ship parts and more stuff to do in single player. That said that kind of changes is perfect for early access.

So... a bit of an FTL 2.0 flavor there?

IMAGE(https://media.giphy.com/media/VbV2vdLOGl1TEwH7PY/giphy.gif)

Reminds me a lot of Space Run and Space Pirates & Zombies 2.

Yeah the single player definitely reminded me of the original space pirates and zombies. Creative mode was fun too. Made a ship that was nothing but missile launchers. Could only attack three times before having a long reload. But by then whatever it fought was quite dead.

Cosmoteer is definitely addictive, especially for the Roguelike fans among us. As noted, the building is easy but powerful. And the combat is fairly sloggy so far - approach and batter each other and see who comes out on top. Little maneuvering so far although I think that's up to the player, I just have not seen much difference (probably since my weapons are fixed to the hull rather than traversing).

Some of the mechanics are roughly explained. Taking over an abandoned ship left me with a puzzle. First, transfer crew - luckily I'd just taken on a few extras. But then I noticed it needed repairing, and I could not repair it! So I tried to move over supplies, but that did not work either. It only allowed me to move over Hyperdrive fuel. Finally I did that - and everything powered up, repairs became possible and I could then get it to move. This was not explicitly explained. But then, for a Roguelike fan, this is a usual thing. It's space sim folks who might get annoyed by high-level explanations that leave out the details I suspect.

Anyway, still having fun expanding my original ship and chasing down fugitives.

The first Sins of a Solar Empire 2 demos are dropping - technical previews with the TEC faction.

It does look like - well, SoaSE. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Sorbicol wrote:

The first Sins of a Solar Empire 2 demos are dropping - technical previews with the TEC faction.

It does look like - well, SoaSE. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Inject it directly into my.... Wait it is only on EGS? Let me get my rubber gloves...

Nimcosi wrote:
Sorbicol wrote:

The first Sins of a Solar Empire 2 demos are dropping - technical previews with the TEC faction.

It does look like - well, SoaSE. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Inject it directly into my.... Wait it is only on EGS? Let me get my rubber gloves...

My LRM missiles will blot out the Green Star we are orbiting!

Epic exclusive for Sins 2 if anyone's interested. YouTubers seem happy with the tech preview. Apparently it's a new engine so EA is more to check stability than showcase the game.

Distant Worlds 2 had a major update on Nov 2. New game start recommended for the research and other changes. Looks like a good step forward!

“Pathfinder”

1.0.8.3 Official Update

This massive update takes a series of steps towards completing our current roadmap to both fix reported issues with Distant Worlds 2 but also to improve a variety of gameplay areas as part of ongoing post-release support.

Based on community feedback, over the course of two months of development for this update, we have significantly improved and in some areas redesigned Research, Diplomacy and Reputation, Subjugation and Wars, Colonization and Migration, Performance and Memory Management, User Interface, AI and Ship and Fleet Behavior.

Thanks to the generous work of composer / sound designer Jeff Dodson of rainfall.tv, we have also added new significantly improved and rebalanced sound effects for most components and weapons, explosions, etc. Jeff's trailer sound design work is heard in small projects like “Star Wars” and should help spice up combat among other things.

Finally, we’ve doubled the available empire flags and colors and added guidance on the main galaxy setup for which galaxy sizes are best suited to your computer hardware. We strongly recommend starting a new game with 1.0.8.3 in order to benefit from all the changes and improvements it has to offer compared to the last official update. We wish your empire success as you travel to Distant Worlds!

Yeah looking forward to getting back into DW2.

Everspace 2 with a giant patch today.

So excited, one of my most anticipated games.

Anyone have thoughts on Ixion? It just suddenly appeared on my radar and I haven't seen talk here. I think it's a very stylish starbase manager?

polypusher wrote:

Anyone have thoughts on Ixion? It just suddenly appeared on my radar and I haven't seen talk here. I think it's a very stylish starbase manager?

It's basically Frostpunk in space, which honestly is no bad thing. It's getting good reviews from the various strategy YouTube / Twitch streamers I follow.

As soon as my new PC turns up I'll be checking it out.

It's been on my radar and I'll be checking it out right after work.

I know I've seen it pop up before because I remember thinking it looked neat, but apparently I never put it on my wishlist to keep an eye on it. I wouldn't be able to get to it right now, so I'll wait until there's a good cut on the price at some point.

I played the demo during one of the recent NextFests, and enjoyed it enough to keep it on the wishlist. Will probably wait for a bigger sale to pick it up, just due to time constraints and the depth of the current pile of shame.

I'm through the tutorial? Arguably I was for a while but it's tied into the first story beats and I was stubborn about getting my ship just perfect before

Spoiler:

leaving the Solar system for good.

There was a long stretch where I was just watching my buildings blow up due to overwork while waiting for materials to come back from my tiny fleet that I couldn't expand because I was low on both workers and supplies. I feel like the worst might be over but the struggle for resources is real.

I feel like the worst might be over

Ha ha nope. Hit my first game over screen.

I've just jumped again into Chapter 2, and the hull deterioration mechanic basically feels horribly unbalanced and unnecessary. I get why it's there but it's a poorly thought through and explained idea, especially where any action that turns off the repair mechanism (which you will need to do occasionally), or explosion that damages the hull does so about 10 times faster that you can repair it. It's a death spiral that feels like it could entirely spiral out of hand at any moment with little you can do about it.

The rest of it is just survival base building - good survival base building - with a really interesting story attached to it. It's hard to get a feel for how much you should be lingering around at the end of each chapter - mild spoilers ahoy -

Spoiler:

After we returned to the solar system and a dead planet, I still had plenty of resources to collect, and cryopods, but it was taking ages, the hull was barely staying together and I'd run out of places to investigate, and science to research the improvements I couldn't help think the game was pushing you towards. No matter where I probed I couldn't find any more points of interest for the science points.

before you jump to the next one too.

Maybe we need a thread of this?

Yeah, that hull deterioration helped kill me. It's such an alloy sink, which means I struggle to build new buildings to expand my production to get ahead of it.

Isthereanydeal shows a pretty good discount (25%) on Fanatical (plus another 5% coupon) on Ixion.

Is it worth it? Steam reviews look really mixed.

Bfgp wrote:

Isthereanydeal shows a pretty good discount (25%) on Fanatical (plus another 5% coupon) on Ixion.

Is it worth it? Steam reviews look really mixed.

I’m enjoying it, but it does suffer from poorly explained mechanics. Others - as mentioned - seem quite punishing and a little unbalanced. That makes it quite hard - something a lot of people are complaining about.

It could probably do with some patching I think just to smooth it out a little. It’s one of those games that asks you to do things as objectives, but you get no sense of the urgency for some of the tasks, nor the rewards or penalties for failing to do them in time (where timers exist)

Still, it looks good, the soundtrack is excellent and I’m still learning how to play it. Over all not bad so far.

I’ve taken the liberty of creating a Game thread here, rather than clog up
this one.

Does it have much difficulty customization?
If not I hope they patch it in to turn down/off the annoying/harsh mechanics...

fangblackbone wrote:

Does it have much difficulty customization?
If not I hope they patch it in to turn down/off the annoying/harsh mechanics...

Unless I've missed it, it's a flat difficulty level.