Stardrive - The next Master of Orion?

[KoolNoodles]

How are the missiles? I never met an early game problem I couldn't solve with more missiles. These guys:

are the greatest ship designers in the galaxy. Run fast, shoot missiles!

I'd say they work pretty well based on how the Humans kicked my ass with missile cruisers. They had some tiny corvettes and frigates run in for interference and just parked most of their fleet way back and started launching away. It was not pretty.

Spoiler

 

[JohnTheRevelator]

Use Flak Cannons.

 

[KoolNoodles]

Use Flak Cannons.

Oh I had flak, but just not enough, especially when they were busy with fighters and frigates. Can't choose targeting, would be nice if I could set PD type weapons to "only shoot missiles please".

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

The AI in this game is infuriating. Not only do all faction blatantly ignore each other and go after you but so do the "neutral" threats. AI also cheats with resources like crazy with those 20-30 CP fleets coming out of nowhere when you're closing in on their homeplanet

Aside from that, I kinda enjoy it, the space battles could use a lot more options other than broadside or head-on selection.

 

[Zarniwoop]

2nd game is way shitter than the first. The tech tree has been dumbed down and restricted to one out of 3 techs like MOO2. Can't rotate weapons on the ship designs anymore (WHY?) so broadside boom booms are no longer an option. Also the number of components is far less. The simple inside/outside system is replaced by sections" greatly limiting your options. Combat is dumbed down and now takes part in a separate screen unlike the first. Only options for tactics are Broadside or Leeeeeeroy Jeeeeeenkins. Freighters just do wtf they want and you can't order them around anymore. Figures the Codex would consider the dumbed down version "more complete".

 

[Rellin]

2nd game is way shitter than the first. The tech tree has been dumbed down and restricted to one out of 3 techs like MOO2. Can't rotate weapons on the ship designs anymore (WHY?) so broadside boom booms are no longer an option. Also the number of components is far less. The simple inside/outside system is replaced by sections" greatly limiting your options. Combat is dumbed down and now takes part in a separate screen unlike the first. Only options for tactics are Broadside or Leeeeeeroy Jeeeeeenkins. Freighters just do wtf they want and you can't order them around anymore.

Yep.

 

[Tolias]

Stardrive 2 seems pretty and the MoO2 vibe is strong. Should you get it?

FUCK NO

The game may look polished, but if you dig a bit, it's an unfinished mess. I've sunk around 60 hours in it and this is what I've found out.
Weapons are widely imbalanced. For example, mass drivers [early-ish kinetic] outperform many of the of the lategame beam weapons. Comparative, research costs are like 500 to 5000.
Bugs galore. Game stopping ones.
Diplomacy lacks options. AI sucks on diplomancy
No victory conditions. At all. After you conquer everyone [you didn't think there was a diplomatic or cultural victory did you?], you don't even get a victory screen. Just quit the game.
Technology is limited.
Ship design is baffling. Anything smaller than a cruiser has not reason to exist. Weapon modules cannot be customised like in MoO2, meaning no point defence beams, and so on. Makes smaller ships worthless.
At this point, I would hesitate to call the phase the game is in beta, much less a finished product. Imho, it needed at least 6 more months of work.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Weapon modules cannot be customised like in MoO2

Or, you know, Stardrive 1.

 

[Space Satan]

This shit is not even clost to a parody on MoO2

 

[Lone Wolf]

meaning no point defence beams

I found the game to be uninspiring after the first couple of run throughs, but are you sure about this one? Laser beams - I'm almost one hundred percent on this - have a PD option.

Weapon modules cannot be customised like in MoO2

But most weapons do have arc, range, damage and recharge mods, don't they? The little boxes on the bottom left when you're doing ship design?

For example, mass drivers [early-ish kinetic] outperform many of the of the lategame beam weapons. Comparative, research costs are like 500 to 5000

Yeah, the mid-late beam weapons aren't amazing. Especially because they feel samey and the damage output doesn't hold up.

Anything smaller than a cruiser has not reason to exist.

Command points. My fleet of seven end game battleships armed with death beams was overwhelmed by a hundred or so corvettes with some cruisers in support. Too many gnats to swat!

At this point, I would hesitate to call the phase the game is in beta, much less a finished product. Imho, it needed at least 6 more months of work.

Naw, it's a decent MoO2 clone. A shameless one, at that. But the world has moved on from the mid 90s, and I was looking for a 2010s 4X, not a game from 1996 with updated graphics. For the record, the battle graphics are beautiful. Especially the explosions. So, there's that...

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i remember a point defense system, entirely separated from weapons, but i've been trying a lot of sci-fi 4x lately (and all of them were crap).

 

[Destroid]

meaning no point defence beams

I found the game to be uninspiring after the first couple of run throughs, but are you sure about this one? Laser beams - I'm almost one hundred percent on this - have a PD option.

Weapon modules cannot be customised like in MoO2

But most weapons do have arc, range, damage and recharge mods, don't they? The little boxes on the bottom left when you're doing ship design?

For example, mass drivers [early-ish kinetic] outperform many of the of the lategame beam weapons. Comparative, research costs are like 500 to 5000

Yeah, the mid-late beam weapons aren't amazing. Especially because they feel samey and the damage output doesn't hold up.

Anything smaller than a cruiser has not reason to exist.

Command points. My fleet of seven end game battleships armed with death beams was overwhelmed by a hundred or so corvettes with some cruisers in support. Too many gnats to swat!

At this point, I would hesitate to call the phase the game is in beta, much less a finished product. Imho, it needed at least 6 more months of work.

Naw, it's a decent MoO2 clone. A shameless one, at that. But the world has moved on from the mid 90s, and I was looking for a 2010s 4X, not a game from 1996 with updated graphics. For the record, the battle graphics are beautiful. Especially the explosions. So, there's that...

Yep the world sure has moved on from the mid 90s when many (most?) people still consider Master of Orion 2 and Master of Magic the high points in this genre.

 

[Lone Wolf]

That's fine for most people. I don't speak on their behalf.

For me, the high point of the genre was SE3/SE4, followed by MoO3/Tropical. That's neither here nor there, though. The truth is that the genre has ossified. We're down to dressing up nostalgia trips. They're no longer trying to better MoO2, they're aping it to grab your glory years commemorative dollar. The new franchises were catastrophic failures (see LotP, SotS2, Stardrive, Horizon, Lords of the Black Sun) so it's back to the designs that worked. Frankly, it's all left me cold.

Star Ruler 2, at least, looks a bit more ambitious.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

meaning no point defence beams

I found the game to be uninspiring after the first couple of run throughs, but are you sure about this one? Laser beams - I'm almost one hundred percent on this - have a PD option.

i remember a point defense system, entirely separated from weapons, but i've been trying a lot of sci-fi 4x lately (and all of them were crap).

It has both.
The laser PD isn't very effective though.

I've played this game a little bit more...

The AI is terrible both on strategic and on tactical map. The diplomacy is very limiting and not at all refined as far as AI goes. Sure there are some characterisations and traits but all in all it follows the same pattern of one-sided unreasonable demands throughout the entirety of the game no matter your millitary strength or influence coverage. Also they just love declaring wars they cannot possibly win only to beg for non-agression pact the very next turn.

Basically, the safest bet to expand and develop your empire is to simply luck out and not meeting any of the competing races early on, because once you do, it's only a question of time until you get continuosly attacked by plethoras of low tier ships (always with 2 troop transports for ground invasions) that your basic starbase can annihilate without taking any damage.

AI is also always lagging behind with their tech even on highest difficutly setting.

Ship modules are not only mostly uninspired they often just don't work as intetnded. You'll most likely keep using low-mid level stuff till the end of the game.

Events are only there as a distraction of some sort, the rewards they nest are either horribly underpowered or just useless by the time you are able to obtain them (except for death beam I guess). The benefits and drawbacks only happen to you and the AI doesn't take any notice or advantage from these events. Although 'neutral' fleets sometimes do attack other factions.

I haven't found a way to abandon a colony, save for starving it out to death, but since freighter management is automatic, it also can be impossible sometimes. If you expand too quickly, you can run yourself into the ground by colonizing the wrong worlds.

There are plenty of bugs, game sometimes crashes, doesn't save, or doesn't allow to save. Several times I've controlled enemy's fleet instead of my own on battle maps and galaxy maps, planet generation always seems incredibly unfair as I've found numerous times that enemie's starting systems always had more food sources than mine T_T

 

[Tolias]

But most weapons do have arc, range, damage and recharge mods, don't they? The little boxes on the bottom left when you're doing ship design?

Yes, this is true. I kinda butchered my meaning there. What I wanted to say is, you can't turn beams into point defence, except for starting lasers.

 

[GreyViper]

Been playing it and it does have tons of potential. As extra the Moo2 vibe is great in this one, but damn if it does not feel like beta version.

 

[wanda]

but damn if it does not feel like beta version.

No worries, you'll get at least two patches before Zero declares it finished and announces Star Drive 3.

 

[GreyViper]

but damn if it does not feel like beta version.

No worries, you'll get at least two patches before Zero declares it finished and announces Star Drive 3.

LOL Hope not, because it does have potential compared to some other wannabees or Moo3 .

 

[Rellin]

It won't ever be finished.