Awesome stardock deals

[Quitch]

@Pogo

Regardless of its very low price point, convince me as to why I should buy Space Rangers 2 (even though I’m reading some pretty good reviews at the moment).

One of the best fucking games this decade

Space Rangers (2)

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=456862&postcount=15

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=460373&postcount=30

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showpost.php?p=460536&postcount=38

@Ben Sones

Back on topic: THIS GAME ROCKS. It’s like Pirates! in space with a little more complexity and a lot more depth. Or, as that combination is more commonly known, Starflight. It has what I really wish Pirates! had more of–a dynamic world that feels… well, less two-dimensional. You really get the sense that there’s this whole living, breathing galaxy going about its business all around you. Here’s an example:

In my game, I was tooling around the Betelguese system, looking for salvage with this guy Orion that I met in training (he’s also a Ranger) who was impressed by my combat skills and asked if he could follow me around for a while, when the Dominators invaded. I discovered this while heading to Astron to land and sell some minerals; the planet was surrounded by all these weird ships that were shooting at everything in sight. We took some hits landing, I sold my stuff and fixed my ship, and then went to the government office to see what was going on. The guy there was like “What are you DOING here? We’re under attack from the Dominators! Please help us fight them off!”

Now, my ship is not really a combat ship. I’m a merchant, and my starting ship has a decent-sized hold and a fast engine but only a single laser and not a lot of armor. But I figured I was going to have to run the Dominator blockade anyway to get out of there, so I might as well see if I could take some out on my way. I used some of my earnings to buy a second, better weapon (which sort of sucks, because it takes up half of my available space, which I really need for cargo), fuel up, and take off. Orion is already out there, dodging fire, so I radio him and let him know that we’re going to take these guys on. He says “okay.”

The Dominators then proceed to OBLITERATE us, in the space of about three turns. Whoops. Here’s an interesting aside: there’s a type of space station in the game called a Business Center. It’s cool for traders, because you can pay them to do various types of market analysis for you, which basically evaluates the current price of various trading commodities on known worlds and the capabilities of your current ship, and then they give you tips on trade routes that would be profitable for you, taking into account things like fuel costs and travel time and how much hold space you have (if you have a small hold, they’ll focus on commodities that take up less space, etc.). But, among that and other things, they also sell life insurance policies. In the event of your death, the money goes to either your next of kin or, if you have none, into a fund set up to provide assistance to new Space Rangers. I wonder… if you die and start a new game, does your new Ranger get a grant from this fund if your last Ranger had a policy? Because that would be cool. I’ll bet that’s how it works, because that’s exactly the sort of neat detail that this game has in spades.

Fortunately I saved on the planet, so I didn’t need to test that theory (not that I have a policy anyway… they are expensive). So I reloaded and decided that this time I would just blow through the Dominator armada, try to outrun them (I have a pretty fast engine–one of my two pieces of special starting equipment), and hyperjump back to Earth. Half the armada peeled off to pursue me and Orion, and we took quite a beating (though I discovered that I could target their incoming torpedoes with my laser, and was thus able to hold off some of the serious damage). I killed two of them on the way out, and spun around to grab some salvage, including some Dominator technology (which you can sell on the Sol Research Station, which is trying to develop ways to fight the Dominator threat) and some Nodes (energy… um, nanotechnology, er… thingies… (I wasn’t really paying attention in that briefing) which you can take to the Ranger Station and turn them into upgrade modules for your ship’s equipment). Then more Dominator ships started homing in on me, so I jumped out of there and back to the Sol system.

On my way to Earth, the news feed reported that the Betelguese system had ceased sending radio messages. Their last recorded message was an SOS. So now I feel bad, but I really don’t think I could have helped them. So I do the rounds, deliver my cargo to where it needs to go, and then notice a bunch of big combat ships convoying out towards Saturn. I hail one and ask them what’s going on, and they say that they are preparing to launch a coordinated attack to liberate Betelguese, and tell me that I’m welcome to tag along if I want to. I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, but I feel sort of bad for bailing during that invasion, so I decide to go with them. I figure that at the very least, I’ll have a better chance of surviving a battle with the Dominators if I’m part of a big attack fleet. They tell me to meet them at the Betelguese jump point on November 11, which gave just over a week to prepare. So I went to Earth and made some modifications to my ship, and then took off and headed for the jump point…

…and then noticed that back in the real world, it was 3:00am. So I saved and quit. Holy hell, this game is fun. Do yourself a favor and GET THIS GAME.

@ElGuapo

So many great stories from tonight’s game, but I’ll only give ya one. I was taking off from a planet when I saw a series of massive explosions about 3 klicks to my left. 3 purple ships (Faeyan battlehips) were chasing down a Ranger Umbra. I hailed them and they responded “Help us with this guy … he was ordered to land on planet Arwok and he is not complying … we are ordered to blast him out of space unless he complies”. I hail Umbra to see what the situation is, and he basically said “Hey old friend, good to see you! I have no time to talk … I gotta get the heck outta here!”. So now it’s decision time. Help out a fellow Ranger or maybe give the Faeyan government the benefit of the doubt. Of course in SR2, not all Rangers are angels. Maybe he did something. So, I decide to let him go but not help the battleships. He hails them once (I believe that those communication balloons that pop up sometimes are comms between ships near you that you overheard) with the old “Ok, ok… stop chasing me and I’ll give you 200 cr!”. Their reply was comical: “We checked back with home base Arwok and that’s not enough … resuming firing”. He manages to jump out of the system. About 4 months later, I see a news feed that he was wanted still by the Arwok government and finally surrendered himself on their planet. He must have been forced to land there for repairs or something and been scooped up. Poor sucker.

This tells me 3 things:

1. Those battlehips you see docked at planets sometimes aren’t just for show. Apparently you can piss them off somehow and they will start to tear into you.

2. This universe is the most alive and peristantly ongoing, dynamic, wonderfully populated and rich universe that has ever been created in a videogame (that I have seen, anyway … feel free to point out another example).

3. This game kicks huge amounts of ass.

[Destarius]

@Pogo

Regardless of its very low price point, convince me as to why I should buy Space Rangers 2 (even though I’m reading some pretty good reviews at the moment).

What, am I the only one to read this and thought “Who do you think you are that you have some sort of need for us to convince you to part with $5 even though you’ve read pretty good reviews?”

[Chris_Nahr]

Space Rangers 2 for all of $4? Sold!

I bet Stardock’s game division has its most profitable month ever with offers like this. Also: “Holiday Impulse Buys”. Nyuk, nyuk!

[deccan]

I cross posted this deal to a popular Malaysian forum and someone claimed that on the very first day that the deal was made available, he’d managed to buy SR2 at MYR$4.00. Apparently there was a glitch in the system and it showed the amount in local currency without doing the conversion. He says the price appears in his confirmation e-mail and everything.

FYI one US dollar is about equal to MYR3.65 at the moment. When I finally bought it myself today, it charged me MYR14.00.

[Brakara]

So I bought SR2C from Impulse, but how do I get it? It’s not in the My Games tab, and when I try to register it manually, it says the serial code (that was emailed to me) is wrong.

Sigh, why can’t these systems just be as easy to use as Steam?

Edit: nvm, just figured it out. Still an awful process compared to the competition though.

[roBurky]

Yeh, the process of buying from Impulse is terribly convoluted. And then I had to figure out how to turn off the sluggish custom skin for Impulse. But at least once the game is in your account, it makes redownloading as easy as it is through Steam.

[Arkon262]

If you buy it through the actual Impulse app, it is seamless/painless. It automatically gets added to your games.

[Quitch]

Yeah but buying through the web interface and then accessing it via Impulse is pretty dire, especially as the whole thing could be (or is?) linked using the one account system.

[Jarmo]

I did not have Impulse downloaded or installed. I bought the game and got a confirmation email with a serial number. Later, I downloaded and installed Impulse. It asked me to create an Impulse account and I did. I used the same email address I bought the game with. After Impulse was running I looked in its My Games folder. There Space Rangers 2 was. Impulse never asked me for the serial number or anything else. It just knew I owned the game. Convenient.

[Reemul]

I bought this for £2.66. Got it through the web and it didn’t appear in my my games list. Eventually i figured out i need to click the impulse icon in the top left and add a new game. Was in no way simple in fact fristrated me for a while that even the wife said what was huffing and puffing about.

Still an amazing bargain at that price. A game made for work laptops as well

[Brakara]

@Arkon262

If you buy it through the actual Impulse app, it is seamless/painless. It automatically gets added to your games.

I bought it through the Impulse app, and it was not added automatically to My Games. I had to register it manually instead. And the only way I knew you could register games manually, was because I had registered my Stardock games when I installed the Impulse app. Can’t even imagine how frustrating it could be if you don’t know that.

But if it’s supposed to be automatically, then that’s cool. Sucks that it doesn’t work for me though.

[fuzzyslug]

Does anyone know if there is a way to gift an Impulse game to someone else? I actually owned SR2 but bought the complete version anyway, since the expansion alone cost more than $4. Since I now technically own two copies, can I give my old one away?

[tromik]

I’m not sure if the site was just busy or what, but they finally took my money.

I ran into another problem, though. The Impulse shopping cart said the cost of the games were “$3.99 CAD” each, which I thought was pretty sweet. But when I checked out with PayPal it said those amounts were USD. Still a great deal, but what the hell?

[Quaro]

I bought it while at work, not logged into impulse, and it was a bit confusing. The ‘Thank You for you order’ message that contains the serial number should really mention that you may have to hit ‘add game’ and put in the serial if you’re not logged in while you buy it.

[VegasRobb]

Probably too late, but is there an affiliate link handy so Qt3 can make a few pennies per buy?

[tromik]

Edit: Found it! You can go to Help > Look up a serial number. I just wish I could tie multiple e-mail addresses to my Impulse account so I didn’t have to keep going through the manual registrations. What a pain. Still, great deal!

Man, Impulse really doesn’t like me. My Impulse account is linked to my gmail account, but I bought these games with my PayPal account which is linked to my ISP e-mail account. The games won’t auto-register on my account on my laptop, and the e-mail with the serial numbers is at home. Is there anyway to force Impulse to add these games?

[Tciecka]

There was a pretty meaty update to Project Aftermath on 12/10…free to existing owners:

http://blog.gamesfaction.com/2008/12/10/major-update/

Goes well with this sale price…

[quatoria]

Thanks for the heads up about the deals. I’ve been wanting to pick up the expansion for SR2, and this lets me do it without having to install the Starforce infected original on my new box. And, of course, I’m always happy to give money to Brad. Happy to do it, Brad! Give me more things to spend money on, please.

[Rod_Humble]

@Tciecka

There was a pretty meaty update to Project Aftermath on 12/10…free to existing owners:

http://blog.gamesfaction.com/2008/12/10/major-update/

Goes well with this sale price…

Question, anyone happen to know can you pause the game and give orders in Project Aftermath?

Thanks

[SlainteMhath]

This deal is/was awesome! I picked up both SR2 and Gal Civ I with expansion for $4 a pop. I’ve never used Impulse before and didn’t have an account. I simply followed the link from here and bought the games using Paypal via the website. It then prompted me to create an Impulse account, which I did. After running Impulse the first time, it clearly showed SR2, Gal Civ I, Gal Civ expansion and a free version of Political Machine available for my account to download and install. I did so and was up and running painlessly. Impulse actually worked better for me than Steam did last time I bought something through it.

I haven’t had a chance to try Gal Civ yet, but I checked out SR2 briefly over the weekend. I laughed at the cheesy localization in the intro movie (was this game not orginally published in English?) but how can you not love spaceships with automatic beer dispenser holes and a giant wall of speakers behind the pilot? I ran through the tutorial missions and experimented with trading and upgrading a bit. The combat system is kind of strange, and I haven’t quite got the hand of the turn-based thing yet, but I’m heading over to the Space Rangers 2 : Rebooted thread to get some tips and pointers.

Well worth the price of a lunch out to get these two awesome games!