I’ve played both a lot, I just feel I have some experience about the issue, and I still feel DW is just not a very good game…its wide, but so shallow…
The universe might be fascinating, but what can you really do?
One of the interesting things about DW is that you can let the AI automate the entire 4x game, and just play as the commander of a fleet. Then as you get familiar with the interface, you can “promote” yourself to take control of more fleets, then maybe choose a colonization target but leave the rest to the AI, then design a ship for yourself, etc.
Stardrive has a lot of automation in its latest mod, but can it fully simulate a growing empire without you?
If you have to ask this, you’ve definitely not played the game a lot.
This is exactly what I did to click with the game, and it worked splendidly.
Well, I wanted you to come with some examples, and you have. While I do find the aspect of piloting a single ship, and letting the AI do the rest, you can do this in Stardrive too, except I think you have to tell it which planets to colonize.
It will run fleets and build ships and whatever aswell…so there…
Also the combat is way more spectacular, and the ships far more detailed, you can have an engineering section on that actually fixes shit in combat and you can see every detail of your ship as you fight…its pretty great.
The total amount of stars might be less in Stardrive…but its a tad more complicated sim to be honest.
As for AI, I stripped everything of automation when I played, and really only had anything to do when It came down to building ships and setting up fleets. Ship combat was in my opinion poorly done, and solved by outranging the other guy…compared to the amazing detail of space combat in Stardrive, it just pales…
The main reason for Stardrives bad rep, is the poor state it was finished in, and I agree on that, but the fanmods fixes EVERYTHING…and it really shines now…I noticed the author has picked up fixing Stardrive 2, but that game lacks the soul of the original.
I kinda hope Distant worlds 2 will add more complexity to shipbuilding/planetdesign and ship combat, because in these 3 respects, it just is not very good at all.
Could be its the better pirate captain sim…
ah, I see now, it appears that Stardrive has been modded into a more DW-style game via the BlackBox Mod. I had no idea, as I had abandoned the developer over the ‘ripoff’ that was Stardrive. @BrianRubin have you reviewed Stardrive with Blackbox?
In terms of DW2, I’ve posted some links to videos up the top that might allude to the new ship combat (which looks great to me) and other bits and pieces.
Apologies for my confusion. The mess of Stardrive on release and associated ‘I’ve gone on holiday’ messages still leaves a bitter taste.
I’ve not because I was made aware of it like a week ago. ;) I definitely plan to give it a go when time allows.
Thanks for mentioning Stardrive with the Blackbox mod.
Like others, I had kind of written off the Stardrives, but this looks interesting and not something I was aware of before today so this thread detour was quite helpful.
Brian I hope you let us know how it is. My thinking is that it’s the same game (which is great) with spiffed up graphics! (which is great).
Oh I meant DS2 btw. You obviously would get an advance copy being King Of Space Games !
(and one of my only curators on steam).
Stardrive is on sale at Fanatical so I plan to give it a try with both the BlackBox and Combined Arms mods.
Because I collect, er, play space 4X games and may report back in the appropriate thread.
Well, I wanted to stir up a bit and I did I guess…
I’m hoping DW will be better and really add some meaningful gameplay. Roleplaying a single ship in space, well that’s neat, but I don’t think they ever planned for that, and in order for that to be fun, they need to spruce up ship combat…a lot…
I could go on, but maybe not today…
Aawwww I’m flattered! Thank you!
Uh, what? That has always been how they recommended the game be learned from day one. I haven’t played the game as much as some others here because of the tiny fonts but even I know that.
I was able to fix this by going to the exe properties, compatibility tab and changing high DPI settings to override - scaling performed by system. Then set the resolution to 1080p or less.
Yeah that was in their manual dude.
I found Distant Worlds so friggin’ dull no matter how many times I tried it but I sure do love simulation type stuff in my strategy games. On paper, I should absolutely love the game, I just can’t get into it for whatever reason.
I’m really excited to try Distant Worlds 2, though, I’m really hoping this one will get its hooks in me. Just the improved presentation might be enough to get me into it. I’m not a graphics whore or anything and particularly not in 4X games (I mean, I played the hell out of Deity Empires and you don’t get much more fugly than that). But there was something about the 2D nature of the engine/animations that really caused a lot of eye strain for me, everything looked very “jerky”. Combined with a small font, I think it was just some overhead on a game that I was already struggling to get into so it probably didn’t help.
Fingers crossed for the sequel. Do we have any timeframe on when we might see this puppy ship?
“Definitely this year.”
Literally the only curator I follow on Steam.
Thank you so much!
This is the way.
I liked Stardrive enough when it released. I hit a very powerful Chick parabola on it though when I realized it was crippled by bugs. For example, transports were both critical, and broken at a code level. The Blackbox mod is aimed at hunting and fixing every bug. The Combined Arms mod fills out the tech trees and adds weapons and ship types. They seemed designed to work together.
I never got into DW. I hear it is very good, but I also see it essentially as a sim game that happens to be set in space rather than a space game. You can play it or watch it, and establish how much of each you want to do. Like Stellaris, I get a spreadsheet meets sim feel for DW. That doesn’t appeal to me. But in fairness, I have not sat down with either and instead formed my opinion from LPs.
For what it is worth, Stardrive also does automation, but most of the automation was broken in the retail client. I really like Stardrive’s ship design and battle mechanics. Thus I played it sort of as a turbo charged Sins of the Solar Empire. I do really like what Stardrive was trying to do, and plan to jump into it again with Blackbox. The modder is incredibly active. He has new build posted daily it seems.