Ugh, don’t despoil a list of decent games with Star Ruler 2, a planetary logistics simulator with an extremely boring diplomacy card game built in. If I try to picture in my minds eye the devs getting excited about linking up a bunch of planets in a web of resources that people are just going to love micro-managing… the only way I can do it is if I imagine a heap of cocaine just off camera.
Re influence, every time you stack “praise” on a minor civilization (or find a curiosity in their system) you increase their friendship accrual rate, so if you have nothing better to do with purple stars you can at least make them like you faster.
You! Get the fuck out!
Seconded.
I’ll partially side with you @MisterMourning. I tried to get into Star Ruler 2 multiple times and didn’t really find it very interesting - mostly do to the planet linking and the combat. I did think the diplomacy card game was a great idea though - probably the best part of the game.
I just picked up this game, but I feel like I won’t figure out enough shit to decide whether or not I like it within the 2 hour Steam refund window. There’s just so much stuff.
I say give Endless Space Disharmony a try. This forum is notorious for disliking that game but there are some of us that really clicked with the game and enjoyed our time with it–I still have it installed on my machine to this day!
Ultimately Endless Space 2 will benefit from the experience of years of developing other games and a more mature game studio. Despite that I still find Endless Space 1 really special. The races/factions are just as interesting and I appreciated the lonely melancholy vision of space that is weaved throughout the game. Of particular note I found the broad empire management model in ES1 very enjoyable.
Beta 1.0.5 is now available:
[details=Summary][1.0.5] Patch Notes
[WIP]
- Destroying a gas planet is not going to trigger the cinematic – The FX will be visible in the galaxy view though
[IMPROVEMENTS]
- Added a pop-up to inform players who play on the public 1.0.5 build with an old AMD card to play on the fixAMD branch
- Added a cinematic for the discovery of the Academy
- Added a failure tooltip on ships in the fleet list if the Drag’n’Drop between flotillas wasn’t possible
- Improved the planet destruction tooltip error message
- Fleets Labels for cargo Ships are now hidden
[UI]
- Changed the custom faction button from “Add” to “Custom Factions”
- Improved the Game Creation screen to show that the faction portrait is clickable
[FIXES]
- Fixed an issue which can lead to a pending situation during the advance play setup
- Fixed an issue where the AI could change its name when becoming a Sheredyn or Mezari in the middle of the game
- Fixed the Unfallen defeat text which was not relevant for the faction
- Fixed a multiplayer issue where players remained stuck in the loading screen after quitting to main menu if they used custom factions created by the host
- Fixed the “First to Colonise” Deed to take into account the creation of an outpost
- Fixed an issue where the tutorial pop up automatically reopened instead of remaining minimized when the player enter a screens and came back
- Added a button and label to warn the player that he/she needs to accept the Steam Workshop legal agreement because it was impossible to upload or update a mod in the game without it
- Fixed mods not being sorted properly
- Fixed an issue where the AI DLL wasn’t loading if the path contained special characters
- Fixed an issue with the Vodyani Ark when anchoring to a star system with Guardians (the Ark was broken and couldn’t be used anymore)
- Fixed the AI status feedback which was not displayed to players in multiplayer (client side)
[BALANCING]
- Fixed Wonder buildings having null cost (this bug was on the 1.0.4 preview 2 build but not before)
- Fixed the Lumeris buyout improvement “Workers’ Campus” being allowed to be built multiple times
[AI]
- Fixed an error that occurred when the game was saved at the beginning of the turn
[OPENGL/ DX10]
- Fixed an issue for Mac players: ground units now appear properly
[QUESTS]
- Fixed an issue where the Academy quest “Build the Academy” didn’t work as expected, preventing players from reaching the next Academy chapter
- Fixed and issue where the Academy quest was spawning Pirate fleets instead of the Vodyani fleets as suggested in the lore
- ENFER ship can be dragged into the hangar in the Sophons main quest[/details]
Just getting started.
The manual says that in order to get additional heroes, you need the hyperPACS tech. The tech tree does not show that as a benefit for hyperPACS. So… how do you actually get into a position to recruit additional heroes?
Someone has to discover the Academy as far as I know?
Though I swear I’ve gotten them before that happened a couple times. My UE I’m basically swimming in them, I think I have like 6 or 7 at this point, while other games I’ve basically gone with one or two forever.
You can get them from the Academy (once discovered) and I believe some quests. If you unlock a tech, it allows you to recruit Heroes off of the marketplace.
I’ve got to start keeping a notepad handy to write down my priorities, because I start to queue too many up in my head and get overflow. What’s the brain equivalent of a B.S.O.D?
Oooo, I need to build that wonder, but I really should improve my industry first. Geeez, I’ve forgotten to build a colony ship to grab that chokepoint. Damn, I need to be able to colonize barren planets so I better research that tech. Ooops, I still need to research that tech to improve my industry. Man I don’t have any trade headquarters yet and my systems are still at level 1. I better colonize that planet to get access to another luxury so I have 2 good ones to use for the system development project.
Or if you want to just conquer stuff, the priority is that first offensive ship hull and either hope you get lucky with a good curiosity weapon tech or just research whichever second tier weapon floats your boat. In my limited experience, a tier-2 long range weapon vs. tier-1-equipped AI ships means no damage incurred, so I go with torpedoes or sync lasers unless I get a high level short-range curiosity.
For whatever reason the AI seems not to emphasize military tech that much, so early in the game enemy fleets are not a problem. The real obstacle to conquest is assembling enough manpower for a successful invasion. So far I’ve only played at normal and hard levels, though, so possibly the AI does a better job on military tech at higher levels.
My problem with manpower is that it seems completely random.
I was at war, had like 3 big fleets. Manpower was going negative. Then positive. Then negative. Then I ran out and nothing happened. Then it was positive again.
And by positive/negative I mean like +2k/-500 randomly from moment to moment. Running out seemed to do… nothing. Literally nothing that I could see other than popups warning me. Then it would climb to 3k instantly, then start dropping, then climb a bit. This whole time I was doing basically nothing.
The need to click on something to understand what the hell was going on was strong, but at the end of the day it apparently didn’t matter? No idea. I won the war more or less and still have the giant fleet. Manpower is still random and there don’t seem to be any negatives for the times it decides to drop to nothing.
I just had a Vodyani Ark show up in one of my colony systems and I’m not quite sure what to do about it. I have colonies on 3 of the 5 planets there and I have a battleship and corvette plus my best war hero ship orbiting in a fleet there. Combined, my fleet’s offensive and defensive stats look like a gnat’s next to the ark’s stats. I’d like to drive it away but I’m not sure exactly how to do it. Build more battleships I guess? Anyone dealt with these? Are they as nasty to take on as they appear?
I have to say, the more I play this the more I like it. I’m at the point now where I think I like it better than Endless Legend.
I’m aware of several things that inflict manpower deficits that need to be made up from the pool:
- Outposts turning into colonies.
- New ships being built.
- Ships that deployed their troops in combat operations being resupplied. This happens much faster when the ship returns to a home system.
- Suffering losses from enemy attacks.
No doubt there are various other circumstances like tech changes and special events and so on, too.
So for example if you move your big invasion fleet back to a working colony you might see a big negative that turn. If the deficit exceeds your reserves, it will stay negative until the deficit is satisfied. But it won’t tell you how big the deficit is unless I missed one of the millions of mouseovers.
How should one manage manpower as the Riftborn? I generally ignored food for much of the game, until other races started immigrating to my systems. We Riftborn just manufacture our body-shells, so why make food? But food directly impacts manpower – even for the Riftborn. I didn’t focus on this until I started getting messages that I was out of manpower – just as the humans declared war on me and the Cravens warned me they were coming too!
I guess one alternative is to ignore food and manufacture manpower using the “Fabricated Forces” system project. Is that the most efficient way to go about it? Should I be chain-ganging organic species while I’m at it?
Also, I’ve never made use of spaceports to move pops from one system to another. Probably a mistake, right? I can “build” a Riftborn pop in one or two turns at home; it takes 4 or 5 at my more distant colonies.
I love the Riftborn, but maybe I should’ve started with a more “conventional” species (humans, sophons) first! I may pause my current game and start a new one as a new faction. Any suggestions? I did play the Sophons back in early access, and I’m not sure I want to play humans. I’m thinking maybe Horatio, just because I love their concept.
Makes sense and I suspect that’s mostly what it was, but I’m pretty sure after the war I still had the negative manpower issue. Which again… doesn’t really seem to do anything. Maybe my planet defenses are getting thinned? Because my fleets seemed perfectly fine with it and even my invasions weren’t phased by it at all.
It’s a neat concept, but with literally no feedback on what it means it’s hard to really parse it.
I’m out of manpower. That seems bad. But my ships seem fine and I’m still invading this planet. My money, tech and influence are still trucking along without issue as far as I can tell. So I should care… why?
Edit: Doing some googling the best I can see is that if it’s low your ships will take longer to resupply troops. That’s apparently it? I mean I suppose in a really close war it could matter somehow.
Manpower is a ‘stockpile’. Every turn, it either accrues if you’re not spending it, or it gets spent on filling crews for new (or damaged/planet invading ships), filling garrisons at colonies, etc.
If are running low, or out, of manpower then you can only replenish manpower equal to what you generate that turn. That’s a big deal: a war can cost thousands of manpower, and you might generate only a hundred or so a turn. Without a stockpile your planets will be short on garrisons and your ships will be low on crews (forgoing the 20% damage bonus they get for a full crew, based on the tooltip on the manpower icon in the ship design screen). There are even weapons that do extra damage to crews, which makes me think damage to ships also damages their manpower.
So yeah, it matters. You won’t be able to successfully invade much, your defenses will be weaker, and your ships under crewed.
I am trying to figure out how combat works. There is one AI, the tree people who routinely kicks my ass. I have tried different ranges. Sometimes I kill a few of their ships, but mostly its a heavy wipe out. Is there a way to see what kind of weapons they use (not that this will do much good)? I know I can see the effective ranges of their fleets. I try and pick the worse range for my ships.
Right now I am stuck between two AIs who have declared war on me. I am playing the United Empire. Maybe If I can get peace I can get influence over these worlds and take them that way.
Another thing that seems to be happening is that my imperial citizens are being replace with primitive civ citizens. I keep getting messages about population loss (imperial) followed by population gain from a primitive type. Half my imperial citizens in my home system are replaced. Does anyone understand this mechanic?